Scott Henderson Discussion

[Gonza]

Hi!

I just wanted to know your opinion on the Laney VC 30, I am going to buy one, I really love the sound. SOme of this come with a celestion Greenback which I've tried before in a VC 30 and it REALLY makes a difference so I know the one I'm going to buy is not gonna be the same, but I still think it's a great sounding amp for it's price too.

By the way and just out of curiosity I found in a music store a Marshal plexi 1959, used of course and very wear out, for about 3500 Euros. What do you think about that? does it sound like a deal?

Anyway thanks for "listening"

Have a good one!

[Scott Henderson]

Sorry, I've never heard the Laney VC 30. The plexi is a good deal if it's working properly, but that's a seriously loud amp if it's 100 watts. To get it into crunch mode you'd have to turn it up to around 7 or 8 and that's loud!

[countandduke]

A friend of mine is endorsed by Laney and he gets some nice tones but he’s using EL34 based amps which are more “Marshally”. The VC30 looks like a Class A EL84 amp which is probably more Vox like. It would be much different that the plexi. I had a reissue 1959 plexi back in the 90’s and as Scott said, it’s LOUD! But, there are various attenuators out there if you need to tame the volume. Also that plexi would need a cabinet that can handle 100 tube watts if you run it loud. That’s why the old stacks had 2 cabinets when using greenback speakers...

Best, let us know what you end up with. The Fender Hot rod series has a nice clean channel for pedals. I saw Scott in Chicago with one and his pedals. Sounded REALLY good, but it’s Scott... 😉

Chris

[Gonza]

Hey! well about the Marshall I was just curious whether it was a good deal or not, I don't have 3500 to spend on an amp yet...

I bought the laney VC 30 ofcourse, second hand, 250 Euros not bad at all considering it's a 30 watt amp that sounds more than decent.

Having said that, I'm very satisfied with the sound I get from it, it has 2 inputs LO and HI and it really makes a difference in volume and tone, the HI sounds a lot better cause it cranks the valves more easily. It is very responsive to dynamics as a good valve amp should be. my only issue by now is that I was getting a little bit of a dry clean tone, but then I notice I set up the EQ badly so I did some magic and it ended up much better. My guitar has a floyd rose and a metal nut so it is also a very thin tone probably that adds up to the dry tone.

The gain is not too much in this amp, it aims to a more vintage sound however because it has a drive knob and a drive volume knob I could only max the drive knob but not the drive volume cause I live in an apartment and I'm new there so I don't want my neighbours to hate me that fast! So it is possible it has a lot more crunch that what I've tasted, BUT I love my OD pedal and was planing on using just that and it get's me a great tone with this amp.

Anyway, I love it, couldn't be more happy! Thanks for asking!

[countandduke]

That’s great that you dig the amp. There are a few other things you can do to drastically change the tone. I’ll list them in no particular order below

Speaker
Tubes (preamp AND power amp)
Guitar cable
Speaker cable
Then guitar stuff, pickups, tremolo block
Picks

Sooooo LOTS of places to get YOUR tone.

You can also try cranking the volume knob and then use the gain knob as your “volume”. It should hit the power tubes a different way. Does the amp have an effects loop?

Best,
Chris

[Gonza]

Yeah I'm diggin it, as opposed to my girlfriend...

When you made that list you meant like, changing those parts? I still have to check the model of the tubes. I know though that this amp also was made with a greenback, I've tried a VC15 with one and it killed! But of course that version is a lot more expensive and I just bought it second hand so... no greenback, but it's true, it does sound a lot better with one of them

I have good guitar cables, not the best but very good but I have to try the speaker cable, did not thought of that.

And yeah as I said I have a very Metal-ish guitar, Jackson dx10d Dinky, I bought it when I aimed at a different place but it is still very versatile BUT, it does sound a bit thin. I actually don't even use the bridge Humbucker just the neck one or the two combined so I risked some sustain in favor of tone by setting the humbucker high to get a fatter tone, can't use strings thicker than 0.10 because it's a floyd rose, and the way those bridges are built and screwed to the wood can really damage the guitar for good with a higher tension.

So I should just get a Celestion greenback speaker and a Strat

Setting the Drive low will give a nice tone clean tone with some dirt as usual, but in that case I think I rather use the OD pedal with the clean channel. I still have a lot of things to try to get all sort of different sounds from it till I get the good thing.

And yeah it does have an effects loop, what do you have in mind?

Thanks for all the advice by the way!

I'm sorry I wrote too much stuff.

[countandduke]

I’ve found tubes can make a HUGE difference. I like dougstubes.com, he’s very knowledgeable.

Speaker can make a big difference of course. Speaker cable can be hard to change out on a combo amp.

Those Dinky guitars typically don’t have high quality pickups so maybe a Duncan Jazz or Duncan 59...?

Effects loop is where you’d want verb, delay, modulation, drive pedals in front but feel free to experiment to hear what YOU like best.

There’s a LOT to it... 😃

Best,
Chris

[Gonza]

Hey!

If you are still interested, I found out that the tubes the amp have are good ones, TAD EL84. They might be old though.

However I was investigating about my amp and apparently it is one of the first batches of that model and at the time they had a design flaw in which they put an HH invader speaker which is too deep and it gets REALLY close to the Valves and that affects its sound cause of the magnetic field so I definitely need to change the speaker.

Scott, I'm not sure if you are here still or not but I had a couple questions related to this subject, have you ever known of this "speaker too close to valves" issue? and, which tubes does your Marshal have? are those the same that in your Suhr? I think you never said that, don't remember.

Regardless of how this affects my amp, I think this sort of issue it's a very cool thing, I mean the magnetic field of the speaker affecting the electrons on the Valves... It deserves an album cover.

Anyway, thanks for all the advice!

[countandduke]

Hey:

Yes, I think the TAD tubes are a decent brand but they ARE part of your tone. So are the preamp tubes. Bummer about the speaker. Maybe you can get an extension cabinet and pull out the stock speaker? I remember Allan Holdsworrh liked a particular Mesa Dual Rectifier model because the transformers were aligned or located a certain way. It’s pretty cool how much little stuff can make a difference in ones tone.

Take care,
Chris