Want a challenge? Name this amp!

Niallmo

Its buzzy and raspy, it sounds to me like something overloaded but not clipping in a valve like way, doesn't seem smooth enough for that.

ThePrettyDamned

It sounds digital - almost like a pod or something as a preamp direct into a recording device. Perhaps a preamp pedal, but it does have a digital thing going in the way the distortion gets quieter, rather than the sound getting cleaner. Could equally be an amp in total meltdown, where it's dirty regardless of what you do because the 6v6/el84 is at boiling point.

But realistically, beyond that, who knows? Recording is crazy, I remember watching a demo of how putting an sm57 to the centre of the cone, touching the grill cloth compared to edge away from it can make an amp sound totally different!

Could you PM me the answer? I'm intrigued

rockmonster

JVM 410h )

Kebabkid

I'd like to know too, so can you PM me the answer and Mumsnet's the word!

Deadman

Peavey Bandit?

markjwgraham

Very very interesting indeed.

I'll post the answer in a day or so. I can assure you it is a physical amp, nothing digital to be found here.

I also find it fascinating how various guitarists who've been listening to this elsewhere and that are on my singlechannelamp mailing list have guessed they were hearing a Marshall combo, some hear a Vox, some hear a Tweed... all of these guys listening to it independently and not reading each other's view points... and yet 90% of guys within this thread have jumped on the 'buzzy pedal into the desk' bandwagon with nary a different suggestion.

Just an interesting secondary point.

ICBM

markjwgraham said:

Very very interesting indeed.

I'll post the answer in a day or so. I can assure you it is a physical amp, nothing digital to be found here.

Mic'ed or DI'd?

Are you sure it isn't overdriving the desk/interface or the recording software as well? I ask because firstly it does sound quite like it, and secondly because the waveform graph looks extremely hard-limited, which is very difficult to get with a real amp no matter how much gain it has... and this one doesn't have a huge amount, in the recording.

In short it doesn't sound much like a physical analogue amp - let alone anything specific.

PM me if you have any extra info you're willing to share and I won't give it away .

markjwgraham

Mic'd. Definitely isn't clipping. I ran it through some soft and then hard limiting compression to even it out which is why the waveform looks like that.

koneguitarist

HH amp if it's a real amp then !

ICBM

markjwgraham said:

Mic'd. Definitely isn't clipping. I ran it through some soft and then hard limiting compression to even it out which is why the waveform looks like that.

Can you post the clip of the actual recording with no compression?

Cirrus

I couldn't possibly guess because it sounds terrible to my ears - very crackly and ratty. Would probably be a cool tone in the right context but since it's got no context I'm happy to judge it wanting!
)

It could be so many things it's a blind guess. It could be a jmp100 cranked all the way up through one blown speaker. It could be an AC4 with a duff power valve. It could be a £1.50 karaoke mic from a toy shop. It could be a regular sounding amp badly recorded. It could be the next pedal of the month. It could be a solo'd track from some famous song and it sounds great in a mix. There's just too many variables and possibilities. All I can say is that to my ears it DOESN'T sound like a typical vox/ marshall/ fender amp cranked to that level of breakup and miked well.

Did it sound like that in the room?

randomhandclaps

The 'typical' sounds we associate with Marshall. Vox, Fender etc are those we hear in the room rather than as a recorded capture, hence the mutual distrust between engineers and guitarists

The random guesses don't so much indicate how people hear the same thing differently but more how much the sound of an amp can be varied by the way it is recorded.  An accurate guess (not based on luck) would be impossible without access to the whole recording line and recording experience of amps, rather than playing experience - which is in greater abundance around here.  This is demonstrated by the variety of the guesses.  The hard limiting, especially on an isolated guitar track is probably the reason for the overloading or digital suggestions. 

There are as many different sounds to be found with one amp and twenty different mic positions and types as the are from twenty different amps and one mic in one position. 

 If someone guesses that a JCM800 sounds like an overloaded desk then it's more likely to be a bad recording than total misjudgement on their part.  If you could take a Smokey amp and mic it to sound like a crack Dual Rectifier then you would be an engineering genius, so the reverse would apply.

ddlooping

I still think it could be anything.

crunchman

I'd guess at something small.  It doesn't sound big, and I don't think it is warm enough to be Tweed.

For me the following are possibilities:

A small Black/Silverface style amp with the treble up high - or mic'd in way to emphasise the treble, possibly with a condensor.

Some kind of small tranny amp

As mentioned above, a battery powered desktop amp, although I think this is less likely than the first two.

ThePrettyDamned

I'll listen to it sans compression what mic was it, how was it mic'd? These are pretty important factors, you can't guess an amp without that info really. Even then, it's a tough call.

If it's not digital, something else is going on, either overloading the desk, or just poor mic placement, or just a bad sounding amp. I don't mean that to offend, but it's very hard and harsh sounding. Perhaps a jack white kinda thing, in which case it could be anything, I've seen him gig a hot rod deluxe. Mic it wrong, like him, and it sounds like that.

ICBM

If it was a dynamic mic and it was close to the voice coil there could be electromagnetic coupling going on - that 'crispy' sound can happen that way. Whatever it is the distortion just doesn't sound like a recording of air movement caused by an overdriven amp (even with a pedal in front of it), there's something 'direct' about it.

impmann

Well, as has been said it could be anything. It has a Bolan-esque quality to it, and I'm fairly sure Marc was trying to sound like Ronson most of the time... so it could be an Vampower with the 'Bite' control dimed but I somehow doubt it as there aren't many of us that own them!

To me it sounds transistor - perhaps an HH or one of the lower-end modellers (Yamaha lunchbox thingy?).

crunchman

Are you going to put us out of our suspense?

DiscoStu

The link doesn't work for me. I get a an 'Oh No! Sorry! We can't find that sound' page.

I wouldn't have a clue what amp it is either but I'm curious to hear the clip given some of the responses!

Flanging_Fred

Is it a Kemper profile of a Gorilla amp?