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I have a Line 6 Spider Valve, not a day goes by I dont regret buying it.
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Jul 5, 2010 12:22
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:26 |
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bisticles posted:I think the double-negatives cancel each other out and you're saying that every day you regret buying it? I thought those Spider Valve amps got pretty good reviews. I saw a hard rock band gigging with one, and was pretty impressed with the sounds the guitarist was getting with it. I mean every day I look at it and think "drat, I wish I hadnt bought a spider valve." A quick rundown of its pros and cons. Good: Its loud. Some of the hi gain sounds are pretty meaty. Built in noise gate. Bad: The highs are abominable and piercing, turning the presence up above 3 is never advised regardless of your location or intention. The midrange is crap and boxy and despite the massive volume doesent cut over a band nicely. I really think midrange is the test for a good amp, any amp can sound awesome scooped in your bedroom or on the shop floor but its not until you try to get heard over the band that the differences in quality really show themselves. The volume settings make no sense. Patch volume is pretty much independant of master volume and all every patch defaults to max meaning that if you accidentally switch to the wrong patch or want to tweak amps on stage you will go deaf. The master volume is ungodly loud at 3 and tops out volume wise about 5 wheraupon it just gets more distorted but in the mushy feedbacky way not in that pleasant overdriven amp way. The response just feels wrong. Stupidly I noticed this right from the moment I demoed it against the other amps in the store but thought it wasnt that big a deal and the versitility would make up for it. A year later its become utterly maddening. Tell harmony central this and they'll direct you towards a mod shop that puts another tube in the input stage, yeah thanks. Anybody walking into the room at the design stage should have seen at first glance that the plastic knobs are destined to break. For me they lasted until the second gig. No marshall style moderate hi gain mode. I thought JCM800s had to be on every modelling amp by law? It just goes straight from over twangy blues crunch into dual rectifier without any stops in between (they fixed this in the mark 2) The effects suck and arent upgradable (they fixed this in the mark 2) Most of the problems I have with it they fixed in the mark 2 an amp is not a loving iPod it should not be going obsolete six months after you buy it jesus christ. massive spider fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Jul 7, 2010 |
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Jul 6, 2010 09:34
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Can anyone recommend me a head? Heres my critera: Need 2 channels, no more, I dont like having features I dont need and I dont really care about having totally pristine cleans. Really good nice higain crunch, but not neccisarrily hypercompressed metal stuff. Available in the UK. Not mesa boogie. Cheap, cheap cheap cheap. I dont mind going used. Marshall is the obvious option but any alternatives? massive spider fucked around with this message at 12:13 on Aug 2, 2010 |
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Aug 1, 2010 13:59
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I have an aversion to 5150's. Maybe its enirely irrational but nah.
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Aug 1, 2010 23:42
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iostream.h posted:Entirely irrational man, seriously, they fit your criteria to a 'T'. It's becasue I used to work in a live music bar and seeing bands load in with 5150s was typically the first sign that the night was going to be awful. They aren't bad sounding amps but I think its pavlovian now.
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Aug 2, 2010 12:08
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Stayne Falls posted:For Three Red Lights: A Vox VT50 or 100 would very likely fit your criteria. I have the AD100VTH and it sounds crisp and super clear. I've been thinking of buying an EQ for the FX loop but I'm a picky bitch anyway and honestly it sounds fine. They've got tonnes of those at the place where I practise (Enterprise London) I dont really like them. To me the most important factor in an amp is midrange, lots of amps can get loud, or have lots of bass and treble but you know you've found something good when the midrange has that awesome bite to it that cuts right through the full band. Thats where solid state and hybrid stuff tends to lack IMO, you can eventually dial it into something Ok sounding but if you plug into something like an Orange then that sounds amazing straight from the get go and even better as you start to tweak the settings. I should be seeing a guy about a secondhand Laney VH100 this week, provided I dont get scammed/murdered I'll be reporting back.
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Aug 17, 2010 22:42
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I'm looking forward to it becasue besides the Vox's the studio also has a gh50l which I'm desperate to use every time we practice there. I heard the VH100 is basically a GH with a clean channel too? Although to be honest I dont even need a clean channel, the guys just offering a good deal.
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Aug 18, 2010 03:03
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Yeah the gh100/50 is a one channel amp, it doesent have a "real" clean channel, just a switch that brings in an extra gain stage. The VH100 has two seperate channels. e: also looking at the specs its like 5kg heavier which I'm not looking forwards too. massive spider fucked around with this message at 11:56 on Aug 18, 2010 |
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Aug 18, 2010 11:53
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Welp I got my Laney VH100. First impression were a mixed bag, It was second hand and the low gain input and reverb (two features I will never use but It would be nice to have) were hosed right from the get go. I can see what the guy who posted earlier meant about only using the one channel too, I'm pretty certain high gain+boost is going to be my primary channel, leaving the other 3 settings kind of superfluous. It does have a lot of treble, the guy who sold it to me said he'd put in 6l6's for "clearer treble" which pretty much makes him a moron. The crunch is nice, although darker in the midrange than any marshall I've played. I was A/Bing it with a friends Blackstar for a bit and the Blackstar felt a lot better in all respects, then like an idiot I realised that the reason the Blackstar was kicking it's rear end so severely was becasue it comes with a built in attenuator kicking it down to 20 watts, turn that off and the response was about par.
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Aug 21, 2010 13:17
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Dont get me wrong its not a bad sounding amp, if I sound like I'm down on it its just because the Blackstar rocks faces so hard. Although playing around with it for a while they dont seem like they're aiming for the same thing, the Blackstar is very detailed and hi-fi sounding which is probably what the guy was aiming for when he switched out the tubes. One thing I do really like is the way you can use the boost to shape the sound, if you just shove either the gain or the boost up to 10 and put them both on you might as well be playing a metal zone, if you back off a bit though and find a sweet spot between the power tubes hitting their stride, the gain stage and the boost it sounds awesome, a real KERCHANG open crunch like marshalls are supposed to sound like in your dreams. Also I dont really care about the reverb/low gain input I just want them fixed for the resale value.
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Aug 22, 2010 02:39
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Tutu posted:Any recommendations for a bedroom practice amp that does great cleans? Probably going to try out a blackstar ht5 in the next few days, might have a look at a fender blues junior as well, any other suggestions? Laney VC30/15 depending on price, bad distortion but cleans are good. Peavey classic series. Has anyone tried a blackstar HT20? I know there are glowing reviews of the other ones in that series on the other page but I'm specifically wondering about the 20 and its volume output.
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Aug 26, 2010 02:32
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Bumping this thread up again because I've been thinking recently, is there really any point at all in owning a big amplifier? Who here is using half stacks? Whose happy gigging with their little amps? I saw a friends band recently and they all took the bus to the show carrying their tiny little marshall and crate practice amps. It looked a little silly but honestly once it had gone into the PA its not like there wasnt enough volume to go around. It got me thinking that theres a new POD line coming out, and when it does I might just ditch the amps entirely and go straight to PA. But then something in me still feels kind of weird at the thought of that. Plus I've played a few gigs with my last band where we had next to no PA. Has anyone tried going direct?
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Sep 24, 2010 12:23
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Boz0r posted:So I think I'm getting the Orange Tiny Terror Combo. Can anyone tell me if it's going to be a problem that I have an effect board and a couple of pedals BEFORE the whole amp, and is there anything important I should know about? What the guy above said, I used to run a rig like this and it kind of limited how far I could push the TT because once it got into breaking up all my effects would sound muddy. The TT sounds good but I think if I was in the market for a small head again I would look at the little blackstars before the orange purely because of the eq and effects loop.
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Sep 30, 2010 14:21
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They do mini heads, the HT20 for example.
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Sep 30, 2010 14:58
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Its really weird how much amplifier speak happens in code. Like how a rectifier is present in any amp but its immediately obvious that a TRIREC is a mesa clone along with the "boutique style" desptite "boutique" being an utterly meaningless word outside of context. I suppose the "1990" is a Marshall DSL clone as thats when they came out right?
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Oct 12, 2010 12:50
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Zuhzuhzombie!! posted:Anyone have anything to say about the VOX hybrid amps? The place I rehearse sometimes has mostly valvetronix amps and they're abysmal at band volumes.
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Feb 9, 2011 18:39
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The little blackstar ones.
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Mar 30, 2011 15:29
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Sweeper posted:They didn't have one at the local guitar center so I guess I'll have to try and find another place that carries them locally. I've never really done much with pedals so I guess I'll have to look into those too. FYI a new high gain terror just got announced so I'd wait to check that out.
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Apr 5, 2011 19:57
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I gig with a HT40, its a solid amp. A little dark voiced though, it needs a bit of tweaking to really cut through a mix though. Easily loud enough for garage jamming though. Last few shows I havent pushed the MV above 3. (Thats like 50% of total volume mind, at half way its clipping and you're getting more gain rather than more volume) massive spider fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Aug 14, 2011 |
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Aug 14, 2011 18:33
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I bought a little battery amp yesterday for £30, $250 seems a bit...excessive.
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Nov 13, 2011 12:46
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£300 can get you a good amp, but its not enough to be picky, and you might have to buy used. Try a peavey classic 30 if you can find one.
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Nov 25, 2011 14:02
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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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Its worth mentioning that lots of sound guys really hate this.
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Mar 7, 2012 11:00
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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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Lots of venues will let(prefer) you use their cabinets so with a head/cab set up you may often end up bringing only the head.
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Mar 22, 2012 13:40
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Revalved just means someones put new valves in it, its possible bonus if you're buying used, like "recently serviced".
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Jun 8, 2012 18:09
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I liked the terror, its a super midrangey amp but not in a bad way. I gigged with it and a distortion pedal for a few months, though it had a great sound for micced gigs it was juuust a tiny bit lacking in headroom for ones with a lovely PA.
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Jun 9, 2012 22:07
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Samael Jackson posted:To sort of carry on from my post in the effects thread, I'm in need of some new gear. I play mostly stoner stuff and want to finally get a tube amp, around $800 or so. I'd like to get that kyuss/nebula/truckfighters sound. Probably something in the 30 or 40 watt range. I like the orange tiny terror, but is 15 watt really enough if I did some shows with it? I also checked out the laney vc30 and blackstar 40 watt. Blackstar seems like a good deal, but the orange especially seemed to blow it away in the demos I listened to. I've owned all three. The tiny terror is loud, it was well enough for gigging but NOT if you wanted the clean settings to stay clean. I wanted more headroom so thats why I ditched it, if you're just using pure distortion though that shouldn't be an issue. It was really great sounding, a little midrange heavy but that meant it cut through a mix well. The VC30 had a godawful distortion channel, ok cleans but even using a pedal for distortion the cabinet construction wasnt the best for heavy stuff, also it broke all the time. The blackstar is a decent jack of all trades master of none type deal, keep it set over to american (and I usually hate "american" voicings) because thats where it feels like it wants to be. It wouldnt be so great for fuzzy stoner stuff though, the gain is too tight and modern. I'd get the terror, providing you don't need effects or such. Maybe boost it a bit for more gain but the volume is fine and for gigs you can just mic it up. massive spider fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Jul 9, 2012 |
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Jul 9, 2012 10:37
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Can anyone give me some options as far as real little tube amps go?
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Jul 10, 2012 12:56
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Peavey classic 30, just a great no nonsense amp.
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Aug 9, 2012 09:26
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the Bunt posted:I'm kinda confused on how my Spider Valve head works. "Real" tube amp don't mean nothing. But: Wattage doesn't equal volume, different amps of the same reported wattage can have different levels from each other. Frequency content matters a lot, if your amp isn't kicking out frequencies that work with the mix it wont be heard (I had a spider valve mk1 and it was awful at this). If you want to be heard your best bet is to find a tone thats sitting in a diffenrt frequency range from him, if he's dark go bright or similar. Also get a new amp. As to how the spider valve works its a digital pre amp into a tube power amp. Its also MODELLING a power amp in the pre section which is part of why its so garbage. They changed this in the DT25 where the actual power section changes physically to accomidate for the tone. massive spider fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Aug 31, 2012 |
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Aug 31, 2012 21:07
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Honestly theres tonnes of poo poo, depending on your price range. 5150s are popular for a reason, they are pretty much The Sound for that kind of music. Oranges rockerverbs are loving great and one of my favorite high gain heads ever. Warm and ballsy but still tight. Blackstar do the HT series which are pretty versatile, although I find their voicing to be a bit dark, it may not cut well over a 5150. I love the sound of ENGL fireballs, real high gain and aggressive in the midrange. massive spider fucked around with this message at 20:48 on Sep 1, 2012 |
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Sep 1, 2012 20:46
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If you like the modelled dual terror why not try the tiny terror?
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Jan 25, 2013 20:38
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Great cleans but doesent sound all that similar to a twin, sound good with pedals, not so great drive channel.
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Jan 27, 2013 13:59
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The Ferret King posted:I have a Marshall AVT150 Combo amp that I saved up for and bought when I was 16, 12 years ago. I bought it for the brand name, really not knowing anything about amps. An attenunators not gonna do nothing for an amp with a solid state power section. In fact, whether it would even help with those sounds for a tube amp is debatable. The whole "the power stage has to be working hard for it to sound good" thing isnt neccisarilly true if you're going for a tight, high gain sound (A 150w triple rectifier was definitely not designed with pushing it to its limit in mind).
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Feb 7, 2013 19:57
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The Ferret King posted:You'd recommend that over using the pedal on the clean channel? I'll probably experiment of course but I'd always heard about folks using distortion pedals on the clean channels usually. TS style overdrives have a honky midrange which is perfect for putting into a distorted amp and turning it into a tight metal machine. In fact I think TSs sound like garbage on totally clean amps. massive spider fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Feb 12, 2013 |
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Feb 12, 2013 20:09
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Personally I've found blackstars to have quite a dark voicing to them, marshalls by comparison have a bit of fizz to them but that high end helps in a mix. Regarding the ISF, left (american) will tend to cut through better than right (british) because american has a cut in the low mids (and percieved high boost) while british has a cut more in the high mids. I was looking for a plexi-ish sound and thats to be found probably closer to the middle than exclusively over to the british side. massive spider fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Feb 15, 2013 |
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Feb 15, 2013 15:17
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Stayne Falls posted:Thank you, this is very useful advice! I would probably keep it on the American side because the gain sounds richer there. How about volume for a 20w? Does it have to enough to be heard over a full band without pushing it to the limits? Depends on the amp to be honest. Why do you want the 20 over the 40?
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Feb 16, 2013 17:55
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Stayne Falls posted:Because it's cheaper, to be honest. I don't know about the volume but fwiw the emulated out on the ht series is real nice so if you've got a PA reinforcing it with that is an option. massive spider fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Feb 17, 2013 |
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Feb 17, 2013 11:07
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:26 |
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The blackstar would be more versatile than the vox for hard rock. You can use headphones from the emulated out though I recall it being only in mono from one ear. If you really want to use headphones a pocket POD or similar is what I would recommend, rather than trying to get an amp which has it as a feature because many gigging designed amps dont. I have a POD HD sitting on my computer desktop which both acts as my soundcard and goes into either headphones or regular computer speakers for all my home practicing. My amps just sit in the basement until I have a gig.
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Feb 21, 2013 11:28
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