Amps 101 -- Need Help

Here we go. I'm sure others will jump in soon.

1) There are four types of amps:

-All-tube. Most expensive, 99,9% of professional bands use them. There a few drawbacks, like the heavy weight, price, possible upkeep costs, fragility of the tubes, but the sound quality is the best you can get. You can more or less assume every record you own is recorded with tube amps. Examples: Fender Hotrod, Marshall JCM800.

-Solidstate. Much cheaper, lighter, sturdier. Clean is pretty close to the quality tube amps offer. Distortion was traditonally horribly harsh, but over the past few years lots of progress has been made here. Still not as good as tubes, but will be more then good enough for most. In general, the average listener in your local pub won't hear much difference between tubes and non tubes. Examples: Fender Champion, Marshall MG Series. Your regular 15W amp everyone starts with.

-Hybrid. often using a tube in the pre-amp and no tubes in the power amp. Some say it sounds just like tubes, some say it sounds nothing like them. See for yourself. Examples: Marshall AVT series, Behringer AC112, Peavey Bandit series.

-Digital. These amps offer digital modeling of many famous amps. Or in other words, the amp pretends to be those classic mesa-boogies, Fender twin reverbs etc. These amps normally come somewhat close to what they tend to emualuate, but the originals will still be better, obviously. Examples: Line 6 amps, Behringer V-ampire, Zoom Fire series.

2) Not much difference, really. A combo is a poweramp, preamp and speakers all in one box. A stack is a 'head', which usually is a poweramp and preamp, and one or more sepereate speaker cabinets. Advantage of stacks is that you can pick and chose your own speakers, and can upgrade either the cabinet or head seperately later. They are a pain in the rear to lug around, and will cost a bit more.

3) Depends. Tube amp wattage is perceived louder then solidstate. If you just play in your bedroom, any wattage will do. A 1W all-tube amp or a 2W microcube, it will all work. If you are to jam with fellow guitarist, you might want to have atleast 15W solidstate or 7W or so with tubes. If a drummer comes into the picture, you might want a 30W tube or 50-100W solidstate. Do note that you can always mic a 1W amp and send it through a 500W PA system. Sound quality is therefor far more important then wattage.

4) You're best bet is to drop the 'effects' out of the list of criteria. get the best amp you can get, and spend later on effects. The classical distortion brand is Marshall. They have their MG series, solidstate with onboard mult-effects, which goes from 15W to 100W. The AVT is a hybrid with onboard effects that have more or less the same wattage. The tube amps usually have no effects, maybe sometimes reverb, and go from 10W i believe to ear-piercing loud performance amps.

I usually recommend Behringer, but they more aim at the classic rock sound, and all-out distortion won't be what you'll find. Take a look at these brands:

Mesa-Boogie (expensive, all-tubes, ultimate metal sound)
Vox (expensive, all-tubes, brittish rock sound)
Peavey (cheap, hybrids, loud distortion)
Marshall (from cheap to expensive, all kinds, loud distortion)
Line6 (modelling, from bluesy tones to all out metal, cheap to expensive)
Behringer (only the V-ampire, very cheap, modeling, has some loud distortions)

Just some options.

There is a definite difference between tube amplifiers and solid state ones, especially when a tube amp was pushed hard into power out saturation. You really only need a small under 15 watt tube amp with one 10" or 12" speaker. Their idea when driven into saturation they are loud. They are louder than most folks think. You can always Mic the speaker. with a 12 watt Gibson tube amp and an attenuator I can keep the audience crying for more.

Example: I ordered a Mesa boogie 50/50 tube poweramp, it puts out 50 watts when switched high and 15 watts when switch to low power. my thinking is 15 watts with a attenuator for monitoring myself and run other outs to the two Gibsons with a delayed signal. Then if need be I can switch to 50 watts.

just my thoughts

Joe

A friend of mine indicated that tube amps give a warm, rockabilly type sound while solid states provide the distortion punch. I'm not sure if this is a correct statement, but if it is I'm avoiding tubes like the plague.

For some reason I'm migrating toward the Marshall MGs and Line 6 Spider or Flextone. There's an MG100DFX 1/2 stack for around $650 while the MG100 or 50 go for less than $450. Not bad.

The Line 6 Spiders looked damn cool that's for sure and it looks like you get more watts for the price. And any knob that has an "insane" level on it is sure to get my attention.

Ive got to sit down and see how these things sound with an SG.

Thanks again.

KY

I dunno about Spiders -- maybe they've gotten better. Several years ago I went to the local megastore, 99% sure I was going to get a Spider. But instead of just buying and walking, I decided to play about ten different amps of various technologies and not worry to much about price 'til I narrowed it down. I end up walking ... make that dragging out a Peavey Classic 50 4x10, because the all-tube sound and tight bass killed many of the other amps unless I wanted to spend a lot more money.

The Spider dropped out of the running as soon as I tried the first all-tube amp, and not even a particularly outstanding one. I decided very quickly that two, really good sounds -- clean and saturated tube -- were much better than a budget $450 modeler that was only hitting 80% on each of the "many" sounds provided. Not that modeling amps totally suck -- at home, I cannot crank my PV to the point of good saturation (no attenuator), so I practice with a Roland Cube 30 -- even cheaper than the Spider.

As far as tubes versus solid state and distortion: you have it backwards. Most of those great distorted, punchy metal and rock sounds are from tubes. Why do you think all these amps with solid state or hybrid designs have "tube" somewhere in their product names? Answer: The tube sound is the grail for metal and rock. The warm sound your friend speaks of is the "cleaner" side of the tube sound. It's another plus -- when you do need clean, it's a nice warm clean. Very few players other than trad jazzers and acoustic players really go for solid state amps. If they do, it's for transparency. That is, high fidelity reproduction of the sound as it comes from the guitar -- basically a portable PA system.

OTOH, if you really like solid state distortion, it's always is available in a $30 pedal. The same is not true for tubes.

Go play 'em and decide.

There's a reason that MG half stack is only $650.00, while a good Marshall 4X12 cab starts at $650.00. You get what you pay for. Think tone and not size of the amp or watts. Just try as many as you can before you buy anything. You could get a Fender HRD all tube combo amp for that price that would sound ten times better, even though they aren't typically thought of as a hard rock amp.

the new line6 spider II is pretty funky apparantly. havent heard one yet, but the reviews look good.
not going to sound as good as a tube amp, but for the options and onboard effects, it rocks.
depends on what you want from your amp i guess - killer tone (tube) or options galore (spider)
also it has 3 insane settings, so pretty good for high gain distortion :)

personally i like the spider, because im told tubes are prone to breaking quite a bit, and knowing my luck it wouldnt last long before going back to the shop :p

Man, lots to take in. I guess I really need to try these out.

One other criteria: Ease of use. A thousand knobs that confuse me is probably not for me. I want effects, but something I can get my brain around. Probably will find a sweet spot (somewhere in the distorted area) and stay there for the most part. Maybe find some other sweet spots, but not 100 of them. I like my music hard and heavy so I think simple is best.

Tubes are making a comeback in my brain. I've now read a couple of posts indicating how Zep, Sabbath and the like used tube amps. Although the thought of a breakdown is scary.

Thanks everyone.

KY

I wouldn't be put off of tube amps by the thought of a breakdown... tubes usually die a slow death. They can also last a long time - my Fender twin reverb has NEVER been re-tubed.... I've had it for something like 27 years now, and I bought it used. As long as you don't drop them or smash things into them, they either fail right away or run darn near forever.

The downside of that longevity? When I do re-tube it, it will cost me 3x more than I paid for the whole amp in the first place!

Tube amps can last a long time.

I just bought a 1958 Premier Twin-8. It has the original tubes in it and works perfectly. It is only about 5 watts. It is very loud for the bedroom, but not loud enough for a gig by itself. I used it at an open mic last night. I cranked it up all the way and mic'd it into the PA. I got a great overdrive distortion. I also used my Danelectro Fab Tone thru it. You would have thought I had a 100W Marshall stack cranked! I could hold any note into feedback. Awesome.

Even solid state amps do not usually have the high-gain modern distortion. They are very good, but for the heavy stuff almost everybody uses a pedal.

A distortion pedal thru a tube amp at saturation will blow a solid-state away.

Get yourself a Fender Pro Junior or Blues Junior (15 Watts Tube) and a multi-effects pedalboard. You will get incredible sounds.

So it sounds like most still use pedals despite the fact that amps today have all kinds of effects?

This seems like a pure group -- get an amp that produces a great sound and then provides a foundation for other sounds via pedals. I think I like that approach vs getting an amp with a thousand effects combinations that confuse the hell out of me...and then pedals on top of that.

My concern is finding "my tone" without getting a feel for the distortion I crave...that maybe I can only attain with a pedal?

Going to hit the store today. Should be interesting.

Thanks. KY

Multiple effects are always a compromise. A multi fx box uses the same components for several different effects, so each effect has to be processed in turn, even though the processor is so fast that you won't notice. Individual pedals, on the other hand, are totally discrete - each one processes the signal as it gets it - each effect is processing at the same time as all the others.

This simply means that a multi fx has to balance speed with quality, the former being the higher priority.
An effects pedal only has to concentrate on the quality of the processing. So an effects pedal does one thing and (mostly) does it very well.

Get the best tube amp you can afford - you'll be surprised how much fun you can have, finding all the different variations you get get out of a volume, a gain and a couple or three tone knobs.

Once you have the amp, you can consider what effects you want/need.

Just hit a couple of guitar stores. Migrated to Marshalls and tried tube only, hybrid, and ss. There's something about the tube sound I liked better...was almost like the sound "surrounded" me in some way and hit me in multiple directionsn while the solid state came out more direct and in a straight line.

If that makes any sense.

The JCM DSL 401 could be the one at about $699.

KY

Ah you noticed right off. yes, even the one volume on tone control low watt all tube amps will give you more than just sound, they'll give you a feel. A feel and tone that will go right to your soul.

Effects are great. But you still need a good foundation to build from. For me it just seems like solid state amps and I just don't get along, they don't last very long the way I play. maybe it's my electro-magnetic personality..lol

joe