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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 4:40 am
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Robinstrat wrote:
You are right regarding the better failure quote for solid state but I saw many PA power amps blow up. I am afraid the times are changing 8) :lol:


I think reliability is less a tube vs solid state thing, but more a 'they don't make things like they used to' thing. :lol:

My 70's and early 80's solid state stuff soldiers on and would likely survive WWIII. Most modern mass market stuff looks to be made to barely survive a trip to the local pub. :mrgreen:


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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 7:35 am
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Vulpinity wrote:

You know what? He promptly returned the amp, calling it 'solid state rubbish'. That's how deeply ingrained the bias towards tube gear is. It makes me kind of sad to think how much technical innovation has been pushed aside over the years due to that,


I feel the same way, but such is the mindset of much of the guitar community and it's not just limited to amps.


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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2013 9:22 am
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Honestly, to me there's no more harmonic and natural sounding overdrive than that of a tube amp. You'll never get a solid state amp to break up that nicely.

As I mentioned before, I like solid state amps .... when played clean.
I heard fantastic sounding ones but when it get's to crunch, overdrive, high gain ... nope!

It would be interesting to hear the following about the "solid state amps are as good as tube amps"-fans:

- how much playing experience?
- what kind of music was played?
- crunch, overdrive, high gain??
- gigging or not?
- room volume or live gig volume?

I admit that they have one(!) big advantage: you can get pretty fat sounding distortion sounds on bedroom level.

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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:19 am
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Smokin' Frets wrote:
It would be interesting to hear the following about the "solid state amps are as good as tube amps"-fans...





Experience: just over 30 years now.

Music: Mostly classic rock and blues, but with this band I'm in now, we bill ourselves as "Rock and Roll with a Southern Sauce"...lots of Skynard, CCR, some Neil Young, etc..

crunch, overdrive, high gain: Not quite sure what you're getting at there, but on the two amps I'm using at the moment (a Bugera V22 and a Princeton 112 Plus...one SS one tube), I'm using the channel switching for the "gain". Have also used various distortion pedals over the years with my Lab L5...but that's not so much because of any issues regarding the crunch tone on the Lab as much as that Lab is just a SERIOUSLY loud sucker...hard to get the crunch tone out of her without making people's ears bleed.

gigging Yep. Got one coming up with weekend, then a show at a new bar in Cleveland Feb 16th (new to us at least) and we have shows booked pretty much every weekend in March and April...even have one booked for July already with many of those being return engagements.

Now for the sake of full disclosure here, I will say that I did take about a 10 year break from the stage. I was in a car accident back in 2002, the wife had a run with cancer between 2004 and 2007, I went back to college as an art student in 2009, etc.. I did a bit of (home) studio work during those years and there were one or two gigs here and there (not to mention some good jam sessions), but it's really only been this past year that I've been back up on stage.

room volume or live gig volume: Live gig volume. Usually if I'm just sitting at the studio computer practicing...trying to work out riffs and such...I'm playing thru my little Roland Micro cube or my little Peavey Backstage at a fairly low volume. In such a case I'm not that terribly worried about "tone" at all as much as simply getting my chops up. That said, even down in the studio when I start getting into some more serious workouts, I'll run things into the PA system and crank the main amps up. And of course when I'm on stage (which I am quite a bit these days) I'm always at "stage volume" :-)

To be continued....


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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 9:21 am
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Continued...

Now with that said, I would like to reiterate a couple of my earlier comments. Yea, sure...my Bugera sounds a bit better than the Princeton and certainly better than my little Backstage. And my old '73 Bandmaster sounds even better still (even though I think she's due for a re-cap since she keeps blowing preamp tubes). That said, I have to emphasize that it's not just about me and my tone...and it's certainly not about my ego as a guitar player...ever. There's just soooooo much more to it than that. On stage, I'm in a band and quite frankly any degree of sweetness regarding "harmonic and natural sounding distortion" simply gets lost completely. It's not about my getting my rocks off on any particular amp, it's about getting the sound to work with the rest of the band and doing so in the particular venue we're playing in on any given night...again no two clubs "sound" the same and even the same club is going to have different acoustics on different nights based on the size and activity level of the crowd. When I'm playing on stage, I'm listening to the band...which includes another guitar player (usually on acoustic), a bass player, a drummer obviously and we all sing, so even from tune to tune, I'm dialing in the sound that works best for the mix.

What's more is that unless you're playing to a room full of music students exclusively or something, chances are that not one single person in that room is going to be able to "hear the difference". Geezzz...my own father has been listening to me play for just about all of those 30 years now and he can't even tell the difference between the sound of a Strat and that of a Les Paul! LOL!!! To him, it sounds like an "electric guitar"...and that's the way most people are. Except for perhaps the odd person who turns up at a show who also plays guitar, which is pretty rare, most of the folks at a show are not going to walk away thinking "gee...that guy had such great tone...I wonder what kind of amp he uses...". Most people are going to think to themselves "wow...the band was really good" or conversely, "wow...that band REALLY sucked". I'm sorry if this offends anyone's sensibilities or ego but very simply that crowd of drunks that's dancing down in front of the stage...they really don't give a rat's butt about what kind of amp the guitar player may or may not be playing thru. The only thing they're really going to remember was whether they had a good time at the show or not.

And again, the same goes for in the studio. Once the engineer gets thru pushing and pulling that signal to get it to fit into the tiny space in the sound spectrum between the singer, keyboards and bass guitar...there's not really going to be much "tube tone" left in the signal in any case...and that doesn't even take into account how the mics or board or anything else is going to color the sound. Again if you even just move the same mic around in front (or back) of the amp, you get a different sound!

So yea...I've even used my little Peavey Backstage on stage on occasion (and I've certainly used it for plenty of jams and practice sessions). It's really easy on my horribly abused lower back and it's plenty loud enough for a small club gig. At the end of the day, it's about how well you -play- and -the mix- and not any particular piece of gear you choose to use.

Just my own opinions...but yes, they are the opinions of a moderately experienced working musician...

Jim


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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2013 1:39 pm
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^^^^
Yes, lots of truth in there. Funny thing is they made a test a few years ago with several great players (incl. Satriani, Gary Moore etc.) to make out if it is a tube or transistor amp.
The only player that could hear all the tube amps was Gary Moore.
I am pretty sure you can fool most everybody with youtube videos etc. but at least maybe the most of our Irish players could tell the difference when playing them by themselves. Maybe it has something to do with genoms and mother milk.
Anyway, I like it loud \m/
Funny things aside, I am sure playing a tube amp is more a kind of the feel you have in the response and the dynamics you get from the amp.

All the best,
Robin

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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 5:22 am
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I feel every great sound or tone starts out with a good guitar. I own and play Strats and Teles. I also own and play tube and SS amps. I gig with my main tube amp most often, but sometimes I'l go thru a stretch where all I'll touch and gig with is one of my SS amps. I play straight into my amps. No stomp boxes or pedals, and I can dial in my tone quickly in any one of my amps....tube or SS. Maybe it's my old ears. I've been gigging regularly for 50 years now and have over the years found only a handful of amps I couldn't live with. Sorta like wives and mistresses I suppose.


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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 8:06 am
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Reminds me of this....

A young guy moves to California and goes to a department store looking for a job.

The manager asks, “Do you have any experience?”
The kid says, “Yeah, I was a salesman back home.”
"Okay," says the manager, "you've got the job. Start tomorrow? I’ll come down after we close and see how you did.”

The kid's first day was tough, but he got through it. After closing, the manager swung by to see how the kid had done.
“How many sales did you make today, kid?”
“Just the one” the kid replies.
“Just one? Jeez!" says the shocked manager. "Our sales guys make 20 or 30 sales a day. How much was the sale for?”
“$101,237.64,” says the kid with a smile.
“$101,237.64? Funny joke kid. Get outta here!” barks the angry manager.
“Wait boss, it’s true!" says the kid
“Right..." says the manager "What the hell did you sell for that kinda money?”

“Well. first I sold the guy a small fish hook. Then I sold him a medium fish hook. Then I sold him a larger fish hook. Then I sold him a new rod and some spoons and stuff. Then I asked him where he was going fishing and he said down at the coast, so I told him he was gonna need a boat, so we went down to the boat department and I sold him that twin engine Chris Craft. But the guy didn't think his Prius would pull it, so I took him down to the auto department and sold him a Silverado.”

The manager looks the kid dead in the eye and asks “So you're telling me, a guy came in here to buy just a fish hook and you sold him a boat and truck? seriously?”
Kid says, “No, he came in here to buy a box of tampons for his wife and I said, ‘Dude, your weekend’s shot, you might as well go fishing.'"

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Post subject: Re: Solid State amp. Guitar's true sound?
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:55 am
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telecastoff wrote:
Maybe it's my old ears. I've been gigging regularly for 50 years now and have over the years found only a handful of amps I couldn't live with. Sorta like wives and mistresses I suppose.


I don't know why, as we see different variations of this joke quite a lot, but I was laughing out loud at my desk at this comment. :lol:

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