tone-taste

[six]

ok guys... this is not about who has the greatest tone or what is good tone - I just played my guitar thru my ol' little peavey blazer 158 the other day, eq set to full-none-full, "supersat" cranked to 5 o'clock, just the way I used to do it after having played for about 1 years. wow! that sounded awful!!! I can't believe I once thought this would sound quite ok.

what about your tone-tastes - any changes in the last few years?

 

[Wide Awake]

I'm not familiar with that particular amp, but having the EQ setting full on or off doesn't make sense to me. On a typical amp I would set them at the mid position....if they go to 10 then set them at 5. Then adjust them slighty as needed. I can't imagine having the treble knob cranked all the way up would sound on any amp.

I like real tube amps. Ones with a full set of tubes....none of that "one tube pretending to be a tube amp" crap. I haven't owned a modeled amp and I won't count them out in the future, but I just have never played one that I've liked enough to buy. Maybe when the technology advances I will try them again.

 

[getuhgrip]

I have bad taste and I got no tone.

Been playing with my first tube amp for several months now. Doin' the side by side with my "hybrid" makes me wonder how I found it to be acceptable for so long. Maybe tube mic pre's are a bunch of hype. I don't know. But there is a tangible difference between these two amps.

 

[Daddy-O]

I started out as a kid with a solid state peavy and cranked the dstortion and trebel all the way up so I could sound like the metal hair bands.......then I got into using lots of effects......then I discovered the world of vintage tube amps.......then I stared slaving multiple amps together.......at one point I was using a Delux reverb, Bassman head, Vibralux, and a Leslie roto speaker, and a fender reverb tank, TS-9 and Wah----all at the same........and I don't know why.
As my playing has matured and I got teid of lugging around so much gear.......I play either my 70 tele or ES 175 thru a 54 tweed deluxe. No effects except for slap back delay for rock-a-billy. One guitar and one amp----there is something to be said for simplicity.
Lately I haven't play electric at all.......I'm learning to understand the acoustic tones and how different strings, fingerings and even the material my picks are made of effect the instrument's voice. You guys should listen to some Tony Rice stuff if you're not famillar with his music

 

[six]

daddy-o: I have a peavey transfex pro 212s now... lots of effects and no real tubes so maybe one would say it's to synthetic. but I really think those transtubes have a nice tone (at least they're analog) and I only use the effects as effects - if you know what I mean. my basic (hard rock-) sound (just the kind of music I like) is the crunch (there's clean, crunch, lead, ultra) channel set to 9 quite a bit of mids. that's it. I don't even use reverb. but I really like the fact that I can change to 128 stored sounds loaded with digital effects only by tapping with my foot.

I started out with a park 15watts practice amp which was built like a 1-channel tube amp - of course it was solid state. I didn't like the fact that I had to turn knobs to change from clean to crunch and I thought there was too little distortion... at that time I didn't really know the difference between fat and distorted sound.

then I bought a 100-stero-watts hughes & kettner attax amp. real tubes. I still cranked the lead channel to 10 and I guess I left the mids at 0.
I wondered why sound just cut thru anything but in an ugly way ;-).

I replaced the park with that peavey blazer I mentioned above. wow! it had a channel switch knob! clean to wayyyyyyyy distorted with a single finger-tap. this distortion is so ugly, but at that time I liked it.

as I said I wasn't satisfied with my attax-tone so I went to buy effects (which was quite dumb... but I didn't know better at that time).

I ended up with a boss delay. quite nice, but I wanted more. what fattens up a sound? hmmmmmmmm... harmonizer!
Instead of a single stomp-box I bought a digital boss me-8 multi-effects which is quite nice for the price and not toooo bad exept for the distortions. HardRockDistortion is too hot and the other don't have any guts. but I thought it was cool at that time. at least it really gave me a better sound thru my little peavey.
hooked up with the attax it sounded like shit. so I sold the attax (now THAT was dumb) and bought something neutral: roland jazz chorus, which IS a great amp but not for my purpose.

but still I didn't want a "normal tube amp" because I wanted to be able to switch from sound to sound in milliseconds.
and after hearing the flextone, the ax2 and a nice old-fashioned real tube amp's clean channel cranked up I knew that nothing compares to real tubes...

but I do love my transfex!

 

[James HE]

My tone secret...

Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man... using the delay or not... it's still going through it's gain circut.. which is a magical, beautifull thing. So is my Mesa DC-3. I can't imagine ever playing an amp over 35 watts... 50 maybe... talking tubes here. Lower and mid wattage tube amps are the most versitle amps to me...
and oh yeah.. mid range.. gotta be there.. that;s the nuts of it all. Eq's usually like 5 treble 8 mid 6 lo for me on distorted sounds... clean it's day to day... don't forget the tone knob on your guitar either... roll it back for somethings... hmm... It's wierd, I never really went for that scooped sound even in my early days.. the band always complained about that.. lol

-jhe

 

[toyL]

after 23 years of playing the same 64' gibson sg, I decided a couple of years ago that it was too difficult to tweak in my sound while I had the mid-range boosted...ya see several years ago, seeking a joe satriani sound, I started boosting the mids...this worked great about half of the time--those occasions when I stumbled through tweaking about a hundred other parameters...lately, I've decided that the humbuckers themselves, along with the tube amp's and guitar speaker's fundamental "natural" ability to produce nice mids with little or no boosting, provides all the mid-range I need onstage and in the studio...starting with a nominal mid boost setting of 3 or 4 on the amps and even less in the processor allows me to concentrate more on tweaking the highs and lows, which I have neglected in the past...these days I find I like to boost the hell out of the lows--first by using various low tunings--C6th, CGCGCD, Dmodal, and openG, and secondly by boosting the amps' low settings to around 7...I also have been boosting the highs at the amps more than the processor....when the band is playing an especially loud part, I step toe down on my vox wahwah in order to boost my highs above them...these days, I'm inclined to keep the amps' high settings on 9 along with a prescence setting of 7 or 8, and I like to boost the low settings to 7 on the right amp (peavey) and 6 or 7 on the left (fender)....I'm also less inclined these days to worry much about the digital eq in my processor--the more volume I use at the amps, means the processor's eq becomes more subtle and less noticable....I like to think that these changes over the past couple of years are evidence of maturation and not just me trying to "adapt" to what's pop...who knows?...I wish I had the money to hire a guitar virtuoso, like Vai or Satriani, to examine my methods and provide feedback/criticism...

 

[toyL]

hey James HE, why the low volume?--do you play at really small venues?...let me invite you to a most grand musical experience--step into a 60'x90' insulated pole-barn with a skinny 20 yr old kid who makes the drum kit sound like various-sized canons being set off, plug in, crank it, step way back and play something "loud"...there's nothing like it in the world...I'm just jokin with ya Bro....I'm sure you've played loud before...I'm just try to get myself motivated

 

[tubedude]

Just off the top of my head.... my tone searches have led me through:
Marshall JCM 800
Marshall JCM 900 Dual solo
A mini stack of some brand I cannot remember (one of my 1st)
Peavy something or another, small combo.
Peavy 5150
Ampeg Lee Jackson head (sounded great in store)
Mesa Quad (not bad at all, very moody)
Mesa DC-5 (nice, not enough juice for jamming with drummers)
Mesa Triple Rectifier Solo head. Perfect. LOTS of power.
I sold off the Triple Rec for one of the new Dual Rectifier 3 channel models, so..
Dual Rectifier 3 channel... and I am very happy for only the second time in my life. The 1st was with the Triple Rectifier.
There are probably others that I cant remember or dont want to remember. Tubes indeed make a difference.

 

[BBB]

Tubedude, your avitar rocks!


Also, had similar experiences with amps. Started off rather crappy, but got better:

Peavey Backstage (crap)
Peavey Studio Pro (crap)
Boss ME-5 (kinda crap with effects)
Fender M-80 (half stack solid state crap)
Peavey Bravo combo (great tube tone at the time, very limited)
Peavey 5150 half stack (also great tone, noisey, and limited)
Peavey Rockmaster (tube preamp similar to Bravo)
SansAmp GT2 (kick ass non-tube variety of tone)
ART SGX2000 (overprocessed medicore tube sound)
Mesa Boogie Quad (tube pre dripping of tone)
Digitech 2120 (two tubes giving mediocre tone with effects)
SansAmp PSA-1 (amazing tone, a bit noisey, incredible variety)

I'm currently gigging with the PSA-1 and the Boogie Quad. The PSA-1 is so damn versatile. Fender clean to Marshall crunch in a flash. Also, the effects loop is set up excellently for my purposes, which is the only reason it is being used over the Quad.

Currently considering a TriAxis...


Matt