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Southern Heel posted:Does the mere fact we've been talking in semi-serious tones (lol) about amps which cost over a thousand dollars make us all bluesdentists by association? What happened to the downtrodden artiste? Sssssort of but I still think bluesdaddery starts when you start worrying about ~*vintage correct*~ specs/super fancy capacitor materials/whatevers instead of just going "is this a well-made amp with an EQ behavior and gain structure that I like" e: Like I'm basically wanting a Rect-o-verb out of pure metaldaddery than anything else, my nice tube amp + uberschall is more than sufficient for most tones especially with the addition of the nice compressor pedal the fact that I bought a keeley product is bluesdad enough but I know when I have the leverage to get a huge deal and $80 off was too good to pass up Shugojin fucked around with this message at 03:51 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 03:49
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muike posted:God Bless the 5150
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Oct 4, 2016 04:19
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBJYic1Qo7k I've never seen as serious of a product "review" on such a rinky-dink thing. Actually looking at it more, the channel is named "EVH Gear Discussion" and the guy's channel banner includes a pic of that same guy with windblown longish hair and that dumb mustache so... yeah. My apologies. GreatGreen fucked around with this message at 04:38 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 04:30
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Shugojin posted:Sssssort of but I still think bluesdaddery starts when you start worrying about ~*vintage correct*~ specs/super fancy capacitor materials/whatevers instead of just going "is this a well-made amp with an EQ behavior and gain structure that I like" I think that's a good definition, like I want a good amp but it's to use and abuse on stage, I don't give a gently caress if my pickup rings are vintage spec (  )
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Oct 4, 2016 12:36
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Southern Heel posted:cranked Marshall sound either as a lunchbox or 1x12 combo? I guess there's the Victory Sheriff 22? I just picked up a Sheriff 22 and so far I love it! The .3w output is the perfect volume for my bedroom wankery and the 22 watt output is sufficiently loud. The tone is awesome to my ear but it's definitely a 1-trick pony. If that trick is what you're looking for then you'll be pretty happy. I don't find it to have a ton of clean headroom and it's basically a single channel amp but, again, I'm very happy with it. I'm a terrible bedroom guitarist who isn't currently in a band or gigging so take this with a healthy heaping of salt.
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Oct 4, 2016 16:51
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Thanks for the info - I'm not so fussed with it being a one-trick pony (at least now). I've been playing for about three and a half years and that whole time I've really just orbited around a core of sleazy 80's rock; on one end Yngwie and Jason Becker - on the other end Whitesnake and G'N'R. There have been minor diversions into Gypsy Jazz, modern Metal, etc. but honestly that's where my enjoyment lies. For what it's worth, was the Friedman Runt/PT/DS Mini ever in the running for you?
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Oct 4, 2016 17:21
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Southern Heel posted:Thanks for the info - I'm not so fussed with it being a one-trick pony (at least now). I've been playing for about three and a half years and that whole time I've really just orbited around a core of sleazy 80's rock; on one end Yngwie and Jason Becker - on the other end Whitesnake and G'N'R. There have been minor diversions into Gypsy Jazz, modern Metal, etc. but honestly that's where my enjoyment lies. For what it's worth, was the Friedman Runt/PT/DS Mini ever in the running for you? The DS mini was definitely on my radar but was another 50% more expensive, didn't have a low-power mode, and not having either of them available locally to A/B made it tough to compare. Furthermore, the Dirty Shirley is modeled in my AxeFx so I sort of have access to it already... If you're looking to get in the neighborhood of JTM to JCM tones you're probably going to be satisfied. If you go down that route definitely let me know what you think once you get your hands on it!
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Oct 4, 2016 18:43
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Shugojin posted:Sssssort of but I still think bluesdaddery starts when you start worrying about ~*vintage correct*~ specs/super fancy capacitor materials/whatevers instead of just going "is this a well-made amp with an EQ behavior and gain structure that I like" Can we add "the desire for any piece of gear specifically because a famous guitar player from between 1960-1989 used it" to the criteria for bluesdaddery? Judges?
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Oct 5, 2016 00:50
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what if i want something because lemmy used it in that time period
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Oct 5, 2016 00:51
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True story: I got interested in and eventually bought a Strat largely because Fast Eddie used one to cut through and be heard over Lemmy.
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Oct 5, 2016 02:49
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GreatGreen posted:Can we add "the desire for any piece of gear specifically because a famous guitar player from between 1960-1989 used it" to the criteria for bluesdaddery? I can agree with this because I've never done that, so that would knock my bluesdad rating down a few points
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Oct 5, 2016 14:20
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Okay so far I think I've successfully talked myself down from the Rect-o-verb to building some sort of 18-watt clone, probably one of the master volume enabled ones If I'm really lucky I will manage to get myself all the way down to just a Fuzz Factory or something by the time I actually have the return and can be responsible with the rest
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Oct 5, 2016 21:34
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Just had time to crack open the encloser and look things over. Found this little guy hanging loose  Going to get the soldering iron out and re seat him and see if that makes the hum go away. Bonus full gut shot 
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Oct 5, 2016 22:34
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Double post update. Fixing that capacitor did the trick. Now have an awesome loud as hell amp for free 
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Oct 6, 2016 16:41
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Thumposaurus posted:Double post update. Another SA success story.
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Oct 6, 2016 19:50
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Shugojin posted:Okay so far I think I've successfully talked myself down from the Rect-o-verb to building some sort of 18-watt clone, probably one of the master volume enabled ones If you're building, try running EL84s with an Ultralinear transformer- they sound quite good and tight in the low end, which can be a good match for a hot preamplifier.
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Oct 6, 2016 20:08
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I spoke to the guys at Victory and they would custom-build me a 1x12 Sheriff cab with a Creamback (to be equivalent to the Friedman 1x12) if I got a Sheriff from them. I do understand the Sheriff is more 70's than 80's though and it would appear as though the PT is going to do 'that 80's thing' best. And while it started out as a wildcard, the Mesa, seems like it can do that pretty loving well. That, and the rest. I'm really quite turned off by the modern metal sound with the gain cranked, but with some decorum all the channels sound great. It also has both reverb, a boost and an EQ built in, which has got to be worth a £150 in pedals if you figure a GE-7, RV-6 and a Micro Amp. And a DI out for recording (precluding the need for BIAS Desktop/etc.) and a headphone socket for when my wife shouts at me to be quiet. The only thing that is really killing me about this is that the DIFFERENCE between the Sheriff and the Mesa is enough to buy me pretty much any non-boutique amp on the market - but I don't think I could justify two amps in my little home studio to my wife, so better one that does all. I would really appreciate some input on this one 
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Oct 6, 2016 22:06
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To be perfectly honest I'm currently really interested in the Hughes and Kettner tubemeister 18 head for all the features that has. I would of course need to take a trip to someplace to try one (or just do the Sweetwater thing). It seems to have some pretty drat good reviews and at $500 USD  If I were really that into building I should first figure out why my last build has such a colossal volume issue, it just will not get loud at all no matter what I do. Like on the one hand this leads to super easy natural breakup but on the other its tonestack kinda wasn't built for breakup and so it sounds..... not amazing. My current suspect is the bias resistors on the preamp tubes but jwh if you have any better ideas feel free to tell me. I'm able to get you a scan of the circuit pretty easily if you need that.
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Oct 6, 2016 22:17
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Shugojin posted:My current suspect is the bias resistors on the preamp tubes but jwh if you have any better ideas feel free to tell me. I'm able to get you a scan of the circuit pretty easily if you need that. Yeah give me a schematic, and we can look at what is likely the problem. Happy to help. If anything, I've often had the opposite problem- amps that are too loud. But then again, I tend to bias on the hot side in cathode biased output stages.
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Oct 7, 2016 15:55
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jwh posted:Yeah give me a schematic, and we can look at what is likely the problem. Happy to help. Amps can't be too loud imho
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Oct 7, 2016 23:40
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Well I gone and loving did it: In the shop I spent about an hour simply A/B'ing the runt and the pt over and over again. Thanks to this thread, I wanted to ensure that I could get good sounds at reasonable volumes, with my old amp at home, I measured 35db ambient in my studio and around 69-70db for 'loud enough in my room to sound nice, but not enough to annoy my wife'. In-store it was around 48db ambient and I got stonking sounds at around 70db - so both friedman heads were clearly in the running. I decided to discount the Shirley simply because it's a little TOO vintage sounding for me. Both amps were very responsive to tone and volume, as well as pick attack. The volume is something of a hair trigger especially with the gain all the way up: it is probably 1/8th of a turn from 'off' to a volume you'd watch TV at (maybe I just watch tv quietly!?) but the extremely smooth dial makes that somewhat of a null point and it doesn't skip around. The PT did clean up with the gain off and the volume backed down on the guitar I was using (a Gibson Explorer, which is the highest output guitar I have) but never really got out of break-up territory. I really hate the audiophile way of describing things because to me it doesn't map to the real world, but I have to agree when someone said it had a high-mid character. The three-way gain voicing felt alot like a band-pass filter being applied, in the low mid, mid or high mids - so it could get that Plexi sound as well as the JCM800 tone. Runt's controls allowed me to get 90% of the tone in the PT, and with the EQ very, very close. The presence knob got me that strident thrashy sound with the gain dimed, and I could back all the way down to just crispy crunch. While the channel voicing on the Runt is for clean rather than dirty (unlike the PT), the EQ, Gain, Volume, Anti-boost made up for alot of that space. The clean channel is so very, very lovely: notes bloom and decay really nicely. At home, I ran an MXR MicroAmp+ infront of it and I can certainly get it to where the PT was in the shop. Aside from these difference in that short time I was able to get close enough to not really be able to tell which amp I was playing through, so the Runt came out as a clear winner at a lower price and bigger feature set.
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Oct 9, 2016 16:00
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Congrats on that, you've got one of the best amps in the world there imo
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Oct 9, 2016 16:14
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Are you glad you went with that over modeling? I'm in a similar situation of possibly wanting to grab another amp in that price range or switch 100% to digital. The Runt has caught my eye for a while. Friedman makes awesome amps and since I found out Bill Kelliher uses one the GAS is building in me.
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Oct 9, 2016 18:59
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It's very hard for me to be objective after only a few days, so with that in mind, I had three lines of thought: My heart says that nobody REALLY wants to be plugged into a computer no matter how much rationalisation they put behind it - it's always because they can't afford or don't want to buy the real gear being modelled, or logistically lugging around massive amplifiers. As the Runt has a power-soak with a DI-out for recording/PA and headphones, it's small enough to carry in one trip anywhere and it sounds like the best amp I've ever played through or heard - it was easy to put those concerns behind me. My mind says that in reality a modelling solution like a Kemper or Axe-FX can give me ALL the amps with ALL the sounds, etc. - but really I don't want a million sounds. I want to plug my guitar into an amp and make some glorious noise. When I had a Boss ME-80 I barely changed patches at all - it was always 'British Crunch' with a bit of delay, a bit of reverb and bob's your mother's brother. To give you a simile, when I was a kid I used to get one, maybe two videogames a year - no matter how much I begged or pleaded I only got one - so you can be damned sure I played the poo poo out of it and loved it no matter what. As soon as I was able to get pirated games for relatively little cost, each individual game lost its lustre. This is a known thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice quote:Schwartz finds that when people are faced with having to choose one option out of many desirable choices, they will begin to consider hypothetical trade-offs... afterwards, it affects the level of satisfaction we experience from our decision... My wallet says that in 20 years time the Runt is going to be worth the same, in the way that a 1995 Mesa Mark IV is still worth a decent amount. But is a computer? A modeller? A multi-FX unit? I can't predict hoow the future will look upon Kempers and Axe-FX's, but for now I know for me this is a sound long-term financial choice, a good intellectual choice based on my own behaviour patterns of being overwhelmed with options and valuing them all less because of it, and it simply makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.
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Oct 9, 2016 21:26
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Southern Heel posted:It's very hard for me to be objective after only a few days, so with that in mind, I had three lines of thought: Okay you completely echoed and elaborated on my entire feelings about this stuff and I appreciate the well thought out response. That book seems right up my alley as well, I'll have to order a copy this week. I think you and I generally have the same goals and even though modeling is perfect for my situation technically, you really can't ignore how important the basics are. The "intangibles" I suppose. It's an interesting dilemma.
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Oct 9, 2016 22:00
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Well, it's about the 'wine label' - we all know how much peer pressure, expectation, etc. colour or perception of things. There's no audible difference between hearing an MP3 you've clicked on your beat to poo poo 2007 HP Laptop and an original 60's Beatles Vinyl on a nice Pioneer deck - but the wrapping around those experiences is very different and shouldn't be discounted.
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Oct 9, 2016 22:38
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Shugojin posted:On the other side of things I'm having a very hard time convincing myself to not just run giggling to Sweetwater to buy a Mesa Rect-o-verb combo come tax refund season Hey there. I know this is from earlier this month, and while I'm glad that you decided to talk yourself out of buying something that you're not 100% sure it's for you, let me gush about the little BAD motherfucker that the Recto-Verb 25 truly is. As many of you might recall from either this thread or the New Gear one, earlier this year, I served as a hired gun in a 3 month tour and I started to consider a good touring head, despite the fact that I own a bunch of the most sought after blues/metaldad wet dreams (Mesa Boogie Mark IV, Bogner Uberschall, Soldano SLO-100, ENGL Special Edition, etcétera). Since it seemed like the tour was gonna be a low maintenance thing, I decided to start looking for something to make noise happen in a satisfying manner. I started to consider a couple of amps that some of you steered me away from due to horror stories (I think it was either a split between a 4-Channel Carvin or one of those Ibanez 30-watt heads that have a tube screamer built in). A few days later, after checking the store where I get most of my strings for all my stringed instruments, I saw the Recto-Verb 25 head and the Express 5:50 / 5:25. Next day, I went with my Schecter tuned in Drop B and for an hour and a half, I tested both amps. From that whole shootout and from touring with 2 of those heads (1 as a backup that I actually never ended up needing for anything other than warm-up backstage) from Early February to Early May, I can tell you that the Recto-Verb 25 both sounds awesome and can take a beating. I ended up sending every other amp/head that I had at home to the warehouse where I keep my stuff and that Mesa is pretty much it as far as both home rehearsal and local gigging goes. The 2 downsides for me are that: A) You have to buy the Reverb foot-switch separately. What the gently caress Mesa? I got lucky because the store where I bought it had one, but that is still bullshit. Why not simply incorporate it into a 2-stomp foot-switch? B) The reverb control is in the back panel. And while I pretty much just keep that under control with the foot-switch, it'd be nice to have either that 2 stomp foot-switch or have the Reverb control in the front panel. (The Reverb itself rules, though)
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Oct 16, 2016 14:54
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Yeah I still really want the RoV head  e: I mean the mini rectifier head is exactly the same except for the spring tank circuit and those go down pretty low on the used section of reverb so... Shugojin fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Oct 16, 2016 |
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Oct 16, 2016 14:59
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How much low volume "buzz" is normal for a tube amp to put out? This is my first real tube setup. I just picked up a new Mesa Mark V 35w head and a 2x12 cab and I'm getting a pretty quiet but noticeable buzzing noise coming whenever the tubes are on. It's not the guitar because it makes the noise if an instrument is plugged in or not. It also increases in volume if I go from 10w to 35w. While I'm playing I can't hear it but when the guitar volume knob is at 0 you can still definitely hear it. I know that tubes make a slight hissing noise when you crank the gain, but this is different. I looked up a few articles/threads about amp buzz but they are all filled with guitarist lore and I can't get a straight answer. I just wanted to check here before I called up Mesa.
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Nov 5, 2016 21:10
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Bazanga posted:How much low volume "buzz" is normal for a tube amp to put out? This is my first real tube setup. Mine, none really. Buuuuuuutttt it can for sure be a nearby fridge, light, mobile phone, air conditioner etc as well so maybe try turning a few things off / trying different plug sockets and all the elimination good stuff
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Nov 5, 2016 22:24
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I've done all the elimination stuff and tried a few different outlets and it's still present. Still might be an electrical issue in my house. I did realize that I was using an instrument cable to go from the head to the cabinet. I checked online to see if that might be the culprit and apparently I'm a megahitler for not using a speaker cable, so I'm going to grab one at the store tomorrow and see if that helps it. I don't think it would, though, because speaker cables are unshielded, right? Someone also recommended getting an Ebtech (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/HumX). I'll look into that if I can't figure it out. I can't imagine Mesa shipped a brand new head with a bad tube in it. Bazanga fucked around with this message at 03:06 on Nov 6, 2016 |
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Nov 6, 2016 03:04
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Bazanga posted:I've done all the elimination stuff and tried a few different outlets and it's still present. Still might be an electrical issue in my house. I did realize that I was using an instrument cable to go from the head to the cabinet. I checked online to see if that might be the culprit and apparently I'm a megahitler for not using a speaker cable, so I'm going to grab one at the store tomorrow and see if that helps it. I don't think it would, though, because speaker cables are unshielded, right? Switching to a speaker cable won't do anything for the noise, but it will help with not killing your output transformer! You'll sound a lot better, too, which might mean the noise gets louder (along with everything else.) And if they problem is in the amp itself, the hum eliminator probably isn't going to help (caveat - if the problem is in the preamp and not the power amp, it might be effective in your effects loop). Can you get your hands on one of those outlet testers from a hardware store? It'll let you know if your wiring is funny, a good tool to have around at any rate. This looks like the one my dad's had for a million years.
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Nov 6, 2016 03:21
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So I played a Fender bass breaker combo and really liked the sound and response of it. My main amp is my trusty Roland JC-55 that I simply can't sell or trade towards any other amp. My girlfriend would be pretty miffed if I brought home a new amp, but a head would go over smoothly. How crazy am I to think that the bass breaker's 15watt head would be a good idea into my JC 55? I'd use the direct out of the head right into the front of my amp. Will I start a fire? The JC can handle line inputs just fine. I run a keyboard through it fairly often.
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Nov 14, 2016 00:31
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philkop posted:So I played a Fender bass breaker combo and really liked the sound and response of it. Keyboards don't have an amp as such, you are running an amp into an amp the way you described. first up - make sure you use a speaker cable, not an instrument cable no matter what you hook it up to, secondly does your existing amp have its speakers hard wired in? Mine for example has a small cable with a jack that plugs into the amp section. I run my Vox head through my combo Blackstar speakers all the time at home and it works really well.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:00
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I don't think he's talking about running from the speaker output into the Roland, but rather running from the DI output into the front of the JC55. I think that's still going to cause issues though since it's a balanced out to an unbalanced in.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:28
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philkop posted:So I played a Fender bass breaker combo and really liked the sound and response of it. Or the line out of the Bassbreaker head into the instrument input of the JC 55? I'm not familiar with the Bassbreaker head but I'm pretty sure that running a tube amp without an appropriate cab connected is also a really bad idea. Elector_Nerdlingen fucked around with this message at 01:33 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 01:30
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It would probably sound a lot better running them in parallel. If you're just going to use the other amp as a preamp, you could just get a tube preamp pedal. This thing has a "poweramp mute" and a speaker simulator on the XLR out. Not sure if that's including the poweramp section or not. It might sound pretty good as a recording out, similar to what's in the Bassman 100T (which I like a lot). I don't think I'd necessarily run that into another amp though. Speaker simulator into guitar amp, even a clean JC, might sound odd. Just run them in parallel, maybe eq the JC for highs, the Fender for lows, mids wherever, and it should sound good. Gorgar fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Nov 14, 2016 |
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Nov 14, 2016 01:36
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my other car is balls posted:I don't think he's talking about running from the speaker output into the Roland, but rather running from the DI output into the front of the JC55. Ah right, I got the wrong idea there. Yeah, still not a great idea. Running the combo speakers through the head is still the way I'd go if possible.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:37
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Apparently these come in head versions too. No, you won't blow anything up. It might sound kind of strange, but might sound good. Parallel would still sound better (to me), but now I get it: if the amp is safe to run with the poweramp muted, you should be ok. If the poweramp isn't part of the direct out, then you have a very expensive and large dual tube preamp pedal that won't have any el84 chime in it. A lot of what you liked about the sound won't be there. Unless they put the direct out after the power stage.
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Nov 14, 2016 01:57
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peter gabriel posted:Ah right, I got the wrong idea there. Agreed. If you have any confidence at all with a soldering iron it should be pretty simple to add in a switching jack between the amp and speakers.
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Nov 14, 2016 02:02
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