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The web has put a wealth of information at our fingertips. The trouble is, all too often that information is misleading, or even hands-down wrong.
Nowhere is the pseudo-scientific babble more fetid and fertile than in the world of tube guitar amps, where players have long sought mythical ingredients that will make their own rigs just a little more magical than those of the guys who’ll be up on stage in the set that follows. Many of us discovered years ago that different components can and will make a difference in how our amps sound, but for many amp nuts that awareness has become a siren’s call to root out an entire signal-chain’s worth of golden fixes which, when strung together, will guarantee the tone of the gods.
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All I know is I bought a tube amp after Brian recommended a Fender Twin Reverb. I didn’t get that one but I bought a Blackstar. I also bought an Ibanez Tube-Screamer, because Brian talked about that in a post. That was before the ‘chasing the tone’ article. That article was kind of misleading IMHO. Most guitarists are chasing the tone to some extent. How many buy a brand new guitar and then replace the brand new pickups to get the sound they want. etc. So if someone asks me-they probably won’t ask me but I’m just sayin’–what do I set my gain control on or what amp etc. I’m not gonna roll my eyes and think ‘another tone chaser’.
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@Chirp wrote:
All I know is I bought a tube amp after Brian recommended a Fender Twin Reverb. I didn’t get that one but I bought a Blackstar. I also bought an Ibanez Tube-Screamer, because Brian talked about that in a post. That was before the ‘chasing the tone’ article. That article was kind of misleading IMHO. Most guitarists are chasing the tone to some extent. How many buy a brand new guitar and then replace the brand new pickups to get the sound they want. etc. So if someone asks me-they probably won’t ask me but I’m just sayin’–what do I set my gain control on or what amp etc. I’m not gonna roll my eyes and think ‘another tone chaser’.
I agree with what your saying to a point. There are some people that go to the ridiculous on trying to get a certain tone; some will spend hundreds on an OD pedal b/c a certain player uses that brand, when in reality a $75 OD pedal from Ebay would be all that they would need.
My argument about Epiphone & Squier is one that illustrates this. Unless the headstock has Gibson or Fender on it, its not good enough for some. If a person is working musician, yes, buy the best that you can afford but Joe Average Player will sound just as bad…..er uh, I meant that they would sound just as good with the Epi or Squier.
Some of the greatest music ever has been recorded with guitars that many today wouldn’t even consider owning
You made a good choice with the Blackstar and the TS. I would dare say that there would be a limit on how much that you would spend on getting your tone. Same with most of us – we have to let common sense govern this pursuit.
I recently bought a BBE Soul Vibe that was NOS and I got it for $50 shipping included. I could have bought a DUNLOP UNI-VIBE UV-1 for $375 but for my use, I’d rather have the $325 to spend elsewhere. -
Good article, thanks.
I found that buying one of $100 amps and then changing the speaker to a quality speaker ( Webers), you’ll find that you got a dang good sounding amp. A Park amp made in Korea is a good example. It’s a Marshall clone. Put a Weber speaker in it and jam all day.
The melody of the notes is what expresses the art of music . 🙂 6stringerPete
It really is all about ”melody”. The melody comes from a language from our heart. Our heart is the muscle in music harmony. The melody is the sweetness that it pumps into our musical thoughts on the fretboard. 🙂 6 stringer Pete
Pete
Active Melody
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Great article. Some pretty good reply’s to it also. My favorite film caps are Mojotone Dijon’s, because they are very cheap to buy and my ears can’t distinguish the difference between using them and Vitamin C’s, or even a pair of Jupitor’s I used. I like F&T filter caps because of the size. I use wiring scrounged from a few old organs.
My 5F1 Champ clone has a turret board. My Savage Croaker is totally point to point with tag strips. My current build, a 6G2 Princeton is based on a pcb designed by one of the folks over at Wattkins.com. As much as I love the tube amps, my Mustang lll does anything they can do sound wise, it’s just fun to build them.
I can not understand the concept of paying a small fortune for a guitar and then tossing the pickups, bridge and electronics.
My favorite speaker is a ’59 Jenson P12Q, organ pull, sitting in an AX84.com designed 1 x 12 cab. I just got lucky and it sounds great, I have a pair of ’63 Jenson ceramics that are sitting in a home made 2 x 8 that need a closed back on that cab I think. Again, the Mustangs speaker, whatever it is, is terrific. The 8 inch Weber in the Champ clone sounds great, until the amp is plugged into the 1 x 12, then the Champ sounds better, to me any how.
So at this stage, speaker and cab choice are making more of a difference to me than internal components. Oh, and 9’s are easy on my hands so I use them too !
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@TeleToons wrote:
Great article. Some pretty good reply’s to it also. My favorite film caps are Mojotone Dijon’s, because they are very cheap to buy and my ears can’t distinguish the difference between using them and Vitamin C’s, or even a pair of Jupitor’s I used. I like F&T filter caps because of the size. I use wiring scrounged from a few old organs.
My 5F1 Champ clone has a turret board. My Savage Croaker is totally point to point with tag strips. My current build, a 6G2 Princeton is based on a pcb designed by one of the folks over at Wattkins.com. As much as I love the tube amps, my Mustang lll does anything they can do sound wise, it’s just fun to build them.
I can not understand the concept of paying a small fortune for a guitar and then tossing the pickups, bridge and electronics.
My favorite speaker is a ’59 Jenson P12Q, organ pull, sitting in an AX84.com designed 1 x 12 cab. I just got lucky and it sounds great, I have a pair of ’63 Jenson ceramics that are sitting in a home made 2 x 8 that need a closed back on that cab I think. Again, the Mustangs speaker, whatever it is, is terrific. The 8 inch Weber in the Champ clone sounds great, until the amp is plugged into the 1 x 12, then the Champ sounds better, to me any how.
So at this stage, speaker and cab choice are making more of a difference to me than internal components. Oh, and 9’s are easy on my hands so I use them too !I hear ya Rog – there is a lot of hype concerning capacitors and with that hype, the price goes up.
One ‘sacred cow’ among guitar players are the Sprague Orange Drop caps – greatest sounding cap since the invention of the electric guitar !!!!! or some would have you believe. I will be the first to tell you that they are transparent in what they add to tone controls but there are many that fall into that category
You can find 0.22uf polyester capacitors for much less and I would seriously doubt that a player would be able
tell the difference between the polyester and the Orange Drops. Polyester caps are found in some of the greatest high end audio amplifiers because they pass the audio signal without ‘coloring’ that signal. If they can to that, they will work very well in guitar tone circuits and cost a lot less.The place to buy these are electronic surplus stores instead of online. A good surplus house will sell these for well under $1 each.
I’ve pasted a pic of these caps -
Sorry to follow up on my minor rant so late but I just thought of a video I watched a while ago that I thought would be a good fit for this topic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TnhZaKPRmo
Scott Grove does a double blind comparison of a Fender Tube amp and a Walmart of Kmart $50 amp and you have to figure out which was which. It is very well done and worth watching IMHO.
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