What is it about single channel amps?

monquixote

I was judging by the clean sound you posted from a Kemper(?) which would count as a crunch sound for me. I might be making an incorrect assumption.

I've listened to a fair bit of TNBD as it happens.

I'm sure the amps are out there I just haven't found one yet and all the amps I've loved have been single channel or only had one decent channel. 

I quite like having an amp with one channel and bugger all features. It means I can take my pedal board and plug into anything with a decent clean and be quite happy. I've been using a Joyo American sound into the desk quite a bit recently and I can even get some decent sounds with that.

Drew_TNBD

monquixote said:

I was judging by the clean sound you posted from a Kemper(?) which would count as a crunch sound for me. I might be making an incorrect assumption.

Yeah that was more of a "lets try and do something Koneguitarist would probably like" and knowing he likes bluesy country slightly dirty vibes, that was the direction I went. My stuff is ten times as clean as that clip!

I've listened to a fair bit of TNBD as it happens.

Ta

I'm sure the amps are out there I just haven't found one yet and all the amps I've loved have been single channel or only had one decent channel. 

I quite like having an amp with one channel and bugger all features. It means I can take my pedal board and plug into anything with a decent clean and be quite happy. I've been using a Joyo American sound into the desk quite a bit recently and I can even get some decent sounds with that.

Yeah that's cool. Plenty of people like a nice platform for all their different flavours of pedal. Despite what people think, I don't actually have much of a thing for pedals. Really really limited. Wah, phaser, delay 1, delay 2, reverb. Straight into the front of the amp. That's my baseline, and I've been using that for 10 years.

But I've always been obsessed with amps, and always multi-channel amps. I just don't gel with the simple single channel thing. Simplest amp I ever had was an Orange Rockerverb, and I couldn't get the tones from it I wanted. It did not last long.

timmysoft

I'm a firm believer in an amp only does one thing well. You can have a wicked drive tone but then switching to the cleans it sounds shit because your power amp settings are all wrong, your speakers/cab is wrong etc. I think it's why you see so many bands using multi amp set ups. I don't play much clean so I don't care about it that much, but in my experience amps designed to do one thing should do that one thing!

ICBM

timmysoft said:

I'm a firm believer in an amp only does one thing well. You can have a wicked drive tone but then switching to the cleans it sounds shit because your power amp settings are all wrong, your speakers/cab is wrong etc. I think it's why you see so many bands using multi amp set ups.

The main reason is that it's much easier for the soundman. If you mic the clean and dirty sounds separately and give them each a desk channel, it then doesn't matter if the onstage balance between clean and dirty is not what the FOH mix needs. With a channel-switcher, you have to re-adjust the desk every time the player switches channels. Consequently even players who use channel-switchers most often use two of the same model on stage, each permanently set to one channel.

ThePrettyDamned

@icbm I loves the dual rec. There is actually a rectoverb on ebay at the moment.

How possible would be it, in theory, to have an amp loosely based on a fender tweed bassman, but kick able into big, heavy tones? It would have the 6l6 or el34 power section, so at that point it's really about what you can do with the preamp.

Even better if it had an extra tone control.

Yeah, an amp with a clean sound with a single gain and tone knob, then a gain channel with 3 band eq and a resonance control over the whole thing. So long as the clean can be clean or dirty clean, and the drive is a heavy, crunchy saturation that would work.

Or... Mesa dual rec. Sigh.

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

@icbm I loves the dual rec. There is actually a rectoverb on ebay at the moment.

That's a complete different amp with two separate audio paths for the two channels. I don't like them. The 3-channel Duals also have the separate clean channel, which is one of the reasons I don't like them as much as the 2-channels.

ThePrettyDamned said:

How possible would be it, in theory, to have an amp loosely based on a fender tweed bassman, but kick able into big, heavy tones?

That's a Dual Rectifier .

Evolutionary path: Fender 5F6-A Bassman > Marshall JTM45 > Marshall Super Lead 100 > Marshall 2203 > Soldano SLO > Mesa Dual Rectifier.

fastboy

guitarfishbay said:

You might like the latest Tony Iommi amp - I think it is the same channel twice and I think his old amp was based on the GH.  Never seen one or head one in person though.

The TI 100 channels are similar but channel 2 / the lead channel has more gain and is a lot brighter then channel 1. I've owned 3 of them back when I was in a black sabbath tribute including the first customer delivery 3 months before any shops had them from Tony Iommi's own batch.

Here's the said amp in question. Cuts through nicely but it is compressed as you can hear and doesn't really clean up in any way shape or form. Even with the gain set to near enough 1 in the rhythm channel there's plenty of hairs on it as the amp was built for high gain and clean was never a consideration

Drew_TNBD

Rectoverbs are crap. Don't bother.

Gassage

How does Boogie build quality sit with other high end makers?

ICBM

Gassage said:

How does Boogie build quality sit with other high end makers?

Very good, although some of the more recent models seem to have a few more flaws. I've had a couple of Expresses with bad ribbon connectors for example.

The only significant problem with the 2-ch Dual Rectifier/Trem-o-verb is the optocoupler switches, which can fail.

And they're not Boogies, they're Mesas . Boogies are a different amp made by the same company .

ThePrettyDamned

Drew_fx;368324" said:

Rectoverbs are crap. Don't bother.

Cool, removed from watch list!

@icbm I awarded a lol, because it made me laugh that I described a dual rec.

Kinda cool though!

I actually loved the gh 50, but the gain boost switch wasn't variable - I wouldn't mind the shared eq if I could set it fairly clean, then whack the gain right up for the boost button.

Hmm, all interesting stuff. It's making me reconsider buying a lower cost used amp "in the meantime" until I have the beer tokens for an mjw tbh, it'll just set my savings back a bit for something I know I'll want to get rid of next year.

Drew_TNBD

Seriously... I'd say get a VH100R. They're great amps and will tide you over nicely until you get some cash together for a higher end amp.

Gassage

@icbm - are we talking Hiwatt hylight era build? Lol!!

samzadgan

My motto is always...when in doubt, Laney!

So go with @Drew_fx suggestion on vh100...cant believe im agreeing with him!

Especially as your long term goal is the MJW...the VH will be good for now and will be a good back up later on.

ThePrettyDamned

samzadgan;368401" said:

My motto is always...when in doubt, Laney!

So go with @Drew_fx suggestion on vh100...cant believe im agreeing with him!

Especially as your long term goal is the MJW...the VH will be good for now and will be a good back up later on.

Tempting, but at 400 squids used, plus a cab, it's a fair chunk from the mjw fund.

I was hoping for 300 quid or so, with bonus money awarded for something awesome.

I suspect I could go for a vc50 combo, which do go exceptionally cheap and are fairly similar (maybe basically the same?). They can be had for 200 quid or so, and would definitely give me a big upgrade over the bandit.

Which I'm still keeping because it's the ultimate backup! It also does a couple of sounds really very well indeed. And stereo rig for home practice =mega win and overkill.

martinw

I do multi channel amps in two distinct ways:

a. Share elements of the gain and tone-shaping preamps, and switch as required to give 2 (or more) distinct sounds. The advantage of this is compactness and lower component count. With careful choices, you can make a really nice sounding amp, with the channels sounding like each other so there's no jarring tonal change when you switch, but conversely each channel having a distinct flavour i.e. the clean channel sounds like a decent clean amp, not a high gain amp with the gain turned very low.

b. The MJW Orion and my other bigger amps (like the 2 and 3 channel Stormshadow amps I build) use completely separate channels that share nothing until the power amp. This uses more space and components, but allows you to structure each gain stage and element to be the best for that particular channel, and create the amp you want. You can do stuff like have two almost identical overdrive channels, which as has been mentioned, can be a better way to set up rhythm and lead sounds, rather than having two differently-voiced channels. Or you can deliberately select radically different channels to suit the customer's moods, rather than being a live performance tool - more of a two-amps-in-one than a twin channel amp.

I'm lucky though, being a custom builder as I can build the amp exactly to the customer's requirements, whereas most mass manufacturers have to choose option a. and accept the compromises and aim their designs somewhere in the middle. Multi-channel amps always feature some degree of compromise, the trick is to 'minimise the compromise'. Factor in the fact that all guitarists want something slightly different from their 2 channel amps (and single-channel ones for that matter) and you can see why there are as many opinions as amps around!

martinw

ThePrettyDamned said:

OH MY GOD IF I LIVED IN MAIDENHEAD

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Laney-Klipp-100w-1969-1973-Modified-for-Plexi-Super-lead-/171478423259?pt=UK_MusicalInstr_Amplifiers_RL&hash=item27ece916db

Shit me, and modded by our own @martinw apparently!

I did indeed. It's a great sounding amp, and a bargain at that price!

guitarfishbay

fastboy said:

guitarfishbay said:

You might like the latest Tony Iommi amp - I think it is the same channel twice and I think his old amp was based on the GH.  Never seen one or head one in person though.

The TI 100 channels are similar but channel 2 / the lead channel has more gain and is a lot brighter then channel 1. I've owned 3 of them back when I was in a black sabbath tribute including the first customer delivery 3 months before any shops had them from Tony Iommi's own batch.

Here's the said amp in question. Cuts through nicely but it is compressed as you can hear and doesn't really clean up in any way shape or form. Even with the gain set to near enough 1 in the rhythm channel there's plenty of hairs on it as the amp was built for high gain and clean was never a consideration

Interesting - I was under the impression the channels were the same.  It even says that on their own website -

SONIC IDENTITY

The two channels on the TI100 are basically the same channels with no sonic difference between them. They have been labelled up as Rhythm and Lead purely for convenience. You can decide on the configuration of each channel.

Obviously if you've had 3 then either their website info isn't correct or they've changed something since you had them.

ThePrettyDamned said:

samzadgan;368401" said:

My motto is always...when in doubt, Laney!

So go with @Drew_fx suggestion on vh100...cant believe im agreeing with him!

Especially as your long term goal is the MJW...the VH will be good for now and will be a good back up later on.

Tempting, but at 400 squids used, plus a cab, it's a fair chunk from the mjw fund.

I was hoping for 300 quid or so, with bonus money awarded for something awesome.

I suspect I could go for a vc50 combo, which do go exceptionally cheap and are fairly similar (maybe basically the same?). They can be had for 200 quid or so, and would definitely give me a big upgrade over the bandit.

Which I'm still keeping because it's the ultimate backup! It also does a couple of sounds really very well indeed. And stereo rig for home practice =mega win and overkill.

I've seen a couple of VH100rs go for less than £400 but honestly - unless you really need a different amp I'd probably suggest just continuing to save until you can afford the MJW you want.

Having done a lot of buying/selling... it is sometimes a lot less stress and often cheaper to just buy the thing you want first time around.

Drew_TNBD

@ThePrettyDamned I bought a pre-2007 Laney VH100R for £200 once. They can be found cheaply. Buyers market and all that.

Drew_TNBD

guitarfishbay said:

Having done a lot of buying/selling... it is sometimes a lot less stress and often cheaper to just buy the thing you want first time around.

Trick it also to know that once you have it, DON'T SELL IT!!!