Guitar amp Vs PA?

  • Thread starter Thread starter tigerflystudio
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Well, this has been one hell of an interesting thread, because it gets down to the core of what electric guitars and amps really do for musicians. First, let me state that I have no problem with tube amps or modelers, or anything else. They are all tools that might or might not do the job you need done. I started playing in rock bands in 1968 and used a Fender Princeton, because it's what I had. Later I used a Kustom 200, a noisy solid state monster, because it's what I had. I've been doing a solo acoustic act with one electric set for about 10 years, and have made good use of modelers, both in the studio and live. I've worked in the studio with a lot of guitarists and a lot of amps, from old Fender tweeds to Soldanos to Mesas.

Now Miroslav in particular, is passionate about that tube amp tone. If you tell him you use a modeler, it's like telling a dog lover that your robotic Daggit is really the same, or telling a pizza chef that microwave pizza is really the same. Also, for the record, I am not of the opinion that a modeler reproduces the tone of the amp it emulates. My ears tell me that it *doesn't*. I do have a couple of questions for the passionate tube amp supporters, which is not to argue with their point of view, but rather to find out what their ears hear.

First question- is it all about the tube? In other words, do all solid state amps suck, and to your mind, how much do they suck, and are there some that suck less than others?

Second question- Do modeling amps suck as much as a modeler plugged into a PA? In other words, how much of the issue is that guitar sound coming from the PA mains screws up monitoring and balance, and how much of it is that the tone produced by the modeler in the first place sucks? I know a lot of rack rigs in the 90's used a POD into a power amp into a cab, and I have used that technique in the studio with some success, mic'ing up the cab.

It's useful for me to get the perspective of serious rock guitarists, because although I'm not one of them, I *do* record them occasionally. My needs in guitar tones are mostly about getting an acoustic to sound good, and even when I do play electric, I generally need almost no gain/distortion, and almost no sustain. Think of the sound on "Pinball Wizard". It's more like electric impersonating acoustic. I don't think that's exactly what that cranked up tube amp is really for. My impression is that what tubes do becomes far more critical when distortion and sustain are required.-Richie
 
I associate playing through the pa with musicians who get older, lose some passion and want to do the least that they can get away with to get paid. They should retire but can't make as much money any other way.

No one starts out like that. And obviously a group like the Eagles is a whole 'nother ball game.

There's been a trend with drummers to use floor toms as bass drums (because they're convenient, what a concept) and they convince themselves that a floor tom is now a bass drum.

I'm not against guitarists playing through the pa, 16" "bass" drums or solid state guitar amps, but, so far every time I've ever heard them it was horrible.
 
Richard Monroe said:
Well, this has been one hell of an interesting thread, because it gets down to the core of what electric guitars and amps really do for musicians. First, let me state that I have no problem with tube amps or modelers, or anything else. They are all tools that might or might not do the job you need done. I started playing in rock bands in 1968 and used a Fender Princeton, because it's what I had. Later I used a Kustom 200, a noisy solid state monster, because it's what I had. I've been doing a solo acoustic act with one electric set for about 10 years, and have made good use of modelers, both in the studio and live. I've worked in the studio with a lot of guitarists and a lot of amps, from old Fender tweeds to Soldanos to Mesas.

Now Miroslav in particular, is passionate about that tube amp tone. If you tell him you use a modeler, it's like telling a dog lover that your robotic Daggit is really the same, or telling a pizza chef that microwave pizza is really the same. Also, for the record, I am not of the opinion that a modeler reproduces the tone of the amp it emulates. My ears tell me that it *doesn't*. I do have a couple of questions for the passionate tube amp supporters, which is not to argue with their point of view, but rather to find out what their ears hear.

First question- is it all about the tube? In other words, do all solid state amps suck, and to your mind, how much do they suck, and are there some that suck less than others?

Second question- Do modeling amps suck as much as a modeler plugged into a PA? In other words, how much of the issue is that guitar sound coming from the PA mains screws up monitoring and balance, and how much of it is that the tone produced by the modeler in the first place sucks? I know a lot of rack rigs in the 90's used a POD into a power amp into a cab, and I have used that technique in the studio with some success, mic'ing up the cab.
It's useful for me to get the perspective of serious rock guitarists, because although I'm not one of them, I *do* record them occasionally. My needs in guitar tones are mostly about getting an acoustic to sound good, and even when I do play electric, I generally need almost no gain/distortion, and almost no sustain. Think of the sound on "Pinball Wizard". It's more like electric impersonating acoustic. I don't think that's exactly what that cranked up tube amp is really for. My impression is that what tubes do becomes far more critical when distortion and sustain are required.-Richie
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Excellent reasons for a sticky.
 
Richard Monroe said:
I started playing in rock bands in 1968 and used a Fender Princeton, because it's what I had.
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Me, too; my first band got together in the spring of 1968 and my amp was a '66 Princeton. I really wish I had that Princeton back; it was a great little amp. I still have the '69 Super I traded it in on, and a few years ago I glommed onto a very sweet '65 Deluxe Reverb.

I love tubes and tube amps. Experiencing the response of a tube amp is (to me) not unlike the visceral feeling of driving a sports car when you feel the road in the steering wheel, the gear shift, and the seat of your pants. Every nuance in stimulus produces a change in response.

I have played through some solid state amps that didn't suck and some that did. I have a Pod 2.0 and it's a cool toy, but I won't be replacing my tube amps with it. I'm sure that better modelers have come out more recently, but I've never played on one.

It is true that playing through a particular tube amp will limit what different types of tone you can produce to what the amp can deliver, but I am OK with that.
 
I generally dislike stickies. In fact this board has a particularly useless sticky I've been meaning to unstick for some time . . .

Solid state vs. tube. This is the issue where I served VP :D So let's talk about that because many many guitarists have the same misconceptions VP had.

Most guitarists know about types of distortion, but let's review. Here's an extremely well written page, note especially the list of devices towards the bottom:

http://www.geofex.com/effxfaq/distn101.htm

Note the basic principle: a symmetrical device can only distort asymmetrically if it is fed an asymmetrical signal. Symmetrical devices include all passive devices (such as transformers), and active devices that have a symmetrical configuration (such as a push-pull output).

Symmetrical distortion is odd-order. Asymmetrical distortion is even-order. Let's review the overtone series, for the uninitiated:

1: the fundamental, not considered an overtone
2: octave
3: fifth
4: octave
5: third
6: fifth
7: minor seventh
8: octave
9: second
10: third
11: tritone
12: fifth
13: minor sixth
14: minor seventh
15: major seventh
16: octave

and it generally gets nastier from there. Thus, we divide the overtone series into "low-order" and "high-order". Don't know what the formal dividing line is there, but generally the first few overtones, whether even or odd, are more consonant intervals, higher are more dissonant.

If we only ever played single-note leads, we'd probably come to love all types of distortion for their unique flavor. But as soon as we play two notes together, we get a different problem: intermodulation distortion. There are inharmonic sum-and-difference tones. Even without that, we still get a huge potential of harmonic overtones that aren't harmonically related to each other.

Why? Because our guitar uses equal temperament, but the laws of physics follow the natural Pythagorean intervals. So if we play a major third diad on our guitar, and our amp generates fifth-order distortion, we get two out-of-tune notes. In addition, we get a third generated on top of our played third, which is an augmented fifth to the tonic we played. You pretty much have to be me to like the sound of that.

So that's why guitarists like second-order distortion and not too much else for heavy overdrive.

But wait! Isn't the mantra of the tube amp guitarist that proper overdrive comes not from preamp tubes (which generate nearly all second-order), but from overdriving the power tubes and saturating the output transformer? That's nearly entirely third-order distortion. That's a fifth. If we play a power chord, that reinforces our fifth played (slightly out of tune, of course), and adds a fifth on a fifth, which is a second. Hmmmm.

Repeat to yourself: push-pull output stage into an output transformer generates odd-order distortion.

Which, OK, maybe we like. Or maybe we aren't really pushing the tubes/transformer as hard as we think, maybe it's punishment of the speakers that we like, or power supply sag. Those are possible (although the power sag will affect the tubes symmetrically, subject to the transient behavior of our signal).

The reason why it's important to understand all of this vis-a-vis solid-state amps is that guitarists often say they like tube amps because tubes only generate even-order distortion, whereas solid-state amps only generate odd-order distortion. And then they say completely contradictory things like don't clip the preamp tubes, clip the power tubes. Of course, not all tube amps have a push-pull output stage, but I think all the big ones do. It's a simple matter of efficiency (push-pull is almost always class AB).

OK, we still know there is something we like about tube amps and something we don't like about solid-state amps. That is not in dispute; we just need a better explanation.

Next, we should look at solid-state amps and how most have been designed. Early on, there were some all-discrete designs that people do still like. But those aren't the most common designs on the market. Like anything else, discrete is more expensive than tube, and since guitarists express a preference for tube amps by paying more for them, solid-state needed to find a niche not occupying by the tube amp.

So generally, they went cheap. Cheap means ICs. I think ICs are great, when you use them as intended. Opamps and also power ICs are designed to basically do one thing really really well: generate a lot of gain (opamp) and power (power IC) while keeping distortion to the absolute minimum possible until they run out of voltage/power rating/etc. Then they clip hard and fast (read: lots of high-order distortion, dissonant intervals).

So why would anybody ever use such ICs for an amp that they want to distort mildly and gradually? You wouldn't, except that they are cheap and reliable.

Since ICs are cheap, it then became possible to differentiate them by another means: cram a couple dozen of them in an amp and give you 100 different features. Onboard digital reverb, chorus, vibrato, iPod deck, espresso maker, etc. So a lot of more expensive solid-state amps are expensive not because they have carefully selected discrete components that distort carefully and beautifully, but because they are stuffed with features like a universal remote control.

OK, so solid-state amps have 30 years of bad marketing/design decisions holding them back. Is it physically possible to build a good-sounding, gradually asymmetrically distorting solid-state amp?

Of course. Go back to the list of components and how they distort. Read #8, JFET. JFETs clip asymmetrically very happily and generate an overwhelming amount of second-order distortion.

Read the last page of this datasheet from TI, this is an opamp:

http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/opa604.pdf

Actually just look at the chart under "sound quality"; they are comparing distortion of a BJT with a FET--see the FET with all second, but the BJT with . . . mostly second, but third, fourth and fifth?

So first, we can totally reject the notion that "solid state can't generate even-order distortion". Totally false. In fact, in any single-device stage, second is going to be the predominant distortion.

Of course, most solid-state circuits aren't a collection of single-device stages. Transistors are cheap, so designers trying to keep distortion low will use two, three, four, twenty transistors to cancel ideally all distortion products, but even is usually the first to go.

But that is a function of circuit topology, less so device type. We can build a very low distortion tube amp too. But we don't want to do that, do we? So why would we build a low-distortion solid-state guitar amp?

I don't know the answer to that question, but a lot of cheap solid-state amps do exactly that, and then they sprinkle in a few clipping diodes to generate usually hard and usually symmetrical distortion . . .

Lastly, power sag. It's not hard to build a solid-state power supply that sags. Add an inappropriate amount of power supply resistance, possibly with a thermistor, that ought to do the trick. Use the right amount of capacitance so that the first transient makes it through, but the following signal is compressed. Solid-state power supplies usually aren't designed that way, because usually the goal of a power supply is to be able to provide adequate power cleanly, but these things aren't hard to break by doing it wrong. Heck, just let me design it :o
 
WOW ....... now THAT'S a post!


I think that at some point you start to get into that personal connection that leads some players to, say, choose strats while another prefers pauls.
So any player is gonna zero in on something that speaks to him and kinda locks in on that.
And I think that absolutely some players feel the same way about a modeling rig as others do about their vintage tube amps.

I have always said that my preferences only apply to me and that doesn't mean that someone else can't use something I don't like and get good results.
I also agree that eventually the trend will be away from old tube amps but, no matter what they come up with, there will always be those that prefer the traditional rig.

Just like a sax for instance ....... no matter how sophisticated they might make a sax synth, it'll never be the same instrument as an actual sax.
So what we're really talking about here is a different instrument in the same way that an acoustic and an electric are different instruments even though they're both guitars. They're certainly only gonna get better and better.


My Mesa Mark V does an interesting thing. For it's different modes (amps) it uses relays to actually switch to a different dedicated real circuit with caps and resistors so there's no models as such.
Actual different circuits accessed thru relays ..... the thing has 57 freakin' relays!

:eek:

And lastly I've had 2 SS amps that sounded excellent.
A Dean Markley (sadly departed) and a Trynor 2-12 amp that was awesome. They'd designed in a comp that come on as the gain turned up and it sounded and responded very tube like.
A really nice couple of amps regardless of being SS.
 
true-eurt said:
Hey..I unstuck Pete..a woman's work is never done..or appreciated!:mad:




:laughings::laughings::laughings:
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I appreciate all the work my woman leaves undone.

Now wait, I usnstick all the women I...no thats not it.

I appreciate all the sticky women I have undone.

Thats close enough carry on.
 
true-eurt said:
With that Scottish Kilt you're wearing today, an easy target you be..:D
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That reminds me of the old joke that ends, "Ach, lassie, were it the gleam in me eye what tipped yer off?" "No, it was the tilt in your kilt."

<rim shot>
 
Thanks a lot, MS. While a bunch of that is beyond my technical comprehension (I'm still somewhere back at 1st, 2nd and 3rd harmonics). I get the jist of it, which appears to be- of course they could build a solid state amp that totally rocks, but mostly they don't, because that would cost money, putting them in direct competition with tube amps. Because people have become convinced that the tube has magic powers, the only way you can sell a solid state amp is by making it cheaper, regardless of how good it sounds. Am I with the program?
Well that's good to know, at least. When the last Russian has built the last vacuum tube, it will still be possible to build a guitar amp that rocks. I guess it follows, too, that if you gave up the idea that you were trying to copy the sound of some perfectly good tube amp. you could just build a solid state amp with a few variable parameters that made it's own perfectly good sound, rather than an inferior copy of something else. I wish you would design that amp, MS. Somewhere out there, there has to be a market for a high end boutique solid state amp with a distinctive sound that isn't a copy, good or bad, of anything. Now that is the kind of post that is worth sticking. Thanks again.-Richie
 
cavedog101 said:
You really dont know a thing about these amps do you. Weren't you the person who recently posted something to the tune of 'people posting reviews of equipment they've never used'...

So what is it you "want to be fair" about?? And where did you hear that the amp heads held "four" modules?
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From seeing a picture of the inside of a head with 4 modules mounted inside:confused: that was on a craigslist ad a few months back...thats why Im sure of the head being able to switch from all 4...I did have some experience with a combo back in the 80s when I was a kid and my local cuzin Jed's guitar shed had one in...I wanted one in the worst way...but I couldnt afford one sadly.
 
true-eurt said:
Excellent reasons for a sticky.
Click to expand...

Not so much...we are kinda off topic the last 400 posts or so...lol.

Just because modelers enable you to not use an amp live doesnt change that the OP was about monitoring...and it doesnt have alot to do with recording.
 
mshilarious said:
Was "Pour Some Sugar On Me" recorded with tubes or solid state :confused:
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Thats a good thing to find out...we shall find the methods used to make that horrible song and abolish the practice...and sign it into law using Jeff Mutt Lang's blood havested after pulling out his heart and seeing how black it is.:D
 
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