Are there any currently-being-manufactured amps with similar properties to the old Ampegs? Because those things sound like just my ticket! :cool: Of course, I can always go a'hunting on eBay for the real things.
I consider myself a metalhead... well, it was always my first love, shall we say... but in recent years I've come to share your assessment about the sharp/raspy tone that so many metal bands these days seem to have. The stuff that's popular now sounds so "synthetic" or "digital" to me... whereas I dig up the old Black Sabbath records and it's still a big booted kick to my spine... even if they're not doing hardcore thrash or Xtreme neo-classical hyper-noodling. Or even Iggy Pop and the Stooges... as chaotic/simplistic as they were.
I know what you mean about screwing up on a clean amp. I have this cheesy little practice amp that only really does "clean"... I mean... not a true and good clean... but just plain "clean." It's clean enough to pick up every last little mistake, scrape, scratch, etc. It does have a "drive" knob but if you give it more than a quarter turn it poops out uselessly.
Well, I went into the Guitar Center and plugged in a Schecter C-1 Classic into a Line 6 2x12 and cranked the distortion to the "metal" setting.
Some guy across the room was doing all these speed metal solos mixed in with super-fast thrash chords... the usual late 80s/early 90s shredder type stuff... and I go "awwww man... it's gonna take years for me to get that good."
Well, I noodle on the Schecter a bit and then it very suddenly dawns on me "what the... hey wait a minute!!!" So I start messing around full-speed-ahead and I actually outplayed that other guy! (Of course, I had three fingers and a thumb versus his pick). I was doing all this crazy wildman speed metal stuff that, apparently, is simply impossible (for me, at least) to pull off on my Strat with its big fat 13 gauge joint-killer strings (damn, they've got tone, though) and my "no frills, clean only" practice amp.
It was a real eye-opener. It made me realize that all those metal gods throughout the years who were pulling off all this crazy-sounding stuff (to my 13-year-old ears... over a decade ago now) that I thought would take fifty years to ever match... really weren't all that extraordinary and godlike.
Edited to add: I've always been fascinated by the notion of running it through two amps at once... and keeping one on "clean" the whole time (well... I should say... no pedals or on-board effects or anything... just the guitar cable and the signal) and running all the FX/overdrive/distortion through the other one. If I'm not mistaken, Keith Richards and SRV are/were known for doing so... and there's many notable bassists who do so as well.