Nostaligic 70's and the future

ROOG · September 2013

If I had the room I'd like to have a fling with a JC-120, but that applies to quite a few valve amps too!

Jalapeno · September 2013

hywelg said:

I really really wanted to try, first hand, the Retro Wreck that was talked about at length a couple of years ago on TGP and then went deathly silent. I'm not sure its even still being made. Shame....

Me too. He has some still for sale I think. DestroyAllGuitars don't seem to sell them anymore.

I think Lance has moved on - he's got his 2 channel power amp (with he claims the Retro Wreck built in). Not sure if this is snake oil or not tbh.

He's also now selling a "tube" preamp ....

impmann · September 2013

I've read this with great interest - thing is the valve snobs won't have it any other way. Valves sound best - according to them. 8-|

I've gigged an SS amp for years - and whilst I occasionally gas for something different, I keep coming back to it as my core tone (and its done everything from country to punk rock). Plus it has never gone wrong in literally 1000s of gigs, I can carry it comfortably and it doesn't need expensive parts replacing every so often...

There have been some amazing tones recorded using SS amps - and I totally agree with ICBM that there are some truly awful sounding valve amps out there. The only thing that sells them is the glowing filaments and a whole heap of marketing BS.

Digital - well, finally folks are being a bit more open minded to it. Although the nay-sayers will still pooh-pooh them as loudly as they possibly can (whilst probably throwing stones at the sun and crying "heretic" each time something with wheels passes them by). Fact remains that some *really* well known "tone hound" stuff on record was not played through glowing filaments... and you won't have noticed the difference. And if you look behind the BS in the magazines ("yeah we hired in a vintage 60s Strat and a load of vintage amps" etc ) you will find a VERY different true story.

A good tone is a good tone - it matters not a shit if it is powered by valves, by transistors or by egg fried rice. If it sounds good TO YOU, then its a good tone. Frankly (Mr Shankly) I couldn't give a toss how it happens, as long as it does.

Jalapeno · September 2013

How true ! Name that SS amp !

EricTheWeary · September 2013

is that brown egg fried rice or white egg fried rice?

impmann · September 2013

Oh Brown....everyone knows the husks have a better tone.

My amp?... A Sessionette 75. Hated by some, loved by others.

koneguitarist · September 2013

impmann said:

I've read this with great interest - thing is the valve snobs won't have it any other way. Valves sound best - according to them. 8-|

I've gigged an SS amp for years - and whilst I occasionally gas for something different, I keep coming back to it as my core tone (and its done everything from country to punk rock). Plus it has never gone wrong in literally 1000s of gigs, I can carry it comfortably and it doesn't need expensive parts replacing every so often...

There have been some amazing tones recorded using SS amps - and I totally agree with ICBM that there are some truly awful sounding valve amps out there. The only thing that sells them is the glowing filaments and a whole heap of marketing BS.

Digital - well, finally folks are being a bit more open minded to it. Although the nay-sayers will still pooh-pooh them as loudly as they possibly can (whilst probably throwing stones at the sun and crying "heretic" each time something with wheels passes them by). Fact remains that some *really* well known "tone hound" stuff on record was not played through glowing filaments... and you won't have noticed the difference. And if you look behind the BS in the magazines ("yeah we hired in a vintage 60s Strat and a load of vintage amps" etc ) you will find a VERY different true story.

A good tone is a good tone - it matters not a shit if it is powered by valves, by transistors or by egg fried rice. If it sounds good TO YOU, then its a good tone. Frankly (Mr Shankly) I couldn't give a toss how it happens, as long as it does.

Totally agree, I love Good valve amps, and have been lucky enough to have owned and played a lot of the classics. But I don`t think I have played a great valve amp built since the late 80`s that isn`t a boutique hand built job. And if we are talking heavy distortion tones, I doubt I could tell which is which anyway. The last Valve amps that I have had are Blues Deluxe reissue, sterile, volume control all or nothing, Blackstar HT40 blandest of the bland, exactly what you think an SS amp sounds like, Marshall Haze 40, blew up totally unreliable, and a peavey Bandit which sounded warmer and more responsive than all of them.

I also recently had a TSL 100w head and cab, decent sounds, solid, versatile but nothing to really get you excited, and an Excelsior which for some reason suits the band and what I am doing, and seems to have a nice tone with my tele.

Point is all amps be it Valve, SS or Digital are different and have their own sounds, some of which are great and some that sound awfull, but that is my opinion, thankfully we all have different views regarding tone, and if a session 75 or JC120 is what floats your boat then its a good amp no matter how its made.

ICBM · September 2013

The problem for me in all this is that there is one amp which in my opinion is head and shoulders better-sounding than anything else I've ever owned or even used... the Mesa Trem-o-verb. It's a modern (to me, anyway - the older of my two is almost 20 years old now though, so some people would probably call it vintage

)), PCB-built, complex, high-powered, channel-switching, very expensive - not to mention heavy - valve amp, and in many ways I wish it wasn't so - but it just does sound better.

I am currently thinking of getting a set of these new solid-state valves to try in one of them

.

martinw · September 2013

Moltisanti · September 2013

Pantera got to the very top of the Metal tree using only SS Randall amps, admittedly Dime's tone isn't winning any awards for it's warmth or beauty, but it got the job done and live their mix was crushing. Randy Rhoads managed the same feat with all valve Marshalls that mostly to my ears sounded like utter shit....

There's a lot of internet speak about valves these days that mean people who've never actually played a valve amp at a volume where you can hear the difference are buying them in their thousands because "it has to be valve". I gigged with a Valvestate head and cab back in the early 90s and it sounded great...

flyman · September 2013

If you check out the 'arriving soon' section on the Guitar Village website, there's a few new Orange ss amps
in the pipeline. Wonder what they will be like

p90fool · September 2013

For me it's more about feel than tone. I'm no snob, I gig with either JTM45s, or a Zoom G3 straight into the desk, and they both work for me.

I can get analogue SS amps to work at home and in the studio, but I've just never succeeded in dialling that kind of punchy "clacky" dynamic harshness out of them at stage volume, even through my regular cabs.

I'll keep an open mind though, I really WANT them to work, and have lost good money on Marshall and Fender SS amps over the years.
It's not just about valve/solid state though, the vast majority of valve amps don't work for me either.

Jalapeno · September 2013

Anyone given the ZT Club (200w, 1x12) a good workout ? Genuinely curious if it is a good pedal host or adds something of its own ....

Bogwhoppit · September 2013

I threw two HH amps in the skip back in 2003. A 212 100w combo and a five channel PA amp. Both were in immac condition and worked fine. I tried selling them for nearly a year (open to offers) and not one person asked about them.

Then one day we ordered a skip to clear some house rubbish and in they went.

ChrisMusic · September 2013

Bogwhoppit said: I threw two HH amps in the skip back in 2003...

Cry, cry, I don't remember them being bad amps at all, iirc from my previous life.

Certainly not the worst I've had, including some valve amps. What a shame. :-S

EricTheWeary · September 2013

Mind, I have an abiding memory of being in Birmingham Musical Exchanges about 25 years ago and some one trying to trade in an Orange stack. He was told they were just so unfashionable they wouldn't even take it off his hands. He had to reload his car and drive back off. If I knew then what I ...

ThePrettyDamned · September 2013

The amt stonehead looks genuinely interesting, with 4 channels I think, lots of shaping and clean, dirty, crunch and bone crushing. And, by all accounts I've heard, it's loud - as loud as a 50w valve amp. So that's a real step.

I don't think bandits are just bought by those who can't afford any better. I want one, and I want the newest one because it sounds better than the older ones. I genuinely think it sounds amazing, does a half decent valvey tone (youtube video shows this) but it does loads of stuff valves can only dream of.

Frankly, the immediate sound of a solid state amp is better for funk, reggae, rock (imo - seriously, you want it to sound soft when it's rock?) - it only loses out on "taste brigade" music. I'm not saying a massive Marshall plexi wouldn't sound immense for rock, but the punters don't care, and how many of us can run a 100w plexi at full whack? No? That's an attenuator then...

Digital is for home, recording (they suck but nickelback recorded with a vox valvetronix, even on the silver side up album) and "sampling" - they're great for telling you what you like, and encouraging new genres. Solid state is for practice, gigging, recording and fun. No amp can claim they have the sheer gain of a Marshall mg (which, through a good cab, sound very good).

Valve amps are a throwback. Everyone is just reissuing classic amps, including boutique builders. The only ones who are doing things differently are high gain amp manufacturers, and they're often laughed off by valve amp purists because they sound solid state (they don't). Valve amps sound great but are not the be all and end all of amps, at all. I genuinely want a peavey bandit, not because it's cheap, but because it sounded better than most other amps in the store. The only ones that really beat it are a 6505, but that needed to get cooking, and an orange rockerverb which I'll never afford. It slaughtered every other valve amp I tried.

I think it's a little unfair to regard the blackstar ht series as an all valve amp - they're hybrids. I love them, a tad bland but they sound only like themselves, and can do a wide variety of sounds. That's more identity than any other reissue out there.

koneguitarist · September 2013

Been thinking more about the future aspect of this subject. Most of us who love valves have generally grown up on them being THE thing to have, such as the Strat, LesPaul, tele etc. partly because our heroes used them and partly down to that's what was out of range to us when we were starting out. Now age does come in to this, as the older generation hated 70's strats due to quality, yet now the younger guys buy them as they are desirable vintage guitars. That is down to marketing. Valve amps should have been long gone and defunct by now, due to a whole host of reasons. Cost, ease of use compared to new amps that have FX loops more channels and master volumes. Now what we have these days are a whole host of sub standard tones from bland characterless valve amps such as Blackstar, Laney, Peavey, Marshall etc. The tones we are all talking about such as the Plexi super lead 100w stacks, Cranked AC30 are just too loud and only available on the real thing or Expensive hand wired reissues. The majority of places want and demand a quality PA sound and a good mix these days, the younger generation are buying the high tech amps and FX and getting great tones from digital amps and the like, they are totally happy with them and so they should be as they are not battling pre conceived ideas of what they should use but using what does the job. And if what they are using does the job be it modelling,SS or valves then its good. More and more will slowly switch off from valves, and the makers will stop investing in valves, then they will be gone. I myself prefer a good valve amp, but a peavey bandit knocks spots off so many of the new cheaper valve amps that we see today. One last question, anybody actually played through a full 100w plexi. Stack with two 4x12 cabs flat out ? It is literally earth moving and awesome, totally impractical though for anyone.

koneguitarist · September 2013

Sorry for editing, can't seem to split it up into paragraphs for some reason ?

monquixote · September 2013

This vid is quite good. I actually slightly prefer the Bandit, but then I'm not really a Vox kind of a guy.

ChrisMusic · September 2013

koneguitarist said:
... One last question, anybody actually played through a full 100w plexi. Stack with two 4x12 cabs flat out ? It is literally earth moving and awesome, totally impractical though for anyone.

Yes, and it is literally earth moving and awesome, and I have escaped from that and more with my hearing intact, a miracle in itself.

Totally unusable and you have to be partially insane to even try, but hey...

Pretty much a +1 to everything you said in your whole post @koneguitarist.

I would add that from playing in the 70s - that 50s and 60s guitars were not all that good either, pretty variable quality and sound, with a few absolute peaches, but far less consistency than modern guitars, and there was some real crap around too. But they all fetch silly money now, and get locked away as investments.

A sad end for a good guitar, me thinks.

ICBM · September 2013

monquixote said:

This vid is quite good. I actually slightly prefer the Bandit, but then I'm not really a Vox kind of a guy.

I *much* prefer the Bandit there. The Vox sounds tinny and thin.

Not a very conclusive demo since you don't know how the two amps were set, but still proves that the Bandit sounds pretty good.

If he'd done it with two leads and an A/B box so you couldn't see which amp was in use I bet almost everyone would have thought they were the other way round.

koneguitarist · September 2013

I think both sound quite good, and that's the point for me with that video.

Bogwhoppit · September 2013

koneguitarist said:

One last question, anybody actually played through a full 100w plexi. Stack with two 4x12 cabs flat out ? It is literally earth moving and awesome, totally impractical though for anyone.

I will answer yes to that as well. I owned two original Marshall plexi heads with 4x12 straight and 4x12 angled cabs. Yes it is loud flat out, but not enough to remove your tympanic membrane. If you think of it in decibels, its more uncomfortable then painful and only if you are in front of the cabs. I could never tell the volume difference between the stack flat out and my AC30 flat out (1960s AC30).

I used to gig in many London venues and in some you could run a Marshall 100 stack flat out, but the overall balance of the bands sound was terrible. It was mainly during practice you wound the volume up when your ego clashed with the drummer, or you wanted to show who had the biggest dick.

The loudest and most painful sound I've ever heard was an 18" JBL bass bin used in a small venue. You could not hear the bass player if you stood at the front or middle of the venue, but if you stood at the back the throw from that thing was bloody loud.

ICBM · September 2013

Bogwhoppit said:
I will answer yes to that as well. I owned two original Marshall plexi heads with 4x12 straight and 4x12 angled cabs. Yes it is loud flat out, but not enough to remove your tympanic membrane. If you think of it in decibels, its more uncomfortable then painful and only if you are in front of the cabs. I could never tell the volume difference between the stack flat out and my AC30 flat out (1960s AC30).

A cranked AC30 is loud... but a full Plexi stack is much louder, to me. The AC30 has quite a cutting sound and will hurt your ears, but the Marshall will make your teeth vibrate

. It is more directional though, and like the bass cab you mentioned, the sound doesn't really fully form until you're further away from the cabs so if you're standing close the AC30 will keep up... since each of its speakers is getting 15W, whereas each of the Marshall's is only getting 12.5. (I know those are not accurate figures but you know what I mean!) And the AC30 speakers are more efficient, if the Marshall cabs have G12M-25s.

I had a Major too. Actually in some ways not as "loud" as the Super Lead - the sound is softer and less cutting - but it really does shift some air, and it projects over a huge distance. Someone complained about it from a quarter of a mile away once

.

koneguitarist · September 2013

My record was a village almost 3 mile away complained and sent the police up to stop us. We were a country band doing Johnny cash stuff but we all had Marshall half stacks with 100w heads. Didn't seem so loud outdoors near the gear !

Jalapeno · September 2013

koneguitarist said:

My record was a village almost 3 mile away complained and sent the police up to stop us. We were a country band doing Johnny cash stuff but we all had Marshall half stacks with 100w heads. Didn't seem so loud outdoors near the gear !

Made of 100% win !!!!!! B-)

Bogwhoppit · September 2013

ICBM said:

if you're standing close the AC30 will keep up... since each of its speakers is getting 15W, whereas each of the Marshall's is only getting 12.5. (I know those are not accurate figures but you know what I mean!)
Yep that makes sense. I could stand as far away as the 'curly lead' would let me lol !

p90fool · September 2013

koneguitarist said:
One last question, anybody actually played through a full 100w plexi. Stack with two 4x12 cabs flat out ? It is literally earth moving and awesome, totally impractical though for anyone.

Well, that's how it used to be done. I gigged all through '81 and '82 with a modded 100w Superbass into two Marshall 4x12s, next to a 50w Superlead into an 8x10 Marshall guitar cab. They were linked, the channels were jumpered, and they were dialled in Lemmy-style, ie, I just ran my hand along the the tops of all the knobs from left to right.

I was playing on reasonably-sized stages for the most part admittedly, although apparently they were still talking about us ten years ago in the Market Tavern in Hereford!

It was actually not that painful if you stood off-axis, but to paraphrase Uncle Ted, I think people did come to our gigs just to lose weight...

ICBM · September 2013

koneguitarist said:

My record was a village almost 3 mile away complained and sent the police up to stop us. We were a country band doing Johnny cash stuff but we all had Marshall half stacks with 100w heads. Didn't seem so loud outdoors near the gear !

To be accurate the complaint about my Major was when it was indoors

.

But I think you still win

.

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Nostaligic 70's and the future

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