Teach me about valve amp types!

[cerpintaxt]

Right, I'll fess up to not having ever being a gear-head,mainly through not having had the money to shell out on all different kinds of guitar stuff, so I've only ever looked at stuff I needed and could afford. Also, there never used to be all these forums teeming with people who know way more about guitar stuff than the spotty oik in my LGS!

Nowadays, I'm much more interested, and I keep hearing "Dumble-type this", "Plexi-type that",Twin, Jubilee blah blah and I'm completely dumb(le)founded by it all.  :?

So, is it possible to categorise the main "sound groups" of valve amps and what it actually means in terms of tone, and what amps you'd put into which group?

Or you could just tell me to stop asking such silly and broad questions!!  :shock:

[MDV]

Good group and bad group.

I dont think there are 'types' that would be commonly agreed on. What you allude to is people using a familiar sound as a reference to describe an amp thats probably alien to them.

For example "my engl has fender 'type' cleans but mesa 'type' distortion". It doesnt actually sound all that much like either, but those references get you in the right general range.

To understand and take part in the 'type' discussion, if you really feel you must, then just play as many amps as possible and have some interest in what was recorded with what.

[jpfamps]

Lordy, this could be a long thread!

[MDV]

Lordy, this could be a long thread!

I have no idea what you could possibly mean ;)

[cerpintaxt]

JPF, you build valve amps - you're going to have to do better than that!  :lol: (just kidding).

MDV, I agree I'm probably going to have to just research what famous sounds were made what what amps and work backwards - sound advice dude. I just wasn't sure if there was certain terminology that people generally use that I have somehow missed the meaning on, as per your example "Fendery Cleans" - never having played through a Fender amp I can only guess that this could mean "all sparkly and shimmery" which is just what I think about when I think "Fender" - but that's mainly due to Strats and Tele's.

I know I've opened a can of worms here, but that's what forums are for!  :P

[tomjackson]

I think the answer to this question is 42 :D

[MDV]

JPF, you build valve amps - you're going to have to do better than that!  :lol: (just kidding).

MDV, I agree I'm probably going to have to just research what famous sounds were made what what amps and work backwards - sound advice dude. I just wasn't sure if there was certain terminology that people generally use that I have somehow missed the meaning on, as per your example "Fendery Cleans" - never having played through a Fender amp I can only guess that this could mean "all sparkly and shimmery" which is just what I think about when I think "Fender" - but that's mainly due to Strats and Tele's.

I know I've opened a can of worms here, but that's what forums are for!  :P

Well theres sound/tone but theres design as well. Open ended, push pull, class a, class a/b valve 'type' el34, 6l6, 5881, 12ax7, 12au7, 5751, blah blah blah blah - so, so many things that can be used as or in 'amp type', and the tone is of course inextricable from the design, so thats a perfectly valid thing to talk about in 'amp type'.

Its just a really open question and wont get covered adequately by any thread.

[tomjackson]

Start looking at clips on youtube on Fender Tweed amps (Deluxe, Bassman etc) , Fender Blackface amps (Deluxe Reverb, Super Reverb etc), Vox AC30, Marshall 1974x, JTM45 and JMP50 amps.

That will give you a foundation of what many amps today have come from.

There's some great books on the subject, a book is worth a 1000 threads!

[cerpintaxt]

Cheers Tom, that's kind of what I'm talking about - when people say "sounds like a Fender blackface" or "sounds like a Fender tweed", that's the kind of stuff that baffles me.

And I keep forgetting Youtube isn't just videos of people getting kicked in the nuts, and can actually be of educational value. I wonder if there's an audio book I can listen to at work?!

[Prawnik]

For that matter, most (but not all) of our descriptions of sound ("clean," "crunchy," "ice-picky," etc.) are actually references to something else, usually something more concrete.  Except maybe "br0Otalz."

After all, an ice-pick doesn't really have a sound associated with it.

Hence, any verbal description of an amplifier or whatever is necessarily limited by the reader's experience of the analogy used. If you don't know what "clean" is, describing an amp as sounding "clean" doesn't do much good.

A little like trying to explain "red" to someone who had been blind since birth.

[Twinfan]

From a very simplistic view, there are some classic amps that people use reference points:

Cleanish Tweed Fender - Twins (80watts, 6L6 power section) - think Rolling Stones or later-era Eric Clapton
Dirty Tweed Fender - Deluxe (20watts, 6V6 power section) - think Billy Gibbons or Neil Young
Marshall - Plexi (50 or 100w, EL34 power section) - think Van Halen or AC/DC
Vox - AC30 (30w, EL84 power section) - think Brian May or The Beatles
Mesa Boogie - Dual Rectifier (120w, 6L6 power section) - think Nickelback or Metallica

If you listen to clips of those on YouTube or wherever, and get familar with the tones, that would be a good starting point.  You could then delve into the smaller details of valve biasing, pre-amp design etc.  I'd start with a basic ballpark understanding first though!

[tomjackson]

Cheers Tom, that's kind of what I'm talking about - when people say "sounds like a Fender blackface" or "sounds like a Fender tweed", that's the kind of stuff that baffles me.

And I keep forgetting Youtube isn't just videos of people getting kicked in the nuts, and can actually be of educational value. I wonder if there's an audio book I can listen to at work?!

Well that ones easy, tweeds are grittier and have more mids, Blackfaces usually are smoother, more scooped (i.e. more bass and treble, less mids).  Blackface clean is usually what defines Fender cleans, bright glassy treble that fills out when pushed into smooth sustain.  Still, these are generalisations and they do cross over a lot but certainly a starting point.

the Tweed Deluxe sound is the Neil Young sound also.

[hunter]

Impossible to qualify.

In the end it depends on what you want/need (tone(s), channel(s), etc...) and what you want/can afford.

Don't underestimate also the impact of speakers and cabs - they are as important as amps.

[gwEm]

some other amp tone than Marshall JCM800 exists??!

[hermetico]

Very long discussion but, I was also in your situation so, I guess you need some tips to narrow the search for your amp.

I'm not an expert in any way so, I guess some others will chime in and amend or append whatever is needed or wanted.

Tube Amps have infinite combinations. What valves are used for pre-amp and power-amp sections, how are they wired, what kind of electronic components are inside, how the tone-stack was arranged,  what kind of Transformers where used and a bunch of other little things make all them differents.
And all these, before talking about cabs and speakers...

It seems to be two main VOICES: the american and british ones. The available valves in each side of the World restricted a bit the election of the tubes to be used to design amps.
The british voice was forged around Mullard valves, while the american voice was lead by RCA valves, more or less.
So, one of your main decissions is what do you like more? british or american voice?

There seems to be also three kind of tone-stack arrangements: Vox-like, Marshall-like and Fender-like. Those, make huge differences on how the final sound is voiced.
Vox is well known for its chimey, warm and silky cleans and stunning crunch.
Marshall is the voice of rock but, usually has not so musical cleans.
Fender is the clean and sparkle voice (those amps are more of the hi-fi class).

You think you got it, right?
Then, not.
Some Fender amp are darker, some are brighter and, one of the more sought-after is the bassman (originally designed for bass), which was copied by Marshall, but using different valves and tone-stack arrangement so, they sound close but different.

Then, we can discuss about classes. Vox AC30 is the "hype" of the "class A" amps. It isn't, in the same way as the tremolo floatint bridge is really a vibrato floating bridge and, in the same way as out-of-phase is oposite-polarity instead and, as well as vibrato in Fender's amps is a tremolo effect.
You now, someone gives the tag, the rest follow the path.
Usually, amps are class A/B but, those amps designed with the Vox AC30 layout in mind are usually named "class A".

There are still more classification tags: simple versus complex amps.
It's well known that the simpler the design of an amp is, the musicaller the tone you get (Fender Bassman, Vox AC15, Vox AC30, Marshall JMT45, etc, etc).
But, the fact is that, some people needs amps that can cover a lot of ground, specially is playing in cover bands with a wide repertory then, some amp having 4 channels and 3 voices per channel can do the trick.
Maybe the amp isn't the best in no channel but, it's some kind of swiss army knife.

And one more classification: vintage and modern.
Vintage amps usually have less gain but more complexer and textured voice. Usually with a single channel that forces you to deal with in-front pedals or tweak your guitar's volume to "change" the channel.
Modern amps usually are complexer, more versatile but, with some loss of dynamics. High gain with compressed distortion, etc.

Still one more: PCB or wired (even hand-wired). The goodness of hand-wired hasn't be proven as certain but the myth is there. The real thing is that when you find a hand-wired amp, it also comes with high-end electronic components while PCB amps usually use low-end affordable components

I think there should be still more tags, myths and hypes around it but, my suggestions for you are:

1) analyze what kind of bands do you like... what are their amps? (you will probably state that you prefere british voices to american voices, since the greatest bands are british. period! (this, beign said by an spanish, even taking into account Gibraltar issue, :)).
2) analyze those sounds that for you are the sound to go... what amp was used? additional effects?
3) purchase some kind of amp modeler (amplitube 3, pod x3 live, Vox Valvetronix, Roland Cube...), just to hear some mythic amps. That will help you to narrow your search.

There are a bunch of mythic amps from yesterday and today to check:

Fender: Champ, Blues Jr., Tweed, Bassman, Super Reverb, Deluxe Reverb,...
Marshall: JMT-45, JMP-50, JMP-2000, JMC-800...
Vox: AC-15, AC-30,...
Hiwatt: DR-502, ...
Peavey: 5150, ...
Soldano: SLO-100...
Orange: OR30...
Diezel:
Mesa-Boogie: MKIII, MKIV, Dual Rectifier, Road King...
VHT: Pitbull
THD: Univalve, Bivalve
Connor: Connor 50...
Matchless: Chieftain, ...
Dr. Z: the most of them...
Mojave Coyote:
Rivera: Bareknuckle 100
...

(sorry if I am missing something important)

One affordable tube amp, versatile and nicelly voiced is the Vox Night Train (highly recommended!!!).
One interesting experimentation little amp is the Egnater Tweaker (you can even change the tone-stack arrangement!!!).
Still more affordable, little bit limited but used in a lot of recordings is the Fender Blues Jr.
On the high gain side, affordable and well sounding, you can find the Orange Tiny Terror and the Jet City 20W ones.