Marshall Amplification
Marshall Amplification is a British company which designs and manufactures electric guitar amplifiers. Marshall amplifiers are well known and highly popular among guitarists. The sight and sound of a Marshall stack amp with a Gibson Les Paul or Fender Stratocaster is an iconic image in pop-culture. To this day, top-line Marshall amplifiers still use valve preamp and poweramp stages instead of solid state devices (transistors), although Marshall also manufactures cheaper solid-state or hybrid devices. Valve amplifiers (known as "tubes" in North America) are generally considered to exhibit a "warmer" tone than that of transistors, particularly when overdriven; instead of abruptly clipping off the signal at cut-off and saturation levels, the signal is smoothly rounded off. Vacuum tubes also exhibit different harmonic effects than transistors (see tube sound for more about the sonic differences between transitors and vacuum tubes). Though technology continues to change, the most sought after, best sounding, and most expensive amps use technology that is considered quite obsolete. The sound of a Marshall Plexi or JCM800 amp is among the most recognized in popular music, and there is a constant demand for both cutting edge and vintage amplifiers.
History
Jim Marshall first went into business in the early 1960s with a small shop in Hanwell, London, at selling drums, cymbals and drum-related accessories. Marshall Ltd later expanded and started selling guitars and amplifiers, the most notable of which at the time were the Fender amplifiers imported from America. These were very popular with guitarists and bass players, but also very expensive, and Jim Marshall thought he could produce an equivalent product for less money. He enlisted the help of Ken Bran, and between them they decided they most liked the sound of the 4x10 Fender Bassman. Not wishing to fix something clearly not broken, they set about making copies of this amplifier. The first few production units were almost exactly the same as the Bassman, with US-origin transformers and military surplus 5881 power valves. The first difference was the cabinet used, as Marshall decided to build separate amplifiers and speaker cabinets, and as they were originally intended as bass amplifiers, Marshall chose to use four 12 inch Celestion speakers in a closed back cabinet, instead of the Bassman's four 10 inch Jensen speakers in an open back cabinet. This new amplifier was named the JTM45 after Jim and his son Terry, and 45 as in theory it produced 45W of power.
In search of lower production costs, Marshall quickly started sourcing parts from the UK. This led to the use of Dagnall and Drake made transformers, and a switch to the Marconi-Osram Valve company's KT66 valve. This gave the Marshall amplifiers a more aggressive voice which quickly found favour with players, most notably a young Eric Clapton who would sit in Jim's shop practicing his playing. When Clapton was invited to join John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, he asked Jim Marshall to produce a combo amp with tremolo which would fit in the boot of his car, and the most famous Marshall amp was born, the so called "Bluesbreaker" amp. This is the amplifier that gave Clapton that infamous tone on the Bluesbreaker's "Beano" album, and is one of the most sought after tones by guitarists world wide.
Other early customers included Pete Townshend and John Entwistle of The Who, whose search for extra volume led Marshall to design the classic 100 watt valve amplifier. After the creation of the full stack, the competition for volume between the two drove Pete to request an amplifier with more power from Jim. Jim Marshall was at this time employing Dudley Moore to build the amplifiers, who doubled the number of output valves used, along with using a larger power transformer and an extra output transformer. Around four of these amplifiers were built and delivered to Pete Townsend, then the design was updated to form the now recognised SLP100 amplifier.
At this time, the KT66 valve was becoming more expensive as the MOV company faced greater competition from Mullard, so another valve change was made with Marshall starting to use European made Mullard EL34 poweramp valves. These have a different overdrive character to the KT66, which gave Marshalls a more aggressive voice still. In 1966, Marshall's most famous customer made his first appearance in England, and quickly found himself in Jim's shop. A young James Marshall Hendricks was sat in Jim's shop with his manager Chas Chandler, trying the amplifiers and guitars. Jim Marshall was suspicious of Hendrix at first, expecting him to be "another American wanting something for nothing" but to his surprise, Hendrix offered to buy the amplifiers outright, if Jim would provide him with support for them around the world. Jim Marshall agreed, and several of Hendrix's road crew were trained in the repair and maintenance of the Marshall amps through the years.
The amplifiers from this era, are easily identifiable by their plexiglas front panel which earned them the nickname as "Plexis", and now have significant collectors value and command very high prices. Amplifiers from the 1970s onwards can be distinguished most easily by their brushed metal front panel, and are known as "ali panel" Marshalls. The circuitry did not change, merely the cosmetics.
In the mid-1970s, Marshall introduced the "master volume" series. This was in response to the demand for yet more distortion from Marshalls, and many techs had been hot rodding the amps for years by connecting the two input stages in series rather than parallel as in the original Marshalls. A master volume was introduced to make the volume levels more manageable. This gave the new breed of Marshalls a different voice, more cutting and edgy, which found favour with players such as Zakk Wylde, Tony Iommi and Slash. As time moved on and amps such as Mesa Boogies and Soldano's came into prelevance, Marshall updated its product line again with the JCM900 series. Reviewed by Guitarist magazine in the UK and given the line "Shredders, here is an amp you won't need to have modded" this move by Marshall was again a following of musician's desires.
In 2004 Marshall started selling hand-wired amplifiers based on models built in the 1960s, including the 1974x 18-watt combo, 20-watt head and cabinet, and 100-watt Super Lead, all of which are faithful recreations of the originals.
Marshalls recent Valvestate amplfiers are seen as revolutionary as they contain a hybrid of valve technology and solid state technology. Currently named the "AVT series" there is a huge range of models, all of which are cheaper than their all valve counterparts. Many guitar magazines gave the technology well received reviews due to its great tonality yet low price. The single valve featured in the valvstate amps can last from 2 years to 3 with standard use.
Marshall Stack
The classic Marshall stack is one of the defining images behind loud rock music. A full stack consists of one head containing the actual amplifier on top of two stacked 4x12s, which are loudspeaker cabinets each containing four 12 inch loudspeakers arranged in a square layout. The top cabinet has the top two loudspeakers angled slightly upwards, giving the Marshall stack a distinctive appearance. When a single cabinet is used, the complete unit is called a half stack.
In the early-mid 1960s, Pete Townshend and especially John Entwistle were directly responsible for the creation and widespread use of stacked Marshall cabinets. Pete later remarked that John started using Marshall Stacks in order to hear himself over Keith Moon's drums, and Townshend himself also had to use them just to be heard over John. In fact, the very first 100 watt Marshall amps were created specifically for Entwistle and Townshend when they were looking to replace some equipment that had been stolen from them. They approached Jim Marshall asking if it would be possible for him to make their new rigs more powerful than those they had lost, to which they were told that the cabinets would have to double in size. They agreed and six rigs of this prototype were manufactured, of which two each were given to Townshend and Entwistle and one each to Ronnie Lane and Steve Marriott of The Small Faces. These new "double" cabinets proved too heavy and awkward to be transported practically, so The Who returned to Marshall asking if they could be cut in half and stacked, which has become the norm for years to follow.
The search for volume was taken on its next logical step with the advent of "daisy chaining" one or more amplifiers together. As each amplifier channel has two inputs, the guitar signal is present on both sockets, so the cunning musician hooked the spare input of one channel to an input on another amp. If you find pictures of the Cream playing, you can see Eric Clapton using a Y-splitter lead to connect to two Marshall stacks. Also, Jimi Hendrix can be seen using four full Marshall stacks at Woodstock and the Isle of Wight festivals, with the channels jumpered and all four amps daisy chained.
Entwistle and Townshend both continued expanding and experimenting with their rigs, until (at a time when most bands still used 50–100w amps with single cabinets) they were both using twin Stacks with new experimental prototype 200w amps. This, in turn, also had a strong influence on the band's contemporaries at the time, with Cream and The Jimi Hendrix Experience both following suit. However, due to the cost of transport, The Who could not afford to take their full rigs with them for their earliest overseas tours, thus Cream and Hendrix were the first to be seen to use this setup on a wide scale, particularly in America.
Ironically, although The Who pioneered and directly contributed to the development of the "classic" Marshall sound and setup with their equipment being built/tweaked to their personal specifications, they would only use Marshalls for a couple of years before moving on to using Sound City equipment. Cream and particularly Hendrix would be widely miscredited with the invention of Marshall Stacks.
This competition for greater volume and greater extremes was taken even further in the early 1970s by the band Blue Öyster Cult, who used an entire wall of full-stack Marshall amplifiers as their backdrop. Slash of Guns N' Roses has used Marshall amplifiers, as well as Iron Maiden. Bands such as Slayer and Yngwie Malmsteen also use walls of Marshalls. Both Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman can be seen playing in front of a total of 24 cabinets, and Yngwie has used as many as 31. In most cases these are "dummy Cabs", which are onstage stage for visual effect and not actually used. For ease of transportation and lifting, most of these actually do not even contain any speakers. It is usually the case that maybe only 2 or 4 cabs are actually powered, as using this many could cause serious problems with the overall mix of a live show. The same goes for most of the amp heads in a scenario like this, as they are just the wooden frame with, in fact, no heavy inner workings.
Such is the ubiquity of the sight of a wall of Marshalls at a rock concert, many artists who do not even use them have the dummy stacks on stage. Rick Parfitt of Status Quo, for example has a wall of Marshalls, but behind them is a mic'd-up Vox AC-30, which is the amp he is actually playing through.
Marshall also produces 'combo' amplifiers which combine speaker and amp in one case and several variations of the classic stack design including a mini stack and a micro stack, which is about 10 inches high and runs on batteries.
Trivia
- Marshall is based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. It is currently the shirt sponsor of Milton Keynes Dons F.C.
- Marshall produced the amplifier with a volume dial that went up to 11, for the spoof 'rockumentary' This is Spinal Tap.
- With the introduction of the JCM900 series, Marshall numbered the Lead Gain Control up to 20. Posters were produced featuring Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel pointing to the control saying "Now it goes up to 20. That's like, 9 louder, innit"
- Some guitarists modify the "Marshall" logo on the front of Marshall amplifiers to read "Moshall"[citation needed]