Carl Martin Plexitone

Very easy to use. All controls are simple and intuitive.

Currently using 56 reissue les paul with P-90's and Es 355 with PAF's. Unit is absolutely perfect for Marshallesque plexi sounds. Sound is reminiscent of a lot of 60's and 70's rock like Ten Years After. The unit is clearly designed as a distortion pedal as opposed to an overdrive pedal. There is a great deal of gain available. This pedal works perfect with my main rig which is a demeter TGA head through a 4x12 Marshall cab with greenbacks. The unit did not quite fit with my blackface twin as it was overly bright even with the tone control backed off.

Seems very solidly built with AC power cord. Pots are smooth with an even and gradual taper. I have had the pedal for about 2 months now with no problems.

Never had to deal with company but would expect decent support.

For older rock and blues (like Gary Moore, Alvin Lee, Etc.) This is the best pedal I have found. A very useful tool indeed.

Easy!and versatile, 3 channels, od/heavy and independent boost

Sounds perfect when used with my jcm 900 half stack, but using bluesbreaker 1962 reissue, the pedal produces additional bass thump on the drive and high gain channel that is very unpleasant...I set my bass control on the amp at 2!If anyone know how to get rid of this bass thum can you please email me?Thanks

Built like a tank...not really, but i'd gig without backup

PLEASE PLEASE ANYONE THAT KNOW HOW TO GET RID OF THE BASS THUMP EMAIL ME..I'd really appreciate the help :)

Be mindful of the volume, this is one loud beast.
Plenty of everything here, the tone goes from dark to wide open.
Thew crunch is crisp and still maintains the bottomend and go to a very good highgain tone, the highgain is just even more, cool harmonies when playing this thing.
A very straightforward pedal.

Lots of clarity and a very very good defenition, chords never squash out and becomes muddy, well your amp may do that if it is a small anemeic one;)
Big and bold, for those who wants that expensive super Marshall tone without playing insanely loud, or modding their old precious Plexi tops.
Fat and gnarly on the bottom strings, squeacks and whistles when dugged into, lots of response to picking.
A very alive pedal.
For all who wants that clear and fat overdrive, it still lets your guitar sound like one.
It is not a deathmetal machine by any means.
Look for something else if that is needed.

It is 5 months old now, no troubles, and has gigged a "few" jobs now.
Love the switches and the blue clear LED's.

No dealings

Guns and Roses and stuff like that!!
Lynch mob..well you get the point.

Plug and play like alot of other drives.
Easy.

Noise: for that amount of punch and gain it works well, nothing I cannot live with...what do you expect from a drive?? Silence? It is the noise we want after all, and it is working well
Guitars:HW1 bighead strat, Kramer Baretta, Tyler Strat, HW1 Texas Tele
Effect:Strong fat not weak, clear and very very good chord defenition, sounds great on any pickup combination, can go from whisper to a big roar, with some compression you can even nail some of those pop-tune lead sounds..lol You know Dann Huff and Landau studio smooth stuff.
Amps:Fender 57RI Tweed Twinamp, 1978 JMP Superlead 100 Marshall, Fender 66 BF Showman top, Vox AC 50 top, cabs 2 2x12 Celestion equipped, one with Classic lead 80's and one with G12H's.
4x12 with Classic Lead 80's.
Sounds:Everything from Marshall hotrod glassy sounds to oldstyle crunch, covers the grounds from Hendrix to Faith Hill here.
Very versatile thing for a Marshall in the box drive.

No issues, nice blue LED's and switches and knobs feels nice too.

As I pointed out earlier, I play from old 60's stuff to modern pop things.
It is letting me play the way I am, it is a tool that works, not a magicbox, but an honest to god wellmade functional tool.
Maybe if the painted it funny and lost the name, it would perhaps sell more??
It is one more drive in a large toolbox of sounds, and it will stay there, because this is a serious drive that delivers if you have the goods.

There are 5 knobs: boost, level, tone, high gain, and crunch. It's very easy to dial in crunch from a little to a lot.

I sold this pedal a few months ago because this was my "Marshall-in-a-box" for my clean amp. But, then I sold that amp and bought a Marshall clone. No sense in having a pedal that emulates the amp you're playing. Otherwise, I'd have never let this pedal go. And, this was such a great pedal that I'm compelled to write a review on it even though it's long gone.

I was using this pedal with a Peavey Classic 50 head and Marshall 4x12 cab. For a distortion unit it's very quiet.

The Carl Martin Plexi Tone is the best Marshall-in-a-box I've heard - by far - and I've heard a few (Boss DS-1, EMMA reezaFRATzitz, V.S. Jekyll & Hyde, etc.). It has a very high quality clear sound that the others don't have (chords are nice and clear) and it responds quite well to your attack for a distortion unit.

The big plus is that it is as dead on Marshall tone as you could ever possibly expect from a pedal. You can dial in great plexi-like crunch from the crunch channel, or you can dial in some beautiful 80's JCM800 tones from the lead channel, and the tones are as convincing as you could possibly ask out of a pedal.

I had it for about a month with no problems, but that obviously isn't enough to tell, so I really can't rate this category.

I had no contact with Carl Martin, so I can't rate this category.

I play mostly hard rock and blues. I have a total of about 7.5 years of experience playing music, just over 3 years of which is on electric guitar.

The gear I owned at the time I had this pedal was: 3 Carvin electric guitars, Peavey Classic 50 head, Marshall 4x12 slant, Visual Sound Jekyll and Hyde, Dunlop 535Q Crybaby, MJM London Fuzz, and a Keeley TS-9.

My only complaint about this pedal was its size. I think they should loose the boost feature and squeeze this into a smaller enclosure if they can. I think it?s something like 7 inches by 5 inches - takes up too much territory on your pedalboard. So I'm giving it a 9 overall.

Bottom line: I think this is probably the best sounding Marshall-in-a-box out there right now.

Hooked it up with my various amps, a very easy pedal to setup and use, does not take long to find the sweet spots on both channels.
Good layout and no big manual to plow through before getting it fired up.

I use it with an Orange amp, vintage 100 watter from the early 70's plus
an vintage BF Fender Twinamp, plus one Marshall SLP 100 1970 model(Plexi with a metalpanel essentially).
Cabs 4x12 Silver Jubilee Marshall cab and one 2x12 Bogner cab with G12H Celestions, Also used a black tolex Peavey DeltaBlues combo, the Peavey has a Weber 15 F150-0 speaker.
Guitars, PRS old Dann Huff signature, Tyler classic strat with a JB and two classic stacks Duncans, one Schecter Black Jack with a JB and a 59 duncan(extended scalelenght guitar)26,5" I belive it is, forgot the exact specs there, and a Highway1 Texas Tele all stock.
On the highest gain some noise it there...well a whole lot less than I expected so that was a nice thing.
It has alot of output, enough to make most amps live up and deliver fat glassy clear overdrive, it has a good bite that you can tame with the toneknob, almost like the presence control on those old Marshalls, very cool.

It gives me that classic Marshall tone with extra gain as a plus.
Now I can take out my big amps from the studio and use them set to clean, the Plexitone has no trouble driving those amps, it works very well with big clean amps.
With the Peavey I take it more easy, or I'll probally blow the 15" in the open combo.
But it sounds swampy and bluesy on that amp, great for that slightly harder blues and old style bluesrock style, healthy bottomend in the pedal too, and the mids are high as they should be on a Marshall style drive, cuts very convincing in the two bands I play in, one is a traditional Bluesrock band and the other is more fusion hardrock oriented, works very well in both enviroments, the ticket is the good amps imho.
Bottomline this is a very useful overdrive, good harmonics, plenty of sensitivity on big clean amps, less on smaller combo's(not surprisingly really), cleans up well when you roll down your volume on the guitar.
I have had a few very expensive highend stuff before this one, this suited my playing and amps better, kinda funny as I just stumbled over this pedal by accident.

Looks well and neat, not fancy or all that colorful, nice blue LED's though.
Good contacts and nice knobs, the latter had a nice easy touch.
It has worked very good for 7 months now.
I am bying another one for a setup more.

Had no dealings

Well I have said most of this, I have played for 30 years now and this is one of the better useful overdrives I have tried, kudos to CM for making a very good product here.
It has that Marshall clear and slightly glassy overdrive that those Plexi's of old times gives you when they are stock, in this case with extra gain if you like, nice hotrod without sacrificing that vintage vibe.
Maybe not for all players, and you need to to make sure that it will work on your amps and speaker setups, and I guess it takes a slightly seasoned player to get the most out of it.
But the rewards are nice imho.

Unpacked it from a cool box, wrapped neatly in a plasticbag.
Power is from a mains cord, no 9v here.
This is a straightforward box, crunch, highgain, tone. level, boost(clean) at the end, good postition, glad they got that one there.
The crunch has everything from a slight break up to fat overdrive, highgain makes the sound denser and even more sustaining, the boost offers alot of db's, enough to send my amp into a screamin' rage.
All controlled by 3 switches with generous spacing between them.

I use a Marshall ri "Bluesbreaker" combo with an extension four twelwes cab, one Marshall 1960 AV cab.
Other effects are, delay(2290 TC), chorus Ibanez cs-9(org 1980's unit), MXR Flanger(also an 80's one), CM compressor Limiter(10 years old), Lexicon PCM 70 reverb, Yamaha SPX 90, Radial Classic British, and basicly all my old stuff I have had since the 80's.
As you probally can guess I use this for an 80's sound, and it does those great, gobs of classic sounds and everything in between, I play alot of old 80's pop stuff, mainly Huff and Landau roles, it really shines for this kind music, it has plenty of headroom and volume which is a huge plus, it replaces my old Mesa Boogie Quad preamp and a Soldano plus a Kasha preamp, it has gotten to cumbersome to carry around, so it is making up for some classic stuff from back then, and it does it in style.
Even at very high gain it does not produce that much noise, of course it produces hiss, what highgain without a gate doesn't do that??
But it is never overbearing and annoying, fat and glassy Plexi sound, very smooth and articulate, got lotsa grind, those powerchords rings out with authority and a most welcome clearness, you can hear your strings, and chords never looses clarity, your lines can go from screamin' divebombs to huge long notes, overtones piles themselves up, lotsa cool harmonics, very juicy and fun.
My JB equipped Strat loves its Danish.
The Tonebone and the Plexi are a perfect pairing here.
If you play 80's stuff like VH, Huff, Bratta, Landau, Luke, but I also use it for fusion that I dabble with from time to time, a very flexible piece of equipment, I am most happy to leave my preamps and poweramps at home, only use those for recordings now, for livestuff and jams I use the Plexi now.

It is a very neatly made overdrive, clean on the inside, nice switches, love the placement of the jacks as I still uses it on the floor.
My old compressor has worked for a decade now, don't see why the Plexi should not do the same.

Never had the need to contact CM. the comp just kept working so why should I bother them?
They seem like a sober professional company to me, so I expect no troubles.

As I explained above, it replaced some rather heavy equipment that really has paid its dues for +20 years, so they are big shoes to fill, it does a very credible job of it, a very clear and bigsounding od, top of the line sound, it does sound like a Plexi, I know since I once had a 1959 SLP 1968, same glassy smooth overdrive and crunch, it reacts well to dynamic playing and you have lots of control over harmonics and feedback, keeps the top when you roll down your volume on your guitar,
hotrod for sure.
I really am happy with both the Radial and the Plexi, they are a killer combo, and no monsterrack to drag around anymore now.
Huge relief and I kept myself the sound I need.
It is a serious unit, maybe not for all but for us who are stuck in the eighties or play music with some attitude it is a great box.
To me this is a blessing in a black and purple box, those chickenheads and blue LED's looks the part too.

Now the knobs say it all, the sound roars out of this one.
No need for a manual, simple straightforward pedal.

Use it with two amps, a BF Fender Showman and a Park75 head.
Have two 2x12 cabs with G12H speakers.
Various guitars, old 62 strat, 71 Fender Thinline with humbuckers, Tokai loverock with P90's, etc etc.
This baby is loud and clear, not for those who likes to cover themselves with compression and wolly tones.
Very big bottom that is clear and defined, even at pretty high gain this one stays clear, you can still play chords with more than 3 notes, some
noise at highgain, but hardly anything to sniff at when you play in a band, no more than a normal amp would do when dimed.

Solid build, good switches, nice blue leds, love the build in supply, +-12 volts is what Carl Martin informs me it has, that would be 24 volts to play around with.
This is a quality pedal, no fuzz no hassle.

As said above, asked them a few questions about how it was made, polite fast answers, they know about customerservice in Scandinavia it seems.
Cool company in my book, give it a shot if you have good amps and guitars, these guys knows their stuff.

I play pop, rock, classic rock, some alternative stuff, some studioworks.
The Plexitone does not mess up my foundation, it reacts well to different settings on my amps, it has plenty of range and sounds, just tweak your amps or amp, presto new sound.
I had it from old VH to some Hendrix and beyond, even had it chugging away with the mids turned way down and the bottom and top turned up, evil, not my fave sound but it did it without any hiccups, massive sound.
It has a nice bite and good healthy bottom, nice uppermids, I'll look forward to what else these guys will do in the future.

Great combination of versatility and simplicity. Great clean boost (up to 25db) SINGLE tone control (Hooray!) and separate gain controls.
Really like the single volume control.

Right, my setup - PRS custom 22 with HFS and Vintage bass pickups - Compressor/Limiter, Crybaby 535Q, PlexiTone, Hot Drive & Boost mk3, Trem-0-Vibe, Chorus xII and DeLayla (all Carl Martin except for Wah) into Marshall JCM600 combo with Vintage 30's.

As I'm sure you've noticed, I am a huge fan of the Carl Martin range.
I tried this pedal as I needed something a bit more gainy than my HDB mk3, but still like to hear the difference between my PRS and a Les Paul.

This pedal is extremely transparent and cleans up brilliantly when I roll my volume pot back, even when the High Gain control is maxed. Sounds great with Single coils or humbuckers. Wouldn't recommend the high-gain channel for use with Fender valve amps, as the big bottom end can get a bit flabby.

The crunch channel goes from a subtle, biting grit at 0 (which I often use in front of my HDB) to instant Randy Rhoads at 7. This channel sold me on this pedal before even trying High Gain.

But it's the High Gain mode that I just can't get enough of. Fat bottom end without getting muddy, searing gain and a tone that remains clear, concise and cuts through the mix beautifully.

The clean Boost is the icing on the cake.

This unit delivers on it's promises, and I even prefer it's full sound to the very mid-range focused tone of the 2nd channel on my Marshall.

I do get feedback when I use extreme compression with extreme high gain, but that's my own dumb fault.
Not true bypass tho, buffered bypass. Still won't wreck your clean.

So far so good, tho I have had problems with my Delayla. S?ren at Carl Martin was V. helpful, but shipping the units back to Denmark is a pain, though the good folks at Andy Mcgibbon's guitar world made my life far easier by simply exchanging the unit. (Thanks Andy!)

S?ren at Carl Martin is very accommodating, but like I said, shipping the units through to Denmark is not convenient, especially if you live in South Africa.

This pedal kicks serious butt. Have received many compliments on my tone using the Plexi. Best Hard Rock/Metal pedal I have heard - maybe not the best for nu-metal, but playing tight will make you heavier than gain to 11.

My previous amps have all been Marshall, except for a two year romance with Line 6. Loved the versatility, but nothing compares to the dynamics and feel of valves.

If this was stolen, I would very quickly replace it - unless someone offered me VHT pitbull in exchange. (Yeah, that's gonna happen...)

A bit pricey, but I consider Carl Martins great value if you like transparency in your tone.

Easy to use with 4 analog controls. Tone does not change radically when you turn the knobs which is a good thing, but all knobs have an affect on the tone. Boost, Level, Tone, High Gain, Crunch.

This pedal sounds absolutely fantastic. I have owned a couple of tube distortion pedals - Tube King from Ibanez and HK Cream Machine Still Own). This pedal is better than tube. Yes better than tube. The sound is full, very harmonic, never fake, and much quieter than the tube distortion pedals. It is also very versatile. You can use the boost in from of a hot amp and push it over the top or use the boost in conjunction with either of the two distortions. I play Blues, Rock, and some Early 90's Hard Rock. This pedal is perfect for what I play. It sounds great with my strat or les paul. You do not get sick of this pedal. It grows on you like a weed. This is the best distortion pedal I own and /or have owned. Definitley does not sound like the new heavey metal pedals. It has a sound all of its own.

Had it for two months without a problem. Built great. It's a Carl Martion.

I chose this pedal because of its true sound. If it only had the crunch sound, I would have purchased this pedal, but by tweaking the knobs you can get so many great tones. Plus when switching between settings, there isn't a drastic change in the overall tone. In other words, if you switched from a Rat to a Blues driver, you will notice a big difference and often you would need to really tweek your amps tone controls. With this pedal, the sound is still the same, but more gain, less gain, or boost. Also, it has great responsiveness to the attack on the strings. The harder you play, the more distortion it produces and vice versa.