Can a Marshall Plexi with pedals sound like a Trainwreck Express (clone)??

To me you can sort of simulate the lead tone of the Express with a 4 input Marshall and a boost pedal, one with a slight upper bass mid boost.

However the part that is near impossible to get with the Marshall is the range from clean to very dirty strictly by controlling it from the guitar. Once you get the 4 input Marshall into the gain range of an Express (with a boost pedal) it just won't clean up as well as the Express will, unless you totally click off the boost pedal. To me the main magic of the Wreck is how much usable variations of tone you can get just by working the guitar. Even when I simulate the lead tone with other rigs (almost) I really miss the interaction you get from the guitar with the Express amp and a good guitar pot/pickup combination.

That said, I played a '68 Plexi Marshall 100 exclusively for about a decade before I got my Trainwreck Express in '89. After playing the Express for a while I really noticed how the Marshall is actually somewhat scooped in the mids in comparison. The Marshall does have a little more of an upper mid spike but below that it is actually slightly scooped in the mids. I found that the more flat midrange of the Express made for thicker sounding leads. Yes the Marshall had bigger deep lows than the Express, but the Marshall actually tended to thin out as you moved up the neck where the Express would actually then fatten up.

I'd say if you want the Wreck tone, and the Marshall tone you may have to settle on bringing two amps to the gig. Heck, you probably need to bring a spare amp anyway...

Hope that helps.

GK

www.myspace.com/glenkuykendall

 

I was just thinking about the possibilility of making my 'plexi' amp sound a bit like a Wreck with a pedal as well.

Great thoughts Glen. Anyone else have some thoughts, suggestions?

 

Get an older style PTP Menatone Howie - you'll be floored by the tone into the Marshall. My friend and I tried it with his '73 metal panel and it sounded scarily close to Glen Kuykendahl's (sorry if I misspelled Glen...did I just misspell "misspell" too?) tone on his C.D.

I know, I know, it's the Kar Krash that's supposed to emulate the Trainwreck tone but something about the Howie and a cranked non-master 100 watt Marshall combine to nail that tone to my ears.

 

Why would you want to ruin the tone of a perfectly good plexi??

 

Had a perfectly good 50-watt plexi. Boosting it with everything from an old EH PB to a BOSS EQ pedal to a Fuzz face did fantastic things to the front end of that amp.

'Course it sounded pretty scary on its own if you could get away with turning it up louder'n a truck full of Twin Reverbs.

 

ive owned several plexi's, and i own two express's(not real ones like glen's...but close) i agree with glen...you can get close..(minus the unreal harmonics)..but you will never get the marshall to clean up very well unless you kill the pedal.

 

+1

It was my 73 we did this with - and it was a SHOCKER! Sounded amazing. We also used a cab that had G12Hs and V30s if that's worth mentioning - either way it was totally the tone on a budget.

 

That's your answer as far as I'm concerned. Trying to get a plexi to sound like a Wreck clone is going to cost almost as much as a Wreck clone.

More to my interest is trying to get a plexi clone (like the modern reissues) to sound like a real 1968 plexi. I haven't heard any that get that close yet, but then I live in a small town and my only way of hearing this kind of stuff is to buy it myself .


Crikey

 

Interesting.

 

Better yet, can a Trainwreck with pedals sound like a Marshall Plexi (clone)??

 

I got fairly close to the "Mississippi Queen" sound on the Komet home page ... with a 1970 (Alu panel) 100W Bassamp on 6 .. both channels bridged ... a Menatone Kar Krash ( First edition) set sorta strange ( lotsa treble , some volume over unity and the gain fairly low) .. with a 56 Les Paul Jr (stock).

 

nope, but a Dr. Z Mazerati GT can sound like a wreck and a marshall...great amp