I recently stumbled across the cousin to this amp with the MG100HCFX amp head that I found at a second hand furniture/thrift store. The owners of the store actually had no idea what it even was, and they sold it to me for a whopping $25.00!!! They named the price, so who was I to argue, right? Got it home and checked it out, and it worked PERFECTLY! It even still looked like it was brand new out of the box too. I bought a brand new Marshall MG series foot controller from Guitar Center for $85.00.... $60.00 more than I paid for the head, lol. I run mine with a combo of a Digitech GNX4 through the clean channel, and if so desired, I can put the Digitech in bypass mode and utilize the built-in channels and effects that are equipped in the head as well operated and programmed via the footswitch. This combination offers a dizzying myriad of tonal combinations. Pumping it through a 4X12 Sonic angled cabinet equipped with 4 Celestion Greenbacks, it flat out screams! For a budget/entry level solid state amp it is very impressive. And with only a $110.00 investment I now have budget rig that I use for gigs that sounds pretty damned good and didn't break the bank! Also thanks for actually spinning some decent riffs during your demo/review, it was greatly appreciated to demonstrate the metal tones that this amp can create, not some clunky off kilter blues riffs or clumsy chording. Nice job, nice review!
Sounds great! I really love these amps. I like the reverb, the contour control, the series/parallel effects loop... and actually, the clean channel boosted with an OD pedal sounds even better than the drive channel.
Thanks! It is surprising for sure. I think it's all about intention at the end of the day and listening with your ears not your eyes as many people do. Definitely colour me impressed 🤘
On my Marshall amps I use a guitar EQ pedal, pretty much set flat but with a slight bump in volume output. Its amazing how much this boost effects the sound of the amp. I sat this amp on top of my Marshall DSL40CR combo and plug it into the DSL40CRs speaker and ran it through the DSL cab, I was doing a comparison, I was shocked and surprised just how good the MG HDFX 100 sounded!
I know who they built this amp for!!! They built it for teenagers in the mid 2000s that were lusting over all the JCM 900 and JCM 2000 Marshall stacks all the Mainstream pop punk bands were using back then but couldn’t afford the $2.5k usd it cost for a full stack. I know because I was one of them teenagers and I was happy to just have ANY Marshall halfstack for under $600 USD. I didn’t know or care about tubes or solid state back then. Ahh to be young again. 😊
I feel you brother. I had a Randall green 120 half stack, solid state, but sounded great! No way I could afford “the holy grail” back then. These are great amps, and a noise reduction pedal and EQ pedal work wonders with them.
lol same here but I went with a used vs100 with the angled cab. Gave away the cab and got a jcm900 bottom cab and still have it to this day. I sometimes think I want an 800 but I already have too many amps that have way more gain for the stuff I play. And 1500 is my threshold for used heads.
I’ve had this amp and both cabinets for years and I like it a lot. Never had issues with it. When using delay, chorus and pedals of that nature I always used them thru the fix return and send connections. I may upgrade the speakers but so far I am very happy with the amp and cabs.
@@jrosales2663 Interestingly I've been using it live with my Ampero II sent to the CD Player input on the front, I find that's the best audio quality for the power amp. Good power and sounds great live anyhow 🤘
I bought mine for $150 three years ago at a GC and I still have it and use it often. For some reason this amp get allot of bad things said about it, maybe its from people who have never played one. Do I dare say I get better tones out of this Marshall head then I do with my Katana mk2 head...I do.
I'm right there with you, it's replacing my Valvestate, it's clean, capable, and gives you all the things you want from Marshall without the things you don't. It will definitely appear on recordings going forward. I had the Katana head mk II and absolutely hated the UI. This amp is a killer amp, no joke
That's a good question, I can't say I've used them head to head but I almost want to say they are very similar. The 8100 has the contour knob like this one but my general issue with the Valvestate series is they tend to be quite noisy. The MG100HDFX is actually pretty quiet and allows you to get more gain from it I think. If I can find an 8100 for a decent price I'll definitely get it on the channel. Thanks for checking out the video 🤘
Doesn't sound too shabby at all. Beats the tone my old peavey rage I had for practice haha So stoked to see you still have that Jackson Stealth. Do you still have that turquoise BC Rich?
Haha I wish! The BC Rich was a plywood marvel. Just the Jackson's and a Kramer from the MusicYo era. Sometimes it's surprising what you can make cheap gear sound like. I did rebuy that old H&K ATS Sixty but everything else is since 2007 or so
Let's be real, it doesn't do much either way on the amp but Marshall are generally less bass-y. I tend to crank the bass on the JCM, Plexi, DSL, TSL and Valvestate stuff, I guess pretty much all the Marshall stuff 😛
I agree, these amps are pretty bassy, especially played through a 4x12 cab. Also, I find the tone controls responsive, there's a big difference between off and maximum
Pretty sure Wayne was using the Valvestate 8100 although since this was the successor to it he may have switched later. It does do the percussive guitar tone thing really well. With the right setup, just about anything can sound decent
I plan to buy one and mod the clipping diodes (red and green) with IRF530 transistors and 10mm Blue LED which I had wonderful results on my DS-1 pedal.
Looking at the translation, I'm guessing you're asking what kind of cabinet I was using it with? If I remember I had it running through a cabinet in the Mikko II software and then through my monitor speakers. The cabinet that I have is a custom oversize Veteren Cabinets vertical 212 with an Eminence CV75 on top and an Eminence The Wizard in the bottom. The amp sounds great with both scenarios 👍
Really appreciate the riffs u played every review is some blues guy
@@x_the_red_scare_x I'm a metal guy, gotta play some metal man 🤘
I recently stumbled across the cousin to this amp with the MG100HCFX amp head that I found at a second hand furniture/thrift store. The owners of the store actually had no idea what it even was, and they sold it to me for a whopping $25.00!!! They named the price, so who was I to argue, right?
Got it home and checked it out, and it worked PERFECTLY! It even still looked like it was brand new out of the box too.
I bought a brand new Marshall MG series foot controller from Guitar Center for $85.00.... $60.00 more than I paid for the head, lol. I run mine with a combo of a Digitech GNX4 through the clean channel, and if so desired, I can put the Digitech in bypass mode and utilize the built-in channels and effects that are equipped in the head as well operated and programmed via the footswitch.
This combination offers a dizzying myriad of tonal combinations.
Pumping it through a 4X12 Sonic angled cabinet equipped with 4 Celestion Greenbacks, it flat out screams! For a budget/entry level solid state amp it is very impressive. And with only a $110.00 investment I now have budget rig that I use for gigs that sounds pretty damned good and didn't break the bank!
Also thanks for actually spinning some decent riffs during your demo/review, it was greatly appreciated to demonstrate the metal tones that this amp can create, not some clunky off kilter blues riffs or clumsy chording. Nice job, nice review!
Thanks for checking out the video 🤘
Sounds great! I really love these amps. I like the reverb, the contour control, the series/parallel effects loop... and actually, the clean channel boosted with an OD pedal sounds even better than the drive channel.
Surprised with the usable metal tones you got out of this thing. Awesome vid!
Thanks! It is surprising for sure. I think it's all about intention at the end of the day and listening with your ears not your eyes as many people do. Definitely colour me impressed 🤘
On my Marshall amps I use a guitar EQ pedal, pretty much set flat but with a slight bump in volume output. Its amazing how much this boost effects the sound of the amp. I sat this amp on top of my Marshall DSL40CR combo and plug it into the DSL40CRs speaker and ran it through the DSL cab, I was doing a comparison, I was shocked and surprised just how good the MG HDFX 100 sounded!
Sounds really good the way you have everything dialed in! \m/
Pretty sick tones in there! Great review my man.
It's Mr Marshall himself! Thank you. Probably doesn't keep up with a real JCM800 but pretty good for what it is
You had me at not to shabby!
great vid, great riffs!
@@Luke-Emmanuel Thanks man! Underrated amp for sure
I know who they built this amp for!!! They built it for teenagers in the mid 2000s that were lusting over all the JCM 900 and JCM 2000 Marshall stacks all the Mainstream pop punk bands were using back then but couldn’t afford the $2.5k usd it cost for a full stack. I know because I was one of them teenagers and I was happy to just have ANY Marshall halfstack for under $600 USD. I didn’t know or care about tubes or solid state back then. Ahh to be young again. 😊
I feel you brother. I had a Randall green 120 half stack, solid state, but sounded great! No way I could afford “the holy grail” back then. These are great amps, and a noise reduction pedal and EQ pedal work wonders with them.
lol same here but I went with a used vs100 with the angled cab. Gave away the cab and got a jcm900 bottom cab and still have it to this day. I sometimes think I want an 800 but I already have too many amps that have way more gain for the stuff I play. And 1500 is my threshold for used heads.
I’ve had this amp and both cabinets for years and I like it a lot. Never had issues with it. When using delay, chorus and pedals of that nature I always used them thru the fix return and send connections. I may upgrade the speakers but so far I am very happy with the amp and cabs.
@@jrosales2663 Interestingly I've been using it live with my Ampero II sent to the CD Player input on the front, I find that's the best audio quality for the power amp. Good power and sounds great live anyhow 🤘
I bought mine for $150 three years ago at a GC and I still have it and use it often. For some reason this amp get allot of bad things said about it, maybe its from people who have never played one. Do I dare say I get better tones out of this Marshall head then I do with my Katana mk2 head...I do.
I'm right there with you, it's replacing my Valvestate, it's clean, capable, and gives you all the things you want from Marshall without the things you don't. It will definitely appear on recordings going forward. I had the Katana head mk II and absolutely hated the UI. This amp is a killer amp, no joke
I'm hesitating whether to buy this mobile or the Marshall Valvestate 100V 1800, do you know which head is the best and sounds the best?
That's a good question, I can't say I've used them head to head but I almost want to say they are very similar. The 8100 has the contour knob like this one but my general issue with the Valvestate series is they tend to be quite noisy. The MG100HDFX is actually pretty quiet and allows you to get more gain from it I think. If I can find an 8100 for a decent price I'll definitely get it on the channel. Thanks for checking out the video 🤘
Pretty sure they made it for guitar players.
With a preference for smart ass guitar players 😛
Indeed.
@@heatherwade2373 I couldn't for the life of me remember what I said in the video, I must have said something about not sure who it's for?
Doesn't sound too shabby at all. Beats the tone my old peavey rage I had for practice haha
So stoked to see you still have that Jackson Stealth. Do you still have that turquoise BC Rich?
Haha I wish! The BC Rich was a plywood marvel. Just the Jackson's and a Kramer from the MusicYo era.
Sometimes it's surprising what you can make cheap gear sound like. I did rebuy that old H&K ATS Sixty but everything else is since 2007 or so
Hi there. Does anyone know which pedal works better for this amp? The PEDL 90008 or PEDL 90004?
I'm not sure if the 90008 works, I can tell you mine came with the 90004. That would be a lot safer bet for this generation of amp
Thanks very much. Marshall website didn’t have any info.
I have that amp unfortunately I have to use headphones all the time but I put my load box on it and it sounds bad ass
Interestingly I've used it live recently and my band mate had 2 on stage today, it's cheap but very reliable and sounds good. A quality Amp I must say
Nice to hear some golden age death metal riffs
Gotta love some death metal 🤘
Weird because I always drop the bass to 9 o clock or less.
Let's be real, it doesn't do much either way on the amp but Marshall are generally less bass-y. I tend to crank the bass on the JCM, Plexi, DSL, TSL and Valvestate stuff, I guess pretty much all the Marshall stuff 😛
I agree, these amps are pretty bassy, especially played through a 4x12 cab. Also, I find the tone controls responsive, there's a big difference between off and maximum
These amps got a bad rep because of the speaker cabinet. I believe Wayne from Static X used this amp head with a marshall 1960s cab.
Pretty sure Wayne was using the Valvestate 8100 although since this was the successor to it he may have switched later. It does do the percussive guitar tone thing really well. With the right setup, just about anything can sound decent
These amps sound great if you dial them in right. They take pedals well to.
Just used it for a show today, easily outdid my Peavey Windsor for the same application. It's my new live rig with a modeler at the moment 🤘
I plan to buy one and mod the clipping diodes (red and green) with IRF530 transistors and 10mm Blue LED which I had wonderful results on my DS-1 pedal.
Most vettem egyet , Te milyen ládával használod , üdv
Looking at the translation, I'm guessing you're asking what kind of cabinet I was using it with? If I remember I had it running through a cabinet in the Mikko II software and then through my monitor speakers. The cabinet that I have is a custom oversize Veteren Cabinets vertical 212 with an Eminence CV75 on top and an Eminence The Wizard in the bottom. The amp sounds great with both scenarios 👍
ok köszönöm üdv Budapestről @@KPGuitarStudios
Dude adjust your input levels on your daw... Thing is clipping like crazy
Your contour knob has an intermittence.
I realized later that it was my noise gate for the clean tone. Amateur hour when I made that video
@@KPGuitarStudios Those things have actually done that to me before. Just remembering that now. 👍
your sloppy playing is very unsatisfying....
Thank you, your lack of content on TH-cam is very unsatisfying....
not everyone, is a yougoober ;)
at least you could put alittle effort into the playing to do the amp some justice man. it seemed rather sloppy.