I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

[Inearthed]

Here's my situation. In a band that I'm playing with now I need an amp that is capable of pulling off some excellent high gain sounds plus some great sounding cleans. I'm a big 5150 fan, but over a couple practices I just get more and more depressed with how, well... Lifeless and bland the 5150 sounds on clean (yes, yes, I know, no clean channel just a rhythm and lead). My other amp is a Soldano Avenger, which sounds awesome but that isn't going clean either.

The closest thing to that 5150 styled gain is a Peavey Triple XXX, and I found a guy selling one for a reasonable price, excellent shape retubed recently, and with a replaced faceplate (goodness the trucker mudflap girls are so lame on that amp). Do you folks think it is a wise choice snagging that Triple XXX?

Feel free to make other suggestions, if you have them.

[jgcable]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

I have no problem with the clean on my 5150 or 5150II but I'm not looking for a Fender Twin Reverb type clean.
The best solution is to get an A/B box and run 2 amps. My bandmate uses a whirlwind box and routes the B signal through a Boss AC-2, Stereo Chorus and a reverb. This is routed directly to the board. I also use an A/B box. The B signal is routed to a Fender Ultra Chorus for my shimmering cleans.

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

Yep, hard to find an amp that does (what I consider) good cleans, and good rhthyms AND leads, definitely pretty hard IMO.

Hence my current hell I call rackdom... Sigh, seems I STILL need another preamp to get all the sounds I want in just the way I want them...

I saw Iced Earth and Jon was running his Larry amp (changed to Ubers now I think) and he had a Roland JC-120 sitting on top on the stack for his cleans!!! Jeez...

[Inearthed]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

Well, I did some looking around and it looks like the dude was having troubles with his Triple XXX having some breakup on the clean channel (I love the search function) so I'm gonna pass and see if I can perhaps tweak a bit more.

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I have no problem with the clean on my 5150 or 5150II but I'm not looking for a Fender Twin Reverb type clean.

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Neither am I, but I always find that the clean doesn't sound like its really dull. I'll play around with it more this weekend and see if I can get something more workable.



[ QUOTE ]
Yep, hard to find an amp that does (what I consider) good cleans, and good rhthyms AND leads, definitely pretty hard IMO.

Hence my current hell I call rackdom... Sigh, seems I STILL need another preamp to get all the sounds I want in just the way I want them...

I saw Iced Earth and Jon was running his Larry amp (changed to Ubers now I think) and he had a Roland JC-120 sitting on top on the stack for his cleans!!! Jeez...

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Man. Did you happen to see Jon's rig(s) on the last tour? He was running 1 Uber fullstack, 1 Marshall JCM800 Fullstack (maybe 900, couldn't see 100%), and a combo JC-120 plus an extension cab... Goodness.

[Cleveland Metal]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

Hehe... Must be nice NOT to have to carry your own shit huh? hahaha....

I can't say much, my humble rack weighs a ton too...

[aldog1330]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

I've been relatively happy with my clean channel so far on my 5150, though I do use a slight chorus and reverb on most of my cleans. Maybe an external eq in the loop would help? Like John said, its not Fender clean, but its passable. I try to keep the gain on the rythym channel relatively low too...around 3 or 4 I think.

[jgcable]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

Picking up a small combo that has a great clean channel is pretty easy. Running an a/b box to toggle between the 2 is simple too. You just need an extra mic if the amp doesn't have a direct line out.

[JerryP]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

There's several options for getting a clean tone with your 5150. You can run a Rockmaster, POD, or some other type preamp in the effects loop return and use that for your clean tones while still allowing you to have the 5150 tones also. You need a switchbox to do the switching because you're not running them in the loop, just using the loop return and using the 5150 as a power amp. You can have the amp modded to make the clean better. Having the bias modded and adjusted warmer help get rid of some of the buzz on the clean channel and warms it up.
The Peavey Ultra Plus is the closest sounding amp to a 5150 I've ever heard. That amp has a nice clean and reverb too.
Jerry

[siggy14]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

I would also get a second amp, i am currently looking to pick up a line 6 flextone 2 1x12 for my cleans, plus i have alot of other options say i want to get a different sound as well if i get the amp.

But if you are set on just one amp, then use some chorus or reverb and should help that clean channel a little.

[jgcable]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

[ QUOTE ]
I would also get a second amp, i am currently looking to pick up a line 6 flextone 2 1x12 for my cleans, plus i have alot of other options say i want to get a different sound as well if i get the amp.

But if you are set on just one amp, then use some chorus or reverb and should help that clean channel a little.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes... you will be surprised how a chorus and reverb will make your 5150's clean channel sound really good.
Here are the 2 pedals you need (I know a fair amount about pedals!!)
Boss CH-1 (I like it better than the CH-5). Its not over the top like the CH-5 is.
Boss RV-3 This is a great reverb/delay pedal. The reverb will make your 5150 clean channel shimmer. It also has presets on it with a mix of reverb and delay. Its a very good pedal for waking up a dull clean channe like the 5150 has.

[JerryP]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

Another thought, have you tried the low input of the amp? Turning the guitar volume also helps the clean a lot.
Jerry

[kmanick]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

If you definitely want a combo you have several good choices (depending on what style you play)

1.Peavey 6505 combo. I tried one of these and the rhythm channel cleans up a lot nicer that the 5150.
2. JSX combo. clean channel on these amps is amazing. tons of gain on these but a different voice than a a 5150 or a
XXX.
You need to play one to see if you like it's "sound".
I love these and am going to pick one up down the road.
3. B-52 AT 212 combo. Pretty knew to the market, but when I compared this to the other 2 choices
above I ended up taking this one home with me!
Clean channel is great, not brittle at all, gain 1 has classic VHI, VHII / AC/DC type of crunch, pin the gain on
Gain 1 and you can get Mustaine/Friedman tone out of it.
Gain 2 has gobs of gain. this amp has a "Contour" switch that changes the tone of the gain channel dramatically.
If I run an MXR 10 band EQ into the loop I can get 5150 gain and tone out of it as well.
so far I am really loving mine and the price is right.
the only thing that bothers me about this amp is the relative "newness" of this company into this market.
Only time will tell if these are as good as they seem,
but so far so good, damn so far so Great!
If you take the time to tweak this thing you can get tons of different sounds out of it.
I A-B' ed it over the weekend against my buddys JCM900 2 X12 100 watt combo and it destroyed it in every aspect.
Loud, bedroom levels, and clean, no contest.
I play a variety of stuff and I needed something that
could handle a lot of different types of gain settings and mid settings, and B-52 does , with no problem.
You've got a lot more options thatn these but these are all
in the same price range (except the B-52 which will run yoou $300-$500.00 less) [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] and these are all tube.
good luck [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[horns666]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

John Scaaffer ..just channel switches with his Uber last time I saw him..and spoke to him briefly about it.

I know he was ecstatic over the Uber..that he made clear..it did sound good that night..

Although I don't play "clean" it doesn't take a genius to know that the clean on the 5150 isn't that great..the one on the Uber is pretty decent...apples and oranges really.

[catzodellamarina]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

[ QUOTE ]
Picking up a small combo that has a great clean channel is pretty easy. Running an a/b box to toggle between the 2 is simple too. You just need an extra mic if the amp doesn't have a direct line out.


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Yes. Worth a try if you have a decent combo amp for cleans sitting around.
I recently saw a metal band's guitarist was hiding a Fender Princeton behind his cab. I thought it was leftovers from the previous band (it was a multi-band event). This guy used an A/B and used the Fender for cleans. I think he ran it direct (I saw no mic).

A few years back, I saw Mark Tremonti on TV run that way too. He had his Recto stack w/Fender Twin next to it.

[jgcable]

Re: I love the 5150, but I need a clean channel

I have seen many bands A/B for cleans. You can pick up a little 1 x 12 super clean combo for next to nothing with built in reverb and maybe chorus. Line 6 would be a great idea because they have direct outs too. Pick up a cheap Spyder or a Flextone II. The Roland Cube 30 also has some really nice clean patches.