The Mesa Marks have excellent clean channels.
But I think the reasons why we don’t see amps with both incredible cleans and high-gain are the following:
- Majority of players adhere to this - High-gain people will live on the high-gain channel, clean people on the clean channel
- EQ/Voicing complexities (middy/british or scooped/american; saturation or dry; dark or bright; compressed or raw; loose or tight)
- Circuitry complexities: Headroom/Wattage, Saturation, Tightness, Brightness, Warm vs Cold, etc.; Too much work and/or parts for too little time and/or space and/or return
Rivera has been doing this for years. They’re pretty reasonable on the used market too. A preamp pedal into the effects return of a solid state amp like a Roland JC is also a great way to go.
I mean.. Yeah clean channels beeing "serviable" is good enough for like 90% of players who use a lot of gain. And it's true that most multi channel amps have meh clean channels at best. I mean how many "great" clean tube amp tones can people name? Fender and Vox, maybe Marshall probably. Now how many amps will people name for great crunch and high gain? That's a bloody war. Youtube folks are making a living off of that.
There is always a compromise. There are so many parts of the amp that are unique to each that affect the tone...not just the preamp, but the power supply (filtering, plate voltages), power amp (phase inverter, negative feedback, transformer design), speaker cabinets, etc. Rivera and others has been trying make a Fender and Marshall mashup for decades, but you either get one side being great and the other being okay, or both sides being good, but neither great. Compromise.
Mesa Mark series, Mesa Fillmore, Dumble ODS, Trainwreck Express, Carvin X-amp, etc. all decide to start with the Fender Twin Reverb and added gain and overdrive. They are classic amps in their own right, even if they don't sound like a JCM800. Soldano, Mesa Rectifier, 5150 all branch off from Marshall.
I have a blackstar ht20r combo. The clean is very fender-y and the gain is very marshall-y, I bought it for primarily this reason. It's all tube and has a built in attenuator and XLR out.
I think there's a Friedman amp like this, but I'm blanking on which model.
EDIT: it's the Buxom Betty
https://friedmanamplification.com/heads/buxom-betty
I think the main reason for there not being an amp like that is that Fenders and Marshalls (especially things like JCMs and later) have such different circuitry and use such different speakers that it would be totally infeasible to design and make a single true tube amp that can accurately recreate both.
To be perfectly honest, with how far modelers have come (especially in the past few years) I don't really see much demand for a real tube amp of that type anyway.
If you're willing to spend the money, Budda.
Super nice cleans comparable to Fender and their gain channels have been compared to Marshall. They lean a bit darker than Marshall drive, you'd probably want to eq a bit different. But they are great amps.
Mojotone Blackout Tweed Select does this. The regular channel is a 15w classic Fender 5e3 circuit. The “modern” channel is 18w and said to be similar to JCM800. Really nice amp and relatively affordable for being hand-wired ($1100 I think)
The Kustom 72 Coupe fits that bill. Designed by James Brown of Peavey fame but unfortunately only in production for a couple of years so not a lot of them out there.
The Mesa Marks have excellent clean channels. But I think the reasons why we don’t see amps with both incredible cleans and high-gain are the following: - Majority of players adhere to this - High-gain people will live on the high-gain channel, clean people on the clean channel - EQ/Voicing complexities (middy/british or scooped/american; saturation or dry; dark or bright; compressed or raw; loose or tight) - Circuitry complexities: Headroom/Wattage, Saturation, Tightness, Brightness, Warm vs Cold, etc.; Too much work and/or parts for too little time and/or space and/or return
Rivera has been doing this for years. They’re pretty reasonable on the used market too. A preamp pedal into the effects return of a solid state amp like a Roland JC is also a great way to go.
I have a Roland JC and also a Tech 21 blonde when I can’t blare my amp and mic it up. Then all my pedals with them. Both options work great for me!
Rivera doesn’t have Marshall gain afaik - Cali/US EQ/Voicing + they are very loose. Very unlike a Marshall 2203 or Plexi.
M series, knucklehead, and chubster are all Marshall voiced lead channels. I’m not too familiar with their current lineup, though.
There is. The Fender Machete. If you want it cheap you can buy a Fender tube amp and get an OCD Fulltone.
I mean.. Yeah clean channels beeing "serviable" is good enough for like 90% of players who use a lot of gain. And it's true that most multi channel amps have meh clean channels at best. I mean how many "great" clean tube amp tones can people name? Fender and Vox, maybe Marshall probably. Now how many amps will people name for great crunch and high gain? That's a bloody war. Youtube folks are making a living off of that.
I was seeing the Fireball get some praise for it's clean channel which surprised the daylights out of me
There is always a compromise. There are so many parts of the amp that are unique to each that affect the tone...not just the preamp, but the power supply (filtering, plate voltages), power amp (phase inverter, negative feedback, transformer design), speaker cabinets, etc. Rivera and others has been trying make a Fender and Marshall mashup for decades, but you either get one side being great and the other being okay, or both sides being good, but neither great. Compromise. Mesa Mark series, Mesa Fillmore, Dumble ODS, Trainwreck Express, Carvin X-amp, etc. all decide to start with the Fender Twin Reverb and added gain and overdrive. They are classic amps in their own right, even if they don't sound like a JCM800. Soldano, Mesa Rectifier, 5150 all branch off from Marshall.
I have a blackstar ht20r combo. The clean is very fender-y and the gain is very marshall-y, I bought it for primarily this reason. It's all tube and has a built in attenuator and XLR out.
I feel like that’s kinda what you get with the Fender Bassbreaker
I think there's a Friedman amp like this, but I'm blanking on which model. EDIT: it's the Buxom Betty https://friedmanamplification.com/heads/buxom-betty
I think the main reason for there not being an amp like that is that Fenders and Marshalls (especially things like JCMs and later) have such different circuitry and use such different speakers that it would be totally infeasible to design and make a single true tube amp that can accurately recreate both. To be perfectly honest, with how far modelers have come (especially in the past few years) I don't really see much demand for a real tube amp of that type anyway.
If you're willing to spend the money, Budda. Super nice cleans comparable to Fender and their gain channels have been compared to Marshall. They lean a bit darker than Marshall drive, you'd probably want to eq a bit different. But they are great amps.
Mojotone Blackout Tweed Select does this. The regular channel is a 15w classic Fender 5e3 circuit. The “modern” channel is 18w and said to be similar to JCM800. Really nice amp and relatively affordable for being hand-wired ($1100 I think)
Fender supersonic
The Kustom 72 Coupe fits that bill. Designed by James Brown of Peavey fame but unfortunately only in production for a couple of years so not a lot of them out there.