Three Legendary Marshalls Just Dropped in Tonex - Here's Everything You Need to Know

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:01]The nice people at IK Multimedia have sent me a copy of their new Tonex signature collection called the Royal 45 Legends and it's out today, hence my video being released a day earlier than usual. Now, this is a collection that runs on the Tonex platform. It's a collection of three Marshall JTM45.

[00:00:20]These are museum grade versions of these amps. three slightly different versions of the amp that all sound a little bit different that all been meticulously captured using this special software. And to coincide with this release, if you've got one of the Tonx OnePlus pedals or even if you're going to buy one in the future, as soon as you register that device, you're going to get a free copy of this collection. So, I think a good way to start this video, I'm going to show you a track that I've put together using this collection. I'm using three of the presets and I'm going to put the name of the preset with a picture of it that's running on my plugin on my computer next to me while I'm playing it. And I do um some bits on the Lespool and on the Strat so you can hear the difference between the humucker and the single coil. Now I'm going to put the beginning of this track here so you can have a listen, a little taste. Then I'm going to put the rest of it in its entirety at the end of the video and see if you can spot the end of the video when I break a fingernail and kind of fluff my playing.

[00:01:17]And then at the end, Heat. Heat.

[00:01:40]Heat.

[00:01:48]Heat.

[00:01:58]Heat.

[00:02:10]Heat.

[00:02:47]So there you are. and the rest of the track is going to be at the end of the video along with the uh slight break of fingernail. Now, I'm going to go into more detail about these three amazing Marshalls that they've captured. But first of all, I want to talk about the Tonex platform. Now, it's a whole ecosystem of hardware and software, and it's based on this AI amp modeling technology. And what it does, as far as I understand it, cuz this is far too clever for me, and you can do this yourself, it captures an individual amp.

[00:03:15]So, this is aside from it's a different way of doing it from a lot of these kind of amp sims. They model each individual component electronically and then put them all together and that gives you the sound of an amp. But what this does, it takes an actual amp and what they do is you send a sound from the software. You can do this yourself, but this collection it's been done by professionals with amazing gear using an amazing amp. So, you can do it with your own amp. And what it does, it sends sounds from the software into the amp.

[00:03:48]And you play these sounds through the amp. And these sounds, they kind of they push the amp in certain ways and get it to react in certain ways. And then what you do, you put a mic in front of the amp, which records the way that these sounds come out the amp, sends it back into the computer, and this neural network then does this clever stuff and creates an exact model of the amp.

[00:04:09]Go online and watch the videos of people doing this. I'm not going to cover that this in this video, but what comes out of this neural network afterwards is indistinguishable from the amp. The way that you're hearing it through the mic, it's unbelievable. It's indistinguishable. Go and check it out.

[00:04:25]And what it means as well is you can get a digital version of these incredibly rare amazing amps or even unique amps that there's only one of them in the world that only one person can have, but you can get digital copies of these and they they react just like the original amp. It's amazing. Go and check it out.

[00:04:43]So these models like in this collection, this new collection, they run on the Tonex platform and that runs on you can run it on your Mac like I do. You can run it on a PC, you can run it on iOS, you can run it on Android. Plus, they have a selection of different pedals that you can run these on. Not to mention like a little practice headphone thing that they run on. There's also a box that you can get so you can do your own captures. And there's also, and I like the look of this, which this has never appealed to me before, but having tried these is so good these sounds. I'm looking at these if I don't think I've got room for one, but they they do a full range guitar cab which has got all kinds of special things on that you can run the hardware through. So, you can essentially go and do gigs as if you're using a normal guitar amp with all these amazing amps at your fingertips. Also, as part of this ecosystem, you've got signature collections. Joe Satriani, for example, has done one where he's handpicked a load of his amps and he's captured them. He's dialed in the sounds that he's he likes. And on top of that, there's another part of it called toneet. And what that is, it's like this big sort of sharing platform. So, anyone who's got one of these devices, they can do the capture of their own amp or even use some of the collections they bought and create all these presets and upload them to share for people. And once you join yourself, you can upload your own amps and your own collections yourself to share with people. So, as I say, I wasn't previously familiar with this Tonex platform. I did I did know about it, but I hadn't used it. So, I'm I'm so pleased I've now used it. It's it it's amazing technology. It's I'm I'm very much used to hearing my amp now through well my in-ear monitors, but I've been sitting here using it with headphones and it is like playing through an amp.

[00:06:17]It's not just the sound of it. It's the feel of it, the way it reacts. So, I think without further ado, I'm going to go over to the computer. I'm going to show you the interface that I'm running on my Mac and I'm going to play a bit of guitar through it so you can see how it all works.

[00:06:30]This is the desktop version uh running on my Mac of the Tonex app. Um, and this is I'm running it in standalone mode at the moment, but I can open this up as a plugin in my door as well. So, it looks exactly the same in the door, but I'm running it standalone. And that I actually like this, the fact that there is a standalone app um because I've got other guitar amp sim things like this that don't have a standalone app. And I actually find when I'm tracking guitar, no matter how small you set the buffer, you will always get a bit of latency if it's running as a plug-in in the door and you're monitoring through it. I can notice a difference. If there's a standalone app, the way I do it is I track through the standalone app, which then puts a clean sound into the door and then you apply the plugin afterwards. And I find that's a much more satisfactory way of doing things.

[00:07:27]So, actually, even when I'm using that well-known uh Paradise Guitar Studio thing, I don't track with it because there's too much latency. So, I will well, if I even bother using the Paradise thing because I like this so much. So, anyway, this is the uh this is the interface. So if we go through these different filters, the first one, this is for when they've captured the amp head on their own. So you can use your own cabinet IRS. So we can just filter here. And as you see on the cab based on column is empty. And these are um just the can I expand them out? Yeah, there we go. Expanded it out.

[00:08:10]These these are just the different um and it's got bracket amps. So these are just the there's uh what's that? six different captures there that have haven't got a cab in them. And then you've got the ones that have got a pedal on as well and just the amp. And these are the captures where they captured it with a classic stomp box going into it. So you've got the clone um and a tube screamer on these particular ones. And these are good. I use some some of these. It's quite nice having those just pushing the front end of the amp a little bit more.

[00:08:41]And then the ones that I've used in this uh in that demo track that I played earlier because I haven't got my own IR that I prefer. And actually I'm often with these things. They captured these fantastic cabinets. What's the point in trying to put my own cabinet on cuz it's not going to sound as good, is it? So uh these are the amp without the pedal captures and then amp with the pedal captures. So, as you can see, they've got a JHS Morning Glory, Tube Screamer, the Vemer, how do you say that? Veramm, Jan Ray, Boss SD1, EHX, Big Muff.

[00:09:19]So, let's go back to the Let's turn all the filters off actually. And and you can you've got the different characters and stuff that you can uh all these different filters which you can apply, which in this case, these are less useful because these are this is quite a specific collection. Um, which is great.

[00:09:36]So, this first amp, let me talk about these amps. I'm going to play through these in a minute, but let's go through the amps because I think we got to be nerdy with this, haven't we? Because this is, you know, these are proper nerdy nice amp captures. So, we need to look into the details cuz this is important stuff. So, these three amps, they're three specific amps. So, you're getting these three the sound of these three specific amps, which you'd never be able to do otherwise because these are very rare, well looked after examples of these amps. and the JTM45.

[00:10:05]This was kind of the first amp that Marshall created. He kind of based the circuit on the Fender Baseman. Um, so it's British made so people could get that sound in this country. Um, and he kind of pretty much copied the Bassman, which I think actually Leo Fender, a lot of his early circuits he copied out of valve um, or tube as they call them, circuit diagrams. He just sort of copied them and then manufactured them. And then Jim Marshall copied the or one of his tech guys copied the circuit largely. They were there were small changes like the preamp valve and things like that. And these are three examples of those early amps. And these are kind of prior to what became known as the plexis. The plexis were a little bit later and they were the 1500 watt ones.

[00:10:47]But these are the 45 watt ones which I believe was like in the Clapton combo as well. But these are the heads. And this first one, this is a white tolex one.

[00:10:55]And let me read this because I haven't memorized everything. This is um one of fewer than eight that were produced and they were produced for Brian Paul of Brian Paul and the tremolo and they offer open dynamic response with rich harmonics exceptionally touch sensitive.

[00:11:11]And if we look on here, if I click over to the left, we've got this info tab. So it tells you in great detail about how this capture was done. So it starts off, it tells you the amp that's used. And in this case, it's the black logo. I was just looking thinking black because this but what it means is it it was where it says tonex there. It was uh the Marshall was written in black. Um character drive. So it's mainly you've got drive, high gain, and there's a couple of clean ones which I used on the Strat on that track. Um and then the channel, it's got the different inputs. So it's the high gain, and I believe there's a jumpered one as well. And then it tells you further down. Actually, that first one I was just looking at, that was one of the amp only things. So that's why it didn't give us all the other details. So then it tells you what the type of cab it was used that it's a 4x12 and then it shows you the microphones that were used. So SM57 R121 and it tells you the outboard gear that it was recorded through. So this was recorded through Neve preamps and how do you say that? Uri whatever that is. So there we are. And then a little comment loaded with 60 Celestian G12. So you can they've all been captured with in various with various different cabs with various different microphones to get those different options which you know when you're playing live or recording. Sometimes there's characters in those things that those microphones or those particular cabs capture that sonically fit with the track. So it's great to have all these different options and there's 50 options um all these permutations of different amps and cabs and microphones. So, the second amp, this is I'm going to have to read this.

[00:12:52]This is an early 64 black panel. And this, I think, if we look here, will be known as the red logo. 1964 red logo.

[00:13:01]This particular example had rare components, extraordinary dynamic sensitivity, articulate response, and harmonic complexity with a lively feel that reacts instantly to picking dynamics and volume changes.

[00:13:11]So this is a slightly later than the other one and it's got slightly different character to that previous one. And as you can see here, this particular capture, it's got a stomp box in front of it. It's got the tube screamer. High gain. The high gain ones are the ones that have got the pedals in front of them, I believe. Otherwise, they're classed as drive. So that's a good way of uh selecting which ones you want to use. And this particular one, this is loaded with the same uh they've used the same mics and same preamps.

[00:13:39]Let's go to a different one and just see if we can look. So this one, this is used with a MD421 and a U87 mic through a focus right preamp. So there's various different permutations. And then the third amp, which actually the third one was my kind of my favorite. I don't know why. Just something about this one that I particularly liked. And this is the transition era 1965.

[00:14:04]I believe the previous two amps, the white one and the red logo one, they used 6L6s as the power amp valve, but this one used KT66s, which is what the later Plexi used. So, it went from using the same as the Fenders to using what we classically know as the Marshall power amp valve of choice. So, this has got KT66 tubes and RS transformers. It's warmer, smoother voice with a more rounded overdrive character. thick harmonically rich tones with a slightly more controlled response as gain increases. So there we are. There's the three amps. I'm going to get some guitars now and uh play through them so you can hear them. Okay, let's start off with the Les Paul. Going to start off on the white tolex amp.

[00:14:44]And these captures, there's no reverb or anything. These are the raw captures.

[00:14:51]There are presets which I shall come to later. Um, but these are just the raw captures and I'll leave the details info rather info pane open on the left so you can see the mic and the cabinets and stuff that are being used and I'll just go through them. And what I'm suspecting is as well as the different mics and the preamps and stuff which alter the tonal character. They've been captured with the sort of gain set at different levels and the EQs set differently. But you can alter the EQs. I'll show you that in a minute. Um, and some of these are captured with pedals in front of them.

[00:15:22]So I just start off.

[00:15:24]So that's with that's on the neck pickup. Sorry, the bridge pickup with the volume on full. You can hear how it cleans up.

[00:15:46]Angry warden. You can hear that one's got more gain on it. It's got less of a mid bump, probably a bit more top on it, maybe the middle rolled off, but you can compensate for that. So, you like the sound of that and you go, "Actually, I could do with it being a bit more middly." You can go I'm not totally sure how these work. I I don't know whether these um EQs and gain and volume settings, they're kind of applied in software to the snapshot of that amp being captured. Um, but they work very naturally much like an you can even hear like with the gain. I can roll the gain back. Turned it off. But they're all kind of set on this flat which I assume is, you know, giving you the most uh sort of transparent way that that it was captured. and then you can tweak them to make them fit for what you want.

[00:16:50]So, I don't know. But maybe that's a bit like when they model amps, you know, component by component. Maybe they're using that element superimposed on the capture to give you that kind of flexibility. But it's a very neat flexible type of adjustment you can make. It's not like, oh, it's just filtering off the treble. It sounds like the amp having the treble turned up and down the way it works.

[00:17:14]Just back that off.

[00:17:19]It's It's really realistic the way it does it. Let's try it on the neck pickup.

[00:17:28]That's on full. Let's back it off a bit.

[00:17:34]On full. And then sort of an example of the touch sensitivity.

[00:17:50]It does sound like playing through an amp. And I'm used to hearing my amp these days cuz I use in monitors a lot.

[00:17:55]So I'm used to hearing what my amp sounds like through headphones with a mic in front of it rather than hearing what it sounds like down by my ankles.

[00:18:03]I've just got used to it. So this is a very familiar sound and it it feels very realistic. not only sounds realistic because I I find, you know, a lot of these um amp sims, they do sound realistic, but it's more to do with the feel. And this really feels like an amp.

[00:18:18]So, let's have a listen to a couple.

[00:18:20]This is one with a clone in front of it.

[00:18:27]So, you can hear that kind of mid bump.

[00:18:29]And all the ones with stomp boxes put in front of them, they're marked as high gain character. The ones without are marked as drive. And there's a couple of clean ones as well, but cuz obviously you're getting more gain when the pedal stage is added in front of the amp.

[00:18:43]But but they still clean up. So bridge pickup that's on 10. Let's back off a bit.

[00:18:55]Let's have a listen to the JHS Morning Glory.

[00:19:01]It's a kind of flatter response. Always thinking maybe it's more bottom end, but maybe it's just cuz the mid isn't bumped.

[00:19:18]So many options. You can just back the guitar off and get those different sounds. So, green pedal help. I think I use this one on the track.

[00:19:27]That's just a classic sounding. I like that.

[00:19:46]So, there we are. That's the uh I won't go through all of them. Oh, let's maybe have a look at uh the Jan Ray here.

[00:19:57]But you still get the characters of the guitar. Um you can do all the things.

[00:20:00]You can change the pickups. There's not so much gain there. It doesn't make any difference what you do. Some things when you've got the particularly got more gain. It doesn't matter what you do on the guitar. It basically sounds the same. But you can hear every intricacy, the touch dynamics, how much you're adjusting the volume. It's all coming out in this cuz it's just reacting the way an amp does. So, let's go on to the second um the second amp. This is the red logo one. And let me just show you on the filters here. I've just filtered out the um uh the ones that haven't got the cabs because I'm I haven't got my own IR that I want to use and I think these guys know what they're doing with their cab uh emulations and stuff going to get a better sound than I am. So, let's have a look at these. This is Kiss of Power this one's called. And you can see on the left I've left the uh info pane open.

[00:20:52]Sounds different to the other amp.

[00:20:57]to clean it up.

[00:21:06]And you can hear even the way it cleans up, it reacts differently to the other.

[00:21:12]Um, this seems to be more retain a more even sound as it's backed off than the other one.

[00:21:31]Let's have a listen to it with a clone in front of it.

[00:21:38]Tube screamer.

[00:21:41]I know I keep playing the same thing over and over, but it gives you a better idea of comparing things, doesn't it?

[00:21:47]I do like these ones with the tube screamer and there's a reason why that's a classic sound.

[00:21:53]Tube scream just seems to match that Marshall sound.

[00:21:58]Uh what else have we got here? The Boss SD1.

[00:22:10]Right, let's move on to the third amp.

[00:22:11]And this is a clean capture. So, I'm assuming this is the only one of the three that has clean capture. So, I'm guessing it add a bit more headroom than the the other ones. Um, or more attractive, clean sound. So, it it does break up a little bit with the humuckers unless you back it off.

[00:22:29]Let's put on both pickups together.

[00:22:36]When you wind up, you get a nice sort of edge of break up as you hit it gently.

[00:22:55]And I use this one on the strap on the track. So, let's go to I won't go straight to a high gain one. Let's try a standard drive one.

[00:23:07]does have a nice warm sound this one.

[00:23:14]It's quite a lot of gain there. That must be quite wound up if you back it off.

[00:23:26]Bright grits. What's that one?

[00:23:44]So, let's have a listen to one with a tube screaming in front of it.

[00:24:00]And then a big muff that kind of fuzzy bottom end.

[00:24:10]And you know with these, as I said, the EQ is really versatile. So if you like the sound of that, it's got a bit too much bottom end in it. You can dial it out.

[00:24:33]So, there we are. I'm now going to move on to the Strats. You can hear what it sounds like with some single cord pickups. Right, I've got the Strat. This is a 50s Strat or copy of a 50s Strat. I did have a real 50s Strat. That' be nice.

[00:24:48]So, it's got that 50s characteristic, which do sound different to the 60s ones. Just thought I'd mention it. Um, and also another thing to point out here, very useful cuz it's got it off the wall and it was slightly out of tune. You got the little tuner icon down the bottom there.

[00:25:03]So, we didn't have to dig a tuner out to start. So, that was handy. So, let's start again at the top of the list with the white one.

[00:25:11]And obviously got less gain. I have adjusted my input gain just to balance it for level more than anything. Um, but obviously the single core has less output than the humbucker. So you're going to get less drive into the front of the amp.

[00:25:25]So that's with the volume on full on the guitar.

[00:25:30]Neck pickup, middle pickup, bridge pickup still sounds fat even with that bridge pickup even on this guitar. And then the inbetweeny sound just back it off so you get quite a clean sound.

[00:25:58]Just go on to one of these others.

[00:26:07]This sounds great. I'm you can hear this this guitar because it's not shielded. It you can hear I don't know if you can hear it on the recording but you get a slight sound off the computer. Um but I've got a Marshall over there and I I don't mind the sound of this guitar through it but it doesn't it's a JCM800 combo but this just sounds great. If I had an amp that sounded like this to use live really like the sound of it. So, let's have a listen one of the higher gain sounds with the clone.

[00:26:48]You can really hear the difference between the single coils. There's it's uh I always think that there's sort of more definition because it's not such a fat sound. You not it's not it's not so squashed and compressed sounding.

[00:27:05]I was always a strap band really. I mean they I've only had the Gibsons a relatively short amount of time. I've always played Fenders.

[00:27:15]I go through phases. I think I like the Gibson. Then I go back to my Fender and I think, "Oh, I like that." Let's have a listen to the Morning Glory sound.

[00:27:32]Now look, touch sensitivity.

[00:27:40]Backing it off with the volume.

[00:28:03]Sort of sounds like that, doesn't it?

[00:28:04]Right now with the tube screamer.

[00:28:17]I like that. And then the Van Ray. Oh yeah, we done in the morning glory. This is one with the van, right?

[00:28:33]Right. Let's move on to the second amp.

[00:28:36]Basic but cool. What's that one sound like?

[00:28:39]Oh, yeah.

[00:28:52]warm it up. And you can still see, keep an eye on the um info pane there rather than me reading them out.

[00:29:03]Right. One with a clone.

[00:29:07]A lot going there.

[00:29:10]It still sounds like a Strat. It's not like it's so much that you can't tell the difference. Tube screamer.

[00:29:34]Boss SD1.

[00:29:47]I kind of default to playing an E on the Strat, but A on the LE pull. I wonder why that is. Anyway, let's go to the third amp. Now, this is the clean one that I used on the track with the Strat.

[00:30:00]So, that's with the volume on full on the guitar.

[00:30:03]Get that little bit of break up. I back it off. Clean as a whistle. Heat. Heat.

[00:30:38]It's worth mentioning that I've got this plugged into my UAD Apollo which into the front which has got the high impedance inputs. And I did um have it I tried it. I was having technical issues with making being able to hear the standalone app in this bit of screen capture software which I've now sorted.

[00:30:56]But one of the in the process of doing that I plugged into the back of it which doesn't have the high impedanc you know if you back the volume off it doesn't react like it does on a guitar amp. So if you do have a um an interface whatever interface you're using it does need to have that kind of high impedance guitar friendly input for this to work and react properly like a cab. But that's the same for any guitar amp sim.

[00:31:22]Just thought I'd mention that because I didn't I have to say I didn't really realize it that was quite so much of an issue. Um it works fine if you got the volume on full but as soon as you start backing it off it doesn't it's like everything disappears as soon as you take it off full um which presumably is to do with the impedance. I don't know any of that technical stuff in that at that level but basically if you're going to plug into any of these kind of things then you need to be plugging into a high zed input. So let's have a listen to a uh king of dynamics. Let's have a listen to that one.

[00:31:56]Well, that's a nasely one, isn't it?

[00:31:59]So, listen to old school general.

[00:32:03]That's a flatter sounding one.

[00:32:20]Let's have a listen to one with a tube screamer.

[00:32:29]What's the big muff? What's the big muff sound like with the strap?

[00:32:49]like it. Sounds like you rolled the tone off, but you haven't. So, there we are.

[00:32:54]That's the Oh, there's one more clean.

[00:32:56]How's this? What's it going to sound like?

[00:33:03]So, there we are. As I say, these are the raw captures, but you've also got the presets. And over here, you click this button that says related presets just to get your presets. It's showing them everything in that collection I've got, but then it selects them for the uh this particular collection. And these are these have got the different effects. As you look across the top of the screen here, you've got this effects chain. Um, and you can add various pedals and effects into it. And these are ones that are these are the 10 that have been shipped with the collection.

[00:33:37]And as I mentioned before, the toneet thing up here, you click on that. And this won't have any for this collection yet cuz it hasn't come out while I'm filming this. It will have come out now.

[00:33:48]So, you'll probably start to get some for this collection. Um, but these uh these have all been shipped and they've got the different effects on. So, let me just play you a couple of these. So from left to right, this is a hopefully you can hear this in stereo on my capture, but this is a kind of panning thing from left to right.

[00:34:11]And if we look up here, I can select on the different um different things. So it's telling you what Oh, that's interesting. That's their tox cab. That's the physical bit of hardware you can actually buy. And that that kind of models different cabs. So that's what they're using for this capture. So it sounds great.

[00:34:30]And then you've got your modulation slot, um, which in this case is set to tremolo.

[00:34:39]Um, which is going from left to right. Then we got the next one, the delay.

[00:34:46]That's not on. So let's hear what it sounds like.

[00:34:50]So there we go. That's nice.

[00:34:56]Just turn that back off to as it was.

[00:34:57]And then you've got a reverb. And you got the different spring reverbs, which, you know, I like to have reverb spring reverb my amp. So, probably if I was going to start using this um to record, I'd probably, you know, I'd add the reverb here cuz that's a good sounding reverb.

[00:35:18]I like to have it all on the amp so it's it goes down as the sound of a guitar as you would if you were ming it up a real amp and effects chain.

[00:35:27]So, let's just go through a couple of these. Just have a little listen. Long tail.

[00:35:42]And it tells you on the left on this info pane which particular um tow model it's using. Old school general. What else have we got here? Let's have a look. Tube sweep. What's that do?

[00:36:05]Got a flangery sound on it.

[00:36:11]unusual vibes. Let's try this one.

[00:36:22]It's got a phase and it's also got a compressor on this one as well.

[00:36:31]So, these all sound good. These um these built-in effects and these effects change you can create. So, and I'm assuming, as I say, I'm not that familiar with the Tonx and Toneet platform, but people will start creating presets with this these different um tone models from this new collection and start adding them to the Tone Net Connection. You can go in there and check them out and also add your own ones to it. So, there we are. I'm really impressed with this and I think this might be my new go-to plugin for recording guitar. I'm certainly going to use it for tracking. Spect is going to be my go-to for actually sticking on the track later. Anyway, back to the other camera. Well, I hope you enjoyed the video. I'm going to put a link to this collection in the description. And as promised, I'm going to leave you with the rest of that track that I played earlier. See if you can spot where I broke my fingernail. I bring out new videos every Friday. I know this one came out on a Thursday, but that's because that's the day that this collection came out, and I wanted to coincide it with that. But I bring out new videos 7:00 p.m. UK time every Friday. So, I hope to see you next week.

[00:37:55]Heat.

[00:38:04]Heat.

[00:38:26]Heat. Heat.

[00:38:40]Heat. Heat.

[00:39:05]Heat. Heat.

[00:39:13]Heat up here.

[00:39:51]Heat.

[00:39:54]Heat.

[00:40:01]Heat.

[00:40:13]Heat.

[00:40:22]Heat. Heat.