Line 6 GearBox 3.7 – Model Gallery
8•6
The AC 30 with Top Boost was the amp made famous by many British invasion bands. Much of the
unique character of the Vox® sound can be attributed to the fact that Class A amps overdrive in a very
different way than Class AB. Brian May of Queen, Mike Campbell of Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers, and
The Edge of U2 have all used classic AC 30s to make their music. Although usually played fairly clean,
a cranked AC 30 has a great saturated lead tone, a la Brian May on the early Queen albums.
On this Amp Model, the Middle control acts like the original Cut knob on the AC 30. We plugged
into the Hi gain input of the AC 30’s Brilliant channel when creating it. We also turned the tone
controls around, since original Top Boost amps had the bass and treble turned all the way down when
the knob was all the way up. Go figure.
VOX® is a registered trademark of Korg Europe Limited and is in no way associated or affiliated with Line
6. These product names, descriptions and images are provided for the sole purpose of identifying the specific
products that were studied during Line 6’s sound model development.
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1968 Plexi Lead 100
The 1968 Plexi Lead 100 is modeled after* the infamous ‘68
Marshall® ‘Plexi’ Super Lead — coveted by tone connoisseurs the
world over. We literally scoured the world for this particular amp,
finally finding a great example of a Super Lead languishing (we like
to think fate preserved it for us) in Holland. By the time this amp was
built (ca. 1968), Marshall® had completely changed the circuitry
away from the Fender® 6L6 power tube heritage and moved to an
EL34 tube. Another major tone difference was due to the necessary
output & power supply transformer changes. All this mucking about
added up to create a tone forever linked with Rock Guitar. Amps of
this era didn’t have any sort of master volume control, so to get the
sound you’d have to crank your Super Lead to max — just the thing
to help you really make friends with the neighbors. Hendrix used
Marshall®s of this era; a decade later Van Halen’s first two records
owed their “brown sound” to a 100-watt Plexi (Our Super Lead, in
fact, has the ‘lay down’ transformer that was unique to ‘68 models,
the same as Hendrix and Van Halen’s Marshalls®.). To get a crunch sound out of a Plexi, you would
likely crank the input volume and tone controls (to 10!). You’ll find that, in keeping with our “make-
it-sound-a-whole-lot-like-the-original” concept, this model is set up to do pretty darned near the same
thing.
* All product names used in this document are trademarks of their respective owners, which are in no
way associated or affiliated with Line 6. These product names, descriptions and images are used solely to
identify the specific products whose tones and sounds were studied during Line 6’s sound model development.
MARSHALL® is a registered trademark of Marshall Amplification PLC. FENDER® is a registered
trademark of Fender Musical Instruments Corporation.
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1968 Plexi Jump Lead
Guitar playing is all about experimentation, isn’t it? That, and
finding all the possible ways to get more distortion out of whatever
gear you have at hand. One of the fun things you can do with
a Plexi is take a short guitar cable and jumper channel I and
channel II (as they’re frequently numbered) together for a little