do anyone here ever tried a Gallien-Krueger Legacy Series amp ? those cute little things exists in 500, 800 and 1200w and pretends to give the tone of the old RB series amp. I absolutly love those RB with this distinctive agressive saturation, so I wonder if a Legacy could be my thing.
There are two videos on the official site to show how the things sounds, this one is the most interesting :
oh it’s hard to describe sounds, especially in my non-native language … the voicing prior to the gain stages have a good amount of presence/treble, it gives a kind of metallic and clicky attack, it’s not smooth at all. I’ve always heard this with the old GK RB played live (for exemple I’ve seen Dave Curran of Unsane using one of those RB, I believe a 800) ; to me it sounds a bit like a Ampeg SVT-CL but with an overall colder color, and with a more metallic upper range.
Native language or not, I think that was a better description than I could have given.
Many moons ago, I had the GK 800RB this amp is supposed to mimic. To my ears, based on this video, it sounds exactly like what I remember. For me, it was all about clarity and that attack.
The thing about it that still appeals to me is how you can always make a brighter cleaner tone into something darker and dirtier but you can’t seem to go the other way; turning a dark and dirty tone into something bright and clean.
One thing I did to get a better idea of the differences was to pull up this video of the Fender Rumble 800HD at the same time and bounce back and forth between them.
that’s a very interesting information ! thanks Eric
sure. the detail in a sound is in the upper range, so if you don’t have much of it in the original signal, you won’t have much to work with and you’ll have a hard time trying to get something brighter/clearer.
I’m honestly not sure if I prefer the Ampeg or G-K sound. I love them both. Ampegs are just deliciously punchy/chuggy while G-Ks are so deep and bright. They both sound awesome to me.
Old revival thread alert! I know you don’t use an amp anymore Terb but I actually have the Legacy 800 and Fusion 500. They both sound good but the Legacy has a bit brighter/agressive tone and is imo a lot easier to dial in. The Fusion on the other hand has a lot more tonal options and it has that punchy warmth tone because of the tubes preamp.
I would gig with the Legacy and keep the Fusion for home/studio usage. I don’t know how the RB800 sounds but old-time GK fans who bought the new Legacy seem enthustiac about it.
it sounds … like a 400RB I might do some experiments with it because for now I’m still using my Ampeg tone on the Bass POD Pro. one of the things I want to try is to use the two preamp in parallel : the Ampeg tone for the dark growl and the GK for the bright edge and clicky attack. might be interesting.
I forgot what it was called, but GK had the bi amp tweeter control feature but required specific cabs for it to work. That feature seemed nice for that clicky high
