The "No other amp sounds good" feeling

[bammbamm]

My statement wasn't really to slam anyone, I was just pointing out something I thought humourous, as those two brands for me are something on the low end of the spectrum and when compared with the stuff you get on the opposite end, you would think someone would prefer the high dollar items.

And it is only MY opinion which I'm entitled to, so relax.
All things I post are based on the way I percieve them so I guess you're right on the world according to Bamm comment, but I never indicated that my word be taken as Gospel, I'm not that righteous or naive.

Everyone has their own preferences and likes what they like, so if I came off as condecending, sorry.

Thats the way I see it...Its my world too.

Addendum:

Originally Posted by "revsharp777

...I'm not going to buy an overpriced Mesa or Marshall, when I can get the SAME sound from a lower-priced head, modeling amp, or rack preamp. If I'm going to blow 5 times the cash, I better get 5 times the options! The sound is what matters, not the name that's on the box.

BTW, good luck on exactly duplicating the sounds of the high dollar amps on a line6. I think if these companies did such a great job at emulation, they could charge a LOT more for their products, but if you look around, people who buy into emulators discover their shortcomings after a while of using them in live situations. Great for the bedroom, but I think they fall short of the real things once you put them under a microscope.

Again, MY opinion, no one has to like it if they choose not to.


Bamm

[revsharp777]

My caffeine-induced Tourette's outbreak has subsided now.
It's been a stressful day & your comments struck me weird.
Sorry about going overboard. Point taken.

[trouble311]

Now that's what I like to see, guys.

Seems there has been a lot more build-up of hostility on this board lately! Maybe I'm just imagining things, though.

I hope not, because this really is, at least to me, the be-all and end-all of online guitar forums. This is the first place I come to get opinions, info, and good, intelligent, well-informed interaction concerning ALL musical gear and styles, not just Ibanez and shred.

*end of semi-rant*

[Drew]

Originally Posted by trouble311

Now that's what I like to see, guys.

I hope not, because this really is, at least to me, the be-all and end-all of online guitar forums. This is the first place I come to get opinions, info, and good, intelligent, well-informed interaction concerning ALL musical gear and styles, not just Ibanez and shred.

Agree on both counts- there is a WIDE variety of different styles and playing levels represented on this site. The reason I find myself coming back here again and again is that this is one of the few sites I've ever posted to where you can have a rational (if at times heated, but I enjoy that too) conversation on just about anything music related. The only other place that I've found I can say the same about is the forum over at www.gutiarwar.com, but this place is more of a "gear dork" site than GW, which I definately dig about jemsite.

re: Marshalls and gain- yeah... I'm with you, powerfreak. When I'm just playing on my own in my bedroom, i usually keep the gain a bit higher- 7-8, probably. It sounds a bit more agressive in the room. But, when you put a mic in front of the amp, you're hearing a VERY different sound than you do when you're listening at ear level, and I feel you lose a lot of focus and definition at those settings. Speaking of Guitar War, i did a cover of Hendrix's rendition of "Born under a Bad Sign" not note-for-note or anything but just trying to cop the vibe, with my 7620 going into my TSL with the gain at like 2.5, and it's probably the best tone I've ever gotten- i threw some reverb on it and started programming in some symbol fills, and just got this big stupid grin on my face. The TSL may be a "high gain" amp, but it really sounds at its best at the lower end of the gain spectrum. There's a time and a place for that super-chunk death metal sound, but for leads, if you can keep your note attacks even with that little amp compression, this thing just SINGS. (and compression is much less of a problem as you turn the thing up)

-D

[frankfalbo]

Originally Posted by trouble311

Seems there has been a lot more build-up of hostility on this board lately! Maybe I'm just imagining things, though.

Hey mister you can take that attitude and shove it! I'll show you hostility, you no good lousy.......

Okay but seriously I think it's kind of funny that some of the worst offenders that are now banned would have loved this thread. They would have been able to rip on everything that wasn't theirs, and tell you why they feel the same way unless it's some NASA joint venture latest model all tube something or other. But it does illustrate a good point. Sometimes I feel like most gear is fine. And so long as the sound is "good" just play. But most of the time I see the apathy of the big boys and I get upset that they can't just use the right components or put the extra button on the front for the other sounds or whatever. Not to boost our egos or anything, but we are all "artists." I mean, sometimes the artist hates his brush and other times he feels that it doesn't matter what he used, he could create. I've had some of the best times with a weak overdrive amp and a high action guitar I had to fight to play. But my take is this: The "box" companies like Crate, Fender, Peavey, Line 6, listen to the player, and then package up amps that appeal to the common denominator. Then they use aggressive marketing to sell the product. So the sounds are "like" what we want, and what we hear on the radio, but they are achieved by the path of least resistance. The cheapest allowable components, the quickest manufacture, etc. So they never really sound perfect. In essence, they're never "all they could be". The higher end amp problem is that they think they are artists, too. Not there to service the artists. So sometimes they "create" amps out of ego and are not listening to the players. So then you get amps that are hard to operate, or you can't dial in "the sound" unless all the stars line up. That's why the Legacy and 5150 are so popular. They're trying to make high end products, but like any good marketing "box" company, they're listening to us.

[Drew]

frank- as always, a thoughtful, thought provoking post. And, to boot, probably one containing a good amount of truth.

However, sometimes I think that the "Artist" approach to creating a sound is needed. It's kinda a cliche now, but the "Rectifier" sound was a perfect example of this- it was their R&D team sitting down and thinking, "gee, that Mark IIC+ is a damned good metal tone. Think we can do better?" As it turned out, they could. It's important to listen to artists, but I feel just as important that there's a couple nuts out there looking for new sounds, no matter what players think is "cool."

Line6 is a perfect example of this. At the end of the day, their basic technology is absolutely mindblowing. they can take a computer chip and make it sound damned close to some of the greatest amps ever in existence, to the point where a majority of players would never notice the difference. And this is great. But, they're not doing anything new. I think the real promise of this technology is going to come when they stop modeling vintage amps and sit down and ask, "this is all very well and good, but what new sounds can we come up with?" They're currently limited in trying to produce sounds that already exist, because that's what players are asking for. But, as soon as they start creating something new, it's quite possible that they'll create a sound that will be the next Rectifier or the next JCM800 or the next JTM45, and a sound that tube amps, as we know them now, at least, just can't do.

It's important to be in touch with your market, but without those nuts out there who want entirely new ways to do things, we'd be riding horses from city to city, not flying.

Just my two cents, of course- i think you'll probably agree with parts of this, but also have some new light to shed on areas i didn't think of yet, so bring it.

-D

[frankfalbo]

Drew I totally agree. The "make new sounds" amp artists are essential. And they are out there, but most of the time you can't use or afford the product. The biggest disgrace is in fact that Line 6 doesn't say "here's five new Line 6 sounds." They are all just the newest "modeled" tone. I mean, if you're going to just wait for the next sound to come out so you can rip it off then you deserve being called a "toy" right? They could do so much cool stuff if they wanted to. Like split the frequencies, and apply a different character of overdrive to the highs, mids, and lows. Then blend that with a main overdrive type at full range. Or leave the highs clean, and drive the rest. Think of what you could do, all with a little chip, and they're not! Put "recto" on the lows, 5150 on the mids, and Plexi on the highs! We should be working there!

Anyways, I agree with everything you said, so I've brought nothing

[Two hands31]

Originally Posted by frankfalbo

Drew I totally agree. The "make new sounds" amp artists are essential. And they are out there, but most of the time you can't use or afford the product. The biggest disgrace is in fact that Line 6 doesn't say "here's five new Line 6 sounds." They are all just the newest "modeled" tone. I mean, if you're going to just wait for the next sound to come out so you can rip it off then you deserve being called a "toy" right? They could do so much cool stuff if they wanted to. Like split the frequencies, and apply a different character of overdrive to the highs, mids, and lows. Then blend that with a main overdrive type at full range. Or leave the highs clean, and drive the rest. Think of what you could do, all with a little chip, and they're not! Put "recto" on the lows, 5150 on the mids, and Plexi on the highs! We should be working there!

That's a marketing problem, fact is, I use the Line6 original sounds as often, if not more than the modelled sounds on my Flextone II. The Clean and Insane can't be beat, and from what I've heard of the newer amps, they're even better.

[microdmitry]

A lot of folks have NO IDEA how much the tone of any given amp depends on the cabinet you're using with it. When you find that some amp's tone leaves much to be desired, identify what you don't like and try to correct this with a different cab. Say you don't like "sizzle" - simply use darker sounding speakers, or speakers with more abrupt high-frequency cutoff. If nothing else works, try EVM12L - this speaker makes even the crappiest amps sound good , and good amps sound excellent through it. It also has 200W power rating. Also try closed vs. open back cabinets.

Many also fail to realize that guitar sounds completely different when accompanied by a band (or a backing track even). Mind you, what you think is "excessively" bright guitar tone may sound awesome if you have something besides guitar in the mix.

So trying out amps at the store without knowing exactly what you want from an amp is a waste of time. The one that sounds good without the band quite possibly WILL sound muddy in the mix.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by frankfalbo

We should be working there!

Actually, you DID raise a rather interesting possibility...

Twohands- I've played the patches you mentioned. both are just variations on existing sounds, nothing really groundbreaking. On one hand, i hear what you're saying, and yeah, they don't JUST model, but when they create their own sounds, they're still working with the same basic pallate. My j-station's the same way- there's a "J Clean," "J Crunch" and "J Lead" patch, and they basically sound like pretty typical clean, crunch, and lead sounds. Nothing really groundbreaking, and nothing that isn't similar to a million other tube amps out there.

Now, start playing with the response of the amp, the way different frequencies compress or break up, or the gain-to-sustain ratio, or something... Hell, I don't even know where to begin. There's a ton of possibility for this technology, yet they're just using it like an overblown tonal photocopier.

-D

[frankfalbo]

And when you think about it, we're already touching on that in the studio environment. When you blend a close SM57 with a pulled back condenser you're saying, give me the tight, fizzy highs off the cone into the brittle sounding 57, and the warm lows into the condenser. When you use a multiple amp setup or multitrack with different amps, you do it, too. But a new sound would be to actually separate the bandwidths, and treat them differently. I can't believe no one's thinking like this. I attempt it now by bringing three seperate preamp signals in (which is not new) and I "treat" them differently, and maybe compress only one or two. But I've also used a LPF, BPF, and HPF to make each one occupy different frequencies. It's delightful, but more importantly, its NEW! And with old school stuff mind you! They could do that secretly with the software and just call it a new Line 6 sound, but they don't. Which brings me back to the "common denominator" comment. The box companies will always wait to hear a sound on the radio, then they'll make and sell it. While the amp artists usually make esoteric gear that's harder to use with less features and higher prices. Sometimes there's crossover in the middle. And let's face it, 9 times out of 10 it's the musician or the producer that makes the new sounds, not some new amp. Countless times you can go down the line, and it's guitarists who figure out how to put things together and tweak them for a signature sound.

Great thread by the way. And we'll never get paid if Line 6 is reading jemsite either.

[rgr]

Hey Frank,

It sounds like you would dig the old Rocktron stuff, not familiar enough with the new stuff. The old ProGap Preamps, Voodoo Valves and Chameleons have a Pre EQ section so you can tailor your tone before it gets to the preamp section, then you can adjust the Low, Mid, High and Presence Level, Frequency, and Bandwidth after the gain section. Lots of tone tailoring options, and they sound great! The downside to this, you can futz with parameters for many moons. The Replifex and Multivalve effects units also have EQ sections where you can play with all these parameters. Oh yeah, they all have built in Speaker simulators where you can choose speaker size, mic distance, distance from center, and maybe some other parameters that I can't think of right now. Enough stuff to tweak to make your head swim if you let it. Oh yeah, they were making these in the 80s/early 90s, way before Line 6 was around. I think they had too much tweakability for the average user. All 24 bit, definitely ahead of its time.

So, their new preamps, the Chameleon 2000, Replitone, and their top-o-the line Prophesy have "amp models" to choose from to start before tweaking, so, in essence they've been "dumbed down" some to compete with the Line 6s and such. Not necessarily a bad thing, just different than where they started, probably saves programming time for the average user that just wants a "good" sound quick. "Give the people what they want."

Not trying to sound like a Rocktron endorser, especially since I'm a bigger fan of their old stuff, it just sounds similar to some of the things you were describing. Some of these units, which were very expensive in their day, can be picked up pretty cheap these days. I just picked up a ProGap Ultra and MIDI foot controller for $125 and a MultiValve for $170, probably would have cost me $1200 or so when they were new. The old ones are also made in the US, I think their new stuff is made in China or Taiwan like everyone elses (not that they sound bad, still great stuff). They still have the Speaker sims, not sure if the EQs are still as tweakable though.

Another thing, microdmitry hit the nail on the head, different speakers and cabinets can make a huge difference in sound, a bad cabinet can make a great amp sound like ca-ca.

$0.02,
Roger

[frankfalbo]

I've had a Progap since '92 or so, and its a great box. A tech at Rocktron modded it for a wider bass range and a smoother feel. I picked up a Pro Gap V2.0 for like $50 a few years ago. I use both as part of my dual/triple preamp blends. They each sound different, so I use them both individually, too. They're the only SS preamps I have. I have the ProQ looped in my rack, too. Its pretty transparent when all the controls are flat, but I like taking it out of the signal path when I don't want t use it.

And maybe you inadvertently touched on a good point. Maybe amps should be "boxes", and the players who want to take it to the next level will build racks. And if you read latinjem's post, maybe that's the answer for having that feeling. But we've made some good points about the weakness of the industry in the mean time, which is always fun.

[Drew]

Originally Posted by frankfalbo

I attempt it now by bringing three seperate preamp signals in (which is not new) and I "treat" them differently, and maybe compress only one or two. But I've also used a LPF, BPF, and HPF to make each one occupy different frequencies. It's delightful, but more importantly, its NEW!

That's f'in brilliant. I can't believe i never thought of that before... I only have the capability to record one track at a time, with my current gear (and, more importantly, single amp), but even still i can begin to play with that... Record one track, split it three ways, then chop it down so i have a bass track, midrange track, and a high end track from the same take, and process as i see fit. Damn... I'm going to go play around with this, see what kind of sounds i can create.

Frank, thanks a ton, man. I'm inspired.

-D

[Drew]

Hmm. This is going to take some work... Although i got a rather interesting alternative to chorus by splitting a clean signal into high, mid, low-mid, and low bands, then flipping them out of phase and panning them back and forth opposed but in sync with each other mixed back, doubling a untreated full-frequency signal... I'll need to spend some time adjusting the bandwithds i'm breaking them down into, i think, but the potential's there- it's got a really subtle yet unusual texture that i can't quite put my finger on...

Although, i think the real fun here would be when you start playing with different gain structures... I might have to try recording direct then re-amping them with my j-station and then soloing out different bands...

-D