Marshall amp for pedal steel?

Dave Zirbel · From: Sebastopol, CA USA

Just curious if anyone uses a Marshall, like an ‘80’s JCM Lead in particular, and what your thoughts are about them. I have very little experience or knowledge with them. I did use a backline Marshall amp for steel at a battle of the bands show back in the ‘90’s (at the Cactus Club in San Jose California) and thought it was a little too crunchy, but that may have been because of the speakers…
Thanks
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Richard Sinkler · From: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

I played through a Marshall stack once, don't remember the model, but it was the full stack. Only played one set through it, and it was horrible. Couldn't get a decent undistorted tone out of it. But again, I only had ~45 minutes to play with it.
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K Maul · From: Hadley, NY/Hobe Sound, FL

Bought a 50w tube head. I tried it. Hated it. Don’t like playing through a Boogie either.
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Ethan Shaw · From: Texas, USA

I've tried it a couple of times, and it sounded super thin and terrible. That was with a fender, though. Also, back then I didn't utilize the tone control very much. Maybe if you rolled it way down.

Dave Zirbel · From: Sebastopol, CA USA

Thanks guys…I guess it was kind of a dumb question, especially since no one talks about it here and I’ve never seen anyone using them! 😂 I have an opportunity to get a head and half stack real cheap…
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Dave Zirbel-
Sierra S-10 (Built by Ross Shafer),ZB, Fender 400 guitars, various tube and SS amps

Steve Lipsey · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Only one thing to say...and yes, I played one for years on guitar, and you do have to crank it to at least 8 and hit it hard to get the tubes to sing, and it is a different amp than when played quietly...and I suspect a volume pedal on partway would compromise the tone...

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Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

A steel amp needs to be clean, and unless I do them a disservice, I don't believe that Marshalls were ever intended to be anything but dirty - in a good way Smile

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Joseph Napolitano · From: New Jersey, USA

I have a 1972 50 watt Marshall I kept from my youth. I've never used it for steel on a gig. I have tried it at home. By jumping into both channels , I can get a really good sound for steel. Ch I is very bright ( lead ?), and channel II is so bass-y that I always thought it was unusable. But by jumping into both channels, I can EQ really nice tone. Also , this amp is very loud with plenty of headroom.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

There was a recent thread on Marshalls for pedal steel - https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=376867

As stated on that thread - if you're expecting a blackface/silverface Fender-style sound, most Marshalls just aren't gonna do that. It's a different sound - more full-range, less scooped-mids, more like the larger tweed Fenders, but not quite the same. But I think some of the older Marshalls can be set up for loud and clean very nicely. 60s and earlier 70s amps, unadulterated, had no master volume and if they were set up clean were almost too loud to use for club gigs. US models, from the early 70s onward, used 6550 tubes and were very loud and clean if left stock. So much so that a helluvalot of guitar players retubed with EL-34 power tubes. If they didn't re-bias them for the EL-34s, they got hot. So many of these cool amps were butchered by hacks, and that's why they can sometimes get a bad rap.

Of course, the 200-watt Marshall Majors were ridiculously loud and definitely could stay clean if set up that way. JCM 800s came in different flavors. Some of them had no master volume, others did, and some were optimized for max distortion, while others weren't. But a lot of hard rock and metal players love the louder JCM 800s specifically because they can get so loud and still stay tight. Of course, these guys are mostly pushing them into distortion, but there's good distortion and lousy distortion, and set up correctly, they can have a lot of clean headroom available.

As I wrote on the other thread, I've had quite a number of Marshalls over the years. I wasn't playing pedal steel for most of that period. But I do know that some of them were really loud and clean unless pushed real hard, to the point that I could rarely use them for guitar gigs.

We opened for Link Wray in the 90s, and we backlined him. I normally played Fenders with that band, but he absolutely wanted a Marshall specifically. So I brought my pretty well tweaked-out JCM 800 with a Mesa 4x12" cab loaded with some pretty heavy-duty speakers, and we both used it. It was a pretty good sized room, and we opened that sucker up pretty wide, and it sounded great. It was set to distort full-on, but cleaned up nicely by pulling the volume back a bit. I was playing rockabilly and surf guitar, mostly pretty clean, and it worked fine. With my 6G15 Fender Reverb unit for the surf stuff, it didn't sound all that different from a Showman.

Whether anybody in particular likes or dislikes the sound for pedal steel is an open question. My only Marshall at this point is an 18-watt hand-wired 1974. Not a lot of headroom, and quite different from the big Marshall 50 and 100 watt amps. But personally, if I found a really good deal on a JCM 800 in nice shape, I would just do it. They're getting expensive and if I can get into one right, there's no way I'm gonna lose. The good ones are classic guitar amps. Just my opinion.

BTW - British amps are not, per se, distorted. The loudest and cleanest amp I've ever owned/played was a HiWatt DR103. Unbelievably loud, clean, and full-range, to the point where it would shake the windows on 3. One of my buddies still has that one - it was too loud for me to use. But I do have a '66 Vox AC-50 with a Vox 15" bass cabinet with a coffee-can EV SRO in it. It distorts but if I wanna get into the Eric Heywood territory, it's perfect.

Ian Rae · From: Redditch, England

All very interesting. I suppose I've only ever heard them being abused, intentionally or otherwise.. Smile

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Len Amaral · From: Rehoboth,MA 02769

I had a Marshal 20 watt head (all tube) and 2-12 angled cab with Celestion speakers.
Not my type of amp for pedal steel or guitar. It did not produce a very clean sound.
I think these amps are a one trick pony and need to be turned up to get that driving classic rock tone.
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Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

I did , for about a year, double duty, Steel and guitar.

JCM 900/50 watter , but thru a Fender 4 x 10 cab which had 4/25 watt 12" Eminence speakers . Marshall cabs generally had a some sort of Celestion speakers of which I never found my way with any of them.

Additionally , many Marshall amps are designed to run 16 ohms, but they have the 4 and 8 ohm taps on the OT, I changed the OT speaker out (JCM 900) to match the Fender Cab.

Tone wise, it was not bad for the Steel or the Tele, nothing like a Fender or PV, but not bad. It was friggin' heavy I will tell ya that.

I sold the JCM 900 , mistake, I should have kept it. One of two heads I let get away and regret. Sad

Nobody wanted the cab loaded so I pulled the 4 x 12 Emmy's and sold the cab unloaded for $50. I still have a couple of those 12's around here somewhere. One is in an ext cab I used on my pre Covid bi monthly gig for over 5 years .
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Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Peter Siegel · From: Belmont, CA, USA

Hey Dave, I've been intrigued by the concept of steel through a Marshall for some time but, only for CRUNCH.
Never tried it though
It don't make sense to me to expect to use one for traditional steel sounding stuff.

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

You can hear the mighty Bobby Snell each and every saturday night at the White Horse in Austin. He gets a great country sound out of his Marshalls.

I got to play through an old Hiwatt at a studio a while back. It had an absolutely fantastic sound for the steel. Full rich and clear with a class A type response. My equipment compulsions led me elsewhere but those big British amps sure do have a thing.

I Europe I'll occasionally end up with some sort of Marshall for my back line amp. Some I didn't like and some had some real possibilities.
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