Hi everyone! I'm kinda stuck in a search for a '80s heavy rock sound.. Something like John Sykes' meets Kee Marcello and early Gary Moore. Anyway, I'm not sure what equipment I am exactly looking for. I prefer it simple. I'd like to go straight into an amp and that's it, no pedal boards or whatsoever. So... If anyone has and advice, I would really appreciate it! Thanks!

MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARSHALL!!!!

But seriously all those guitarists play Marshalls so the JVM series Amplifiers by Marshall should get you going... That is if you have 1000+ Euro to spend.

Zakk is right, Marshall is the way to go. A friend of mien plays a lot of 80ies stuff and has a JVM and the sound is great. If you want to go for a cheaper amp, I personally like the Vox AD50VT which also gives you a bunch of effects and amp simulations to choose from. It also has a preset for 80ies hard rock which sounds pretty good. Just check some amps out before you buy!

Marshalls rock and rock some more. Cannot go wrong with those.
Gah, i wish i could afford a nice Marshall stack.... Just got a new amp few days ago, i needed something better than a crappy 15W one i had before.

I got a Fender FrontMan 212 100W 2x12” with DSP Effects, from all the Solid State amps that i've tried - this one was most to my taste. I just couldn't afford a good Tube Amp. Figured i can wait for another year or so, save some serious money and then get what i really want.

For now i'll just dream on

Yeah, Marshall is the way to go
The Marshall DSL50 or DSL100 is also great amps..

I want the 50W myself

Orange Rockerverb is the only way to go

All I can say is that it sounds great! Fantastic reverb too. Leavs other brands strinving for 80's rock and metal sobing

Marshall, orange, mesa boogie. All proper rock monster amp manufacturers mate!

When I hear 80ties rock sound I also think of an JCM 800, overdriven to it's limits. There are couple of problems with this tho.. JCM 800 was basically a vintage style amp (with few modern features implemented) and didn't have huge amounts of gain available. So people would boost it, crank it, and play it like that. When you crank the amp, the tone becomes hard to control, specially the bass, so they usually knocked down bass knob quite a bit, and increased mids. Although on it's own it may sound too much mids, on the situation with the band, it is the only way to have a wall of sound. They made those heads with great midrange response by default, and this is they key as well. Today's scooped amps sound good on their own, but with the band, the sound thins out.

You can still find JCM800's for cheap if you look hard, but you will be lucky if you find one that is both cheap and it great working condition. Another option is to consider hand-made JCM800's or buy a kit for building. It will be expensive too, but at least you will have a new JCM800. Don't worry about the parts - today it is no mistery how they built them, and with point-to-point wiring, those beasts will blow away every modern Marshall in terms of tone.

Getting a high gain tone is ultra easy, making it to sound good is very difficult, specially on lower volumes, and specially on old amps like JCM800's. But if you succeed with that one, that's the tone you are looking for, no other can be matched. Preferences will be different, someone will always say that today's gear sounds better, and indeed, lots of it sounds great, but if you want vintage 80ties tone, you will get it out of the gear that was used in those days.

This post has been edited by Ivan Milenkovic: Mar 30 2010, 03:26 PM

All the guys that you mentioned play Marshalls, so that should be your amp, but Ivan is absolutely right, a Marshall was THE Rock and Metal amp of the 80's, even though it really lacks gain for that. If you want to use a Marshall and get a high gain tone you will definitely need a booster or a distortion pedal, otherwise your sound will be more like AC/DC, not like Sykes. Good pedals for that would be the Ibanez Tube Screamer (best distortion pedal ever in my humble opinion), or Marshals Govner.

That only applies to older Marshalls, the current models all have way more gain than any Deathmetaller would need!

Hmmm, well, Andre has a couple of Marshalls, also newer ones (TCL?), and they definitely have more gain than my old JCM 800, but they still don't come anywhere close to other modern highgain amps like a Rectifier for example. To get a good metal sound he still uses a Tubescreamer with those Marshalls.