Laney Amps?

[jazzedout]

I have a Laney LC15R, one of the early ones with the crappy HH Invader speaker, and it still works and sounds great to this day. No repairs what so ever, only a preamp tube change for preference reasons. Will upgrade to a 12'' speaker soon...

[toshiro]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Ju5OX80Fc

Kiko Loureiro. Took bad he left to Brunetti.

In fact, Laney's business model needs a lot of work, no promotion, no holding on to artists, no new high gain amps in years, etc.

[rastachild]

Originally Posted by toshiro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Ju5OX80Fc

Kiko Loureiro. Took bad he left to Brunetti.

In fact, Laney's business model needs a lot of work, no promotion, no holding on to artists, no new high gain amps in years, etc.

kiko is a monster.

agreed with the comment about the business model. i've heard very little about laney's before i started researching them. i just knew paul gilbert used to play them. i'm sure him leaving for marshall was a difficult one to swallow because he was one of the most notable endorsees they had.

[Racerx2k]

I know they had a really ****ty distributor, for years, and they switched about a year or two ago, so hopefully things are looking up for them.

[Jaden]

headstock are distribtors in the UK - same distributor as ibanez, they are still widely regarded as an 'old mans' amp for the most part, they dont really have the 'look' of a hughes and kettner for example and are not really enjoying enough 'old man' status to be used by all the kids in their retro bands who seem to prefer orange or hiwatt.

[toshiro]

Actually, Headstock = Laney. Same people.

The TT line is 7 years old or so, and the VH/GH amps are 14 this year. They need an amp to compete in the current marketplace, which is filled with preamp gain monsters like the 5150/JSX, Engls, and Mesas.

[Sam D.]

Originally Posted by Lefty Robb

If the band Adagio is anything to go by they sound sick.
http://www.myspace.com/adagioofficial

I thought stephan used Huges&Kettner

[toshiro]

Originally Posted by Sam D.

I thought stephan used Huges&Kettner

Used to be a Laney endorser. Dunno what era though.

[Pablo]

Laney also lost Andy Timmons to Mesa as well as Paul Gilbert to Marshall. Although to be honest even though Im a huge Paul gilbert fan I've never really liked his tone, his best tone was (same as Nuno Bettencourt) with ADA Mp-1's
I saw Freak Kitchen play and Mattius's live tone was great though.

As for other endorsers Laney gained Herman Li who is massively popular so hopefully that will give them more visability. And they still have Mattius Ia Eklund and Toni Iommi. Opeth also use Laney I think

Gain isn't an issue with the GH or VH it's low end but that shouldn't really be an issue. I have both the GH100L and VH100R and they're fine amps. But in a band situation having an amp with the scooped tones of an Engl or Mesa you lose the guitar in the mix. You really want more mids to fill out the frequency spectrum. Amps like the Engl Powerball sound great playing alone but I've heard that you need to sort the mids out for playing live. I always use a Microamp in front of an amp as I just like the way it sounds so even a low gain amp like the Legacy can be made heavier.

The VH100R is a great amp very flexible but the footswitch can be a pain, I don't like foot switches where you have 1 switch to change channels then other switches that switch more gain in on 1 channel and another for the other channel.

The TT with it's three independant channel EQ's should have been cool but for some reason the small knobs on the front always made it look too 'cheap' to me, kinda like a big LC15. I know that sounds dumb but there you go.

Laney will always be second to Marshall but here in Britain they are an awful lot cheaper, I picked up my VH100R new for £399 my GH100L was £380 or so yet a Marshall DSL50 is £499 . As for Orange well I've always stayed away from them as I always thought they were a cleaner Marshall

Marshalls have that classic rock sound though. All the bands from the 60's till the 80's used them, all the classic rock tunes have 90% been done with a Marshall. It's only with the Late 80's and 90's metal scene that more gain was wanted and so we seen the rise of the Dual Rectifier and 5150 XXX et.

Mesa are too expensive in Britain that's probably part of the popularity of the Peavey XXX and now JSX as well as sounding great plus the JSX has the Satch factor. But the 5150 has transcended the VH fanboys to be a popular choice for all gain fiends.

Part of eth success of an amp is visibility if it's in the store you can check it out but who's going to buy an amp untried in the hope it's successful ? Even here in Britain your hard pressed to find a place that stocks Laney and if you do it's more often than not the LC15 VC15 and VC30

One thing I don't understand with Laney is why they discontinued the VC50 as that is a monster of an amp.

phew that was quite a rant.

The original question was on the smaller amps though, I'd still say check out a used amp like teh Marshall DSL401 as an alternative to a LC15



P

[Wild_Child]

Originally Posted by Pablo

As for other endorsers Laney gained Herman Li who is massively popular so hopefully that will give them more visability. And they still have Mattius Ia Eklund and Toni Iommi. Opeth also use Laney I think

Herman Li isn't with Laney anymore. Iommi is the only endorsee with a signature model, although its pretty much just a GH100l with a metal grill on the front.

IA's tone is AWESOME and I believe that it's down to his Laney as far as gear is concerned. Same goes for Mikael Akerfeldt - if you've ever heard his lead tone at a concert you'll know what I'm talking about.

Laney will always be second to Marshall, for no reason other than Marshall being a better established brand. There's really no difference in quality otherwise, in fact I trust Laney as a brand much more than I do Marshall.


But I say, long may it stay this way. Because in order for Laney to compete, their prices have to be lower than their Marshall equivalents. I have a very early GH50l, I don't know if they still make 'em like this, but it's the most solid amp I've ever used. Certainly no reliability issues in this case.

[Lefty Robb]

Originally Posted by Sam D.

I thought stephan used Huges&Kettner

it was Laney before Dominate at least...

[rastachild]

well i've had a good chance to play my gh50l in various situations, so i guess i can give a short review and a comparison vs. my other amp, the marshall vintage modern. the cool thing about this comparison is that they are both 'single channel' amps. and i put single channel in quotes because that's how they are marketed, although in reality, there are footswitchable gain stages or, in the case of the marshall, a high and low 'dynamic range'. dynamic range is really just clean and dirty, but i digress.

when i first got the gh50l, i took it home and fired it up at bedroom volumes. it amazingly sounded pretty decent. i only had the volume around 1.5, if even that. the tone is very dry, somewhat compressed and harmonically active. this is definitely a hard rock/metal amp. in comparison, the vintage/modern is more of a classic rock/rock amp. it does not sound nearly as good at low volumes (which is expected of most tube amps), is quite a bit brighter and more open and the bass is not as tight. after running through the laney for an hour or so, i was aching to crank it. band practice was the next day though.

in band practice, i hooked it up to all of my pedals (all 3 of them, lol). first thing i noticed is that this amp is loud for a 50 watter. the vintage modern is 50w as well and i can usually get it up to around 5 for practice. the gh50l was actually louder than the marshall at 3. maybe i'm hearing the natural difference in the eq's of the amps, i dunno. anyway, the laney of course sounded better when it was opened up volume-wise. it's very focused tone, very compressed. in fact, with my compressor on the same settings that i use with the marshall (tightens up the bass considerably), it did not sound significantly different. the gh50l also has high and low inputs, which the vm does not. cleans sound better overall on the vm (although they do sound decent on the gh50l, if you use the low input), but the gh50l's gain is more to my liking, at least for harder rock/metal. it's just less hairy. the compressor tames the hair down on the vm, but it's still a much more mellow sounding amp overall.

a couple of days later i gigged with laney and got it up to 5, lol. it was insane, but i loved the way it sounded. this amp has plenty of gain. if it wasn't for the fact that it wasn't a one channel amp and didn't have independent eq and volume control, i could probably eliminate my distortion pedal entirely. the gh50l is definitely a different beast than the marshall vm. more aggressive sounding, but i wouldn't call it better. just depends on the application and preference. one thing i can say, it's definitely one hell of a great value, especially used. no one knows about these amps. owning one is like being in a secret club, lol.

[dimarzio562]

rastachild, thanks for the review!

[Jaden]

ive turned into a laney nut since I got mine.
I had a problem with it so I mailed laney and get a response a couple of days later that just said "give me a call on this number and we will talk about it"
I called the guy and chatted to him for nearly an hour, he was the laney/headstock marketing manager and owned 2 VC50's, he gave me some great tips on getting the best out of the amp and which tubes work well in it, setting it up for low volume practise etc.
customer service rules.
and yes, its like being in a secret club rasta !

I think the only thing I might consider doing apart from changing tubes is to put a set of celestion vintage 30's in it to see how it sounds, otherwise, I love the VC50 !

EDIT: and hard wiring that darn footswitch - plug at both ends = trouble.