Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: SamR on July 31, 2007, 12:15:01 AM
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Me and my dad took a trip to Professional Music Technology sometime last year, for a quick browse at a few guitars. My dad was drawn in by a few pushy salesmen (no offence to any of them but i did find myself being pushed into trying absolutely everything at pmt) anywho long story short... after about an hour i found my dad scratching his chin over a VOX AC30, the salesmen had mentioned to him... that ''from this amp i could get any tone i wanted when played from my POD XTlive pedal''. I went home, I didnt think much more of it, until a few months later...
My dad, bless his cottons... had bought me an AC30 for christmas! I was chuffed, but theres a few things i just... really want from this amp, and its been bugging me for months...
Ok so i get gain when its played through my POD XT, but is this ruining the amp? also... other than turning up the amp, is there any other little secret hidden switch of something that i can turn up the gain from? I guess im goin to have to accept that its a classic rock amp, im just wondering if theres something im missing, the VOX is a real let down, to be honest its a bit pants. I dont really want to sell it because i havent really played it much, but if its no good for what i want then i guess im going to have to.
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ohhhh sam- i don't think you realise what a fantastic amp you have! :P a lot of people (myself included) would kill for an AC30.
The gain from the Pod won't do the amp any harm at all. The thing about the AC30 is that to get a substantial amount of gain out of it you have to crank it, and i mean full volume. However - AC30s are DAMN loud amps, and to be able to play at a volume that leaves your eardrums (and those of others in the surrounding mile) intact, you're going to need a power attenuator, such as a THD HotPlate, Weber Mass, Marshall Power Break, to get the best out of your amp.
By the way - what kind of styles and sounds are you hoping to get out of the AC30?
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The AC30 is a classic and you are a lucky man but it is not a high gain amp. Personally I'd dispense with the Pod and use the raw amp and use a decent pedal for gain but that is minimalist me-having said that, the Pod is a decent bit of kit (just using that expression makes me sound old) and I'd be inclined to work at it. If ever a mate is having problems with his gear in terms of sound and asks my view, I usually start be reducing the effects being used and that is often the cause and then start over from the basic tone and then add by increment and watch the interaction between effects-just my opinion and clearly I am not in the room with you so my point may be totally invalid.One thing for sure, you have a great Dad! Of course, as great as AC30 s are, it may not be to your taste.
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i think you should be able to get the ac30 to work for you.. It is a classic british design so thats what it does best, obviously.... but it will still be able to do other stuff as well - it just might take a bit of experimentation with the pod or various pedals
it might also be worth looking into tweaking the amp to suit you better. The sound of valve amps can be changed drastically by using different valves or speakers. It might be worth speaking to a reputable amp tech about exactly what you want from the ac30 and maybe he can get it closer for you!!
It will still always have some of the characteristics ac30 sound what ever you do but i dont see why you cant get that to work for you!!
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Sell your Pod and buy a great distortion pedal like Radial Tonebone or Blackstar Dual pedal with the money you get from selling it. I think it's the best solution to getting killer distortion from that amp without spending any extra cash.
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cool dad indeed ;) you dont want to upset his feeling by selling the amp either i guess - after all - what a great gift!!
+1 with everyone else. selling the pod and buying some other kit to work with the vox (like a nice distortion/overdrive pedal or a hotplate) is a good idea.
what guitar/pickups do you have? what sound do you want?
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Have you tried putting trebleand bass to 0 and mid (is it 'cut' on AC30s?) to max and playing your pod through the AC30 - that normally makes POD sound better.
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Have you tried putting trebleand bass to 0 and mid (is it 'cut' on AC30s?) to max and playing your pod through the AC30 - that normally makes POD sound better.
I personally wouldn't kill the sound of a great amp by using a POD with it AT ALL! But that's just imo :lol:
Is it 1 of the new Custom Classic amps with the master volume control? Depending on what style of music you play, and what sonds you want from the amp, I'd set the amp to crunchy when you play hard and then kick it up a notch with a good quality Overdrive or Distortion pedal :)
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anyone played one of those custom classics? are they any good?
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ac-30's are notorious for making distortion pedals sound like cr@p for some reason. So i'd stick to overdrives so you can just use the amp's natural tone. Maxon OD-808 or a Fulltone OCD :)
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i played one in a studio last year. Nice amps - but i didnt think it sounded as good as the originals i had played. it was actually very similar to the 70's soild state ac30 i sold a few months ago when played clean.
i tend to be a bit of a vintage snob when it comes to brand new amps from the big names though - they all seem a bit more lack-lustre than i expect!!
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Buy the blackstar HT-DISTX and whack that in front of it. I got one of these babies the other day and I tell you it makes my Laney sound KILLER!
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i played one in a studio last year. Nice amps - but i didnt think it sounded as good as the originals i had played. it was actually very similar to the 70's soild state ac30 i sold a few months ago when played clean.
i tend to be a bit of a vintage snob when it comes to brand new amps from the big names though - they all seem a bit more lack-lustre than i expect!!
I think along similar lines, though I'm not a purist by any means, I just appreciate the sound of those older amps, and if I had my druthers I'd take a vintage every time (but then again, who in their right mind wouldn't?).
Vintage amps and guitars have skyrocketed since the late 1980s (and it seems skyrocketed again due in part to eBay and the means to acquire any rare gear for far more than its worth), and companies have re-visited their infamous models, at prices that almost border reasonable. That's a lot of money for an amp that isn't really the amp you're really after.
Still, no matter what guitar rag you read, just about everyone used (or uses) the Vox AC30 or the Fender Twin Reverb in the studio, making them the industry standards. Even the models today, if they're not comparable to their vintage counterparts, are still the most sought-after in terms of reliability. I look at a lot of websites that sell botique amplifiers, but the prices are ridiculous. I realize they're handbuilt in most cases, but the average joe (i.e. me) can't afford one of these amps, which are usually carbon copies of vintage amps from 50's-70's. So that's the alternative. Pay out the arse for a modern redux, or pay a little less for the real thing (not including money to get the old rig serviced).
Bad Cat makes some cool-looking amps, yes. Will I ever own one? Not with my health condition.
Now, if you want something to shred, I'm sure you'd be better off with something that produce a wall of sound like an old Marshall Plexi, but an AC30 is a good amp. It's a stalwart of the industry, and that can be a good or a bad thing. If you want to run with the pack, or get the sound players got for decades using those amps, keep it.
If it doesn't suit you, there's no point in keeping it. Somewhere out there there's a perfect amp for everyone. I don't believe in true love, but I believe in the perfect amplifier.
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AC30s are one of those amps that just need some volume. A hotplate would be a great investment to get the most from this amp so you can use some of the natural amp overdrive.
I'd then use a MI Audio Crunchbox for extra gain - the Crowther Hotcake is also famed for sounding great with AC30s too.
Are you wanting rock or metal amounts of gain - what bands would you like to emulate?
You could try a treble booster into the normal channel for some classic rock in the Queen vein, this is a pretty raunchy overdrive tone I've used myself.
:twisted:
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thanks for the pointers guys, im gonna fire it up again over the weekend, i dont get back from work till late so i dont think the neighbours would approve! lol worst comes to the worst i dont think my dad will mind me selling it, he knows himself what happens if he's let loose in a music shop, we now have 2 PA systems sitting in our own little studio that we built! he just couldnt fit them in the house :P
Anyway i hope things go well with it cranked up, ive already had a fiddle and cranked everything as hot as it will go, my POD has a lot of the overdrive and distortion effects, i usually have my laptop on the floor next to it aswel to do tweaks in between playing anyway.
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You have one of the best amps in the world there, and you talk of just casually firing it up. It's a bit like owning a Ferrari and driving it once a month! it's designed to be used a lot.
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You have one of the best amps in the world there, and you talk of just casually firing it up. It's a bit like owning a Ferrari and driving it once a month! it's designed to be used a lot.
An aquaintance of mine inherited his dad's lot of musical equipment when he died around 1995/96. I got to know him soon after, and since his dad worked in Illinois as a Studio Tech/Session musician, he had all kinds of cool gear.
He left his son a treasure trove of guitar and amps, vintage effects and the like to his son, but the Vox AC-30 (which was dirty and had some torn grille clothe) was stored out in a quonset. Being relatively new to guitar then, I had no idea the value of the amp, and was far more interested in the Fender Prosonic he had upstairs in his room.
He had a lot of cool stuff, two LPs, one previously owned by R.E.O. Speedwagon. While not a cool band to a fan of early-mid 90s alt-rock, my friends and I still revelled in its presence. We knew it was a piece of rock history, as is that AC-30, wherever it is now.
I read a recent [US] issue of Guitar World celebrating the 'Sgt. Peppers' album, which I believe to be one of the most overrated albums of all time; and I'm a moderate Beatles fan. Anyhow, two AC-30s were used in the process of recording that album (which IMO paled to its companion piece LP, 'Magical Mystery Tour', all paling to 'Revolver', their best).
The Beatles are as popular now as ever, but not everyone aspires to SOUND like them. They did the best they could with the limits of their time, including amps and effects-- the same could be said for Hendrix.
Still, the majority of the greatest rock albums were released from 1965-1980, a time when the industry was going through a revolution for the worst, and effects were hard to come by. These days we have every kind of sound you can imagine, but nobody's cranking out albums as good as 'Marquee Moon', 'For Your Pleasure', 'Astral Weeks' or the Replacements '83-'87 period.
At times, I feel almost inundated by the number of options in terms of guitars and amps (and the techniques of how to pimp them out, since "stock" is almost heresy this day in age). And then there's effects... thousands upon thousands, clones of clones and none of them cheap or accessible (nobody in the US sells Lovetone pedals, for example). It's a nightmare one must traverse to arrive at that dream sound.
Still, I'd follow the advice here and keep your AC30 for the time being. If you give up and decide it's not the thing for you, you could consider holding onto it for a few years before selling if you know how to keep it in pristine shape (in case it's worth anymore down the line).
My dream amp might be a vintage AC30. Maybe behind that, a '52 era Fender Bandmaster.
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AC30s are one of those amps that just need some volume. A hotplate would be a great investment to get the most from this amp so you can use some of the natural amp overdrive.
I'd then use a MI Audio Crunchbox for extra gain - the Crowther Hotcake is also famed for sounding great with AC30s too.
Are you wanting rock or metal amounts of gain - what bands would you like to emulate?
You could try a treble booster into the normal channel for some classic rock in the Queen vein, this is a pretty raunchy overdrive tone I've used myself.
:twisted:
pretty much +1 to that, get a good OD and a power attenuator. Oh and play in a dark room with the amp facing a wall.
That way you can watch the valves glow as they OD on OD :twisted:
:lol: :lol:
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+1 again - Your AC30 will sounds Godly in no time
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You have one of the best amps in the world there, and you talk of just casually firing it up. It's a bit like owning a Ferrari and driving it once a month! it's designed to be used a lot.
An aquaintance of mine inherited his dad's lot of musical equipment when he died around 1995/96. I got to know him soon after, and since his dad worked in Illinois as a Studio Tech/Session musician, he had all kinds of cool gear.
He left his son a treasure trove of guitar and amps, vintage effects and the like to his son, but the Vox AC-30 (which was dirty and had some torn grille clothe) was stored out in a quonset. Being relatively new to guitar then, I had no idea the value of the amp, and was far more interested in the Fender Prosonic he had upstairs in his room.
He had a lot of cool stuff, two LPs, one previously owned by R.E.O. Speedwagon. While not a cool band to a fan of early-mid 90s alt-rock, my friends and I still revelled in its presence. We knew it was a piece of rock history, as is that AC-30, wherever it is now.
I read a recent [US] issue of Guitar World celebrating the 'Sgt. Peppers' album, which I believe to be one of the most overrated albums of all time; and I'm a moderate Beatles fan. Anyhow, two AC-30s were used in the process of recording that album (which IMO paled to its companion piece LP, 'Magical Mystery Tour', all paling to 'Revolver', their best).
The Beatles are as popular now as ever, but not everyone aspires to SOUND like them. They did the best they could with the limits of their time, including amps and effects-- the same could be said for Hendrix.
Still, the majority of the greatest rock albums were released from 1965-1980, a time when the industry was going through a revolution for the worst, and effects were hard to come by. These days we have every kind of sound you can imagine, but nobody's cranking out albums as good as 'Marquee Moon', 'For Your Pleasure', 'Astral Weeks' or the Replacements '83-'87 period.
At times, I feel almost inundated by the number of options in terms of guitars and amps (and the techniques of how to pimp them out, since "stock" is almost heresy this day in age). And then there's effects... thousands upon thousands, clones of clones and none of them cheap or accessible (nobody in the US sells Lovetone pedals, for example). It's a nightmare one must traverse to arrive at that dream sound.
Still, I'd follow the advice here and keep your AC30 for the time being. If you give up and decide it's not the thing for you, you could consider holding onto it for a few years before selling if you know how to keep it in pristine shape (in case it's worth anymore down the line).
My dream amp might be a vintage AC30. Maybe behind that, a '52 era Fender Bandmaster.
as Jaco Pastorious said 'It's all in the Hands' this is THE most important point in being a musician, no equipment will ever make you a better player.