Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Ian Price on July 03, 2009, 01:05:22 PM
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Afternoon all,
As noted on the power scaling thread I'm GASing for a martamp. The only issue I have now is knowing what type of amp to go for (and getting the £'s together!). I constantly change my mind about gear (I'm sure I'm not the only one :wink:) and as a result am still not any nearer on narrowing my decision down.
What I am after is any reference sites that will give me a basic tonal characteristics and reference tones/songs using different types of amp. Anyone know of any websites etc?
Cheers,
Ian.
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Err, YouTube???!! :lol:
You really need to play some Ian, clips can only give so much and can be heavily influenced by the player/speakers/pedals/loads of gain etc. Too many variables.
If you can get to a reasonable sized music shop, I would have a play through the following easily found amps to get the general idea:
* Fender Hot Rod or Blues Deluxe/DeVille - use the clean channel for Fender-style cleans
* Marshall Vintage Modern - use the gain channel without the boost for Plexi/JTM type tones
* Orange Rockerverb - classic Orange gain tones
* Vox AC30 CC - this has a master volume so you hear the gain without deafening yourself!
That should give you a ballpark idea of the kind of thing you can expect from most amp types?
There's also the offer to come up to my place where you can try:
Marshall JTM45 clean
Marshall JTM45/100 gain
Fender Deluxe (again!)
Fender 6L6 Deluxe (a bit cleaner, more like a low powered twin Fender Twin)
I've not got anything with EL84s or EL34s though, so no Voxy stuff or proper Plexi Marshalls......
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Might not be perfect but here's some:
http://www.netmusicians.org/index.php
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Having re-read my thread I think I would have suggested youtube! I guess I was looking for anywhere that lists them all next to each other with high level details of what each one is best at. I know most of this is open to opinion though!
My personal opinion of this is that I want to cover so many different sounds that I'll need to end up buying a few different amps. I'd never reallt considered it before but perhaps this is where the idea of amp heads rather than combos starts becoming more viable (unless seomone tells me I need a different cab/speaker set up for each head) :lol:
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Ian,
If you're after a whole bunch of different sounds from one rig, you may be better off with an amp that stays clean enough for you at whatever volume you need. Then you can add fuzz/overdrive/distortion pedals to get the tones you want. This is what Hamfist has done in the past, and also what Martin and I do in Doppelganger.
Maybe if you tell us what tones you're after we can try and help suggest something? I think this will be a better approach than looking at what's available and narrowing it down. You need to specify what you're looking for. I know you've mentioned Hendrix and Frusciante before, but what else?
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Basically there's a whole smorgasboard of tones I like and would want to get nearish to. The ones that stand out most for me are as follows:
John Mayer - particularly at the start of the solo on Belief. Not very descriptive but I would call it warm and plummy (!)
John Frusciante - the solo's on Hey (yes, I know he has a wah on it) and I Could Have Lied, the arpeggiated bit of Snow and the chordal playing on Under the Bridge and the intro to Knock Me Down
Hendrix - Little Wing, Red House
Gilmour - the solo on Comfortable Numb
Billy Gibbons - Blue Jean Blues, Tush, Funky Dogs and Nasty Kings
Matt Schofield - the majority of heads, tails and aces.
SRV - pretty much all of the el mocambo DVD
That's just from the top of my head. Perhaps unsurprisignly most of it is single coil stuff!
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If I were buying an amp right now, I'd seriously consider Dr Z
Never played one (AFAIK there's only one UK dealer) but any clips I've heard sound great. For example,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woTepZsLAyg
Best amp I ever played through was an original 60s AC30 and it's the 'benchmark' tone I compare all other amp to.
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I think you need an amp with good clean headroom that is loud. SRV at the Elmocambo tone is basically very loud and clean but becuase of the volume it sustains so much (along with the help of a TS808).
I read an interview that John Mayer goes this route so he has 100W amps set loud and clean.
I don't think you can get it with a really low powered combo but I think a 36W EL84 amp would be very versatile, perhaps voiced for as much headroom as possible.
Just thinking about the valves, there's a multitude of output valves used in your list so there's no right answer.
And they can sound very similar until they are saturated IMO.
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Looking at your list Ian, I would say you want a clean-to-slightly-crunchy single channel amp that you can add pedals to. You're also after some of the warmer plummier tones too, so I would suggest taking a look at the following kind of things from Martin:
* MJW M45 head and cab, possibly cleaned up a little bit from standard and with power scaling
* MJW 6L6 Deluxe 1x12 combo (like my relic) with power scaling
* MJW Roadstar-TT 36 head and cab with power scaling
There are other brands of course, but Martin can really tailor the amp to suit you. The Roadstar rig is probably your cheaper option, but I think I'd be leaning towards the M45 he spoke to you about....
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I think 6L6's would work the best for you Ian. I'm sure that martin will be able to give you variations, but I think that it'll work best for you
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http://www.proguitar.de/AudioDemo/AudioDemo.html
This used to be GREAT for comparing amps; loads of different classic amp models, with clean and dirty tones played with both LP and Strat style guitars, with the recording setup relatively constant, playing pretty much the same thing on each.
However... it's been taken down some time over the last couple of weeks! :(
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as per above, you want a Blackface Fender style preamp into a pair of fixed bias 6L6s for the tones you mention (depending on what volume you're gonna be playing at of course).
* add a TS-808 for the SRV/Mayer stuff
* a Big Muff with an EQ to tweak the tone for Comfortably Numb (thats what Gilmour used)
* Fuzz Face for the Chillis solos
* and a Crunchbox for the Rev's dirty stuff
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I think you could get most of what you want from a Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb. If you can find a Princeton II on Ebay that will also get you really close. I have been playing through my Princeton II a lot recently (mine has a Weber ceramic Silver Dog speaker which also adds a bit of smack to the sound). The deluxe has 2 channels, the Princeton II has an overdrive channel which switches out the reverb and uses the tube as an extra gain stage in the preamp. I have been using quite a few guitars through it, but a lot are Strats and I can get most of the sounds you are talking about.
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Cheers for all of the advice guys - much appreciated, it's certainly given me something to think about.
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Do you want power amp distortion or pre amp distortion? You could look at plexi types or a Trainwreck type powerscaled for power amp distortion or on the other side what about a dumble clone?
Loads to look at
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Do you want power amp distortion or pre amp distortion? You could look at plexi types or a Trainwreck type powerscaled for power amp distortion or on the other side what about a dumble clone?
Loads to look at
Yep - loads! I'm such a novice at amps that I couldn't possible explain the difference between power amp and pre amp distortion if I tried! I think I understand but would need someone to spell it out in laymans terms!
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I'll bite...........
Laymans terms
Power amp distortion (non master volume)
The distortion comes mainly (not all) from the clipping of the power tubes. normally speaking this means very high volumes which can be tamed by power scaling. Some people )like me) like this type of distortion because of the response it gives to the player and the added ability to dig in. Different power tubes sound different (obviously) so you need to research your sound. e.g el34's really fatten up and compress nicely.
Pre amp distortion (master volume)
the distortion is derived from the pre-amp section so that the overall sound is predominantly the same throughout the volume range. What is known as a 'master volume' situation. Dumble type amps are like this with all the dirt coming from the pre-amp section mated to a clean power amp to amplify the sound.
Because of the advances made in amp design you can get a huge variety of tones and responses from a pre-amp style design these days.
Why I chose power amp distortion ?
Some say..................you just can't replicate the sound of a cooking NMV amp. I think that you can get pretty close personally but anyway.. What I think the NMV amps do really well is clean up by use of the volume pot on your guitar without much loss of actual volume. Also the dynamics ARE different. thats why I went that way.
General
I have oversimplified this massively so please don't shoot me down...
No amp type is right or wrong
If Martin corrects my post then he is right by default
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Sounds pretty good to me!
I would add to your comment:
What I think the NMV amps do really well is clean up by use of the volume pot on your guitar without much loss of actual volume.
Im my experience, it depends how high you're running the master volume. In a gig situation, where you're up to at least 50% on the Master Volume, you do get those dynamics coming into play. At much lower volumes, you're right in that you have a much more abrupt reponse to the guitar's volume control.
For example, I gig my M45/100 with Master Volume and it's usually around 60% open. I can still do the Angus trick of controlling everything from the guitar at that setting, but there's no chance of doing that at home.
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Cheers for the responses guys - not quite an amp expert (actually nowhere near expert level) but that gives me some info to start with.
Ian.