The way we think about amps

ROOG

bertie said:

jpfamps said:

amps have never been more affordable.

fixed.

The greatest single advance in the years Ive been playing is the quality and choice of kit available to "beginners" on a budget.

Very true, after a very long 'lay-off' from guitar playing, the quality of entry level kit was very noticeable compared with the stuff I saved hard to buy 30 years ago.

Fusionista

ThePrettyDamned said:

Fusionista;165408" said:

Just recently I went to see a really famous guitarist from a top band.  He had a tele and a Marshall half-stack with some pedals, and you'd've have thought 'There is no way to get a bad sound out of that.' Wrong.  Ear-splitting screeching blaring crap. Now I expect that from your average guitarist, but not from a multi-millionnaire top band of the day musician.

Room acoustics perhaps? Or were you in a laser beam of sound? That happened to me at download with slipknot, but when I moved twenty paces forward, it was miles better sounding.

No the amp was being utterly mishandled and whole gig was way too loud.  I've done a bit of sound engineering and no doubt the 'house' was at fault but it's down to the artist to make sure they are doing the job properly.  

Another time I saw Joe Satriani play Excel (with Stu Hamm on bass) which was also awful, but that time it was entirely down to the room acoustics - a metal warehouse FFS - they should never have agreed to play there.

p90fool

ICBM said:

I've lost count of the number of times I've been complimented on the sound of my band - occasionally as a question, as in "why does your band sound so much better than all the others?". The answer is simple - I really, really care about getting a good sound, both for me and the other players, and I'm a benevolent dictator on this ... I will not tolerate poor sound, and I will go to some trouble to help the other members get the right gear if necessary.

Haha I could have written this myself! In my main band I own the PA and do all the mixing, the other guitarist and I both go direct (using all my gear/pedals), I bought the drum kit and tune it myself, and the bassist is a great all-round musician who actually likes to know what I want to hear on any given song.
There are no ego issues from me or anyone else, and we all love to play our parts in making the songs sound good.

The consequence of all this is that countless non-musicians have asked us why we sound better than all the other local bands, with their crashing, tunelessly deafening drums and muffled, 70s bingo caller vocals.

It's not that hard, you just fire anyone who wants to be the loudest, and sort the bloody vocals out.

thecolourbox

The point i and others are trying to make seems to be morphed into me saying "the audience don't care if i sound shit" and that is not the case. I do my best to sound good and in some cases the most appropriate way to so that is not with a valve amp. What i mean is that the audience isn't going to mark me down if i sound good without using valves. Which is what relates to the OP point, people can be less fazed by needing certain types of gear, as long as the gear works for them and they can sound how they want to

bertie

ICBM said:

I agree with Drew. Audiences absolutely can hear the difference and do care - they won't be able to say what it is other than 'bad' or 'good' usually, but anyone who's ever listened to recorded music knows what a band should sound like, and it's often painfully obvious to them when it doesn't. It's just musician-snobbery to think it isn't.

While an average audience member isn't going to know or care whether your amp is valve or solid-state, they'll notice straight away if it's too harsh or too loud (which is usually a result of lacking dynamics, in fact). Often this comes from using crap gear - this is nothing to do with cost or snobbery, some gear just sounds good and some doesn't.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been complimented on the sound of my band - occasionally as a question, as in "why does your band sound so much better than all the others?". The answer is simple - I really, really care about getting a good sound, both for me and the other players, and I'm a benevolent dictator on this ... I will not tolerate poor sound, and I will go to some trouble to help the other members get the right gear if necessary. It doesn't have to be expensive, it just has to be good. (And it has to be reliable too, but that's a totally different point.)

If you really don't think it matters or had anyone tell you you sound great, you're both doing your audience a disservice and you've probably never actually got a good sound. (Offence intended .)

Whether it spoils anyone's evening if they're out for a drink or a dance and the music is secondary is irrelevant - you still shouldn't not care. You can do both - entertain *and* sound great.

there's a world of difference between a muso/band pushing out originals or where the audience is there to specifically see that performer........... and the average  pub/club/wedding band - of which there are far more of in the UK,  making them the "average" and their audience the same,  as we have been referring to all through this post.  No-one is saying the band in either situation shouldnt care about the sound/tone.  what "we" are saying is the average punter in the average crowd (see previous statement of definition)  doesnt care  as long as the music isnt complete shit, and the sound isnt bad enough to prevent them enjoying it.  

If having great gear and great tone helps you perform, great - no-ones arguing that isnt key, but that, in this case ISNT the argument.  

usedtobe

I've been to so many gigs where the 'audience' have mostly been stood around in little bunches, chatting away all through the gig. Half of them with their back to the stage, seemingly only vaguely aware that there are professional, quite well-known musicians, on the stage. 

That said - if your sound matters to you, the artist, then you should spend what you want/need to get the sound you want..

p90fool

usedtobe said:

I've been to so many gigs where the 'audience' have mostly been stood around in little bunches, chatting away all through the gig. Half of them with their back to the stage, seemingly only vaguely aware that there are professional, quite well-known musicians, on the stage. 

I was about to smugly assert that any band that's doing it's job properly would grab the attention of the audience and force them to turn around and watch - then I remembered being amongst the few people in the crowd facing the stage watching James Brown. You just can't win with some crowds whatever you do.

Sessionman

About fifteen years ago, UL in USA (the body that governs electrical equipment safety) were talking about banning valves in all domestic products... guitar amps were classified as domestic appliances for this purpose.

It didn't happen.  But if they re-awaken that topic, it would kill off the biggest single market for valves in the world.  I think we know what that would mean for their future.

UL were giving a reason of inefficient energy usage and the barium-strontium coating on the cathodes.

Apart from that, I know nothing more.  But investment in designing better SS and Modelling amps would seem pretty sensible to me.

Fusionista

My crowds usually face the band http://i691.photobucket.com/albums/vv274/AndyP335/5AsideatSoundhouse070314.jpg

57Deluxe

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would be a worrying gig if all this lot spent the gig facing away from your band....

I have been to gigs to see bands that sound great and then then moseyed-over to check out the gear to see that that great Les Paul tone was a straight DI into the venue sound system...no pedals, nothing... after that I felt that somehow the bloke couldn't be that arsed and subsequently his 'rock' collateral took a dive in my mind.

koneguitarist

57Deluxe said:

/\

would be a worrying gig if all this lot spent the gig facing away from your band....

I have been to gigs to see bands that sound great and then then moseyed-over to check out the gear to see that that great Les Paul tone was a straight DI into the venue sound system...no pedals, nothing... after that I felt that somehow the bloke couldn't be that arsed and subsequently his 'rock' collateral took a dive in my mind.

I leant a mate my old Variax to try out one night, good player. When I turned up to watch part of his gig he was playing Still got the Blues by Gary Moore, and the sound he had was spot on, really perfect, with the Variax 500 and a Boogie Tremoverb, sounded shit hot. I said what did he think about the Variax with the boogie and he said he will try it later, he was playing it through a Yamaha DGStomp through PA, 

So if I a regular guitarist can't tell in a live gig, how can the average punter, and how can he care as long as it sounds good.

GuyBoden

Touch sensitivity, that's what I get from my old Fender Deluxe valve amp. I've played through many Class D amps, they're good, but I prefer the touch sensitivity of my Fender Deluxe Reverb.

I've never tried high end emulation amps, I hope that these high quality emulation software amps gets less expensive.

samzadgan

I always find that these types of conversations ignore the kind of music bring played. I would say that for the majority of genres you could get away with low powered amps and PA's...but there are some styles of music that you need a 100w+ amp and a full stack of amps even in a small venue. This doesn't mean it has to be Valve, it can be SS too but the power coming from 8x12's or better yet a 4x12 and a 2x15 is not something a PA can project, and the whole musical intent is lost.

Music sometimes has to be felt as well as heard.

koneguitarist

My experiance is that the bigger the gig the smaller the amp you need as the PA covers the power and allows a small amp to sit in the mix better, as for being able to feel it, a Fender Princeton through a 10k rig will be felt just as much as a Marshall stack.

But it's all horses for courses, played in a heavy rock band for a while and we all used GK amps. I was on bass everything DI through big rig, no one complained that they couldn't see a Marshall as we were ripping up Whole Lotta Rosie etc

midlifecrisis

my favourite amp for playing the small gigs I do is a laney vc30 valve amp, to me it sounds better than my old bandit I leave in our practise hut. but id be confident and I have, gigged the bandit and got a good sound ( I believe) through it , but to me its not as sweet as the valve amps, I doubt the audience would notice, but I would and if I feel my sound is better, I play better and so on.

ThePrettyDamned

midlifecrisis;193811" said:

my favourite amp for playing the small gigs I do is a laney vc30 valve amp, to me it sounds better than my old bandit I leave in our practise hut. but id be confident and I have, gigged the bandit and got a good sound ( I believe) through it , but to me its not as sweet as the valve amps, I doubt the audience would notice, but I would and if I feel my sound is better, I play better and so on.

I'm also a fan of the vc30. Amazing sounding things for not much dollar, and as far as I know, they're pretty reliable.

Between that and the bandit, you have a cracking amp and backup.

HAL9000

The other day I played what is thought off as a beginners' guitar (Pacifica 112) through both a 20w solid state amp and a 20w valve amp. Did it sound better through the valve amp? Yes, probably. Certainly to my ears the valve amp sounded 'warmer' and 'smoother' than the SS. Also, adjusting the guitar's pickup selection or tone controls made a more noticeable difference on the valve amp, especially with those 'Stratty' in-between sounds. However as others have pointed out probably not to the degree that the average punter would notice or care. Did it respond differently to playing dynamics, rolling the guitar's volume, etc? Absolutely it did. Massive difference in terms of control and 'feel' which I'm sure any guitarist would appreciate, even if the average listener would be hard-pushed to tell.