AcornHouse
Venerated Member
I’d written this in a PM, but I thought I’d share with everyone.
As I’m going through the collection to see what can go, I was considering the ‘81 M-80. I‘ve never really used it for a performance because I couldn’t get much from it other than these dark thick tones, only getting somewhat trebly in the bridge pup alone. I was usually playing it through a Vox AC30. And yet in the sound bites on GAD’s review page for it, it wasn’t half bad.
Trying it again through my tweed Deluxe build, it was the same thing: these massive, dark, thick chords, suitable for death metal (or whatever style it is where the kids are tuning down to C.) But, I was having trouble with the jack getting intermittent shorts, and a loose cord. After noticing the same thing with the Detonator (they both use those sealed jacks) I tried the Detonator with another cord plugged into my Ampeg Reverberocket. No shorts on this one. (Those jacks seem to be very cord picky!) I thought to try the M-80 with that cord and the Ampeg. (I’d already ordered a replacement jack from StewMac along with some smaller caps to try to tame the thick.)
What a difference! Aside from getting a solid jack connection, there was none of the thick and dark throughout, everything was sounding like a regular guitar. You could play the blues now that I no longer had the blues!
I’m going to reevaluate it with some other amps to see whether I’ll keep it or not. (It’s still a heavy beast!) But it certainly seems to need the right amp (unless I want to get into thrash metal, in which case the tweed Deluxe is perfect!) Joe Walsh had said the same thing about getting the right guitar together with the right amp (that’s why he gave Townshend a Gretsch with a tweed Bandmaster, because he knew that was the key.)
So, if you don’t like a guitar’s sound, try a different type of amp before blaming the guitar. The M-80 just needed a clean headroom type of amp.
As I’m going through the collection to see what can go, I was considering the ‘81 M-80. I‘ve never really used it for a performance because I couldn’t get much from it other than these dark thick tones, only getting somewhat trebly in the bridge pup alone. I was usually playing it through a Vox AC30. And yet in the sound bites on GAD’s review page for it, it wasn’t half bad.
Trying it again through my tweed Deluxe build, it was the same thing: these massive, dark, thick chords, suitable for death metal (or whatever style it is where the kids are tuning down to C.) But, I was having trouble with the jack getting intermittent shorts, and a loose cord. After noticing the same thing with the Detonator (they both use those sealed jacks) I tried the Detonator with another cord plugged into my Ampeg Reverberocket. No shorts on this one. (Those jacks seem to be very cord picky!) I thought to try the M-80 with that cord and the Ampeg. (I’d already ordered a replacement jack from StewMac along with some smaller caps to try to tame the thick.)
What a difference! Aside from getting a solid jack connection, there was none of the thick and dark throughout, everything was sounding like a regular guitar. You could play the blues now that I no longer had the blues!
I’m going to reevaluate it with some other amps to see whether I’ll keep it or not. (It’s still a heavy beast!) But it certainly seems to need the right amp (unless I want to get into thrash metal, in which case the tweed Deluxe is perfect!) Joe Walsh had said the same thing about getting the right guitar together with the right amp (that’s why he gave Townshend a Gretsch with a tweed Bandmaster, because he knew that was the key.)
So, if you don’t like a guitar’s sound, try a different type of amp before blaming the guitar. The M-80 just needed a clean headroom type of amp.
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