Laney GH50L

Built in '98 I think. Is a simple, single channel, all valve head with gain boost, no reverb i.e. all you need for a straight up rock amp. Two full channels would be nice, but that's why Laney ,make the VH100R.
No rating here as it has all the features an amp like this should have. I'd like more versatility in an amp, but I'd buy a multi-channel amp for that.

Being used predominatly with a totally unmodified '92 Gibson Les Paul Standard. I play mostly Industrial and experimental music, and for that I find the amp lacking. The amp produces some excellent classic rock and 80's metal sounds, but does not posess a punchy saturated guitar sound a la converge for example. Sound is vastly improved by fitting EL34's which tames much of the buzz 'n' fuzz the amp can produce. Clean sounds are very good for this type of amp, not up to Fender standards but very usuable.

I've never had any problems caused by poor design or workmanship. Had an internal fuse blow when a valve blew but that's it. Seems pretty wel designed. Nicely screwed together and finished, better I'd say than the equivalent Marshall. Excellent for an amp of this price range.

Headstock distribution (Laney's distributors) have caused many headaches for some friends of mine with Ibanez gear. However, in my personal dealings direct with Laney, I found them to be most helpful, promptly supplying me with a manual and schematics. No opinion due to wildly conflicting experiences.

I like the simplicity and 'ready to rock' approach of this amp. It is very logical and well designed, and at the price how can you go wrong? I do feel however that the voicing of this amplifier is somewhat dated now, and lacks the sheer gain and grunt of many other modern hi-gain designs. If the amp had this 'grunt' I would be extremely happy with it. The sounds it does produce are very good however, again especially at the price.

this is an update of my previous review.

ok this is what happend. after exactly a week of owning the amp it broke down on me, no sound at all coming from it. i hadnt been playing it too loud and i hadn't abused it at all. after looking for a problem i couldnt find one. the tubes seemed to be working, they were glowing as usual. i checked the fuses as well and they were still intact. the only sound i can get out of it is when i turn on drive and put it to full and crank the master volume to full, so this led me to the conclusion that my speakers were fine. i have no idea what is wrong with it, the only thing i can think of is that something has come loose. i then phoned flying pig instruments where i bought it and they said they would collect it and send it back to Laney to get it fixed. oh well, im not very impressed at the moment but maybe it was just a faulty model.

well laney will take it back and fix it so i guess they cant be that bad. i looked on laneys web site as well and i couldnt find an e-mail address to contact them.

this is an update of my previous review.

ok this is what happend. after exactly a week of owning the amp it broke down on me, no sound at all coming from it. i hadnt been playing it too loud and i hadn't abused it at all. after looking for a problem i couldnt find one. the tubes seemed to be working, they were glowing as usual. i checked the fuses as well and they were still intact. the only sound i can get out of it is when i turn on drive and put it to full and crank the master volume to full, so this led me to the conclusion that my speakers were fine. i have no idea what is wrong with it, the only thing i can think of is that something has come loose. i then phoned flying pig instruments where i bought it and they said they would collect it and send it back to Laney to get it fixed. oh well, im not very impressed at the moment but maybe it was just a faulty model.

well laney will take it back and fix it so i guess they cant be that bad. i looked on laneys web site as well and i couldnt find an e-mail address to contact them.

look at the laney site for the features.
would get a 10 if it had more channels.

ive got a BC Rich NJ Beast (with stock shit humbuckers) and a fender strat. i mainly play Death metal (deicide, at the gates), Thrash metal (metallica) and clasic metal (sabbath). i can nail the sabbath sound on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath with this amp. If u play pop music like Blink 182 or Greenday this amp is not for u. u need something with less tone, cos this is a tone machine. sounds great overdriven, perfect for early metallica. clean is very good, nice and sparkly to warm and round. Brutal distortion when gain is turned up to full and distortion turned up. maybe a bit too much as it starts to hum and feedback. sounds very good with a metal zone as well, sounds much more real and natural with the tube amp than my tranny amp.

well i think the tubes should last 2-3 years before fukking up. the amp in general is very sturdy, u should be able to use it without a backup.

have no idea

a great amp for metal. i mean real metal not shitty nu metal/rap rock bullshit. if u want a good sounding amp with mountains of tone get it, but if u are after a shitty amp that u can play korn/blink/any other shit non talented music, dont. great value, actually fantastic.

It's a 1997 one channel amp with 6l6 tubes. it has precence, mid, bass, treble, master volume, gain and (foot)switchable gainboost and a resonance switch. It has a effect loop, switchable to parallel, seriel and bypass. It has 50 Watt and it really kicks ass!! It just gets a 8, becaue it's just a one channel head

I'm using an epiphone les paul std black with seymour duncan invader and sh2 jazz model. I play mainly Punk ( blink, greenday, no use for a name ) and NuMetal, NeoGrunge ( puddle of mudd ) and it suits my style almost perfect. you can not go from totaly clean to brutal distortin but what do you expect of a one channel amp?? I love the clean sound. very warm and full. when you crank up the distortion ( gain on 3 and gainboost on 10 ) then you'll blow every mesa rectifire ( the single of course ).

you CAN depend on it

Haven't dealt with it

i'm playing for almost 8 jears.and it's the best amp i've ever played in this pricecategory!! it's awesome

50W Head, 2002 Model. Has just about every feature you'll ever need already built in. Effects loop, cabinet Ohms selections, resonance switch, PLENTY OF POWER!

I currently use a miriad of different guitars...Everything from old Kramers (1980's), to brand new American Deluxe Strats. Pickups range from EMG-81's, to Vintage Noiseless pickups in my strats. Gets a REALLY nice clean tone!!! Very warm, smooth, and pretty darned clean.

Main focus is progressive metal, underground metal, blues, 80's metal...etc Amp suits me just fine! The distortion on this amp is KILLER! Gets everything from nice warm blues distortion, all the way up to your early Van Halen "brown" sound, to really killer modern Progressive metal & underground metal sounds. May not be a 2 channel amp, but what this amp lacks in having 2 channels, it sure makes up for in KILLER TONE & it's abilities to crush skulls when distortion is cranked! I find it to be quite versatile for not having a seperate clean channel. So, I actually disagree with alot of people here saying that it's not very versatile. Might not be too versatile for switching from clean to dirty, BUT, still one of the best sounding amp heads I've ever played thru, in my 20 years of playing.

Awesome amp!

Well, being a tube amp, it's always good to have at least ONE backup. Not that I don't trust it, but, simply because ANYONE who gigs without a backup amp or guitar is crazy.

Brand new amp, so, it HOPEFULLY will not break down! :)

Never dealt with them, yet.

Been playing for over 20 years, and absolutely love the tones this amp delivers. Clean to crunch! Very happy with it.

I did compare to other brands like Mesa, Marshall, and your standard well-known amp brands...Better than the rest, as far as I'm concerned. And the price! Well, you can't beat it.

It's no Bogner amp, :) But, all joking aside, I wouldn't part with this amp for quite some time. I finally found a great affordable ALL TUBE AMP, for a great price, that sounds every bit as good as an amp head costing twice as much! No joke!

This amp rocks!

-Master volume one channel with gain boost knob(can be controled by foot pedal).

-Resonance switch

-Effect loop(there's a small knob on the back which controls the level)

-Tube bias switch(it can be tubed with either 6L6, 5881, or EL34 by simply flicking a switch)

-bunch of jacks with different ohms for cabinets.

-Slave in/out

I'd have given a definite 10, if it had two channels.
So I'm giving it an 8, A LOT of features.

For guitars, I play a japanese ESP Akira Takasaki Randomstar.
For effects, I don't like using much, I use MXR Phase90, Ibanez tubescreamer, Dunlop Crybaby 535Q(although I don't find myself using it often thesedays) and Danelectro French toast octave distortion, when I feel like playing "Purple Haze" And I have a Beheringer Virtualizer PRO thru effect loop for reverb, delay, and chorus.

Anyway, my amp is currently tubed with Sovtek 6L6(I'd love to tube it with EL34 soon) thru a Mesaboogie cab. I play mostly 80's to current rock, prog rock, and blues and it serves me right playing all these music. I get very smooth, clear lead sound with a lot of response, and I could get a delicious fat crunch sound as well(Rage against the machine) And clean channel is very decent, too.
I find Resonance switch quite a nice feature, when I play crunch rhythm playing. By turning it on, I could get more PHAT sound out of it, although I prefer it off when playing lead.

I don't miss reverb since I have a rack effect thru effect loop, but it'd have been nice having 2 channels. I find this amp versatile, since tweaking does a lot to the sound but by having just one channel, it can't be versatile performing live. But it gets me by tough, since my guitar has a kill switch.(For clean sound, I put my guitar volume where it clears up the distortion with kill switch off, and when I want to switch from clean to dirty sound I just turn on the kill switch and ready to go!) Otherwise you have to just lower your guitar volume till it clears up distortion and have it on 10 to switch to distortion which is pretty inconvienient playing live. Or just tweaking the amp knobs which is BAD when performing live. You will find it easier to get another clean amp and A/B them when you play live.

>>I haven't tried but I think you should definitely read the post below me. His idea would probably save you from spending more money for another amp and an A/B switch.

But bottom line is, this amp sounds awesome! Back in the days, a lot of guitarists including Vai, Satriani used Gh100L(which is a 100W version of GH50L but you probably knew that) and currently Paul Gilbert uses GH100L. Yeah So what if they've used them? u r right, you won't sound like them just by getting this amp. I'm just saying this amp is a very nice sounding and dependable amp for such low cost.:)

Great buy, this was the first Laney amp I've tried(kinda hard to find them..) and I LOVE this amp.
You should try it for yourself if you ever see one.

This amp has got one channel, with an additional drive, which could mean that it could be a little limited. However, I've come up with a solution which won't cost u that much. This solution reqiures that u buy an old Boss Me5. U connect it as follows. The guitar is connected to input on the me5. Then u connect send from the me5 to input on the amplifier. Send on the head is then connected to return on the me5. Finally u connect output on the me5 to return on the head. This way of connecting the me5 and the gh50l means that the preamp of the head gets to be an external effect on the me5 and the beauty of the solution is that the fx loop can be either on or off on the me5. This means that if u turn the fx loop off the signal will go pass the loop and directly from the me5 into the power amp of the head, which will give clean sounds whatever way the preamp on the head is set to. On the other hand if u turn the fx loop on u will get the preamp connected and u will get the fat and full overdrive from the head. Of course u will need a channel swith for choosing which o'f the modes to use. This may seem a little complicated but when u've tried it u will see that it works fine. An example: If u want four sounds (the me5 can only give easy access to four souns at a time). For clean sound: Build a sound where the fx-loop is disconnected(U can of course use all of the effects on the me5) For crunch: Build a sound where the fx loop is disconnected and use a tiny amount of distorsion from the me5. For rock rythm: Build a sound where the fx lopp is connected and set the separate mode swith to gain. For lead: Of course u just use the mode switch to get to the drive mode.
Good Luck!!

I think the best rock/metal tube amps for the cheap $ are Peavey 5150 AND Laney GH50/100L.
I've owned a 5150 for about a year, LOVE the killer lead tone with A LOT of gain(too much I only use half of the gain) But 5150's clean channel sounds bad. Chorus does help, but still.. it sounds dead to me.
I also found crunch channel not great. It was ok but doesn't sound very PHAT, it was rather loose sounding. Also knobs are very passive and not very sensitive to tweaking, therefore it's not a very versatile amp. But it does one thing superbly, LEAD CHANNEL! It really kick some serious ass, I could shredd all day!!
But I recently traded my 5150 with LaneyGH50L,
and here's why..
Laney has a very good clean sound and crunch sound (very phat, similar to JCM800) and Laney's effect loop has a knob for controlling the effect level which 5150 doesn't have. Laney also can use either 6L6 or EL34 power tubes by a flicking a bias switch.(If you like both 6L6 and EL34 sound like me, it's an awesome feature)
Laney's lead channel has a lot of gain with more clarity than 5150, which is somewhat muddy sounding.
But I think I like 5150's channel more, I just prefer the 5150's smooth tone.
But in the end I traded 5150 with Laney because I was after phat, punchy sound that was good for rhythm playing, but 5150 was loose sounding with lack of versatility.

I was kinda growing out of 5150's sound and was searching for a new amp. Been using and trying Line6, Johnson stuffs, Marshalls, MesaBoogie rack units, etc... Then I heard Paul Gilbert was using Laney GH100L for live and VH100R for recording. I really love Paul's playing as well as recording/live sound so I gave it a try and I knew I had to have it since I loved it and it's only $450. But it seems like all the reviewers here paid much less than me, man! did I get rip off? Still.. I think $450 is a resonable price for such an awesome amp like this.
Like I said, if you are short in money but look for killer sound try Peavey 5150 and LaneyGH50/100L and go with the one YOU like.

Amp was made in the 90's. Not the most versatile amp in the world but a killer sound. One channel amp all tube, with footswitchable gain boost. Wish it had a clean channel. The 50watts is more than you will ever need, unless you are playing a stadium without a PA.

I am using this amp with a Les Paul, Fender Strat, Warmoth Firebird, and Jackson strat. I play mostly metal and heavy music I also play some blues. This amp will put out some noise, so if you are looking for an amp that is quiet as a mouse get a solid state amp. This amp can put out a great heavy metal tone, if you want Metallica you got it. There is no use for distortion pedals on this amp. I have seen a lot of people compare this amp to a mesa rectifier, I played a mesa rect and I like the Laney better. It has that brutal distortion but it doesnt have to be fuzzy, it can remain clear.

So far it is great, I would gig without a backup.

I have been playing for about 15 years and this amp rules. I have had a lot of different amps over the years this one is the best for heavy music. If you want to use the amp clean it also has a very good sound, not as good as a Fender, but close. If you want to switch channels the only thing you can do is turn down the volume on the guitar and turn off the gain boost, you won't be able to go from rage to clean. This amp is a one trick pony but the trick it does is amazing. For the price I got this for I could buy two of them and an ab switch and it would still be less than some amps out there that do the same job.