Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Nadz1lla on October 13, 2012, 06:43:35 PM
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At some point in the future I am going to be investing in an awesome SLO clone from our very own Toe-Knee, but I'd like to get started with an all-tube / valve (whatever we call it here in Sunny ol' England) for fairly cheap and perhaps pair it up with a valve stomp box of some kind.
Why pair up with a stomp?
Well I am thinking that if I'm going for something either brand new and cheap or even second hand and cheap, it's not going to have much in the way of "features", and I'm looking for something that will, first and foremost, have a really good "clean". If I can get something with a nice clean and a good gain stage too, then double bonus!
To get some background on the sound I like from an amp, I am really quite in love with obviously Soldano SLO 100 (and of course SLO clones) and the awesome Fryette (old VHT) Pittbull 100 CL. So tight, defined sound even when cranked and distorted, something that keeps its definition now matter how hard you drive it.
Am I right in thinking that if I had a really basic tube amp head that only had one or two channels, but had great cleans, I would be able to get close to a similar sound by using stomps with tubes in them? I think there was a SLO drive-type pedal out there with valves in?
I may be barking up the wrong tree, though...
I think I quite like the sound of the Peavey Classic 50, so with a stomp in front of that, would I be able to achieve a similar tonal quality?
I have a feeling I am barking up the wrong tree and should be more patient and wait until I've saved up for a proper amp from Toe-Knee, hah! I'm just so impatient! :lol:
I got on to this train of thought when looking at that Belcat head and cab deal from Gear4music that was something silly like £329 or whatever. People keep saying that the parts it is made from are really pretty darn decent for the price...
Ramblings of a guitar n00b. >_<
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There is the old Soldano Supercharger pedal. It's the SLO lead channel or thereabouts in the form of a pedal preamp. It's very expensive. As expensive as some all valve heads. It's a preamp, rather than a boost.
Someone might have copied it. The schems are easy to find.
The SLO and the Fryette style circuits sound a bit different to me. The fryette style is really tight dry and unforgiving (not in a bad way). The SLO leans to the more classic side but with the depth control and some gain and EQ tinkering it'll do a lot. That SLO lead circuit is in the Jet City amps currently on the road with Avenged Sevenfold and Job For A Cowboy, so it's capable of that modern heavy stuff as well as the 80's kinda thing.
I think to go with that preamp pedal idea you'd need an amp with a loop to get into the FX return, and maybe some wacky switching if you want to use the channels from the amp at the same time. You can try normal drive pedals in front of an amp but I don't think you'll get that close to the tone of either the VHT or Soldano.
I think my advice would be to wait and save the money and put it towards some awesome parts if you go for a clone.
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I had the Peavey Classic 50 4x10, a nice tubeamp with great cleans and reasonable drivechannel. I would look at Jet City, a budget SLO-style amp. Cheap Digitech Bad Monkey in front and ready to go.
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personally speaking, i think it's a false idea, and definitely misinformation on the part of companies when they say that a tube overdrive is the same thing, essentially, as have an extra preamp channel/valve. it doesn't work that way.
I think you'd get much better, organic, dynamic and real results from a lower wattage amp that you can crank some (blackstars come to mind, they're excellent, esp the HT5) and boosting it with a couple of pedals.
My experience is with a Butler overdrive, and that needs to be crashing in to a cooking power section. they also work well on amps with a lot of headroom but turned up LOUD.
About the only tube based preamp pedal I've heard lives up to the claim of being "another channel" is the kingsley jester. but again it wants a hot power section.
Tou won't get a Soldano sound out of anything but a Soldano or similarly designed amp. and you still won't get the a Soldano sound out of a Soldano unless it's cranked. although to be fair, they're on of the best sounding high wattage amps played at low volume i've heard.
The Supercharger pedal has a reputation for being noisy unfortunately, also, I've never been convinced about what it claims to do, and i'm one of the biggest soldano fans you'll meet.
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See I really like the Peavey Classic 50 idea, what I've heard so far is really good but not been able to try one myself yet.
About Jet City: I've heard that they have some reliability issues? I don't know specifics, anyone else heard anything about that?
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If you're concerned about that I'd email Jet City. They seem like an honest company. The soldano-esque amps are very similar PCB designs to the non-SLO soldanos. The construction is a little different and the transformers are most likely different spec to what you'd get in an Soldano (after all they aren't exact clones and are designed for mass production) but essentially I don't think Mike Soldano would want his name associated with anything shoddy and he knows his stuff.
If there are failures I would firstly assume chinese valve issues or the odd batch of transformers or something. Valves can fail in shipping or become unstable for example. QC might slip at points. There could have been some minor issue that was subsequently fixed. Other companies mass producing things run into small issues and update designs without customers knowing.
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I've been gigging a Jet City JCA100 (with many mods) for around 10 months now - no problems with reliability. Also had a few Jet City amps in here for service/bias jobs and can't report any issues with reliability above and beyond normal valve issues. They're solidly put together amps and great value for money. I'd like the pots and valve bases to be on separate PCBs, but they again at this price point thats just not an option.
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I'm not trying to lose toe-knee money or anything (I'm mainly suggesting you do this to tide you over until you can get his SLO clone), but thomann does the jet city stuff for around the price you're thinking of going to. the 50 watt 1x12 combo is around £350 IIRC, and the 22 watt 1x12 combo is around £250. (those are the ones you want, the 2x12 50 watt combo and 20 watt combo have less preamp gain). they don't seem to have the heads in stock at the moment, but maybe they'll get them back :?
I'm not sure there's much point in faffing around with a solution which might not work when you have enough money for a solution which definitely will.
Also i'd say, a lot of those valve pedals are gimmicks. and the ones that aren't cost a lot.
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Aye there is that, and if there are any complaints here and there it's probably what you say, someone didn't check it properly or a bad tube, which is easily replaced.
Been watching some Jet City vids on YouTube and pretty impressed with the sound considering the prices! The JCA50H has caught my eye so far, but am going to search the JCA22H too, as this is mainly for getting that "Tube" sound in my home recording rig, I don't gig much if at all as a guitarist.
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Oh indeed, Dave! I still want a SLO clone in the future, but for now (just watched more videos) I think a Jet City head will give me the juice I'm after without breaking the bank. Also, I might go for the 50W head, because even though I don't play live, I'd want my songs to sound the same (tonally) in a live environment, so whoever plays guitar for me will be borrowing my amp, heh. Plus, there is always the option of a dummy-load for home recording, which makes things much more easy to handle.
8)
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Am I right in thinking that if I had a really basic tube amp head that only had one or two channels, but had great cleans, I would be able to get close to a similar sound by using stomps with tubes in them? I think there was a SLO drive-type pedal out there with valves in?
I may be barking up the wrong tree, though...
Nope, not barking up the wrong tree at all. Single channel amps, particularly low wattage ones, with a valve pedal on the front of them can do an uncanny impression of a two channel amp. Depending on the amp (see next post).
However if you have a pedal friendly 2 channel amp, there's not a great deal of point in putting a valve pedal in front of it as it'll sound *very* similar to other channel. Certainly not a valve OD anyhow. You can flavour them to a degree, but essentially it's another pre-amp stage running starved plate and that's what it's going to sound like.
FWIW, we've seen a few things that claim to be valve distortions. A few of them seem to have a curious amount of transistors in them...
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personally speaking, i think it's a false idea, and definitely misinformation on the part of companies when they say that a tube overdrive is the same thing, essentially, as have an extra preamp channel/valve. it doesn't work that way.
I think you'd get much better, organic, dynamic and real results from a lower wattage amp that you can crank some (blackstars come to mind, they're excellent, esp the HT5) and boosting it with a couple of pedals.
Yes and no. I've run a Blackstar which did a great low volume impression of a Rectifier. It has a LOT of gain (how it goes about getting this is by essentially using a HT-Dual distortion pedal as the pre-amp section), but doesn't really have a very nice clean. It is an utter bargain for the versatility it offers. But it's crushed by low wattage amps that are in the next bracket up.
But you're right, stick a valve pedal on the front of it and it sounds like shite. FWIW it also sounds like shite on the front of a Jet City JCA20H (The JC loves a Klone though). They both just compress the hell out of it. However stick it on the front of a MJW Goldstar (of either variety) or my new Ampmaker Double Six and it really does sound like another channel. They've got the headroom to cope with them and they sound, frankly, bloody brilliant. A lot depends on the pedal and the amp. There's no hard and fast rule here.
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I find jet city/Soldano's need something with not so much in the way of mids (Klon's/Klone would be pretty flat?). They have a midrange bark that makes a Marshall run back to the kennel and pedals with very pronounced midranges tend to muddy them up too much on anything but a cleanish sound. My tubescreamers sound great driving a bit a cleanish breakup, but boosting a lead sound? just gets muffled and indistinct..
you're right, definitely no hard and fast rules, amp by amp, case by case basis, but as far as the OP goes, on a limited budget, i wouldn't waste the money chasing valve pedals in front of valve amps from that price range. but i think that's already been established :D
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Can confirm this. Tried a Radial Tonebone in front of a Koch Multitone. It doesn't really work. An Emma Reezafratzitz-overdrive and an old TS9 sounded stellar on that amp.
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For a cheap and decent tube amp, Blackstar gets my vote.
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I'm not sure blackstar qualifies as 'all-tube'. Not that this is automatically a bad thing.
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I'm not sure blackstar qualifies as 'all-tube'. Not that this is automatically a bad thing.
Yeah, I hinted at that (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uIF5rJL-0HI/T7eWPNY7rUI/AAAAAAAABV4/5oLHFazBGKA/s1600/HT-5_preamp_pt_1.gif) ;) Which probably goes some way to explaining why it doesn't like the valve pedals on the front.
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I've not heard great things about the Blackstar cleans, either, to be honest. :?
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I think the blackstar cleans thing is always a red herring. When you read these reviews it usually says something along the lines of "cleans aren't on a par with fender cleans". Well.. What are? on the low wattage side they tend to be single channeled affairs where the louder you crank them, the dirtier they get, on the high wattage side there tends to be a clean channel that does what it says on the tin, clean sounds. reviews comparing things like a backstar to a clean fender isn't helpful as thats not the point of the amp, and not really a valid comparison. I don't know many marshalls that do sparkling 3D cleans either, and a Marshall would be a fairer comparison. having gone down and played them, taking into account price range etc, there's nothing wrong with the clean channel. There's nothing exceptional about it either, but you have to take it in context.
Do any of us us much in the way of clean tones anyway? and i mean significantly more than distorted tones, other than for a song, or isolated clean line or rythym part? Look at the demographic of the forum. Most of us are rock and heavier players, the OP was asking about Soldano lead tones, so why does a clean sound suddenly have any bearing on amp choice?
Just saying.
BTW I'm no Blackstar fanboy, just think they're excellent value for money, and what i really like is that they're up front about where they're made. Marshall, for example, isn't..
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Maybe you can also look for a (used) Hughes & Kettner Statesman. I had the Quad (4xEL84) and that combo has very nice cleans (a bit between Fender en Vox, you can tailor it with the brightswitch) and a Marshall-esque drivechannel with a boost. You can tailor the reverb: by example 75 percent for cleans and 25 percent for drive.
Demo by Thomas Blug
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJN1FFx3I&playnext=1&list=PLA521DCD2EB9D168E&feature=results_video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2KJN1FFx3I&playnext=1&list=PLA521DCD2EB9D168E&feature=results_video)
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I agree with tekbow about the cleans thing.
As for fender cleans not being the point of those bigger amps, I'm not sure I fully agree. Taking Blackstar as an exmaple, the company isn't very old and I think if you're designing an amp with lots of features and flexibility in mind (The ISF, output power reduction, FX loop, midi switching, clean, crunch, overdrive channels) it doesn't make sense to just chuck in a clean channel for the sake of it. That said, unless you're designing completely discrete preamp circuits and you get clever with switching there will generally be some compromise in the form of shared circuitry. I'm sure when some amps are designed for the gain sound it gets real easy for a marketing bod to say "put a clean channel in that and we'll sell more", but I doubt Blackstar would be lazy when it comes to adding things like that. More features also means more components. Keeping multi-channel amps with discrete preamp circuits can lead to adding a lot of valves, if you want to keep everything pure valve that is. So it stands to reason you'd start using solid state to reduce cost and potentially increase reliability but then you're getting into another potential set of compromises. Look where the JCM900 4100 high gain dual reverb ended up in peoples opinions.
I think all Blackstars apart from the artisan series are hybrids.
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I agree with tekbow about the cleans thing.
As for fender cleans not being the point of those bigger amps, I'm not sure I fully agree. Taking Blackstar as an exmaple, the company isn't very old and I think if you're designing an amp with lots of features and flexibility in mind (The ISF, output power reduction, FX loop, midi switching, clean, crunch, overdrive channels) it doesn't make sense to just chuck in a clean channel for the sake of it. That said, unless you're designing completely discrete preamp circuits and you get clever with switching there will generally be some compromise in the form of shared circuitry. I'm sure when some amps are designed for the gain sound it gets real easy for a marketing bod to say "put a clean channel in that and we'll sell more", but I doubt Blackstar would be lazy when it comes to adding things like that. More features also means more components. Keeping multi-channel amps with discrete preamp circuits can lead to adding a lot of valves, if you want to keep everything pure valve that is. So it stands to reason you'd start using solid state to reduce cost and potentially increase reliability but then you're getting into another potential set of compromises. Look where the JCM900 4100 high gain dual reverb ended up in peoples opinions.
I think all Blackstars apart from the artisan series are hybrids.
Good points, agree to an extent, but still hold my position when it comes to lower wattage amps like the HT5 or HT1, the clean is always going to be a compromise on amps like this, even looking at things like the low wattage, single channel cornfords, and thus they shouldn't be judged on their clean sounds when it's clearly not the demographivc they're intended for. There's still a compromise on clean tones. I used marshall as an example thinking in terms of their new mini amps which were based off the sounds of their single channel "Rawk" amps (plexi, JCM 8000 etc).
EDIT: whoops, you were talking about the bigger amps anyways.
Course, one of the most legendary clean sounds out there is from a solid state amp.
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Oh yeah I totally agree with what you're saying about the small wattage things. I remember testing a 15watt valve head out with a 498T equipped semi hollow and that was pushing the amp hard. Much harder than a strat with single coils. So yeah, for amazing cleans you probably want more headroom. When you said marshall I thought you meant comparing larger amp clean channels. Blackstar shares a Marshall lineage to an extent, so I think that comparison is still the more appropriate one through the range than comparing Blackstar cleans with Fender.
As for the legendary amp I assume you mean the Jazz Chorus?
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The story i heard floating about was that the blackstar guys are ex marshall who got fed up with marshall charging uk made prices for stuff that was essentially far east manufactured and uk assembled (the Handwired series being the exception). Spotted a gap in the pricing and went at it. good for them.
Yup, the JC120 PDT_003 I think a fair amount of that sparkle is the built in chorus, but it works. To me, if it sounds good, it is good.
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Well, if it sounds good then it sounds good.
The Blackstar guys are indeed ex Marshall. The story I heard was that they were constrained by the brand as to what designs and ideas they could really test out so they decided to go it alone. Probably a bit of both.
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very quickly - what about this baby 30 minutes left on bidding but collection only
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jet-City-JCA100H-amplifier-head-/221136554711?pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL&hash=item337cc40ad7 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jet-City-JCA100H-amplifier-head-/221136554711?pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL&hash=item337cc40ad7)
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very quickly - what about this baby 30 minutes left on bidding but collection only
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jet-City-JCA100H-amplifier-head-/221136554711?pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL&hash=item337cc40ad7 (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Jet-City-JCA100H-amplifier-head-/221136554711?pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL&hash=item337cc40ad7)
that guy will back out of that when it doesn't make what he wants it to
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went for £157, whether he holds to that remains to be seen.
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Wow, I was looking for Jet City on ebay and didn't see that! Oh, actually I think I specified the 50w head, that might be why. Damn! Someone got a bargain! :(
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BTW I'm no Blackstar fanboy, just think they're excellent value for money, and what i really like is that they're up front about where they're made. Marshall, for example, isn't..
are they? they have union jacks plastered all over them. :lol: and they're not particularly up-front about their being hybrids :lol:
and yeah, the jet cities sound pretty good if you can get them at thomann prices. i haven't tried them head to head, but it sounds like a soldano to me. at least well within the ballpark.
Not much in the way of cleans, though.
oh and one of the preamp shields on mine came off in transit (and i couldn't get it back on :lol: ). But i haven't had any other problems (not that home use is exactly taxing it, of course).
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Just my 2 cents about the clean channel: A Delay Pedal and a Boss Acoustic Simulator do the trick for me to make my cr@ppy Valveking 100 Clean Channel sound pretty decent. The BKP Slowhands help quite a deal too :P
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I have a friend who had a classic 30 and it worked incredibly well for metal type tones when it was boosted with an OCD. It really surprised me and got quite crunchy.
Regarding the Soldano supercharger. They are very expensive and I haven't tried one personally but I know of a place that does PCBs for them so may cobble one together at some point and see what the deal is with them. If I recall correctly they need a pretty hefty external power supply.
If you go the classic route you can probably grab one cheap on ebay and I even think that theres one in seconds out somewhere.
The jet citys can sound great with a revalve. Regarding reliability.. A guy who i'm building an amp for has two. The JCA100H and the JCA100HDM. Both have issues and i'm going to take a look at them when he collects the amp. This is the only case I've heard of them having issues. I believe he runs them pretty hard and gigs 4-5 nights a week travelling around the country so they get plenty of abuse.
One I think the OT is shafted and the other just has am issue with random volume swells when switching between channels so I don't think that's going to be too major. I have some tech documentation from JC and loads of other gubbins so it should be pretty easy to track down.
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Just my 2 cents about the clean channel: A Delay Pedal and a Boss Acoustic Simulator do the trick for me to make my cr@ppy Valveking 100 Clean Channel sound pretty decent. The BKP Slowhands help quite a deal too :P
This too! I forgot to say that the Valveking can sound truly incredible with a few simple mods but that's going a bit too far in again. And I think the last few times I've looked at them they've been more expensive than the 6505 combos
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BTW I'm no Blackstar fanboy, just think they're excellent value for money, and what i really like is that they're up front about where they're made. Marshall, for example, isn't..
are they? they have union jacks plastered all over them. :lol: and they're not particularly up-front about their being hybrids :lol:
mmm well.. they don't make any secret of them being far eastern manufacture (korea? the new japan?), Marshall on the other hand are not forthcoming about the fact that their amps are assembled in the uk with chinese manufactured parts. that all used ot be done in house and to me Its not the same as "made in Britain" which noone can argue they play off. Basically the handwired series or special editions are what you used to get as general production 15 years ago but now cost twice the price.
As for the Balckstar hybrids, well i think thats not a clear cut area. They're not valvestates, thats for sure, there are preamp and poweramp tubes, yes the clipping is done with diodes/preamp section is the same with the pedals but the key is they sound good. a lot of hybrids, which have way more reason to be classified as hybrids, didn't
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Just my 2 cents about the clean channel: A Delay Pedal and a Boss Acoustic Simulator do the trick for me to make my cr@ppy Valveking 100 Clean Channel sound pretty decent. The BKP Slowhands help quite a deal too :P
This too! I forgot to say that the Valveking can sound truly incredible with a few simple mods but that's going a bit too far in again. And I think the last few times I've looked at them they've been more expensive than the 6505 combos
http://ultimate-guitar-valveking.wikispaces.com/
This site helped me quite a lot. I'm a student and on a low budget, so buying a new amp isn't an option, but as you say, with a few simple tricks you can get surprisingly decent tones out of that thing. Satisfied with mine :)
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeerxAO3oRU
Here is a marshall factory tour from last year. They are using auto insertion machines, wave solder machines, various lines etc. Also sounds like they are doing their own wood and metal work. Doing their own QC. The PCB's are made over seas but not populated, not sure about their transformers these days... but unless they've changed vastly in the last year, I'd call that British Made. I just went through the process of drawing up a power supply PCB for a valve amp and sending it to China for prototyping and the cost was much less than trying to do the same job within the UK (which is a bit sad to be honest). I think once a company has a certain level of demand for products then they have to shape their construction methods to fit if they want to keep up with that demand. Otherwise you put up prices to suit demand and operate in a boutique sense I guess.
As for the point about the hand wired series. Those amps represent products and build techniques from the lates 60's. 15 years ago Marshall was releasing the JCM2000's which is a range of amps I don't like from a sound and construction point of view. I also think, that for totally hand wired amps the cost to the consumer is probably quite competitive compared to other British companies making similar hand wired turret based amplifiers. There is no point in Marshall trying to sell those amps at the same cost as the machine constructed amps as selling them at that price would probably be making them an overall loss.
Valvestates aren't really hiding the fact they are hybrids. They have 'state' in their name. I prefer them to the AVT range. The JCM900 4100 sounds cruddy and that has a hybrid preamp with valve power amp. What if the guys at blackstar developed the valvestate, AVT, JCM900 ranges for marshall? What if the Blackstar amps are just an extension of that work were they actually got a good tone nailed down? Could be the case. As far as SS goes. I don't have a problem with it but I think it has some advantages and possible applications in which it rarely seems to be used. Blackstar doesn't say their amplifiers are based on the same technology has JCM high gain dual reverbs, but when you see what features they offer, compared to the valve compliment, it makes sense that they have a bit more than a solid state loop in them.
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(a) mmm well.. they don't make any secret of them being far eastern manufacture (korea? the new japan?), Marshall on the other hand are not forthcoming about the fact that their amps are assembled in the uk with chinese manufactured parts. that all used ot be done in house and to me Its not the same as "made in Britain" which noone can argue they play off. Basically the handwired series or special editions are what you used to get as general production 15 years ago but now cost twice the price.
(b) As for the Balckstar hybrids, well i think thats not a clear cut area. They're not valvestates, thats for sure, there are preamp and poweramp tubes, yes the clipping is done with diodes/preamp section is the same with the pedals but the key is they sound good. a lot of hybrids, which have way more reason to be classified as hybrids, didn't
(a) i don't think it really says anywhere (could be wrong, it's not like i looked too hard :lol: ) on the blackstar site that their stuff is made in korea. :? If marshall is doing the same (I have no idea if they are or not) then I'm not defending them, either :)
(b) I dunno. if you ask me, it's a hybrid if it has a mixture of solid state and valve stuff in the signal path. Which the blackstar HT series clearly does. I agree with you- it's not 95% solid state, 5% valve like the valvestate type stuff. But I'd say it's about 50:50, which to me is still pretty clearly "hybrid". :)
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Blackstar don't make a big deal about it now but they used to state handmade in the UK & All valve technology in their marketing until they got pulled up on it.
They still also market certain products as all valve too.
But saying that it doesn't make them bad products because they're hybrids its just a little sneaky
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yeah it's the marketing i'm complaining about rather than the sound. Ironically the only one i've tried was an artisan 15, which is all-valve... and i didn't much like it. :lol:
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BTW I'm no Blackstar fanboy, just think they're excellent value for money, and what i really like is that they're up front about where they're made. Marshall, for example, isn't..
are they? they have union jacks plastered all over them. :lol: and they're not particularly up-front about their being hybrids :lol:
mmm well.. they don't make any secret of them being far eastern manufacture (korea? the new japan?), Marshall on the other hand are not forthcoming about the fact that their amps are assembled in the uk with chinese manufactured parts. that all used ot be done in house and to me Its not the same as "made in Britain" which noone can argue they play off. Basically the handwired series or special editions are what you used to get as general production 15 years ago but now cost twice the price.
As for the Balckstar hybrids, well i think thats not a clear cut area. They're not valvestates, thats for sure, there are preamp and poweramp tubes, yes the clipping is done with diodes/preamp section is the same with the pedals but the key is they sound good. a lot of hybrids, which have way more reason to be classified as hybrids, didn't
It would be virtually impossible to make an (affordable) amplifier without using some parts that aren't made in China, eg the copper wire in the mains and output transformers, the steel used for the chassis, and transformers etc.
As far as I'm aware Marshall have the only dedicated construction facilities out of any of the major UK-based manufacturers, so are the most "British" major amp manufacturer.
Marshall stopped using hand wiring as their major construction method in 1974. If anything construction quality of Marshall amps has increase over the last few years (mind you it couldn't get much worse......).
From the Blackstar amps I've seen inside, they are a combination of SS and valve technology, although they don't all seem to use diode clipping; the SS components are often used simply to amplify the signal without distorting it.
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yeah it's the marketing i'm complaining about rather than the sound. Ironically the only one i've tried was an artisan 15, which is all-valve... and i didn't much like it. :lol:
I've tried an Artisan 15 and was rather indifferent towards it.
Nothing particularly wrong with it, but I couldn't get very excited about it either.
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^ yeah that's pretty much what i felt, too- it wasn't terrible or anything, just a bit "meh" (and a bit brittle-sounding). Granted, I was using vintage 30s with it, which probably weren't helping.
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Nothing about Blackstars has ever made me want to buy one. Their dodgy marketing and bland tone does nothing for me.
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i bought a Blackstar 20 watt head, wanting to see what all the fuss was about. it's perfectly usable, but the sounds are totally generic. there's really no personality to it, and nothing inspiring. it reminds me of some modelling gear, except with a POD, you don't have to replace the valves every so often.
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I've wondered in the past if this is partly due to the ISF.
The basis of the ISF control is that the 'American' and 'British' tones are defined by a certain mid range character. If that's true, maybe you could say the midrange of any amp is a big part of its signature sound. That said, if you make the tone stack so flexible that it allows you alter that character, maybe by definition there is no solid 'Blackstar' tone, because the normal basis for defining such a thing has been made largely variable.
Might not be true. I'm just speculating.
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I've wondered in the past if this is partly due to the ISF.
The basis of the ISF control is that the 'American' and 'British' tones are defined by a certain mid range character. If that's true, maybe you could say the midrange of any amp is a big part of its signature sound. That said, if you make the tone stack so flexible that it allows you alter that character, maybe by definition there is no solid 'Blackstar' tone, because the normal basis for defining such a thing has been made largely variable.
Might not be true. I'm just speculating.
That's a very good point actually.
When referring to Marshalls alot of people will talk about it's midrange focus etc, but with Blackstar you can't really do that because (as you said) it's completely variable.
A mate of mine has a small guitar shop and he's bordering on being obsessed with Blackstar; thinks they're the best thing since sliced bread. Myself and Tony popped in over the weekend and he forced a 2x10 HT5 Anniversary combo in our direction. He said that 'with it's improved EQ, bigger cab, more speakers etc it sounded alot better than the normal HT5 combos', and was really worth the £400 price tag. I plugged into it and was massively unimpressed (my feeling of all Blackstars I've used so far tbh) by it. He's actually said that when Blackstar release their new amps with the built in FX over the next year or so that they'll be the best amp on the market. He's a hell of a player, but I must admit to not sharing his choice in tones or amps :lol:
I was alot more impressed with the tone of an Orange Micro Terror through a V30 loaded cab, and that was a 20w hybrid with only 1 preamp valve and a solidstate power amp.
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I was impressed by the micro terror. Mainly because I thought it still had that 'Orange' tone to it. I was fully ready for it to sound awful!
I didn't know they had amps like that on the way. Thing is... once you have a hybrid preamp and valve or SS power amp, and you start adding built in effects and such... you really aren't that far away from having a modelling amp. Maybe it'll sound cool and it'll be cheaper than Axe FX + valve power amp. I mean, you're basically describing a Line 6 Spider Valve.
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I was impressed by the micro terror. Mainly because I thought it still had that 'Orange' tone to it. I was fully ready for it to sound awful!
I didn't know they had amps like that on the way. Thing is... once you have a hybrid preamp and valve or SS power amp, and you start adding built in effects and such... you really aren't that far away from having a modelling amp. Maybe it'll sound cool and it'll be cheaper than Axe FX + valve power amp. I mean, you're basically describing a Line 6 Spider Valve.
It seems it is a modeller
http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/musikmesse-2012-video-blackstar-amplification-launches-revolutionary-id-series-535194
I love this part
•True Valve Power – LOUD as Valve
•Voice – select from 6 classic channels (EL84, 6V6, EL34, KT66, 6L6, KT88)
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About the Micro Terror: I love mine.
Run that baby through a 4*12 with a Tubescreamer in the front (which I do) and you won't believe how amazing and loud that 100€ thing is. If you have a guitar with high output pickups it even does metal with ease and it's pretty versatile. Not something you would expect from such a small and cheap lunchbox amp.
Best thing is: just grab your guitar with one hand and the amp with the other and show up at a gig. Then watch everyone laugh as you put the small thing on top of a 4*12 and jaws dropping when you start playing. Priceless ^^
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I've had a Blackstar Drive pedal for some time now, got it when they first came out. I could tell right away from the sound that it wasn't all valve despite it saying 'Pure Valve' on the pedal. After an exchange of e-mails Blackstar told me that they use s/s circuitry to pump the signal before it hits the valve. However, it is a very good pedal. I once rehearsed using a Slash Jubilee Marshall head and got a better sound using the Blackstar for leads than I could out of the amp's own lead channel. It mixed well with the amp's crunch sound which is where many o/d pedals fail.
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This is a valve OD:
(http://www.juansolo.demon.co.uk/misc/weebbt.JPG)
;)
To be fair it does have a board that sorts the power out and a buffer on the output also. But otherwise it's all valve :D
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Can I just wade in here and strongly suggest that you take a look at the Wampler SLOstortion pedal. Could be an answer given its very good tone? No help on the amp front, so apologies for that, but take a look at this and see if its what you might need?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X08MfKO2J6Q
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTcdvk830TU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hovjg8DwqeA