0:13 Greetings. It's the captain here and I
0:16 am at Marshall HQ with the lovely Chris
0:19 George uh who I've known for a long
0:21 time. Ever since he was a guitarist of
0:23 the year for something way back when,
0:25 which is a very long time ago. Yeah.
0:28 Yes. Also young now. Yeah. Uh and Chris
0:29 uh does all the artist demonstrations
0:32 and product demonstrations rather for
0:34 Marshall as well as more recently last
0:37 two or three years been involved in um
0:40 developing new stuff for Marshall and
0:54 [Music]
0:58 Atoria. Atoria. Yeah. Which is uh Do you
1:00 want a bit of backstory? I mean, what's
1:01 the deal? Absolutely. Well, I know, you
1:03 know, pretend that I haven't known about
1:05 this secret going on for the last two or
1:08 three years. Um so, uh yeah, tell us
1:10 tell us a bit about a story. So, the
1:13 idea was um you know, as with
1:15 everything, we took a good good look at
1:17 what we have and what we don't have and
1:20 what was going on out there. And so one
1:24 of the things that that we realized was,
1:25 you know, looking at the market and
1:27 looking at the growing trend of boutique
1:28 amps and stuff like that, which are very
1:30 much dominated by the American amplifier
1:31 companies, although there are some
1:34 really good British ones as well. Um, it
1:37 was to offer something in that primarily
1:40 that area, but also to appease the guys
1:44 who get sort of sick and tired of our
1:46 old 50-year-old design amplifiers that
1:48 we have, you know, because anything that
1:51 we had to compete in that area was a
1:53 Blues Breaker or a 1974X. And they're
1:54 great amps. There's nothing wrong with
1:56 them, but they have been around, like I
1:59 say, 50 plus years, you know. So, the
2:02 idea was to again look at what the trend
2:03 was. uh and to try and have something
2:06 that fits in a modern handwired
2:09 amplifier range uh that were all a
2:12 practical output but also all had their
2:15 own um personality to them as well. Guys
2:17 who want to who just want sort of more
2:20 natural tone and and stripped down
2:22 features, this is the thing for them,
2:25 you know, because therein lies the irony
2:27 of what is a modern boutique amplifier.
2:29 And in fairness, most modern boutique
2:34 amplifiers are a sort of a um a an
2:36 attempt to sort of faithfully reproduce
2:37 some of the magic that Marshall and
2:40 Fender and Vox were making sure back in
2:42 the you know in the 50s and the 60s.
2:45 Yeah. Um and I would say the only thing
2:48 that's probably uh where perhaps
2:50 boutique I'm not even sure I like that
2:51 word, but is that's the word, isn't it?
2:52 So we're going to say that's what
2:55 everyone uses. Yeah. Um, boutique amps I
2:57 guess perhaps visually is perhaps where,
2:58 as you say, well, certainly the Blues
3:00 Breaker is is too much of a beast to re
3:02 really class as a as a as a sort of a
3:04 boutique amplifier. But, but some of the
3:05 smaller ones, you know, the what's the
3:07 one with the tremolo built into it as
3:09 well? The uh the 74 has got tremolo.
3:10 There's a smaller one then, isn't there,
3:15 than the uh the 87 20 261 head. Those
3:16 kind of things are almost just
3:18 desperate. they kind of are boutique
3:19 amplifiers but just perhaps with the
3:21 wrong look and missing a couple of
3:23 features like right some of the sort of
3:24 switchable outputs and things like that
3:26 that and so that was the idea was to
3:28 keep the the essence and the basis of it
3:30 you know with that handwired side to it
3:33 but also to bring in the features um
3:34 that are much more practical that you
3:36 wouldn't usually get on those types of
3:38 amps too so it's sort of marrying the
3:42 two things together um unaffecting the
3:44 tone are things you know like I say more
3:47 practical uh things like power reduction
3:49 and and you know sort of a bass boost or
3:51 bright switch or whatever on across the
3:53 range. So kind of recognizing I suppose
3:55 that that as although some of those old
3:57 Marshall amplifiers are great, they were
4:00 built for a time when live music was
4:02 played in different sort of uh to
4:03 different audiences and in different
4:05 arenas. Um and these are much more
4:07 you're sort of taking into account how a
4:09 modern guitar player perhaps might play
4:11 smaller venues, perhaps play more at
4:13 home, perhaps might mic up if he needs a
4:16 bit more volume, that sort of thing. [Music]
4:30 So, look, as you can see behind us here
4:34 are um three fabulously styled different
4:37 versions of Atoria, green, red, and
4:40 blue. All available as either a 1x12
4:43 combo or as a a head with a matching um
4:45 1x12 cabinet.
4:47 Stylistically, I kind of I I see this.
4:50 It's like there is a throwback here to
4:52 really old Marshalls, you know. So, when
4:54 you're talking about the pre- signature
4:58 kind of front, the blog logo. Yeah. Um
5:00 but also very much a nod towards I think
5:03 what perhaps uh the the sort of the
5:05 where some of the the other sort of
5:08 boutique amplifiers have really uh hit a
5:10 sweet sort of vibe with with with
5:12 customers as guitarists come in and they
5:13 just see something, they go, "Oh, yeah,
5:15 I like you know, and so I kind of there
5:17 is an attempt to sort of do something
5:19 very different, but I guess most
5:21 importantly is going to be sort of tone
5:23 and features. So where where do you want
5:26 to start in in the range to sort of tell
5:28 people about Well, I mean, you know,
5:30 just briefly to touch on what you're
5:31 saying about the looks on the looks side
5:34 of things, it's always worth mentioning,
5:35 you know, you're never going to please
5:37 everyone because we've got the guys out
5:39 there who love Marshall in black, white,
5:40 and gold, and it should never be
5:42 anything else. And then we've got the
5:43 guys out there who say all Marshalls
5:45 look the same. So I mean that was
5:47 another thing about this range was it
5:49 needed to have its own sonic identity of
5:51 course but visually it was equally as
5:52 important to make them stand out. You
5:54 know if I walk into your shop you know
5:57 and I look at all the Marshall stuff you
5:58 know the Atoria is going to stand out
5:59 and you know that's going to be really
6:01 eye-catching against something like a
6:02 DSL and so it should be because
6:04 price-wise they're completely different
6:06 too you know. Actually this really works
6:07 cuz you've kept you know you got
6:08 something of the old and something of
6:10 the new and it's I think it really
6:11 works. you know, we didn't want it being
6:13 pigeonholed that people would look at
6:15 it, see the old logo, and think, "Oh,
6:17 it's a it's another reissue of something
6:18 in a different box." But I think the
6:20 color scheme carries it through. Also,
6:22 the fact that obviously the logos are
6:23 color matched to the amps as well as a
6:25 nice touch. And again, it was all about
6:28 attention to detail um visually and and
6:31 sonically as well. Yeah. Is there a
6:32 before we get on to then to sort of tone
6:35 and specs, is there a sort of a a
6:38 classic Marshall tie-in to the Atoria,
6:39 I'm assuming. Is that some sort of one
6:41 of Jim's old favorite venues or
6:43 something like that? You know what?
6:44 People can take it for what they want.
6:46 It's one of those things. It means Yeah.
6:49 Well, it means so it means so many
6:51 different things to various people. So,
6:55 come on. Let's talk about stuff. So, the
6:57 green one. Do the green one. That's what
6:58 you're plugged into, isn't it? Yeah. So,
7:01 this is the Atoria uh Classic. The
7:03 reason it's called the Classic is is
7:05 because it's much more of a classic
7:07 setup. It's a single channel amp. All
7:09 the amps in the range are 30 W. They all
7:12 contain the Celestian Creamback speaker,
7:14 which is the H magnet one, the heavy
7:16 magnet. Yeah, exactly. Um it's slightly
7:18 custom voiced to us and it's the only
7:19 speaker that we're using. This is the
7:21 only range that we're using that speaker
7:24 in. Um they've all got K KT66 valves in
7:28 and all got um power reduction too. So
7:30 we'll talk about the decision to use the
7:32 KT66es in a minute because that's again
7:34 that'll be another I I don't think
7:35 there's anything else in the range
7:36 that's got or certainly none of the the
7:38 range that people will be familiar with
7:39 that's got KT6. No, the last thing we
7:42 used in a production run with KT66es
7:43 would have been the vintage modern which
7:44 is Well, let's let's stay with that
7:46 then. So, characteristically,
7:49 um, how do you find the KT66,
7:51 uh, sort of affects the tone compared to
7:53 something you might more traditionally
7:55 use? Yeah, I always
7:58 I always like the 66s, but I felt
8:01 sometimes there could be um, a bit too
8:02 much in the bottom end, depending on
8:04 what amp they're in. The reason that we
8:07 chose them for this was really simple in
8:10 that we abded it with EL34s. Yeah. And
8:12 66s. We did a blind test. you know, when
8:14 we do a lot of testing here, we don't or
8:16 some of us don't want to know, you know,
8:18 it doesn't you don't want to sway your
8:20 judgment. So, um, yeah, it was a really
8:22 simple AB. We chose our favorite and it
8:25 happened to be the 66s. So that's yeah I
8:27 think that's a great way of doing it
8:28 because you don't want to be forced into
8:30 a corner and think oh you know this
8:31 would be great because I know it perhaps
8:34 it has a bit of added marketing
8:36 collateral because like I say that's the
8:38 only range we're producing with those
8:40 valves in as well but you want it to be
8:42 very organic to the product and and I
8:44 some I sometimes wish that that you'd
8:45 almost film some of those blind tests
8:47 because I know when you I've been
8:48 involved again where you're you're blind
8:50 testing a speaker or you're blind
8:52 testing a valve and the marketing bit of
8:54 your brain is going, I hope I hope we
8:56 choose the Celestian Vintage 30 to go in
8:58 this because I know that's the one the
8:59 customer's going to want. And then you
9:01 do the thing and and it's almost like
9:03 I'm and you choose something else and
9:06 you almost want to go we didn't we chose
9:08 that other thing entirely because that
9:09 was the one we all agreed was the best
9:11 sounding. But anyway, so I'm sure you
9:13 did go through that. Yeah, absolutely.
9:14 The speaker can be the hardest thing as
9:16 well. with this. A couple years ago, we
9:18 went to Celestian, you know, we went to
9:19 their place and they've got this great
9:21 room where you can just go and test
9:23 everything, you know, the equivalent of
9:24 in here and they set up all these
9:26 speakers and you're just so spoiled for
9:27 choice because there's not a bad one in
9:28 the bunch and then and then you go
9:30 slightly blind because on a clean sound
9:32 one this one sounds good and then on a
9:33 medium driven and you know and you're
9:36 going ah exactly. But anyway, so that's
9:38 cool. But so talk about the output. So,
9:43 you've gone 30 watts, which is um
9:45 I would say it's the it's the new 100
9:47 watts, isn't it? 30 watts. It's like
9:49 that for the modern day guitar player
9:51 that's that's uh really doing anything,
9:53 either playing large venues and mking up
9:55 or playing smaller venues and just, you
9:57 know, needing enough power. 30 watts is
9:58 just bonus, isn't it? And we look, we
10:00 all like 100 watts and we've all been
10:02 doing 100 watts for a long time, you
10:04 know what I mean? But, um it gets to a
10:05 point where it's about practicality at
10:09 the end of the day. And it's also about,
10:11 you know, that whole thing of a lot of
10:14 time people think 50 watts is half the
10:16 audible output of 100 watts and it's not
10:18 and nor is 30 watts, you know, you know,
10:20 3/10 of 100. It's not that at all. And
10:24 so 30 watts is a really nice area where
10:26 it's not as loud as 50 watts obviously.
10:28 Um, but it's still you get a nice
10:30 singing sort of nice bit of compression.
10:32 You Yeah, exactly. Still loud. Loud
10:34 enough to gig with unmiked. Great for
10:37 the studio. Uh, yeah. Yeah. But for
10:38 those of uh players out there that are
10:40 thinking, you know, I'm probably going
10:44 to be 75% playing at home, 25% playing
10:46 on the stage, whatever, you've got power
10:47 scaling in this. Yeah. So, we put the
10:48 power reduction in them as well, which
10:50 works off the master volume pot. So,
10:54 tell us that because I I know um
10:55 power reduction, power scaling, whatever
10:57 you want to call it, attenuation been
10:59 super super popular for for a few years
11:02 now. And I've heard it done brilliantly
11:04 and I've heard it done appallingly.
11:07 Sure. Um, and I, you know, I I I'm
11:09 interested, I suppose, you know, sorry
11:10 for sort of geeking out, but I'm kind of
11:12 interested in how they do this and and
11:13 I'd like to kind of almost hear it as
11:15 well because I sort of think it's, you
11:16 know, what you don't want power
11:18 reduction to is suck all the life out of
11:20 the amplifier to make it quieter. No,
11:21 that's right. And that's what you're
11:24 always I think uh naturally and again
11:26 organ organically, you're always going
11:28 to be up against that. You know, I don't
11:31 think anyone has anyone got it 100%
11:34 perfect yet? I'm not sure, but The best
11:36 ones I've heard are where guitar players
11:38 use attenuation to to roll back their
11:41 amp by 30 or 40% volume. So you get a
11:44 crazy loud sound that you just bring
11:45 back to a sort of controllable sound.
11:46 Yeah, that's right. To get right down
11:49 low is always tough because I guess
11:50 you're just not getting the speaker
11:52 movement and Exactly. Yeah. And all
11:54 those things that make the final sound
11:55 uh you know the combination. But we
11:57 should hear it anyway. We should we
11:58 should definitely. And it works. This
12:00 one works off of the um the master
12:02 volume. It's not pento tri or anything
12:04 like that. We wanted something that was
12:06 again much more practical in that you
12:08 have you hear a big sonic difference
12:11 kind of thing. So um to give you an idea
12:14 um so the master's set on 3/4 at the
12:16 moment and this is the sort of sound you get.
12:24 So what you do is you pull out the
12:26 volume there. And then of course it
12:27 drops into power reduction mode. And you
12:29 can still use the master volume anyway
12:38 And then just for reference going back
12:44 Yeah. So it's not a it's not a variable
12:46 power reduction. It's just it's a it's a
12:49 sort of low and high type. Low low and
12:50 high. But then you can still use the
12:52 master volume in conjunction in low
12:54 mode. I see. Exactly. So you can take it
12:55 right down if you want. I mean it's
12:56 certainly on on I mean we should
12:58 probably try it on all three of them
12:59 sort of go through cuz that one you
13:00 could hear there was a little bit less
13:02 gain as well when you went into power
13:04 reduction mode. That's the nature of
13:05 this amplifier as well at the same time
13:07 though when we get on to the other two
13:09 you'll hear that it doesn't sort of take
13:10 so much off the top and stuff like that.
13:12 Um but we we'll try that. So put it back
13:14 into sort of low. Well no I think we'll
13:15 wait till we get one of the gier amps
13:17 and then we'll we'll give the power
13:18 reduction a bit more cuz I think on
13:20 cleaner amplifiers you can just back the
13:22 volume down and still work. But for
13:24 consistency, we wanted to put it on all
13:25 three. Yeah. So, what else have we got
13:28 knobs and buttons wise on? This is the
13:29 classic, right? This is the classic. So,
13:31 yeah, one channel. Um, that's why it's
13:33 called the classic cuz it's just a one
13:35 channel relatively clean amp. Like the
13:37 amount of um overdrive that you were
13:38 hearing there or the amount of gain that
13:41 you hear in there is about it's about as
13:43 much as it will do. Oh, really? So, this
13:44 would be like a great pedal amp if
13:46 you've got drive pedals. And that's the
13:47 idea, you know, that if you've got your
13:49 own pedals, uh, your own nice pedals
13:50 that you really like, you can put it in
13:52 front to to drive it and get it going.
13:54 Um, do we do we want to hear that? Do we
13:55 want to should we just grab a Blues
13:57 Breaker pedal? Is, you know, there I
13:58 spotted one over your shoulder over
14:00 there. Should we just give this a Yeah,
14:02 why not? I'll get it. We're back. Uh,
14:04 this is the most excellent Marshall
14:06 Blues Breaker 2 pedal that we have set
14:08 in boost mode rather than sort of drive
14:10 mode with all the knobs on it. if you've
14:13 got one of these are about halfway
14:14 except for the volume which is about
14:17 3/4. But listen to this. So this is without
14:20 without
14:42 um
14:44 and it's fairly inexpensive the pedal
14:45 you know. Yeah. I mean, we could have
14:47 pulled out a 150 lb boost pedal if we
14:50 wanted to, but something. Yeah. Oh, man.
14:52 That's a sexy sounding amplifier. Well,
14:54 you're in the high mode. I notice each
14:56 of these amps have got high and low. Is
14:58 that same sort of idea as any Marshall
14:59 amp that you'd be familiar with? So,
15:02 just is it like a three or six dB? Yeah,
15:03 I think it's about 6 dB. 6 dB
15:04 attenuation on the low. Yeah. So, if
15:07 you're really quite particular on this
15:10 amplifier on the classic about keeping
15:12 it clean and and keeping it uh you know,
15:14 not broken up, then you'd be better off
15:16 going to the low. And one thing we
15:18 haven't mentioned is just a sensitivity
15:20 control which it's got which um just
15:22 allows you is that instead of gain or as
15:24 well as Yeah. So, you've got um we'll
15:26 we'll do a scanning close-upy thing of
15:29 this here. Exactly. H bass middle treble
15:32 sensitivity master. Right. So couple of
15:33 controls that people might not be
15:36 familiar with. Yeah. So again the edge
15:38 control features on all of them and
15:40 that's people like one of the big
15:41 questions is what's the difference
15:44 between edge and presence because it
15:46 kind of works is a better guitarist I
15:48 think isn't he?
15:50 Yeah he did go downhill after I think so.
15:52 so.
15:54 Um so
15:58 so we um so the way that presence works
16:01 is that it adjusts the um negative
16:03 feedback within the power stage of an
16:05 amplifier. And so with a story there's
16:09 no negative feedback. So there is a um a
16:11 highpass filter in there. I found with
16:14 these actually it's a lot more practical
16:15 because you know usually present you'll
16:17 just leave you know you just set it and
16:18 leave about halfway or something like
16:20 that. with these with the edge controls
16:22 I found more on the high higher gain
16:23 apps if you turn it back you get much
16:25 more of a darker sort of almost woolly
16:27 tone which is quite nice should you need that
16:28 that
16:32 okay so um Chris is going to play for 30
16:33 seconds or so on here and just because
16:35 I'm interested in what the controls do
16:37 and I expect you guys are too as well uh
16:39 I'm just going to have a fiddle a fiddle
16:41 with the knobs uh whilst Chris is
16:45 playing so uh anyway come here [Music]
17:26 [Music] M
17:28 M boom.
17:30 boom. [Music]
17:32 [Music] Moo.
17:34 Moo. Cool.
17:53 [Music] [Applause]
17:54 [Applause] [Music]
17:59 So that was really really useful I
18:01 thought there especially I think it what
18:03 it does is it the the the bass middle
18:06 and treble is very familiar Marshall
18:09 sort of territory um not massively
18:11 changing the characteristic of the tone.
18:13 Uh edge does exactly what you said it
18:15 does and sensitivity is absolutely kind
18:20 of like um like a low gainy kind of
18:22 sort of gain and presence and allin-one.
18:24 So really like that. So that's that's
18:27 the Atoria classic. Yep. Um, nothing
18:29 else to really tell us about that if we
18:30 haven't already driven it home. I'm
18:31 pretty sure we have. These are all
18:34 handwired um in the Marshall factory in
18:40 Milton Kees. Um, so let's move on to
18:41 which one next? Do you want to do the
18:42 blue one next? Because it's the sort of
18:44 the next most gainy and we'll finish
18:45 with the most gaining. Yeah, if you want
18:47 to, we can do that. Yeah, cool. Yeah,
18:50 makes sense. Um, so the concept behind
18:54 the Atoria duel is for the two channel
18:56 guy. Yeah. Yeah. You want a clean
18:58 channel, you want an overdrive channel.
19:02 Um, there is also a body control on the
19:05 overdrive channel and a very nice clean
19:06 channel as well. You know, it's got the
19:07 edge, it's got the power reduction,
19:09 etc., etc., but um, pretty much speaks
19:11 for itself. Foot switchable two
19:14 channels. KT66es again in this. So,
19:17 okay, cool. Kind of same idea as what we
19:18 just did for the classic. So, Chris will
19:20 play, I'll fiddle with the knobs. Play a
19:21 bit for We'll play a little bit longer
19:22 on this one because there are more knobs
19:25 to fiddle with. Here we go. Um,
19:26 Um, [Music]
19:44 [Music] hey
19:45 hey [Music]
19:51 [Music] everybody.
19:57 [Applause] [Music]
20:15 [Music]
20:17 Hey, hey, hey. [Laughter]
20:19 [Laughter] [Music]
20:30 Heat. [Music]
20:32 [Music] Heat.
20:35 Heat. [Music]
21:01 [Music] Heat.
21:30 Heat. [Music]
21:53 [Music]
21:57 I like I like that a lot. Yeah, it's the
21:58 the I tell you what I did notice a
22:00 couple of things that react really
22:02 differently to the classic. The power
22:07 scaling reacts y massively more. Um I
22:08 quite like as well. Well, I say I like
22:10 No, that's that's the wrong word. It's
22:11 interesting that what's happening when
22:13 you're pulling the the power scaling in
22:14 or pushing it back in again. There's
22:16 like a there's like a two or three
22:17 second. That's right. You hear it just
22:19 drop down. Yeah. So clearly it's so it's
22:21 obviously going through some sort of
22:22 reduction and then ramp up again, isn't
22:25 it? Rather than just a straight Yeah.
22:28 Um, but the the when you get the the
22:29 overdriven channel around about sort of
22:31 twothirds of the way and particularly
22:33 with the body control which is where you
22:34 you I don't know if you noticed but on
22:36 the the gain gets pulled out for this
22:39 this feature called body. It's fat.
22:41 Yeah. Really fat. And also when you go
22:43 over to the overdrive channel if you've
22:46 got the gain set quite low as with a lot
22:48 of amps like that they it sounds good
22:51 but it sounds a little empty. Soon as
22:52 you pull the body control it just
22:54 fattens it up. you know, even with high
22:57 gain, as high as that will go, the body
22:59 is is really fat. Might be too much for
23:00 some, but then you just take it back
23:03 out. So, again, it's just variation of
23:06 tone. And in terms of the voicing of the
23:08 overdrive channel of that, you'll hear
23:11 it is different from from the one that
23:13 we'll look at after vintage marshally.
23:16 Exactly. It's not like there's huge
23:18 amounts of gain in there, but enough for
23:20 the majority of people, especially for
23:21 all the rhythmic stuff. Yeah. I mean,
23:23 that was the blue amp was the one I was
23:25 using during the sort of the jam we had.
23:28 And uh I had it with uh the gain about
23:29 2/ird of the way out. And I didn't have
23:31 the body control out cuz at that time I
23:33 I didn't know it had a body control. Uh
23:36 but it it had that, you know, again,
23:38 just how you how you remember all the
23:41 old classic old Strats plugged into a
23:44 Dirty Marshall sounding. Um I liked it.
23:47 So I mean the blue one is is is my
23:50 favorite so far. Um although I don't
23:52 know I have got a little pong for just
23:53 single channel amplifiers that you put
23:54 loads of pedals in front of at the
23:56 moment. Yeah I think if I was a pedal
23:59 guy I can see why the green one would be
24:01 popular but if I was more of just a you
24:03 know just straightforward plugin. Can
24:06 you foot switch the channel here? And
24:10 also uh as with the the custom as well
24:11 the effects loop too. Okay. So effects
24:13 loop in here as well. Yeah. Yep. Yeah.
24:15 Effects loop in there. Yeah. Very nice.
24:17 Um, we may need to take a small
24:19 intermission now whilst we mic up the
24:21 red one, but uh stay tuned because next
24:23 is uh is essentially the same thing
24:25 again but with the the dirtiest one,
24:42 [Music]
24:44 Oh man. Need to give us Need to give it
24:45 a bit. Well, I wasn't sure whether I
24:48 just wanted to keep it up. Holy mother
24:51 of Mary. Um Chris has just played a
24:53 chord which you didn't hear, but you're
24:56 about to hear through the classic um
24:58 custom. It's custom. Sorry. Through the
25:01 custom. It's unbelievably loud. Uh we
25:02 just made him turn it down because it
25:05 nearly killed me. Um
25:07 so the custom is the dirty one, isn't
25:09 it? Yeah. It's the dirty. It's the evil.
25:10 It's the nasty neighbor. It's a dirty
25:12 one. It will go It will do all your
25:13 crunch stuff, you know, with the Asbo.
25:17 Exactly. But it will go up to uh it will
25:19 go up loud. It will go up heavy and lots
25:21 of gain. And there's a bright switch.
25:23 There's a body switch. It's got you
25:24 Yeah. It's got everything you want
25:26 really. Well, we we're going to do the
25:28 same thing again basically where where I
25:30 crouch down and um fiddle with some
25:33 knobs on here. Um it's the it's again
25:35 it's simple, isn't it? It's one one
25:37 channel with a boost. Exactly. Uh
25:39 effects loop. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.
25:41 Switchable boost and effects loop on
25:43 this one. First switchable.
27:18 Heat. [Music]
28:10 the things we do in this job to bring
28:12 you the best tones of all the guitar
28:16 amps in the world. Um, wow.
28:18 That's loud. That is really good. I tell
28:20 you, you you said on the other amplifier
28:22 that that the the body control really
28:24 works well with the gain with the volume
28:26 reduction. Y So, I hopefully you guys
28:28 pick that up on there, but but at the
28:29 lowest point, I know it's always
28:31 difficult on YouTube, but but at its
28:33 lowest point, we were actually pretty
28:35 quiet on that. And the body when you do
28:37 pull it out does act almost like a a
28:39 loudness switch on a hi-fi. You know, it
28:40 just adds that sort of depth back in
28:42 where perhaps the amp isn't naturally
28:44 producing it cuz it's not loud enough.
28:46 But that's just naughty, isn't it? I
28:48 mean, what is there not to like? If
28:50 you're a Marshall fan, there is nothing
28:52 not to like about that sound. I mean,
28:54 even unboosted, you know, there's
28:55 there's still a lot of gain. I mean,
29:02 I mean, tonally it's good, but I mean to
29:04 give you an idea of how much gain is is
29:06 in it, turning that up with the boost
29:32 It'll just Yeah, you don't you really
29:34 don't need to fight for feedback. It
29:35 just does it all for you, isn't it?
29:38 Yeah, that is that's just I mean and
29:40 actually when I say it's really loud, it
29:42 it's it's not like sitting in front of a
29:45 100 watt super lead. It's um it's loud
29:47 enough to be we could be gigging at that
29:49 kind of volume. Uh and obviously I'm
29:50 sitting really really close to it, but
29:53 it sounds great. Can I hear it with a I
29:54 just want to try it with a Strat.
29:56 Definitely. I'm afraid, as you've
29:58 probably noticed, Chris plays the guitar
30:00 the wrong way up. So, uh I'm afraid in
30:02 order to demonstrate a Strat, you're
30:03 going to have to hear listen to a
30:05 slightly inferior guitar player. But
30:28 Uh-oh. [Music]
30:30 [Music] [Applause]
30:57 I'm playing with tens, by the way, just
30:58 for Mick Taylor because he said I was
31:26 [Music]
31:29 Great. So, I suppose what the best thing
31:31 about guitar amplifiers
31:34 is how every guitar kind of sounds
31:35 different. Well, the best thing about
31:37 good guitar amplifiers is where you just
31:39 pick stuff up and it's like all the
31:42 goodness of your guitar. Yeah.
31:43 Everything that you know I can imagine
31:45 everything that Leo and Jim wanted to
31:48 happen happens and still happen. Yeah. Yeah.
31:50 Yeah.
32:39 Oh, it's so naughty.
32:41 You should be here. You need to be here
32:44 with this or something similar. That
32:46 sounds amazing though. And this or this
32:48 or this?
32:52 That's proper. M. That's proper. Oh,
32:54 there we are. You This is This is the
32:56 face of a of a child in a sweetie shop
32:58 face. So, if you had to choose one,
32:59 which which one would be yours? Oh,
33:01 that's tough. You know, I cuz I mean
33:02 this is going to sound like the worst
33:04 sales pitch in the universe. Um, but I'm
33:07 kind of currently uh experimenting the
33:09 whole two amp thing. you know, two amp
33:11 is better than one thing. And um getting
33:14 some kind of great results using stuff
33:16 like um Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and a
33:18 Marshall DSL or something if you're on a
33:20 budget or just a couple of very
33:24 different voiced amps. So, honestly, I
33:26 guess if if it was like you can have
33:28 one, if you can hear drums in the
33:32 background, say hello to George. Um
33:34 if I had to have one, I guess the
33:36 obvious one to buy is the blue one
33:37 because it's the dual channel. Okay.
33:41 Does a little bit of everything. Um,
33:43 can see that being as a, you know, good
33:45 club gigging kind of guitar amp. I think
33:47 if you're What I actually do quite like
33:49 is I can I don't think there's going to
33:51 be one of these that doesn't appeal
33:52 because I think, you know, the green one
33:54 absolutely is going to be your the guy
33:56 that just goes, "Look, I just got I've
33:57 got some killer pedals I want to plug
33:59 in. I don't believe in effects loops.
34:00 It's all wizardry and they didn't have
34:01 them back in the day, so I don't need
34:04 one now." That's the green one. Sure.
34:07 the guy that's just going, you know, I I
34:09 want when I think of of Marshall, I
34:12 think of Gary Moore and Slash and, you
34:14 know, those kind of iconic drive players,
34:16 players,
34:18 they want this one and they will not be
34:21 disappointed cuz this is a good amp. Um,
34:22 and then I don't know, I think the guy
34:24 that's just going, you know what, I I
34:25 I'm just looking for a boutique
34:26 amplifier. I want something that's
34:29 hamwired, relatively portable, looks
34:31 sexy, and is going to do it's going to
34:32 give me some nice clean tones, some nice
34:34 driven tones. I can channel switch. I've
34:37 got an effects loop on there. Um, and I
34:40 suppose if it's got
34:42 a Marshall throwback, it's going to be
34:44 vintagey Marshall. It's not sort of
34:46 modern Marshall. What about you got a
34:48 4x12 anywhere? Yes. So, we could do
34:50 that, of course. Okay. Well, do you want
34:52 to hear Do you want to hear this amplif
34:56 here through a 4x12? Say that's a yes. I
34:57 think somebody said no, but we'll ignore
35:01 it. Um, let's do that then. So, anyway,
35:02 uh, we're going to play out, I think,
35:04 with Chris George, the amazing Chris
35:08 George, guitarist of the year, 1973.
35:12 Runner up. Feels like runn.
35:17 Um, so I've been the captain. Thank you
35:18 so much to Chris and the guys at
35:21 Marshall for inviting us up to HQ today.
35:44 [Applause] [Music]
35:57 [Applause]
36:20 Heat. [Applause]
36:21 [Applause] [Music]
36:38 Is that enough to zoom out on? She like [Music]
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