Cool Gear They Don’t Make Any More: The Marshall Valvestate

The Marshall Valvestate is enjoying a bit of a renaissance lately. Everywhere I look lately, in Facebook groups, YouTube chatter, Instagram posts etc, I see a new generation of metal guitarists getting their hands on these early 90s amps and really loving the tones they’re finding inside.

Debuting in 1991, the Valvestate series was an attempt by Marshall to integrate a tube driven preamp with a solid state power amp for a lighter, more stable package. The circuit uses a single 12AX7 tube in the preamp, and it seems that there was no particular concern to replicate the Marshall power-amp grind. This was an amp for the players of the day, not those looking to recreate 1975, so the Valvestate quickly found its way into the rigs of bands like Sepultura, Prong, Static-X, Meshuggah, In Flames and Death (Billy Gibbons was also a fan, although he wasn’t using it to play death or thrash metal. As far as we know.

The initial models included heads, cabs, combos and practice amps, plus single-rackspace power amps. The Valvestate II range in 1996 added reverb to most of the smaller combos, and increased the channel count of some offerings. The AVT (Advanced Valvestate Technology) series followed in 2001.

I think the reason Valvestate was so successful with 90s metal players was because the power amp was able to keep up with the lower tunings and deeper frequencies that those players required, while the warmth of the preamp provided nice even harmonic overtones. Credit must be given to the Contour knob, which shaped the voicing of the midrange, allowing players to strike the perfect balance between scooped-mid death-tone and still actually being heard in a mix. The combination of Contour knob and tube-driven preamp along with a tighter-sounding power amp made those chuggin’ riffs sound thick and rich with plenty of definition when other solid-state amps sounded harsh and brittle and just plain weird. The front panel mounted effects loop on most models also made it really hassle-free for players to integrate external effects, instead of futzing around in the back of the amp. That little stuff makes a difference, y’know.

If you want to get your hands on some Valvestate tone now, you’ll have to scour the used market, or you could check out the Martyr pedal by Master Effects, which aims to replicate the tone of the Valvestate preamp in a pedal form. It even replicates the Contour knob – and while an earlier design featured an OD1/OD2 toggle switch to replicate both of the Valvestate’s distortion modes, the current version of the pedal omits the option, locking the circuit to OD2 specs because, as Master Effects says, “let’s face it: nobody was using OD1. The new Martyr is all high gain OD2 all the time!”

Have you ever played a Valvestate? They were pretty ubiquitous back in the day and they seemed to land at exactly the right time for the 90s death metal boom. Maybe it’s time to bring it back, eh Marshall?
The post Cool Gear They Don’t Make Any More: The Marshall Valvestate appeared first on I Heart Guitar.