TONE TALKS: British Tone vs American Tone In A Nutshell

You might have overheard guitarists talking about British and American in conversations. You might have seen and read about them on forums or Total Guitar magazines. You might even at some point, bought products that claim to give you either British or American tone, or even both tones from the same product. But if you still have no idea what's the deal with the UK vs USA debates, and think that, "Well, cleans are cleans, distortions are distortions, what's the deal with you all tone snobs fighting over which clean is cleaner?", you better clear your ears and listen up! (or read up, since you're here in this blog...)

The never-ending debate starts from 2 amp-making companies, Fender and Marshall. Fender is team USA, Marshall is team UK. The End. EXCEPT, it's not that simple....

Anyway, Fender amps were first made way earlier than Marshalls. The earliest Bassman amps were made in 1952, spawning some of the most revered variations of the Bassman in between 1957 and 1959. Later, Jim Marshall had built a Bassman prototype, using components available from UK at the time. In 1962, the prototype Marshall had built became a production amp called the JTM45. The main differences between the JTM and the Bassman are just the country manufacturing the components. Bassmans used 6L6 tubes while the early JTMs used American 5881 tubes and later on switched to British KT66. However, circuitry differences aside, the supposedly similar circuit gave very different sounds when played. Then after many decades of updates and evolution phases, we are here with distinctly different sounding Fenders and Marshalls.

Fender worked on getting greater, louder clean tones out of their amps, so the amp sounds more focused and responsive to playing dynamics. The crisp, glassy cleans are what makes Fender what they are.

Glassy as in, sounding like crumbling glass. Play a though a Fender amp and you'll get what I mean.

We're talking about the Blackface amps here. The drive sound is very saturated and barks hard, with a   slightly scooped midrange and a very clean cut edge in their response. There's no sweet warm mush in their tone, hence why some people say they sound so sterile and harsh. The Tweed amps though, have a rounder edge and while they still respond fast like the BF amps, they are "warmer" and hairier-sounding like Marshalls.

Marshall on the other hand, worked on pumping out huge volume and bass thump. Literally bass thump. It wasn't actually the difference in the circuit that causes the bass to thump on Marshalls. It was rather the amp cabinet design. The closed-back design used to be unique to Marshalls only, until the recent years with the rise of rock/metal-oriented amp makers like Mesa Boogie, Peavey etc, which employed the closed-back design as well. Closed-back cabs has a wall behind the speaker cone unit, that reflects the sound directed to the back, so it gives a somewhat more aggressive air-moving thump. The real unique thing about Marshall is the crunch sound. Every other amps out there can drive hard, but most will not crunch like Marshalls do. The sweetened highs, thick juicy mids and the somewhat "fatty" and loose bass sound is textbook Marshall. Later Marshalls like the JCM models defined 80's rock with their fat, loose-sounding chug, with a lot of harmonic bite.

Bite as in, a slightly nasal-sounding high-mid frequency sound. Hit an open chord on a Marshall and do that on a Tweed Fender, and you'll know the difference between bite/bark and crunch/drive.

Marshall amps respond at the same speed as any other amps out there, but the loose low-end makes them sound as if they're slightly slower. They can chug under high gain, but it's a very different chug compared to Fenders/Mesa Boogies. When you crank them to saturation, they're really juicy, while Fenders and Mesas can be a bit "dry" and abrasive without some reverb. It also feels like, Marshalls do not have the same amount of gain as Mesas due to the smooth crunch. There is also not a lot of fizz in their distortion sound, unlike Fender BFs and Mesas.

In recent years though, efforts have been carried out by several amp makers like Mesa Boogie to bridge the gap between Fender and Marshall. Of course, the earlier Tweeds are unintentional alternatives (because they're made earlier than Marshalls) that can possibly replace Marshalls in your rig if you prefer to tread the line between the big F and M. Mesa Boogie basically started out modifying Fender amps with added gain stages. The Mark series is possibly one of the best studio amps out there due to their reliability and also the vast amount of tones possible from this amp alone. You can get American saturated drive tones, sublime cleans and the newer models like the Mark V gets a Crunch mode. And with the onboard graphic EQ, it's the swiss army knife of amps, nailing both Fender and Marshall tones and still potentially able to do more.

The Rectifier series, successfully nails that crunch sound, in an American way. Big, loose bass end, fat mids favouring the lower end, those are the British-sounding character in them and it stops right there. The high-end is sharp and hard-edged, especially with the amount of gain on tap, it gets really fizzy and raspy if dialled in wrong.

In about the same era, Peavey had debuted the 5150 (now called the 6505, 5150 has become another amp made under the EVH company, which is still essentially the same amp...), which was designed in collaboration with Eddie Van Halen. It was based on his "brown" sound essential amp, the Marshall SLP/JCM bloodline, except the tubes are 6L6 instead of EL34. It retains all the British juicy goodness, but adds a touch of saturation and faster response, making it one of the most popular Metal amps ever. With the Rectifier, a Tube Screamer overdrive was needed to tighten up the overall sound, but with the 6505, it's a matter of firing it up and turning it up to taste. The magic of a Marshall-type, everything works!

So in a nutshell, if you prefer a squeeky-clean clean tone paired with harder-edged, saturated and focused drive tone, you're an American amp guy. If you like warm, shimmery cleans with a juicy, fat crunch sound with lots of harmonic bite, you're on Team British. Now go ahead and pick your poison, ladies and gentleman...



Thanks for reading yet another entry of my blog. I'll be doing more of these Tone Talk posts in the future to discuss, opine and share about musical gear, tone in general and possibly capturing various artists' tones too. Also, there will be added features like reviews, shootouts, DIY projects and many more, so please stay tuned! Thank you for reading and supporting my blog, people. You have no idea how much your presence (no amp pun intended) means to me. This is Bernard, signing out for the night.