Quick Listen is where I capture and share guitar tones that I’ve dialled in. No exploration; little discussion – just a quick audio demo or two along with a documented signal chain.
Today, I’ve dusted off the plexi-style amp that I bought back in 2019, and paired it with a Gibson Les Paul and Celestion Creamback impulse responses. Have a listen.
The Quick Listen
Here’s the audio demo:
The Signal Chain
Today, I’m playing:
- a Gibson Les Paul CR8 on the bridge position
- into the plexi amp clone
- out to the Axe-FX 3 (for some EQ, impulse responses, delay and reverb)
- into my audio interface
and into my DAW.
All the delays and reverbs came from the Axe-FX 3. No post-processing was applied, but I do level match all of my audio demos before uploading.
The Guitar
My guitar is a Gibson Les Paul CR8 (named GP). It’s all stock, except for Sigil Pickups’ Snakebite pickups (which are PAF-like humbuckers).
I was playing on the bridge pickup, guitar volume around 9 and tone volume on 10.
The Amp
The amp was listed on eBay as a “5W plexi recording amplifier head“. As far as I know, the seller designed and built this themselves. I don’t have any details about the amp’s circuit or choice of tubes. Safest to describe this as a plexi-style amp.
I bought it back in 2019 (although I don’t seem to have mentioned that on the blog at the time), for less than the price of most overdrive pedals.
Here’s a photo of the amp’s settings:
They are:
- Presence all the way off
- Bass all the way off
- Middle all the way up
- Treble all the way up
- High treble channel at around 6
- Normal channel at around 4
- Both channels jumpered
- Guitar plugged into Input 1
This amp sounds cold and harsh with the bass all the way off. Turning up the bass – even a little – quickly causes a problematic build-up in the low-end.
Impulse Responses
In the Axe-FX 3, I’m using a single G12M Creambk 112 0 SM57 Balanced impulse response from Celestion. This is an SM57 against an open-backed 1×12 cab containing a Celestion G12M-65 Creamback speaker.
I picked this because it matches the real speaker cab that I’ve got.
Final Thoughts
I hope you like this new “Quick Listen” series of blog posts. I’m still figuring out the exact formula for them.
This is my first attempt at trying to record this amp – and, indeed, this style of amp. I think it’s going to need a few goes – and some reference tones – before I get the best out of it.