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Declan MacManus posted:Amps just sound better when they're loud. There's probably some psychoacoustic principle behind this but I was sick for that day of music production class. There is exactly this, a product of our auditory biology. As someone else mentioned, we hear certain frequencies "better" (read as: louder) at different SPLs. They start to converge as you get really loud, but below that you'll have a harder time hearing most low and some high frequencies. There's also a little notch around 1khz. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lindos4.svg With respect to power section distortion, you have to start looking at duty cycles, soft clipping, and harmonic content. It's all very complicated. I've seen arguments from people that a great deal of the sound of an amplifier has much more to do with the preamplifier design and phase inverter than it does with the actual power section. When the Egnater Rebel came out, offering both 6V6 and EL84 power sections, people were (perhaps rightly) surprised that they didn't sound quite as different as they had expected.
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Aug 1, 2013 22:06
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Carl Seitan posted:1. confirm for me that I don't need a 50+ W tube amp if I'm just going to be playing in my living room? Just anecdotally, I have a 60W Fender Pro Tube Concert. At the volume level where you start to get a nice bluesy driven tone out of it, it's so painfully loud that I can't even use it in the house without harming me, the rest of the family, or the cats.
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Aug 4, 2013 15:25
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My answer to every amp question is "Fender Princeton". 15W is perfect for home practice, loud enough for rehearsals, gigging, and perfect for recording. They are light, can be modded for more or less breakup and just sound really good.
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Aug 4, 2013 15:59
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I had a 5 watt amp that was plenty loud enough for full volume practice with a drummer.
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Aug 4, 2013 19:12
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Gold Dust Gasoline posted:I had a 5 watt amp that was plenty loud enough for full volume practice with a drummer. What amp is this? I've been drowned out using 15 watt amps. Maybe I play with heavy hitting mongoloids.
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Aug 4, 2013 20:14
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My FourForce EM-1 certainly makes the noise.
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Aug 5, 2013 01:52
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Iucounu posted:What amp is this? I've been drowned out using 15 watt amps. Maybe I play with heavy hitting mongoloids. Tube 15s are much different than SS 15s, you know.
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Aug 5, 2013 01:53
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It takes 10 times the wattage to double the volume of an amp (I think?). Either way you usually need a lot less amp than you might expect, and there are a lot of workarounds.
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Aug 5, 2013 02:29
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Iucounu posted:What amp is this? I've been drowned out using 15 watt amps. Maybe I play with heavy hitting mongoloids.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:06
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Remulak posted:Rule of thumb is that a 15 Watt SS amp is roughly the same loudness as a 5 watt tube amp. I honestly think it's less with wattage and tubes/ss and more to do with the fact that those ss amps just produce less of the sound spectrum overall, less 'harmonically rich' maybe, and that's why they're perceived as being much quieter. Maybe, anyway.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:26
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Thanks to you rad dudes I've rethought my amp search and would like some more input. 15-50 watts but only close to 50 if I can drop it back to 25 or so. My plan is to have a very good clean tone and use pedals for dirt. Essentially looking for something that sounds great clean, can be dirtied without cranking, handles pedals very well, and is backed my a reliable company (I want it to be perfectly playable in 10+ years). I like the previous recommendations I've got but I'm curious if I can get more input.
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Aug 5, 2013 03:31
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What's your budget and what/where will you be playing? I lean towards the Orange AD30 as being the damned near perfect gig amp myself.
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Aug 5, 2013 04:11
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juche mane posted:Tube 15s are much different than SS 15s, you know. I was referring to tube 15s.
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Aug 5, 2013 04:27
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Priority is bedroom use/recording and possibly small venues. I don't really have a money cap but staying under $1,000 would be ideal. It's funny you mentioned Orange, I know they've been making quite a few solid low wattage amps lately and I've always wanted to have an Orange.
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Aug 5, 2013 04:28
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Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18.
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Aug 5, 2013 08:57
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Okay, so two things. First in defense of the Valveking 112: I've had mine since about 2006, when I chose it over a Blues Jr without knowing really anything about amps. I've never regretted that choice. While the gain channel has always been a bit aggressive for me (the most I like is kind of fusion-y lead), I can still dial in a usable sound if I'm careful. And I use a dirt box for boost and/or crunch most of the time anyway. Right now I have the pedal set up with a moderate crunch and the OD side of the amp set to very mild breakup. That gives me four flavours to choose from, all of which are pretty usable. In any case, I mostly got the amp for the clean, and to keep up with a drum set. It does both. I would absolutely recommend it as a first amp if you need a fairly portable combo that can keep up with a hard-hitting drummer at rehearsals and cover clean to medium-gain sounds for gigging. It's never once broken down on me, nor have I had to re-tube it since I got it. If, like me, you're largely unconcerned with exactly replicating sounds you've heard elsewhere I think the VK is a really solid choice. Also, probably no one's going to loving steal it. To the detriment of the ValveKing: Everything got much better when I added a ten-band MXR EQ to the effects loop. Mostly what I do now is cut the lowest few bands, which on the MXR are below normal guitar range anyway. This frees up the mid and high range (which I also boost slightly) of the amp, and gives a lot more cut and presence. I won't say the clean is exactly Fender-like, but it gets into Classic 30 territory and that's more than fine by me. I like to have access to a pristine setting with no obvious breakup, and although the ValveKing always did that, it now does it at lower volume settings. So if you do go for a VK, I'd budget for an EQ pedal as part of the deal. It goes a very long way toward overcoming the biggest weakness of the amp, which is the stock speaker. There are other mods you can do, but I've never seen the need. Uh, until now. Question: What neodymium speakers do people like for 112 combos? My main motivation here is to make the amp a bit lighter, but I've also finally decided that I've lived with the old one long enough. In terms of sound, I mostly want a wide frequency response so I can EQ things to my liking. The Eminence Tonkerlite and Lil' Texas seem to be popular choices along these lines.Celestion has some of course, but they're on the pricey side. Oh, and it needs to be 16ohm... As for the rest of my rig, I play mostly bolt-ons with hot-ish single coils, plus an Epi Casino. Two of the bolt necks have medium-output bridge humbuckers. The music has a mix of big chords (clean and distorted), jazz shapes, funk strumming, fingerpicking, and single note leads. Other band pieces are drums, five string fretless bass, and vocals. Maybe keys too someday soon. Effects are: EB Volume->Tubeworks overdrive->modded Crybaby (darker/louder) in the front, Boss PS-5 (chorus)->MXR M108 in the loop. If the Neos all sound terrible or the good ones don't come in 16ohm I'll probably just go with the Eminence with the least annoying name, or even a generic Carvin. Much as I like this amp, I feel like any decent speaker will be an improvement.
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Aug 5, 2013 16:17
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Ferrous Wheel posted:To the detriment of the ValveKing: This pretty much goes for any amp- put an eq in the effects loop. Valvekings are halfway decent if you just want a generic tube amp too.
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Aug 5, 2013 16:57
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Yep. And not just guitar amps either—I'm pretty dogmatic about hi-passing anything that's going to be amplified somehow. Of course I'm probably never going to convince my bass player to filter out sub-audio, but for guitars and vocals I see no downside. For guitar use, I would recommend the M108 over the six band or the Boss GE-7 specifically because it allows you to cut a big chunk of low frequency content that is unlikely to be useful in a band setting and most tunings. The two gain controls are also very handy, and the whole thing is supremely useful live. I've used mine as a boost when my OD was out of commission, and to get a borrowed (and crazy bright) Fender combo under control without running back to the amp or changing the owner's settings too much. As for "generic", to me that's a good thing. I don't have the attention span to build my signal chain or playing around one sound, and I think idealizing existing styles is kind of dangerous. It certainly hasn't spurred much innovation in the world of guitars and amps at least. That may be too much of a can of worms for this thread though.
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Aug 5, 2013 17:37
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Kilometers Davis posted:Priority is bedroom use/recording and possibly small venues. I don't really have a money cap but staying under $1,000 would be ideal. It's funny you mentioned Orange, I know they've been making quite a few solid low wattage amps lately and I've always wanted to have an Orange. Check out the Traynor Iron Horse. 40 watts, 2xEL34, you can toggle it down to a 15 watt cathode biased operation. 15 watts is going to be pretty loud, but if you're looking for a clean platform with which to put effects on, it should be just great.
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Aug 5, 2013 19:06
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jwh posted:15 watts is going to be pretty loud, but if you're looking for a clean platform with which to put effects on, it should be just great.
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Aug 5, 2013 22:49
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How does the tiny terror sound for metal? I was thinking of getting one but I think just manning up and getting a 6505+ or a ENGL Fireball with a 2x12 cab would be better for playing with a dummer or live. I know the 6505+ is built like a tank though.
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Aug 5, 2013 22:56
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Depends on what you mean by metal. It's pretty good for sludgy doom stuff. The dark terror's marketed as their "metal" amp, but it just sounds more like a fuzz pedal to me. Neither are really in the same ballpark as a 6505/Engl kind of sound though. If you're looking for something smaller, the 5150III mini is kinda underrated. Alec Bald Snatch fucked around with this message at 23:33 on Aug 5, 2013 |
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Aug 5, 2013 23:30
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Ok cool, good to know. Saved me some money on that.
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Aug 5, 2013 23:31
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Kilometers Davis posted:Priority is bedroom use/recording and possibly small venues. I don't really have a money cap but staying under $1,000 would be ideal. It's funny you mentioned Orange, I know they've been making quite a few solid low wattage amps lately and I've always wanted to have an Orange. I like: -Vox AC15 -Evil Robot DC30 (the cheap one, can't remember what it's called) -Orange AD30 -Fender Princeton -You can find vintage low wattage amps around this price, shop around -Mesa TransAtlantic
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Aug 6, 2013 01:15
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Francodipshit posted:How does the tiny terror sound for metal? I was thinking of getting one but I think just manning up and getting a 6505+ or a ENGL Fireball with a 2x12 cab would be better for playing with a dummer or live. I know the 6505+ is built like a tank though. The beauty of the TT isn't that it compares favorably to a 6505+ or ENGL, but that it works well enough and takes like 1m14s to set up pre-gig.
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Aug 6, 2013 02:54
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Declan MacManus posted:I like: Also check out the very similar Vox Night Train
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Aug 6, 2013 14:27
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rt4 posted:Also check out the very similar Vox Night Train That one gets some pretty cool cleans.
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Aug 6, 2013 15:15
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Sirius Sam posted:One thing that's always been annoying for me as a guitarist and gearhead is that the music I play is completely unlike anything anyone plays in those sample videos. I go between playing super loud "wall of sound" fuzzed out stoner/doom metal (think Electric Wizard/old Boris/Weedeater) to super grindy HM-2 type distortion in Drop A (think Trap Them/Black Breath/Magrudergrind etc etc) and I can never ever find samples of speakers, pickups or even amps used in a way like that on the internet. I'm sure I'm not the majority but it still bums me out that I have to find ways to try them all out in person which is basically impossible I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I went through a bunch of amps, hoping to eventually find the sound I was looking for. Marshall TSL, Peavey 5150 (which was QUITE good and shouldn't have been sold), THD Univalve, an old flip-top Ampeg, Ampeg V-4, Matamp Roadster, Engl 530, Mesa-Boogie Mark III. I one day saw an Electric Amps master-volume head on Ebay. I had been a fan of the clips I had heard so I sold the Mark III I had at the time and purchased it. 5 years later and I'm still loving that thing. It has really deep voicing so it can get a bit loose but that's a trait that makes it great for Electric Wizard style playing. With the voicing/FAC knob turned to the least-deep setting, you lose some gain but it gets a lot tighter since it's not producing all of those low tones. A boost pedal can bring the gain back up past what you get on the deeper settings anyway. With just a boost pedal, the voicing options on it, and picking between the 4 pickup options I have on my 2 guitars, I've been able to play pretty much anything I want with it. If you can deal with having a single channel and want instant wall-of-sound, dizzying gain, I can't recommend them enough. The only problems with them is that they're built by a single guy so there's a wait and they're quite pricey. But hey, it beats spending even more years buying and selling gear while chasing that sound. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDKb-X26UYQ
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Aug 6, 2013 21:57
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Catastrophe posted:I'm pretty much in the same boat as you. I went through a bunch of amps [...] THD Univalve
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Aug 6, 2013 22:41
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What do I want to do for a boost on my Jubilee? Rat, Tube Screamer, BBE clean boost, something else? Someone else decide, too many options. I have a gift cert that needs spending.
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Aug 7, 2013 00:42
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3oCA_ui9aQ I hear good things bout the TC Spark Boost.
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Aug 7, 2013 03:00
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Zvex super hard on absolutely
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Aug 7, 2013 03:19
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Xabi posted:What did you think about it? It's the only other amp I've owned that I've always regretted selling. It had limited uses but sounded beautiful in its comfort zone. My problem was that I owned it during a time when I almost exclusively played thrash metal so it didn't fit my needs at the time. Being a low-wattage NMV amp, it didn't have much headroom for cleans (which I didn't really mind). The fact that it has a built in attentuator and can be played without a cabinet being attached is phenomenal. My grandpa used to repair old radios and amps and thus had a basement full of various NOS tubes which I used to my advantage. I stocked up on piles of old preamp and power tubes which gave me a lot of voicing and gain options along with the amp's voltage and voicing controls. I still occasionally check local Craigslist postings to see if anyone has one for sale. No luck, yet.
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Aug 7, 2013 05:25
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Francodipshit posted:How does the tiny terror sound for metal? I was thinking of getting one but I think just manning up and getting a 6505+ or a ENGL Fireball with a 2x12 cab would be better for playing with a dummer or live. I know the 6505+ is built like a tank though. Ive heard the jim root ones pretty good.
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Aug 7, 2013 13:10
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So I went from zero to Blues Jr today in approx. 3 hours after seeing one on craigslist 5 minutes or so away from me. 06 model with the eminence speaker which I will probably switch out, but still sounds great with my LP. Saw it listed today and thought, gently caress it, why not? Do I need another amp? No. Does that matter? No. Picked it up for $220 which I think is a steal up here in Canada. Got the original receipts with it and the guy originally payed $570 for it and it's basically only been used in bedrooms since then - it's in mint condition. 
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Aug 8, 2013 07:14
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$220 for a Blues Jr is ridiculous cheap. Grats!
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Aug 9, 2013 01:04
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Blues Jrs are also great modding platforms if that's the kind of thing that tickles your fancy.
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Aug 9, 2013 01:13
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Blues Juniors are funny creatures- decidedly un-fender in some ways, but you can't argue their ubiquity.
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Aug 9, 2013 06:02
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HollisBrown posted:Blues Jrs are also great modding platforms if that's the kind of thing that tickles your fancy. Yeah, I remember this from back when I was looking at Blues JRs after ML recommended them. Any tips on which mods I should look into? The obvious one to start with would be switching out the Eminence speaker. I remember hearing good things about the Greenbacks, but I've never done any amp mods before so I don't really know what I should be looking for.
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Aug 9, 2013 09:44
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Speaker replacement depends heavily on what you want to achieve. Some speakers will give you more clean headroom, others will break up earlier. Either one might be an improvement for your purposes. Greenbacks, as far as I know, are favoured mostly by people who like a fairly tight distorted sound. I'm sure they're fine for other things, that just seems to be their main selling point. I think Weber speakers are a good place to start looking since they have offerings at a lot of price points and no one seems to hate them. Also, they're having a 10% sale right now according to their highly attractive front page. If your budget is tight, Jensen makes a lot of pretty cheap models and having been a supplier of stock Fender speakers since forever a lot of their offerings are designed with that in mind. As jwh says, the Blues Jr. isn't really a typical Fender. But maybe dropping in a more traditional speaker would get it closer to sounding that way, or just work out well for other reasons. Returning to the ongoing struggle between my ValveKing and my spine: Has anyone tried a Celestion G12 Century? I was initially looking for the original version but it looks like the new "vintage" model may have replaced it, which is unfortunate since the new 60 watt rating is a little low for my comfort. Most people who dislike them find them too "hi-fi", which sounds like exactly what I want. I wish I was better as reading the specs and charts, because the Eminence models seem good but their branding and ad copy screws with my head. The neo versions seem hard to find for a test drive as well.
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Aug 9, 2013 15:35
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