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I would also be interested in a low-wattage tube amp that isn't solely for blues rock. I need that 6V6 breakup in my life neeeeeeeeeeed it I'd also like for there to be more single channel tube amps. I'm a pretty set it and forget it kind of guy and I feel bad when I don't use the other channels on my amp. 
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Feb 24, 2012 19:04
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I've got an old Vox Solid state. Looking to upgrade, and I was looking at the AC30, but then the guy at Guitar center showed me an Egnater, the tweaker-40 112, and I just wanted to know if any one in here had any experience or info or opinions about it.
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Feb 24, 2012 19:49
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The Bananana posted:I've got an old Vox Solid state. Looking to upgrade, and I was looking at the AC30, but then the guy at Guitar center showed me an Egnater, the tweaker-40 112, and I just wanted to know if any one in here had any experience or info or opinions about it. I'll ask the same thing I ask everybody who comes into the store, whether they want a pack of strings or want to know why their singer is trying to set them on fire... "What kind of music do you play, and how many people are in your band?"
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Feb 25, 2012 02:30
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Warcabbit posted:I have just the pedal for you. You need the power of ANALOG! I will dedicate tomorrow to finding and testing this pedal. God I hope it works as advertised.
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Feb 25, 2012 05:01
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After The War posted:I'll ask the same thing I ask everybody who comes into the store, whether they want a pack of strings or want to know why their singer is trying to set them on fire... "What kind of music do you play, and how many people are in your band?" Rock, 2 guitars, a bass and a Drum.
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Feb 25, 2012 09:36
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After The War posted:Echoing everything Mondrian said - ever since the Valve Jr. came out, home builders have had to compete with stuff made in China selling for less than they were paying in parts. The boutique market has been ultra-centered on low-power lead for blues rock for as long as I can remember, and generally ignores those of us who want to play heavily-distorted chords. Hell, I'd be glad just to see more stuff with 6V6s in it, even the better-made EL84 amps sound thin and whiny to me. I really appreciate your response. And yes, after a week of research, it is horribly apparent that you can't swing a dead cat without finding an adorable little 5 watt class A head or combo. Honestly, for the craft at large, that delights me. However, it means that I'll need to make my offering unique and different. Like you said, I need an angle. I'm not going to just throw stock value premium caps at this and call it good, or put random parts in the tone stack on an 18 watt and call it 'custom'. I haven't had too much motion this week on the project, just lots of chatting with amp builders and staring at schematics till i'm seeing blocking caps in my sleep, but we are coming close to tax time, which means that I'm ready to invest in a power transformer for the first project (and thus need to pick tubes for the rest of it). --- Talking about that power amp breakup, I have this old Peavey. It's weird. Was a 2x12 combo, 2 6L6's in the final. I ripped the amp out of the combo, inverted it and put it in a Peavey head chassis I got out of the dump. Solid state pre, and it has reverb and ?phaser? on it. I got it for my 16th birthday, and it was used as hell then (I'm 32 now). I haven't started it up in about six, eight years, but I still have it set up in my back room. I'm terrified to plug it in as I'm assuming the caps are all shot, but I remember the way that thing sounded when I dimed the master and got both channels going at about 12 o'clock. Just this great hard rock roar and good feedback. I'd love to be able to get a sound like that out of a circuit of my own construction. (Tangentially, is there any safe process by which I could power up my old Peavey, or should I do the right thing and test caps - which would be a pain?) Jonny 290 fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Feb 25, 2012 |
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Feb 25, 2012 12:29
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keyframe posted:I will dedicate tomorrow to finding and testing this pedal. God I hope it works as advertised. I humbly request an after-action report.
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Feb 25, 2012 15:33
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The Bananana posted:Rock, 2 guitars, a bass and a Drum. Is it thick and heavy, or jangly-ringy? 'Cause that's a good way to describe the difference between the AC30 and the Tweaker. I played with a guy who used the Egnator, and it was enough for us to gig with BUT a)We were a two piece playing over recordings of him playing drums and b)He was really into getting more volume out of the head by building his own ultra-efficient cabs. When we got a permanent drummer, he just reserved the Egnator for recording purposes only. Great sounding sludge 6V6 amp, though - but couldn't change channels from a footswitch. I don't know if this has been changed in later versions. If you're trying to do haunting, spooky, ringing, or bright, go with the AC30. Don't let the "wattage", it's big enough to hold it's own. Stylistically, who can we compare your guitar sound to?
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Feb 25, 2012 17:15
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Jonny 290 posted:Talking about that power amp breakup, I have this old Peavey. It's weird. Was a 2x12 combo, 2 6L6's in the final. I ripped the amp out of the combo, inverted it and put it in a Peavey head chassis I got out of the dump. Solid state pre, and it has reverb and ?phaser? on it. I got it for my 16th birthday, and it was used as hell then (I'm 32 now). I haven't started it up in about six, eight years, but I still have it set up in my back room. I'm terrified to plug it in as I'm assuming the caps are all shot, but I remember the way that thing sounded when I dimed the master and got both channels going at about 12 o'clock. Just this great hard rock roar and good feedback. I'd love to be able to get a sound like that out of a circuit of my own construction. You can use a variac to bring up the power slowly... on standby of course. It's likely you'll still have to replace the caps, but not as much of a guarantee as I usually see written out. And those hybrid Peaveys sound fantastic, you're in for a lot of fun.
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Feb 25, 2012 17:26
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Jonny 290 posted:(Tangentially, is there any safe process by which I could power up my old Peavey, or should I do the right thing and test caps - which would be a pain?) Do some googling for 'light bulb current limiter'. Its a fairly cheap and easy DIY way to safely power up an amp that may have potential problems.
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Feb 25, 2012 22:03
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Less terrified now. Found both the operating manual and schematic for the thing. There are 4 supplies on it: 500V (with 490 screen and 300 for the drivers hanging off), -60V bias, +/-15V for the preamp and 6.3AC for the heaters. Each one has a spot on the power supply board for a fuse. HV caps are four 100uF 350V in series pairs, everything else I should have in my junk box (except 6L6's of course =/). Thanks for the light bulb limiter idea - that's really great. Definitely going to do that. It was fun to actually find the manual for this - it looks like it's a little more interesting than I remembered, with a weird 'automix' input that basically runs the bright channel into the normal channel. Kind of neat! I'm now excited to just get it running again.
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Feb 25, 2012 23:21
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Jonny 290 posted:It was fun to actually find the manual for this - it looks like it's a little more interesting than I remembered, with a weird 'automix' input that basically runs the bright channel into the normal channel. Kind of neat! I'm now excited to just get it running again. On a lot of Peaveys from that era, plugging into the Automix was the only way to access the drive channel if you lost the ultra-proprietary footswtich. But you get to play with the idea of only distorting the highs and mids, for example, but leaving the low end clean. Cool amps, and the built-in phasers generally sound fantastic.
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Feb 26, 2012 02:39
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Warcabbit posted:I humbly request an after-action report. Well after trying it for a couple hours with my pod hd 300 + headphones and monitor speakers I came to the conclusion that the Analogizer is snake oil. It doesn't really add that much to the sound and most of the time it ends up loving up the original sound so you end up dialing the analogizer effect way down to get something resembling the original tone back. Taking it back to the store now. Try before you buy is my advice.
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Feb 27, 2012 01:03
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I've been using some crappy Yamaha solid state thing for years now and it's really starting to get in the way so I'm looking at buying something good. I don't really know too much about amps though. Band setup is the usual 2 guitars, bass, drums. The bands sound is sorta heavy pop. The other guitarist has a pretty straight forward, jangly style. I play mostly sludgy drop D and use a lot of fuzz and synth effects. I do alot of drops with the drummer and bass player where I'll switch on the sub octave on EHX microsynth or use an MXR Blueboy for a bit of impact and rumble. I'm only really bothered about a clean channel as I get any distortion or fuzz from pedals (or with a decent amp is it better to use the amps distortion??) In my other band I play a 5150 which I like but it seems to lack something that I can't really explain.
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Feb 29, 2012 11:15
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CabaretVoltaire posted:I've been using some crappy Yamaha solid state thing for years now and it's really starting to get in the way so I'm looking at buying something good. I don't really know too much about amps though. How big/expensive are you thinking? Do you want to stay solid-state or go to tube? Will you be playing unmiked shows, or is the only time you need to be loud at practice? CabaretVoltaire posted:I'm only really bothered about a clean channel as I get any distortion or fuzz from pedals (or with a decent amp is it better to use the amps distortion??)
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Mar 1, 2012 04:13
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I don't want to go too big / expensive. Something like a 2x12 combo would be fine I think. I don't think I'd want to spend too much over £500 but I could definitely spend more if it means getting something perfect. We usually play shows unmiked but we don't play very big venues so that's never really been an issue even with my crappy 1x12 solid state thing. I'm not too bothered either way on solid state or tube but I'm not fond of things like Line 6 modelling amps, I've used a lot of them at rehearsal spaces and have never got a good sound out of one. There's a WEM Dominator III (old 18w tube, Marshall-ish) for £££cheap in a local pawn shop. Anyone know if it's worth picking up?
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Mar 1, 2012 09:39
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CabaretVoltaire posted:I don't want to go too big / expensive. Something like a 2x12 combo would be fine I think. I don't think I'd want to spend too much over £500 but I could definitely spend more if it means getting something perfect. If you wanted to go the old-school-clean-amp-with-pedals-route, it looks like Silverface Fenders (the baseline standard for this approach) are going for a fair bit more over there and are mostly outside your range... but you might be able to snag a 50 watt Pro Reverb for ~£400 if you can find one. If you wanted to try vintage on a budget, there were a ton of companies that put out stuff in the 60s-80s and disappeared without gaining a high collector value but were solidly made. Over here, the budget option was Traynor for a number of years, until people realized they were only one mod away from being a Marshall Plexi, and the prices started to shoot up. If you're okay with solid-state clean, the main thing is to find a company that didn't cut corners on production. Kustom (the original 60s/early 70s ones, not the later Kasino models and not the modern ones which are just generic channel-switiching tube amps) made high-end germanium based transistor amps aimed at the pro market, but they're a fixture of pawn shops and used guitar stores all across the US.... and always for stupid cheap. I don't know what their UK penetration was, but I'm sure there was an equivalent company. CabaretVoltaire posted:There's a WEM Dominator III (old 18w tube, Marshall-ish) for £££cheap in a local pawn shop. Anyone know if it's worth picking up?
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Mar 1, 2012 16:16
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After The War posted:This is something that really doesn't get brought up enough. It's really a different type of sound, and certainly not an inferior one. The "clean tube amp with distortion pedals" sound was a hallmark of 80s and 90s postpunk, grunge, alternative, etc... partly because old Fender silverfaces and Big Muffs were cheap at the time, but also because it was such a different tone than the big Marshall stacks the cock rockers were touting. It was definitely the sound of my 90s adolescence, so it's the kind of rig I use today - I'm the only one showing up to punk shows with a Twin and pile o'distortion pedals, but people keep coming up after the show to say how much they loved my tone. To each their own. This really is a great point. There are a lot of channel-switching high-gain tube heads on the market because they're easier to sell at a high price! Distortion and fuzz can sound incredible with a decent loud, clean amp.
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Mar 1, 2012 21:31
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the wizards beard posted:This really is a great point. There are a lot of channel-switching high-gain tube heads on the market because they're easier to sell at a high price! Distortion and fuzz can sound incredible with a decent loud, clean amp. Well, they certainly have their use - nearly every form of metal requires tight preamp distortion, for instance. And, if anything, most of the guitar press seems to consider channel-switching to be inferior to those low power ultra-simple amps we were talking about earlier... never mind that they have to be driven louder than people can handle at home to get "that sound" (which isn't always stylistically appropriate), or that they're too small for situations a lot of us play in. Sorry Bad Cat, but I'm just not your demographic. I can certainly understand why, if there are only a limited number of amps you can offer, you'd want to appeal to as wide a customer base as possible. It's just that, like most of us, I was imprinted with the sound of my adolescence, which was the "pedal + clean Fender" sound of Nirvana and Mudhoney.
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Mar 1, 2012 23:54
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I'm an amp scrub. I've only recently come into possession of an actual cab speaker and head, and before that I always only played on practice amps. I'm kind of intimidated by the sheer amount of tone parameters I have. There are multiple knobs for each Hi/Low/Mid. Multiple volume knobs, multiple gain knobs, etc. All that, combined with the different tone knobs on the distortion pedal makes it pretty confusing. Where do I start?
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Mar 2, 2012 02:38
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"I am posting this from my amp"  http://www.orangeopc.com/
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Mar 2, 2012 05:05
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the Bunt posted:I'm an amp scrub. I've only recently come into possession of an actual cab speaker and head, and before that I always only played on practice amps. Divide and conquer... pick a mode, start from a neutral setting, then see what the tweaking does. What amp/pedal is it?
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Mar 2, 2012 07:28
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the Bunt posted:I'm an amp scrub. I've only recently come into possession of an actual cab speaker and head, and before that I always only played on practice amps. Well firstly whats the amp? Secondly, start with all knobs at 12 and work from there.
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Mar 2, 2012 10:40
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After The War posted:Well, they certainly have their use - nearly every form of metal requires tight preamp distortion, for instance. And, if anything, most of the guitar press seems to consider channel-switching to be inferior to those low power ultra-simple amps we were talking about earlier... never mind that they have to be driven louder than people can handle at home to get "that sound" (which isn't always stylistically appropriate), or that they're too small for situations a lot of us play in. Sorry Bad Cat, but I'm just not your demographic They can have their uses, sure, it's just the inflated sense of value that I find strange. As you said, the guitar press loves them and every young guitar player raves about new all-singing models and post tons of Mesa shots in GAS threads. It's just odd that people praise them for certain genres, like metal, but conveniently ignore the thousands of metal albums done with pedals in front of amps. It seems like the sort of "common knowledge" that doesn't get questioned.
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Mar 2, 2012 13:20
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massive spider posted:Well firstly whats the amp? This means 12:00, and not maximum if your knobs go up to "12" (as some Fenders do)  .
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Mar 2, 2012 14:53
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After The War posted:This means 12:00, and not maximum if your knobs go up to "12" (as some Fenders do) Pretty sure (at least some) Peavey's do as well. Edit: So yeah, put all the knobs at half way between the lowest and highest setting. Gripen5 fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Mar 2, 2012 |
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Mar 2, 2012 18:48
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I was looking at the Marshall JVM series since I found a guy selling the 410 head in Denmark and I saw that some of the combos have 2 different speakers in them and it got me thinking. Stereo effects are awesome. Could I hook up a stereo echo or something to this amp and have each speaker be its own channel, or would there have to be two power amps for this to be possible? If it's not possible, what options are there for getting a stereo signal with effects short of having two amplifiers?
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Mar 6, 2012 22:48
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Boz0r posted:I was looking at the Marshall JVM series since I found a guy selling the 410 head in Denmark and I saw that some of the combos have 2 different speakers in them and it got me thinking. You'll need two amps. Also two cabs is best. Stereo effects are kind of lame unless you put some physical distance between the l/r channels. There's not a lot of point in having both signals output at the same spot.
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Mar 6, 2012 23:56
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Yeah, I get that, I'm usually miced up anyways. How about them rack-mounted stereo power amps Marshall makes, how would a setup with them work?
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Mar 7, 2012 00:06
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Stereo power amps have two inputs and two outputs. Split your stereo echo or whatever into the two inputs and send each output to different speakers. Either separate cabs or a stereo cab. Lots of guitar 4x12s can be run as two separate 2x12s. Ask the sound guy to mic each cab and pan l/r if you want it to be heard through the pa.
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Mar 7, 2012 00:20
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Its worth mentioning that lots of sound guys really hate this.
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Mar 7, 2012 11:00
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Also that, once you split the signal, it has to stay separate all they way from where it's split to the audiences' ears (hence the sound guy's annoyance). This is why effects that happen later in the chain (delay, reverb, etc) often have stereo inputs as well as outputs to maintain the split. So stereo delay -> stereo preamps -> stereo power amp -> two speakers/stereo cab (and possibly two microphones from there). If you're just using the cabinet for stage volume and DI'ing into the board, you can always provide a two line-level signals from the preamp (assuming it has them)... but this effect won't necessarily be noticed in the mix. In short, the only time I've seen people do this with stereo cabs was in some kind of separate preamp/power amp rack setup. Luckily, nearly all power amps are indeed stereo, and there are a handful of tube units designed specifically for guitar. I don't think I've ever seen an actual head or cab with stereo inputs... most, from the JC-120 on, have built-in effects it feeds to separate amps internally and then on to separate speakers. So why are there so many stereo cabs when there are so few heads to feed them?  I've had luck running stereo effects to amps on either side of a room, i.e., functioning mostly as a splitter. It's pretty massive sound.
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Mar 7, 2012 15:21
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cross post So what would you do with this? Ex wife is gone so I actually have some kind of money to spend. I decided not to go all out just yet. If I get some serious projects going I'll grab something more prestigious and... well... Maybe I won't? The Line 6 belonged to a guitarist in my previous band. I know it pretty well, I know it's a work horse, and everything minus the digital reverb sounds great. Peavey was practically brand new. Got them both for $400. Figuring I'll get a good A/B switch and tweak them to sound great when played together and use the Line 6 as an added effects and noise machine when needed. Glad to finally have something coming together (sold some killer gear to get married. How's that for luck?) and I can annoy the neighbors again. I know it's not the greatest, but in jams they've sounded pretty spot on to these ears.
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Mar 12, 2012 20:24
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If I have a 100W Marshall JVM combo and I need to play it in a smaller venue, could I remove two of the output tubes and have it sound closer to the 50W combo? I think I read this somewhere. EDIT: As in not quite as loud before it breaks up.
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Mar 14, 2012 11:23
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Does anyone here have the Mesa Mini Rectifier? I am wondering if it is overkill for an apartment.
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Mar 14, 2012 19:45
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Boz0r posted:If I have a 100W Marshall JVM combo and I need to play it in a smaller venue, could I remove two of the output tubes and have it sound closer to the 50W combo? I think I read this somewhere. This doesn't actually make much different in the actual decibel level, it just (supposedly) lets you drive the tubes harder and get that nice tube overdrive at a lower volume. I did this with my 5150 for a while and couldn't really tell much difference, to be honest. You're better off throwing a tubescreamer or something in front of it. Even if you keep the gain on the pedal low, you can turn the level up to drive the preamp harder. Hulk Krogan fucked around with this message at 21:05 on Mar 14, 2012 |
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Mar 14, 2012 21:02
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Drifter287 posted:I did this with my 5150 for a while and couldn't really tell much difference, to be honest. You're better off throwing a tubescreamer or something in front of it. Even if you keep the gain on the pedal low, you can turn the level up to drive the preamp harder. This - wattage doesn't equal volume. Especially with a higher power tube amp (>30 watts), the increase in power means tighter control over the output section. Cascading gain amps (anything with channel switching) generally function on a very clean, tightly controlled power section to accurately reproduce the distortion going on in the preamp section. This is why you couldn't hear a difference in the 5150: all the grit is happening in the preamp stage - exactly where you want it for metal. Some hard rock players who have the luxury of turning up can use the combined preamp and output distortion of a 50w channel-switching amp... but most of us can't. Seconding the recommendation of using a Tubescreamer (or another pedal more appropriate for your genre) and just leaving the amp on either clean or a lower distortion setting. What kind of stuff do you play, Boz0r? EDIT - If you do end up taking out two output tubes from the Marshall to experiment with different power amp characteristics, remember that you have to switch the impedance to half the setting. So if your speakers are running at 8 ohms (likely since it's a combo), switch the output impedance to 4. Fenders are pretty happy with going up or down a stage on the impedance without a problem, but Marshalls are much more prone to melting down if set incorrectly. After The War fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Mar 15, 2012 |
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Mar 15, 2012 00:04
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Personally I think the whole "tube amps only sound good when cranked to hell" thing is sort of a myth anyway, or a hangover from the days that was the primary way of getting distortion out of them. Every modern hi gain amp I've ever played has a volume sweet spot sure, but its usually about half way on the dial. I'm pretty sure the designers knew that was the setting its going to end up on for 90% of applications. We "cranked" a friends DSL in an empty venue once and it was just ungodly stupid, and didn't even sound that magical either.
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Mar 15, 2012 10:40
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I play mostly hard rock and metal from the 70ies and 80ies and the amps I usually play I generally have the gain very low and the volume as high as people let me. I love that dirty but really powerful AC/DC-like sound. I have a tubescreamer, though, so that's not a bad idea. I don't have the JVM combo yet, but I've been looking at it pretty hard. 
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Mar 15, 2012 11:28
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massive spider posted:Personally I think the whole "tube amps only sound good when cranked to hell" thing is sort of a myth anyway, or a hangover from the days that was the primary way of getting distortion out of them. Every modern hi gain amp I've ever played has a volume sweet spot sure, but its usually about half way on the dial. I'm pretty sure the designers knew that was the setting its going to end up on for 90% of applications. I agree, although on a lot of high gain amps halfway up is still ungodly loud and not always feasible. My 5150 sounds fine at 2 or 3, but not nearly as ferocious and thick as it does at 5.
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Mar 15, 2012 21:43
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