RANT - WHY MARSHALL WILL FAIL

The problem is that no company is satisfied anymore with just making good products for a fair price and employing great people at a competitive wage. Every company now must always be growing, which is why we have the shittification of everything.

Best memory of my life: telephoning the Bletchley factory in the 1980s and asking if I could come and see the factory. Expected a polite refusal, of course. But no, and they gave me a date! I drove down and Jim's son Terry gave me a two hour detailed tour of the whole factory, and at the end he took me to Jim's office where Jim chatted away to me (even though he was obviously busy working at the time). Then he told Terry to fetch a load of items for me to take home, including a signed copy of the Marshall book, which I still cherish. A gentleman through and through and a great man.

I'm seeing this disturbing trend in companies being bought by private equity firms which then drive the company into the dirt and make some kind of short-sell profit. These private equity firms, of course, have NOTHING to do with the companies they acquire and aren't serious about the company succeeding because of what they intend to do. This almost sounds like what you're describing.

Imagine if these highly paid business people were good at business.

I might be biased on this, and even if I'm not it's probably already too late for them - but if Marshall can't immediately get connecting with online influencers in the guitar space, work towards building community interest and repairing the poor reputation they now have with guitarists, then anything else they do is a nonstarter. They need to very swiftly get a strategy together that will bring them in line with their competition, not just on modernising their product line, but on how they promote and build interest around it. Paying the magazines to gush about legacy is only reaching the old and nostalgia blinded at this stage. They NEED to be courting the people who are actively influencing the purchase of equipment that young bands use.

Marshall Amplification died with Jim...

The crow perching on the balcony railing is listening very attentively.

And… Like ToneKing, build an attenuator into your 50w or 100w amps… work with ToneKing or Fryette…. And go back to sourcing English parts! It’s why we still have Marshall amps from the 60’s that work ( with a capacitor change … ) but the big stuff ( output transformer!) in those were 100% quality.

Ironically, the piece of Marshall gear that could do well today is the JMP-1. The Friedman IR-X is more or less a modern version of it. The JMP-1, updated a bit soundwise, with Two Notes technology and an editor would still sell, I think. The state of Marshall is sad. I remember the Musikmesses, when Jim Marshall surrounded himself with the greatest players.

"Control the prices in the US" first thing I thought when I heard that was "Yeah, and control the prices in the EU, Mesa/Boogie"

I really appreciate these industry insight vlogs. Keep em coming!

As a guitar teacher to teenagers (or I was, pre-long covid, ugh) I can tell you most of them initially don't know Marshall is an amplifier brand rather than headphones. "Oh they make amplifiers too?" And yes, I agree, Marshall competing against established modeling companies seems crazy.

Now everyone wants a Marshall fridge, but not everyone wants a Marshall amp. And nobody wants a Marshall modeller, because there are modellers, and they are good modellers, and they are not Marshall.

Marshall already cooperates with Softube, their Marshall suite is exellent, probably one of the best VST I've tried. However, in my opinion, Marshall needs to make a line of UK made, modern two channels high gain amp with scaleable power, something in between SC20 and JVM, kind of modified plexi/jcm800 tone but with decent clean channel. DSL20 is a cool amp, especialy for the money, but lacks in many regards. And really, Marshall should call their former empoyees from Blackstar and ask for advice :)

"Friedman is a good Marshall". 100% Spot on!

You make a lot of sense! Hope Marshall listens to this!!

Something like this happened before with Marshall, only Jim Marshall was still alive to sort the problem out by putting new Amp's out under the Park brand until he could get the name back, We can only hope that someone will take notice and do the same again.

As a software product manager & business person that plays guitar, this video really tickles my fancy. Great insights!

Always love your videos and yes, I do think you’re one of the most honest people on YouTube… Keep telling it like it is

I stand by your side. It’s time for companies to make a slight change and roll in the right direction. Standing still isn’t moving.