Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: craig_mccann on December 28, 2009, 01:53:18 PM
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What are your thoughts on the Blackstar HT 5 for metal? I was thinking of getting the head and a seperate 1x12 cab or maybe a 2x12 i dunno yet.
Out of all the practise amps i've recently tried i think i liked it the most but i'm not sure if it has enough gain for most of what i play.
So what's your thoughts/experiences then? And could anyone suggest a good cab to look at too? I've no idea when it comes to heads and cabs.
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Bought mine for £249 and sold for £220 9 months later.
So if you don't like it, they hold their price well in the 1st year.
Clean tone was bad . Plenty of gain I thought.
MJW will do a good 1 x 12 or 2 x 12 if you go brand new and want good quality at a low price
As a 2nd option get something with a better clean tone and then use a good pedal for the gain
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i dont play clean a huge amount so thats not a major issue for me. How did you find it playing heavier stuff?
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I got an HT 5 about 6 months ago looking to replace my Marshal Vintage Modern as I needed some cash. Turned out I didnt need the cash after all so I dont use the HT5 a lot which is a shame as its a nice amp. Not a patch on the VM though, but thats understandable.
It has a good amount of gain and probably the most responsive eq Ive ever seen on an amp, very flexable.
To get an idea how much gain is available check out this video I made. Sound quality isnt the best but its a good judge for metal/gain tones.
Click to about 2:20 to get to the heavier stuff:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqJ5VCktdg0
Hope it helps.
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i dont play clean a huge amount so thats not a major issue for me. How did you find it playing heavier stuff?
pretty good I thought. I'm not sure there's anything valve driven at that price range with as much gain
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played pne yesterday i thought it sucked. Get yourself something better. Something Marshallish
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So you suggest something marshall-ish? can you recommend something then please? I'd rather not go above 500 GBP though and i'm limited to bedroom playing too so nothing like 50watt tubes or anything.
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id consider one of these
http://www.thomann.de/gb/jet_city_amplification_20h.htm
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Its alright. It doesnt really have an aggressive voicing on any setting though.
I personally wouldnt bother getting drawn in by the OOOHHH LOOK ITS GOT VALVES IN!!!!111!!11! people and if youre in the bedroom then anything valve isnt really optimal unless its capable of sounding good at low volume (engl and diezel for example, but thats gonna cost you). There are workarounds, but the cost adds up.
Your best options are
- Practice amp and to hell with valves. Look at Cubes, Vypyrs, vox advt-XLs, spider *IV*s. Avoid - All other spiders, non-xl vox VTs (because they sound great for everything BUT metal). This will be your cheapest and easiest answer.
- Modeller -> PC -> Speakers
- Valve amp of some sort WITH - low wattage speaker (still more than the amp, though) and/or an overdrive or boost or other distortion pedal. Or, an attenuator.
Personally I'd just get an ADVT30XL or a Vypyr 15 or 30 and have done with it.
Oh,
Wait,
I DO have an ADVT30XL and a vypyr 30 as practice amps! Take that however you will :) (i'm not biassed, honest (no pun))
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I heard that Jet City are good but I dont think anywhere in UK stock them, not from what i've seen on my searching anyway.
The amp I'm using the now is a Cube60, I like it but everytime i've asked on a forum (here and UG) what pickups i should get or how much will it help my sound I've always been told to upgrade my amp. So i thought i should look into some. Figured if changing my amp will help then il save for 1. I've tried alot of SS practise amps (Vyper, Spider 3, Cubes, Vox Vt50, Blackheart BH15) and none of them really blew me away or even made me consider thinking they were better than a Cube. So i figured that tube was the way to go, just trying to fin a good 1 for bedroom practise was a bit hard.
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Keep the cube, theres really $%&# all wrong with it.
As I said in what I now realise is your other thread, the cubes are prefectly decent practice and small rehersal metal amps, from which good tones can be had and that do show the benefits of better pickups.
Trying to find a good tube amp for bedroom practice thats geared toward metal is hard because they dont exist.
Not to a high standard anyway.
For the record I consider the HT5 a rock amp that can do metal if you push it with something or know your recording onions and stick a mic infront of it.
HTH has a few tricks up his sleeve to remedy this, but I may have said too much on that already!
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Right ok i think just 1 more question about this then, Is it worth considering getting an HT5 head and seperate cab then throwing something infront to boost it? or consider something like the Krank Rev jnr pro? or would you guys just recommend sticking with the Cube?
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Perhaps. Its not a bad plan, but from memory of each I dont think a boosted HT5 is going to sound much better/heavier than a cube, if at all.
The cube is a good amp, great value for money.
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this may or may not be useful but i've had good happenings with a marshallized valve junior head with a bitmo simple L-Pad attentuator. of course, i use a modded CS-3, BD-2, and SD-1 to get a proper metal tone at low volume, but the valves do their bidding. the CS-3 prevents loud clean peaks for going too loud, and give a good volume boost. the BD-2 is there for tone coloring. a cheap EQ i guess, and the SD-1 provides the bite when i need it. but the attenuator makes the whole thing usable at appartment volumes.
but, unless you want to work on your soldering skills, keep the cube. maybe get a trade-in for a cube-30x with that power squeezer. it's the same amp, with an onboard fixed attenuator, can be good especially for practice purposes.
keep in mind that if you boost something, you're gonna have to turn it down somewhere. and if you turn it down, you lose that power tube drive, making tubes useless. unless you turn down the actual signal going to the speaker, and that's an attenuator. but an attenuator can make you lose some bite to the signal, especially for bedroom uses.
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Attenuator for a solid state amp, indeed.
About as much good as mens tits.
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Attenuator for a solid state amp, indeed.
About as much good as mens tits.
kind of have to agree with this.
I also think if you want to play metal you might want to forget power stage breakup, and concentrate getting a hi gain tone from the preamp, and using a pretty clean power stage to push it.
I'm sure most people don't push their power tubes into break up.
I use a various head, all roughly around 100watt, and I know that even with an attenuator, im not pushing my amp hard enough to get power stage break up I don't think. There is the problem where you HAVE and attenuator and deliberately try to get power tube break up, and that can be dangerous because you can end up thrashing your tubes really quickly, shortening tube life, in some cases red plating your tubes.
just thought id mention that.
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And aside from anything else, I think (just me, at this stage, disagree if you will) that the most pleasing aspect of high volume distortion is *speaker* distortion. Not power amp.
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And aside from anything else, I think (just me, at this stage, disagree if you will) that the most pleasing aspect of high volume distortion is *speaker* distortion. Not power amp.
i don't know if ive ever pushed speakers into distortion. ive only ever really use 4x12's with either V30's, T-75s or a Mix of the two. I wouldn't imagine id be getting them to break up.
your definitely not going to get those tones at bedroom levels
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power tube distortion is kind of like the diamond that turns out to be zircon when you're a metal player.
i have to agree with you guys about this, i guess the only thing the squeezer on the cube does is make the volume pot have a more manageable taper :D
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And aside from anything else, I think (just me, at this stage, disagree if you will) that the most pleasing aspect of high volume distortion is *speaker* distortion. Not power amp.
i don't know if ive ever pushed speakers into distortion. ive only ever really use 4x12's with either V30's, T-75s or a Mix of the two. I wouldn't imagine id be getting them to break up.
your definitely not going to get those tones at bedroom levels
Not unless youre loud as $%&#, no.
You can tell. Speakers begin to distort when they excurse. If you can see your speakers (with a torch if need be, through the grill) then when they LOOK like they're moving, they WILL be distorting.
I've seen (and heard it) with my PB and ubercab with V30s and t75s. The power amp distortion on my setup starts to get really noticable only after the speaker distortion.
Keven, quite right, the taper of the master will probably be better, and that is something that can often be improved on amps, valve or SS.
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So you suggest something marshall-ish? can you recommend something then please? I'd rather not go above 500 GBP though and i'm limited to bedroom playing too so nothing like 50watt tubes or anything.
Im sorry brother craig I should have mentioned I have been on the same search as you for some time now. I guess the amps that I have found that I really liked are Ceriatones and Orange TTs. I own a TT and I recently had an opportunity to play a matchless ceriatone clone. I can only imagine the marshall clones are awesome. There are some options that you will see that have lower wattage like 20 watts and such from ceriatone. But if you really cant make any noise at all, as not to upset neighbors, you might want to get something solid state. I was looking at the Marshall Class 5 because it had a headphone option, and it was a tube amp, but unfortunately the volume and the gain knob were the same so its not designed so well for headphones. I got a line 6 because I want to save my money and get myself something really good, but until then I will play this little piece of garbage. So my suggestions would be the TT or even better the Ceriatone.
Good luck
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I think the Super Champ XD is a really nice amp, I'm sure the cleans would be nicer than the Blackstar. Dont know about the high gain stuff though...
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Alrigh thanks guys, I'm hopefully gonna get my pups at the end of january, n il see how it sounds after that with my cube. Cheers.
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i've got an HT5 combo as a fun amp, and it sounds pretty good. i tried it at more-than-bedroom volume and it still sounds good. if it's not enough you can spice up things with an overdrive/booster, but it should work almost for every metal application. just use a couple of effects in the fx loop, it's too dry without.
if you want to use it in a band you should mic it, but i think it should cut the mix better than solid state amps of its class. never tried but i suspect so.
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cool, think il get my pickups installed then try my cube, n i could then take my guitar to the shop n try it with my own guitar instead of 1 of theres, n see how that comes out. I dunno i liked it, bit it seemed like it was kinda missing something. so do u think if i was to get that i would most likely have to buy pedals too? like overdrive/boost and reverb type stuff? i dont have any pedals atm cos if i need effects my cube can do them (not great i know lol)
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cool, think il get my pickups installed then try my cube, n i could then take my guitar to the shop n try it with my own guitar instead of 1 of theres, n see how that comes out. I dunno i liked it, bit it seemed like it was kinda missing something. so do u think if i was to get that i would most likely have to buy pedals too? like overdrive/boost and reverb type stuff? i dont have any pedals atm cos if i need effects my cube can do them (not great i know lol)
try it, but if i were you i'd stick to my cube and spare money for a serious amp. you can get good amps for reasonable prices (i've got an engl firebal 100 and i love it, a fireball 60 is much cheaper and it's definitely a great metal amp)... an HT5 is good if you use it for what's worth... and yes, you'll need effects. a little DSP and a booster or OD, i think. but ypu'll need them anyway unless you buy a digital/hybrid amp.
if you can try a bugera, they're extremely cheap, not much dependable but they sound GREAT. mine blew after a year and a half - i got it repaired for 150€... i think it's a problem with 333xl alimentation lines, as long as i know the 6262s are reliable. and they bury peaveys!
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See I'd love an amp like the 6262 or Fireball or something but they are far to much for just bedroom are they not? plus they are bloody expensive lol I was thinking something bout 40 or 50 watts could probably come down to bedroom volumes n still sound good but Id rather not have to spend like a grande to get it. Since there is no view to me that im going to be gigging.
Please excuse me if it seems like im being ignorant about tube amps being too loud or anything, i really dont know a massive amount about them so just picking up what other people are saying as i go.
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50watts is still really loud in a bedroom.
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Attenuator for a solid state amp, indeed.
About as much good as mens tits.
you'd be surprised what a proper woman can do to a dude's man nipple :P
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50W are already damn loud. of course a 120W bugera could tear your walls down - honestly i never played mine over 3.5 of master volume, and i'm talking about gigs with mic'd drums! BUT i found the 333xl to sound very nicely at abysmal volumes too, even if tone is not directly comparable. sound at bedroom levels is completely different and, for what matters, better than a digital bedroom amp but not enough to justify the expense and the huge and the huge bulk of the head+cab themselves.
my 100W fireball sounds pretty good below "1", and since i haven't gigged yet with it at rehearsals i play it between 1.5 and 2. and it's crushing...
an HT5 combo is a much more logical choice if you play at home, but what if you're gonna need it to play live or with a drummer?
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Well I thought I'd check out the 6505+ combo when its released here and i have the money for it. Going by UG recommendations they recon the 6505 is able to sound good at bedroom levels and the combo for me is a much better size as in dimentions, plus its less wattage than the head.
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I think they're fantastic little amps.
Check out some vids: Click (http://www.youtube.com/user/milo9)
However, I just bought some new pickups, so mine needs to go (Having 2 other amps doesn't help either haha)! PM me if you're interested :)
Also... I gigged with mine. Through a 4x12, mic it up and play it on 10...absolutely brilliant! I'm talking 3-400 capacity places too.
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Na thinking the Peavey is a better option for me, even tho its louder lol.
I had actually come across your videos a while back when i first started looking for demos of the HT5.
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UG recommendations :lol:
Good one!
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FIREWIND / OZZY OSBOURNE Gus G. Signs Endorsement Deal WIth Blackstar Amplification
http://www.blackstaramps.co.uk/artists/index.php
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a 6505 sounds good at bedroom levels??
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a 6505 sounds good at bedroom levels??
But UG said so.
Its like taking advice from a bunch of teenagers that have never played the thing
Wait
It IS taking advice from a bunch of teenagers that have never played the thing.
Unless the 6505 combo is in fact not a 6505, but a new and very different design of amp, it will not sound good at bedroom levels.
If you want ok tone (and its just ok, mind) at bedroom levels from a 50-100W valve amp that can do metal, try an engl thunder or screamer.
And stop listening to UG!
They arent all idiots, but there are way too many of them there and if youre something of a neophyte yourself youre going to get your head filled with cr@p by people that have no clue.
10 minutes in UG later and in 3 random threads theres a guy that wants to record guitar with the shiteeest soundcards known to man, and wants to know which is better, another that started a thread asking if his strings would be OK in a lower tuning, rather than just tune them lower and decide for himself, someone in the same thread that has trouble with 'alternative' picking with slack strings, someone that doesnt know the difference between a noise gate and noise suppressor (the clue is in the name) and by this point I had to leave. More ignorance and n00bishness there in 10 minutes than you see here in a year.
Youre here now, we'll sort you out.
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$%&# it, I'm going back to UG for a bit. The lulz are priceless, and there are some decent folk there (identifiable if you already know some of your onions).
Maybe, if I can save just one n00b from buying a 6505 for home practice, it will have been worth it....wish me luck boys, I'm going in....
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....More ignorance and n00bishness there in 10 minutes than you see here in a year.
F**k you MDV, I'm trying my best... :? :lol:
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maybe the 6505 combo is cool if you use an attenuator...
you know...
one of those you can get on ebay that sits in the FX lOOP... no no no, not just a pot in a box. An Attenuator!
the 6505 is 120watts aint it. ive not had a bedroom level amp for ages. I used to use a Marshall VS100 head to jam through so i wasn't burning power valves. But now im ignorant and i just play loud. haha.
a 6505 (and ive owned the head) is not the way to go, AT ALL, you'll have a real problem getting it to be quiet. you'll be running with the volume below 1, and anything over that will jump in sound level so much you'll have to spend 6 hours tweaking the volume knob to get the sound level right, and then at the end of it, it'll sound terrible.
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a 6505 sounds good at bedroom levels??
Unless the 6505 combo is in fact not a 6505, but a new and very different design of amp, it will not sound good at bedroom levels.
If you want ok tone (and its just ok, mind) at bedroom levels from a 50-100W valve amp that can do metal, try an engl thunder or screamer.
And stop listening to UG!
+1 I had a thunder 50 Combo and it was great for metal & hard rock. for the really high-gain stuff a little boost helped to tighten things up a little but that was more personal taste than required. really good crunch/ lower gain sounds and good cleans. it could be a little lacking in the bass department with the stock vintage 30 but i put in a g12k-100 on board it was brutal (it also reduced the volume slightly dude to the g12k not being as sensitive as the v30 so allowing me to turn the volume up a little more).
And it did sound relatively good at low volumes although there was a big volume jump around 1.25. However i used an mxr 10 band eq in the loop to act as a channel volume control (and slight eqing) so i could crank the power amp a little more which worked rather well.
I have also played on a 6505 and at low volumes it was horrible and the cleans/crunch were nowhere near as good as the engl.
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http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ENGL-Thunder-50-Watt-Head-E325-Z3-Footswitch_W0QQitemZ250558057049QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL?hash=item3a566c8a59
something like that with a framus 2x12 from thomman for £250 and your laughing (that was the setup i had before I got my powerball)
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I had a HT5 and it was ok for metal. Didn't have enough low end though, really.
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I have an HT5 head and a Martamp 1x12 with a H100 in it. Bass it has, lots of it, most of that is coming from the H100. The only change I've made is that I swapped the pre-tube to an RFT which makes it crunchier (I also stuck a Mullard in the power side but ended up going back to the stock tube). It really responds to different speakers too, sounding surprisingly shite with some, and awesome with others. The best all rounder being a Mesa C90 (which I've yet to track down cheaply enough). I still stand by that for the money, it's pretty much untouchable, responds well to pedals too. I've got a G-Sharp in the FX loop for reverb and wotnot. Works well.
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I had a HT5 and it was ok for metal. Didn't have enough low end though, really.
I found its low end just fine for purpose actually.
And you should know what I'm like by now about low end :lol:
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i think he already went for the 6505... :)
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i think he already went for the 6505... :)
And soon the 'how do I make a 6505 sound good at bedroom levels?' thread :lol:
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i think he already went for the 6505... :)
And soon the 'how do I make a 6505 sound good at bedroom levels?' thread :lol:
easy. you just have to put it into a wood box, set volume to half (approximately) and then cover everything with concrete. my cousin did it and i swear it works! (typical UG advice...)
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i think he already went for the 6505... :)
And soon the 'how do I make a 6505 sound good at bedroom levels?' thread :lol:
easy. you just have to put it into a wood box, set volume to half (approximately and then cover everything with concrete. my cousin did it and i swear it works! (typical UG advice...)
:lol:
Also, you can put it in another house and listen to it through the walls and it sounds fine.
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i thought the 6505 sounded ok at bedroom levels :lol:
i never understood these "you can't crank it at home, buy a modeller instead". I've tried cubes etc. numerous times, and while I agree that they kick ass for the price, if you can afford a good high gain tube amp, even if you can only run it at home volumes, you might as well. Personally I think they sound better than those cheaper modellers even turned down, though of course they sound even better turned up.
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i thought the 6505 sounded ok at bedroom levels :lol:
i never understood these "you can't crank it at home, buy a modeller instead". I've tried cubes etc. numerous times, and while I agree that they kick ass for the price, if you can afford a good high gain tube amp, even if you can only run it at home volumes, you might as well. Personally I think they sound better than those cheaper modellers even turned down, though of course they sound even better turned up.
+1 I've had POD's (with and without an atomic valve combo thing), spiders (2&3), a flextone 3 (which was the best modelling amp ive used the vetta is too complicated), an HD147 and none of them could beat my engl thunder when I had it, and my Powerball and JVM blow that away.
PDT_003
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at extremely low volumes a great tube amp sounds more or less like a modeler, character starts to appear over 1 of master volume... below that every amp sounds more or less the same. someone will say that 1 is an extremely low volume, but i play my engl FB100 at 1.5 and it shakes my band's rehearsal room's walls... i can't imagine when i will ever drive it at least at 4-5 even in a live situation!
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Well actually i haven't went for anything yet. I dont have the money just yet, not till at least the end of feb. But the way i am looking at it is i could get the 6505+ 112 (which btw is 60watts not 100 like someone said earlier) and if i dont like how it sounds at low volumes then il get my money back, no problem. So no, MDV, there will not be a "how do i get it sounding good at low volumes" thread coming from me.
You said i shouldn't listen to anyone on UG, cos all they do is talk cr@p but from what i've seen on just this and the previous page not everyone on here is giving the best advice either.
I'm not having a dig at anyone here. I know people on UG talk cr@p, but i also know there are some very helpful and knowledgeable people there too, i don't listen to every piece of advice i see there but i do listen to some and i wait till there are ALOT of opinions on the same thing before i make up my mind.
If i listen to them there is a chance i will make the wrong choice, if i listen to you guys there is still the chance i will make the wrong choice. I am just trying to get as many opinions as i can so i can make a good choice, and lets face it it's peoples opinions, not fact.
So which ever choice i make will be made from a combination of UG, you guys and youtube videos not just you or them.
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i thought the 6505 sounded ok at bedroom levels :lol:
i never understood these "you can't crank it at home, buy a modeller instead". I've tried cubes etc. numerous times, and while I agree that they kick ass for the price, if you can afford a good high gain tube amp, even if you can only run it at home volumes, you might as well. Personally I think they sound better than those cheaper modellers even turned down, though of course they sound even better turned up.
Its a relative thing, and an expectations thing.
A lot of valve amps can sound what I would call good at low volumes, but thats a "good" thats calibrated for me not expecting it to sound like
- it does loud.
- Any album tone
Its a good-for-valve-amp-at-low-volume good and a good-enough-to-play-through. Not an absolute 'good'.
Most of the time, a fuller, more aggressive, defined and thicker sound can be attained with a decent SS amp at low volumes. There are exceptions, and there are caveats, but on the whole I think thats true.
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Well actually i haven't went for anything yet. I dont have the money just yet, not till at least the end of feb. But the way i am looking at it is i could get the 6505+ 112 (which btw is 60watts not 100 like someone said earlier) and if i dont like how it sounds at low volumes then il get my money back, no problem. So no, MDV, there will not be a "how do i get it sounding good at low volumes" thread coming from me.
You said i shouldn't listen to anyone on UG, cos all they do is talk cr@p but from what i've seen on just this and the previous page not everyone on here is giving the best advice either.
I'm not having a dig at anyone here. I know people on UG talk cr@p, but i also know there are some very helpful and knowledgeable people there too, i don't listen to every piece of advice i see there but i do listen to some and i wait till there are ALOT of opinions on the same thing before i make up my mind.
If i listen to them there is a chance i will make the wrong choice, if i listen to you guys there is still the chance i will make the wrong choice. I am just trying to get as many opinions as i can so i can make a good choice, and lets face it it's peoples opinions, not fact.
So which ever choice i make will be made from a combination of UG, you guys and youtube videos not just you or them.
The advice on the last couple of pages is perfectly good, within the bounds of each contributors taste and experiences.
I suspect you would prefer to be told what you want to hear, or already believe ;)
Fun fact - 60W of valves is face meltingly loud. It has less headroom than 120 (but is not actually very much queiter at all) but will still have to be at a volume thats easily audiable down the street to be getting anything like the full tonal capability of the amp.
The 5150/6505 volume issue doesnt stem from the wattage - its in the use of 6l6s (hard to overdrive) and the voicing of the amp.
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Actually no i don't just like advice that tells me what i apparently want to hear. The posts i was talking about were the 1s just laughing at the fact of listening to people on UG, that is in no way helpful. There was a few posts with decent advice, but the rest started to go to spam, much like what happens on UG funnily enough.
You said a minute ago that "good" sound is relative to what you expect, i don't expect it to sound as good at low volumes, i don't expect to be able to get the full tone from the amp thats possible at high volumes. But i have had alot of people tell me it will sound alot better at low volumes than my Cube does so I'm willing to try it at least. I watched a video of a guy playing it at volume 1 and it to me sounded great.
So please tell me something, (without meaning to sound like a d1ck and i apologise if i do) why is your advice better than anyone on UGs if i'm not supposed to listen to them?
And for the record i havven't decided whether this is the amp for me or not, but it's top on my list of thought anyway.
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MDV is being a bit of an arse here for some reason, he’s usually a bit more mild mannered :lol:
For what it’s worth, I use any of my valve amps for home practice at TV volumes. They’re 35w/60w/90w and each sound ‘good’, and I mean that in an ‘absolute good’ way. I prefer the sound of a larger amp played quieter than I do a 5w amp (say), and my favourite home rig at the moment is a 35w JTM45 with a pedal.
If you like the specs of the 6505 or whatever, and have access to a pedal or two to juice it up a bit a lower volumes, go for it :)
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Fair enough. We tend to lark about a bit here. Perhaps our humour is a little different from yours. I thought that you thought that posts on the topic, actually pertaining to amps, not UG or banter were in some way misleading or untrue - bad advice. I see now that you meant that some of the posts in this thread contian *no* advice. Thats to be expected, in all fairness. (we dont, and arent forced to rigidly stick to a topic for a thread, as UG is ;))
And its a general assessment of the two places. UG does have some reasonably well informed members, and a handfull of very well informed people have at least passed through its doors. Ive said that already in this thread. The problem is that so many arent. I consider the forum something of a n00b school. We all were once. The rules and regs that the inexperienced and overenthusiastic teens there are hearded with reflect this, as do things like the 'who to listen to lists' (which I'm on, in the 'honorary' parts :lol:), since they wouldnt be needed if so many people that visit werent a neophyte in need of guidance on who to believe, being that they lack the experience to determine that for themselves and if the place in general wasnt populated in large part by people that dont give very well informed advice (often the same above neophytes).
Bottom line though is buy the amp you like the sound of, with your guitar and your playing.
Dave! Mild mannered...never! :lol:
I am being a bit of an arse though. I have no idea why.
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I think people hear are trying to help you find something thats fit for purpose and something that you'll get your money's worth using.
I read that UG thread and there where a lot of people suggesting stuff that I would personally avoid, but I know some people hear would use it happily. Im talking specifically about the Line 6 stuff. Every Line 6 amp ive played is nowhere near as good as a nice valve amp.
If it was me... I might look for an old Marshall VS100 head. I think those are under rated, but the dont make them any more. the AVT range replaced them, and I don't like the AVT's.
I also don't like thing like Vox modeling amps, i can't remember which ones in particular.
Right now I have gigging amps that I run real quiet at home. The Uberschall I have doens't sound that good at low volume. Maybe better than a cube, but you need it loud to get the power stage character and to get the speakers driven fully. Its not like is passable either. Im forever trying to EQ it so it sounds better, but really i know it just need to be louder for the EQ and everything to work.
I had the same issue when playing a dual rec at low volume (that was worse) and like I said, I had a 6505 head I gigged with and used at home and it might be better than some budget low wattage SS or hybrids, but its still overkill, and like MDV says, 60watts isn't really much quieter than 120watts.
On the PLUS side, if you did get that amp, then at least if you start a band you won't need to buy a new amp. You can also pop something like an EQ pedal with a level control in the loop, and use that to keep your volume down and add some boost/cut to certain frequencies.
see if you can find HTH's thread on here. He had a modded epiphone had that sounded pretty mean, and im sure he could tweak it for what you want.
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+1 to a VS100R.
They were pretty good amps.
Yeah, its 100W, but they sounded pretty good quiet (to me at least).
Oh and, unless you stick an OD infront of the Uber, I'll take a cube 30 over it for low vol practice any day ;)
Start to push it though, and the uber destroys, obviously.
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VS100's were good! that was my first head!
I still have it somewhere. its probably in need of some care.
It was good at low volume.
I used to gig with it too, but it sounds pretty weak compared to a big valve amp.
I remember playing a show and i was stood behind my rig, and everyone was pushed up against it, and nobody could hear it. I has all the dials maxed, plus my boost maxed out, and the level on my eq maxed. it was the last song, probably sounded aweful but i couldnt hear it anyway! haha.
hybrid. single tube pre and ss power. but without all the gubbins you get in the AVT's.
The AVT's are terrible.
VS100's are probably SUPER cheap.
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Ive seen the combos go for ~100 quid quite recently.
bargain.
Its just finding one.
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http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Marshall-VS100-guitar-amp_W0QQitemZ290389284426QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL?hash=item439c8cd64a
Blip!
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Well done!
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may lack the gain he wants.
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May do, yeah. Not that gainy or that saturated. But good enough for chuck schuldiner = good enough.
or did he use 8080s?
Regardless, very similar sounding amps.
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i actually found 1 of those http://edinburgh.gumtree.com/edinburgh/64/52508464.html
didnt think it would be up to much so never really considered it lol
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might be worth a play you know.
along with a bunch of other stuff i guess
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Definitely try it out. The VS and 8080 series are not to be judged by AVTs and MGs, which suck. They didnt.
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I'm guessin i'd need a pedal or 2 to get it to do Bullet n Disturbed?
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i used to play mine with the gain maxed out.
if you want to do dual rec, 5150 super saturated tones, it doesn't have that much gain.
Im not sure what the best pedal to use would be.
Back when i used a VS100, I used a DS-1 and a GE-7 if i felt i needed more, but that's not boosting the ampas such, that was to eq a distorted signal straight into the amp.
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They're thick and saturated tones that are largely the result of studio techniques. The tones that were actually being produced by the amps when they record will be much thinner and shallower.
Could you post up a few vids of the sort of album sounds youre using as reference? Its very possible that they are to all intents and purposes unattainable with any amp, right out of the cab. On the other hand it may not be that hard.
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I just had a look at the VS100 schematic.
some things id question...
If youre using a pedal infront of the amp and the first gain stage is SS rather than tube, what is the best pedal to use?
Im very sure the fact the early gain stages are SS is a factor.
Also, the amp distorts by using diode clipping, much like a JCM900 dual reverb does. Im sure that can effect pedal choice too.
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I believe the 12ax7 in it is set up to never clip. I think. Could be wrong but I think its not really doing anything but letting marshal say theres a valve in there. Its an SS amp. Still sounds good though.
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Il se if i can find something video wise. but i know Im not going to get the same sound as their studo recorded sound, but i just want something that will sound good for them, not necessarily their exact sound lol.
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the 12AX7 forms a cathode follower that drives the tone stack. so yeah. you're probably right.
There is a lot going on before the signal gets to that stage, like LED clipping.
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Good call.
The truth is in the tone though.
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One of my old band mates had the 80 watt version combo and it did sound great, altough it didnt have anywere near enough gain for disturbed/bullet.