KVR Audio

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:07 am

might I add that I am definitely pre 1980

...but the interaction between the guitar and tubes/valves is imo a little on the important side..I understand what you're saying Roger but you're missing why a master volume works the way it does and why even old gear heads like me modded plexis with a master...it's so you can crank the pre and not have o play as loud. But the saturation of pre-amp tubes is vital...that's where the best overdrive comes from, pre-pre-amp you overdrive the pre-amp tubes...hit the tubes hot...the fact that pre-amp tubes react differently to different input power is why many companies replaced tubes with diodes in the pre-amp...none of that has anything to do with power tubes...that's not say that power tubes don't have a lot to do with tone...but not all the tone.

susiwong, just curious....how do you record with your set-up...mine is the 9000 pre, but it is useless for recording unless I mic the cab....there's just no good tone coming out of it...pure mud...but through my rig it's awesome...but then I'm not much about top 40 so

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:10 am

Sickle wrote:Oh look..hink's started a thread for me to take a nice, raunchy shit in..

Cheers, hink; payback's are a bitch.

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:12 am

btw Roger my plexi volume control before the mod was (and still was after) was wired to the pre and was in the input stage...not power amp...

susi, were talking of the old Lab Series amps?.

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:14 am

guitarzan,
"blackface on 7" - that's the spirit !
Add a 6120 with a Bigsby to that and you know the reason for my current financial problems ...
gotta have one of those !
Cheers, susiwong
A blackface sounds great with any guitar, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, you name it, but none of them sounds alike. That's one of the attractions of power tube distortion for me.

ross g · Post by **ross g** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:16 am

guitarzan wrote:I think I agree with susiwong for my idea of "that tone"- the kind of amptone I look for gets at most light clipping from the preamp stage (harmonic exitation) and then a really lively push-pull compression thing from the poweramp rather than hard clipping. You know, Fender blackface on 7 type of thing.

problem is i can't turn my twin up to 7 anymore, i'll be thrown out of my place! (sorry, silverface....but i got a good tube amp tech)

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:25 am

susiwong wrote:guitarzan,
"blackface on 7" - that's the spirit !
Add a 6120 with a Bigsby to that and you know the reason for my current financial problems ...
gotta have one of those !
Cheers, susiwong
A blackface sounds great with any guitar, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, you name it, but none of them sounds alike. That's one of the attractions of power tube distortion for me.

so you are saying none of the tone on a blackface comes from the pre-amp? That doesn't make much sense too me at all...in that case why have a pre-amp...the twin had a lot to do with the pre, but then of course later the musicman hybrid with a solidstate pre and tube power amp had some success but I think they only made it for about three years. One can only speculate the reasons...but it is curious why the vast majority of hybrids stuck to tube pres with solidstate power amps...what you say as no two amps sounding the same is the reason. The power amps with tubes require huge transformers (which also creates a lot more hum if you're close to the amp), which draw very large amounts of power. Unlike their counterpart solidstate power amps they react (again because of the power tubes) different to both the signal they receive and the line voltage...variations in line voltage can really effect the tone as a result. Where with solidstate the voltage "capture range" is much broader.

BTW, this is just what I wanted...intelligent discussions from different points of view...haven't seen you before susiwong, it's a pleasure to meet you...

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:28 am

Hink,
yeah, I saw him twice with those LAB solid state amps back in the 80s, I believe they were called L7 or L9 depending on configuration, not quite sure.
For your other post, I'm not too partial to Top 40 myself, but somehow I have to feed the cat and me, and maybe finance that Gretsch I fell in love with last week.
I listen to many styles of music, but Country, Rockabilly, Blues and Classic Rock is what I enjoy best playing myself.
As for recording, the JMP-1 sounds pretty decent DI'd, I always use one straight out with different speaker simulation impulses and one with its built-in recording out. Nothing beats a properly miked amp, though, but I'm not in a position where that is often possible.
Cheers, susiwong

guitarzan · Post by **guitarzan** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:31 am

Well , sure the preamp is important - the tone stack is there and like I said before, this is where the signal is "excited" and picks up a lot of it's harmonic content. But the real player/guitar/amp interface happens in the poweramp in classic guitar amps IMHO.

I really think the "blackface on 7" can be digitally modeled much better than it has been in the past. It's just that the programers seem to concentrate only on the preamp and surface elements of tone and ignore the real guts - I think it is the wild touch sensitive compression interaction (that happens in a softclipping poweramp) that is usually missing from recording preamps and digital modelers.

ross g · Post by **ross g** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:31 am

i think there are tech reasons for a pre amp, bringing it up to certain level from guit level that the power amp can use (i read something about it too long ago to remeber), remeber that tube distortion was not the goal, merely a happy accident so to speak, of tube amplifier design...

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:32 am

it's funny yah know? You might be able to count on two hands the amount of companies making tube power amps...but hell everyone and their brother throws a 12ax7 in there stuff...now true, one 12ax7 is not really going to provide that tone, you need at least two, but why would the companies not use a power tube for the myth? I mean if you're going after that uninformed crowd than bigger would be better, also they could use it to inflate the price...

BTW my marshall does not have light clipping, I run it on the clean channel because they lead channel is way overkill...

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:38 am

Hink,

thanks, same back to you guys (or girls ? you never know on the web !)
You really make my day tonight. I've been here @ kvr for a long time, but mostly reading and learning, not much that I can contribute about synths, but I do my best to learn ...
susiwong
(before you ask, susiwong is not a girl, not a guy, but a legendary farting Hippo in a children's song)

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:39 am

susiwong wrote:Hink,
yeah, I saw him twice with those LAB solid state amps back in the 80s, I believe they were called L7 or L9 depending on configuration, not quite sure.
For your other post, I'm not too partial to Top 40 myself, but somehow I have to feed the cat and me, and maybe finance that Gretsch I fell in love with last week.
I listen to many styles of music, but Country, Rockabilly, Blues and Classic Rock is what I enjoy best playing myself.
As for recording, the JMP-1 sounds pretty decent DI'd, I always use one straight out with different speaker simulation impulses and one with its built-in recording out. Nothing beats a properly miked amp, though, but I'm not in a position where that is often possible.
Cheers, susiwong

when I joined the service in 78 that was going to be my first purchase...a lab series...they had the first guitar compressor I had seen...the funny thing is I went to Texas for some of my duty and picked up a twin instead.

FWIW I have found for recording (I don't do much live playing anymore) that the sansamp gt2, pod2.0 and now I just got the pod xt live all to be very good...like you mic-ing up an amp is rarely an option...and Ross if I put my amp to 7 the cops would drag me out...my 4x12 is split stereo and wired down to 4ohms...being pushed with an amp that is 200 watts a side at 8 ohms that lower impedance really kicks...I figure I get about 105-110 watts per speaker (rms)...

ross g · Post by **ross g** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:39 am

Hink wrote:it's funny yah know? You might be able to count on two hands the amount of companies making tube power amps...but hell everyone and their brother throws a 12ax7 in there stuff...now true, one 12ax7 is not really going to provide that tone, you need at least two, but why would the companies not use a power tube for the myth? I mean if you're going after that uninformed crowd than bigger would be better, also they could use it to inflate the price...

because you are dealing with line level signals at that point, power tubes are not for that, right? they have specific input and output, not something for a processing function...and i think economics play into it, i don't know enough specific info to even comment on 1 vs. 2, i know what you are saying: 1 tube to overdrive into tube 2, but probably a price vs. usefull outcome ratio

Hink · Post by **Hink** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:44 am

ross g wrote:
Hink wrote:it's funny yah know? You might be able to count on two hands the amount of companies making tube power amps...but hell everyone and their brother throws a 12ax7 in there stuff...now true, one 12ax7 is not really going to provide that tone, you need at least two, but why would the companies not use a power tube for the myth? I mean if you're going after that uninformed crowd than bigger would be better, also they could use it to inflate the price...
because you are dealing with line level signals at that point, power tubes are not for that, right? they have specific input and output, not something for a processing function...and i think economics play into it, i don't know enough specific info to even comment on 1 vs. 2, i know what you are saying: 1 tube to overdrive into tube 2, but probably a price vs. usefull outcome ratio

part of tube distortion is the result of tube pre-amps having more than one tube and the even and odd harmonics...power amps in guitar amps, tvs, stereos, ect generally have no controls of any kind...they just react to the input signal...(my boogie sob had a "limit" which was not a limiter, but an attenuater for the power amp)...

susiwong · Post by **susiwong** » Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:51 am

You know, it's cheap to put a 12AX7 @ low voltage in as an alibi ("look, dude, a real tube amp !!!"), while a tube poweramp with high voltages and a real output transformer makes an amp almost as expensive and heavy as a real tube amp.
There were some pretty decent hybrids with power tubes though, EC's Musicmans you mentioned or Billy Gibbons' Legend amps come to mind.
All said, the truth certainly is relative here. Players differ, styles differ, jobs differ ...
Cheers, susiwong

how to get that guitar tone