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Post subject: amplifier question
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:26 pm
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Should I get a nice cllean tube amp or should I get an amp with both a decent sounding clean and distortion. The reason I'm asking is because I know some artists have really nice clean amps and what they use for distortion are pedals. Brian May, Clapton, etc. Or should I get one that has both a good clean and distortion.


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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 2:51 pm
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There is no right or wrong answer. I was in the same dilemma myself when i was purchasing my 2008 american standard stratocaster, and my Fender blues junior. The blues junior has a beautiful, warm clean tone produced by the Valves. It has a Volume and a master volume, so i can crank the volume up and get a rich overdrive sound. And if i want to Get a real Heavy rock sound, i can plug in a decent Distortion pedal ( Boss Metal drive ) Depending on your budget i would personally go with a All Tube amp with a good clean tone, because you can always get good overdrive but the clean tone relies on the pure quality of the amp. If you are more interested In a bedroom practice amp which is more versatile i would recommend the Vox Valvetronix
range of Amps, Fender has some great ones. But Have a talk to someone in a Guitar store and they'll point you on the right path.

Good luck!

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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 3:11 pm
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You will probably get different opinions on this, but mine opinion is to get a two channell amp. Or better yet, a preamp/power amp/ cab combo. This has the greatest flexibility to create your own tone. Either way, the majic comes from within the amp

There are preamp pedals out there now, that kinda blur the differences. To me, you can't beat the distortions that high gain tube preamps create for practice level playing, whether that preamp is built into the amp or not. The only thing better is turning up a tube amp until the power tubes clip, which you cannot do at practice levels

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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 4:51 pm
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Both of those players use single channel valve amps that do drive. May uses a treblebooster to aid its gain but doesnt rely upon it for gain. With clapton who knows? In the past EC has used some incredibly high gain amps.

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Post subject: Re: amplifier question
Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 5:56 pm
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Blaqdog wrote:
Should I get a nice clean tube amp or should I get an amp with both a decent sounding clean and distortion. The reason I'm asking is because I know some artists have really nice clean amps and what they use for distortion are pedals. Brian May, Clapton, etc. Or should I get one that has both a good clean and distortion.

Well, it sort of depends on the budget you have for the purchase.
If money is no object you can probably find an amp that does everything you want. But if it isn't then you might want to narrow the focus of what you want from the amp. Buying a jack of all trades cheap amp will probably mean compromises in some or maybe even all the different tones you want.

Personally I think there is no way to make an amp sound good clean if it doesn't have a good native clean sound. But there are several options to make that clean amp sound good overdriven, and/or distorted. A tube screamer can add some nice punch, and as stated above there are several distortion pedals with good reps.

Also I think tube (or valve for the limeys :wink: ) amps really shine in the clean, and overdriven modes, whereas with heavy distortion the gap is much smaller between them and solid state.( <--personal opinion here)


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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 6:32 pm
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I'd agree with comments that you must have a good clean channel as a minimum. I tend to use only the clean channel on my Super210 and SCXD (and the clean amp models on the Line6 DuoVerb) but that comes with the disclaimer that I play no metal, very little (modern) rock, etc.

When I do want an effect I use a TS-808 for classic overdrive. My other effects are things like delay, echo, etc. but they too benefit by starting with a great clean channel. You don't want to mix the sound you're going for in with unpredicatble junk from the amp.

However, the SCXD has a decent disortion channel for those rare moments when I feel like hitting it. The DuoVerb "distorted amp" models are decent (for the time it was made) as well. So if you can afford both and still have the best core amp for the output you need, go for it!


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Posted: Wed Jan 14, 2009 8:40 pm
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I would go with a great clean sounding amp, because most of the really amazing high gain tube amps don't have a nice clean amp, but if you have a nice clean amp you can use pedals that will sound really good with the clean tube amp .. I would do that :) now if you have the money you can get two amps one great clean amp and one great distortion amp.... and buy a switching pedal to switch between them....... :)


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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:58 am
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I recently got a Blues Jr. and I`m adding pedals..Sounds pretty good, the amp cranks.

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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 7:29 am
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I also agree, that whatever amp you buy, it must have a good clean. The clean channell should be the focus. There is no way to fix a bad clean channel, you can add chorus to help, but.... There are some great high gain tube amps that have a great clean channell. But you will pay for it. My brother has a Mesa F-50 1x12 combo amp, and its clean is very impressive, and the dirty channel is very similar to the dual rec.

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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 8:41 am
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Personally, after years of searching and searching for my perfect tone I have arrived at the conclusion that the best sounding amps for me and my style are single channel amps with no "clean" channel.

Amps like the JCM800 2203 where rather than boosting a clean amp like a Twin for distortion you take a dirty amp and use your guitars volume to clean it up.

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Posted: Thu Jan 15, 2009 9:32 am
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I think we all pretty much agree you need an amp that cleans up well, at a minimum. If it will deliver a nice crunch when driven that is excellent. And learn to control that range with the guitar's volume knob. Pedals are available if more distortion is required.

However, when all that's said and done, I finally went the multi-channel route some years ago when the Marshall Triple Super Lead first came out, and that has suited me very well ever since.

Channel switching can be great - but they need to be good sounding channels! Well, obviously...

Cheers - C


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