Sound City SC 30

very basic tone, volume and gain controls. no reverb. no nothing.

I think I remember how I got this amp. I think I bought it from a friend who I wish I was still in touch with but anyway.. I got it around 1989 ish and it was third or fourth hand then. It was my second amp, my first being a 15watt Badger practice amp. No idea how old it was. Basically the only attraction was that it was more powerful than my old amp. I hadn't a clue what to look for in an amp and, more to the point, had no money to buy a decent amp. This was a stop gap that lasted me for years,

Sounded awful. I haven't owned this amp for 10 years but I still hear its tinny dreadfulness when I try to sleep at nights. It was almost unusable without a load of pedal effect running through it. Even then it seemed to muddy everything that was played through it.

Thin, tinny

Now for the very weird bit. I owned this amp for a while and one night at practice it just didn't start. No red light no noise, nothing. So I played through the PA for a while (times were hard etc). About 2 months later, just for the hell of it, I plugged it back in and it worked again. It still sounded shit but it worked. Now, a self healing amp? Come on guys, you believe me don't you?

I think I owned this amp for about seven years and it never let me down when I need it apart from the Lazarus period mentioned above. However it crackled, hissed and made strange noises from time to time. And sounded terrible. Argh. Still pretty reliable though

errr.. who made this amp?

The saddest thing about this amp is that, although it had no redeeming features apart from its bloody minded refusal to die quietly, I still feel a little guilty about our parting company. I bought a 50watt replacement around 1997 and our band disbanded around 1998. The Sound City was still knocking around then but hadn't been used for a few months. And I just walked away and left it in a store room. No goodbye, nothing. I never saw it again. I like to think that it had a glorious ending.

I thought this amp was made in the early 80ies.
It`a matchless one channel amp with controls for gain, bass treble and volume. It has two inputs high and low. The speaker is a 12" celestion and the back of the amp is closed.
I play many styles of music like blues, rock, metal-core and a little bit funk.

The best way for me to use this amp is in clean mode. The clean sound is awfull. If i like to crunch the amp i use a Ibanez tubescreamer TS9.
I use a Ibanez GRX70 with the standard pu`s inside.

Yes of course, i use it for gigs.

never tried.

I play guitar for about 5 years. POD XT.