The Plexi’s design was essentially commissioned by Pete Townshend of The Who, looking for more power, volume, and grunt as true high-voltage rock began to explode in the mid ’60s. Eric Clapton traded in his ‘Bluesbreaker’ combo for a Super Lead when he founded Cream in 1966. Jimi Hendrix, for goodness sake, played a Super Lead at Woodstock. Need we say more?

The first Marshall full stack was created for the Plexi. Initially the super-powerful, 100 watt amp was paired with a huge 8x12 speaker cabinet, but soon the preference shifted to two 4x12s, one straight and one angled. It’s hard to overstate how much of a cornerstone this amp is. Rock simply wouldn’t look or sound the same without it.

We retained the services of Tony Platt, engineer for AC/DC on some of the most face-meltingly rocktastic albums of all time, to capture impulse responses from a perfect era-appropriate 1960BHW cabinet with a variety of expertly placed vintage microphones. Nothing comes close to the mix-ready magic of these sounds. We built a world-class engineer, who knows the amp like an old friend, right into the plug-in.

In addition to the amp itself, the plug-in provides a complete setup and workflow for getting mix-ready sounds. Three different microphone combos – FET, Valve, and Dynamic – were recorded by Platt at Kore Studios in London, and the results can be blended and tweaked in the side panel of the plug-in.

Each microphone has its own volume and pan settings, just as you'd expect working in a top-class studio, so you can mix your own ideal sound right there in the plug-in. This is more than just an amp sim. It's a complete workflow for an amazing mix-ready guitar tone.

Two channels, a lead and a rhythm, each with both high and low gain inputs, can be combined (or 'jumped') for a wide-range of sounds. Go from a warm, gritty twang right up to a searing wailing rock god solo scream, and never let The Man stand in your way.

Angus Young played one in AC/DC. Jimmy Page played one in Led Zeppelin. Graham Coxon, Johnny Ramone, John Frusciante, Slash. The versatility of the 1959 (‘1959’, by the way, being a model number rather than a production year), and the ease with which it produces fantastic harmonically rich sounds, defined a genre and a movement.

Don’t compromise with lesser rigs. Don’t put up with pretenders. Get the one and only Plexi Super Lead 1959, and ground your tone in pure rock.

Plexi Super Lead 1959 comes with modules that are fully integrated into the Amp Room ecosystem and sound exactly the same as the native version of the plug-in. If you already own Amp Room, you definitely need this amp.

Amp Room is the pro audio guitar and bass platform, designed with sound quality as top priority. It’s just like having a real amplifier with a miked up speaker cabinet in a high-end studio – with the added convenience of more options to patch in any kind of studio tool you need anywhere in the chain.

Softube & Marshall: A partnership based on quality sound

Our first-ever prototype was a hardware DSP box running a Marshall amp model and a loudspeaker model. That got the attention of Marshall Amplification and led to a successful long-term partnership. Marshall Cabinet Collection comes with the only software amps and cabs officially licensed and endorsed by Marshall.

Learn more about our partnership with Marshall.