Step Aside! Gear Pig Coming Through!

So I got nominated on punkottawa for best post ever! sweet! I just copied my post and revelant info down here. It was a briefing on guitar amps. I hope someone posts something about guitar pick-up next hahah. I could talk for hours...




Subject: tube amps or digital? *updated
Pages: 1 2

Author: the frog queen
Subject:
Date: 06/07/07 9:55 am

I wasn't gonna post on this thread but I'm bored so get ready for too much information...

So my answer..

Let's be honest, very few people, if any, can consider themselves a true musician. Is there anyone here that gets paid to do session work, live or in studios? Is there anywhere here that has been trained there entire life on classical guitar? If so wicked, but the fact of the matter is, if your in a rock band (punk, alternative, metal, what have you..) then your not relying so much on your chops but on the gear your playing and the sound that is condusive of the genre of music your striving for.


effects aside, (and I personally will not buy a pedal isn't true bypass although have owned and gotten rid of digital ones in the past) I have owned many digital, solid state and tube amps. My first amp was a shitty 100 watt Peavy of no descerning model name (had a long drawn out serial number which I can't ermember.) that I found on the side of the road along with a 4/12! awesome eh!? still worked cept for one speaker. but seriously, after playing it for 2 years,I realised that it was a tone sucking piece of shit that was making my beautiful USA fender Bullet sound like ass! So I got rid of it and got a great deal on a Yamaha 2/12 combo. the thing had sooo many options that it was dizzying. Especially since I was completely new to the whole medi thing. (it was pretty cool that you could upload midi right into your amp! about 5 years ago that was just insane...although I don't know what I would do with an amp like that now..)

Sorry for the huge explination, so I dumped the yamaha and got mesa boogie dual rectifyer.. when I tried it out initially before I bought it, I was like "yeah this is so awesomely heavy" a week later I realised it was just a complete waste of money because would not represent the true tone of my strat (i was then playing a wicked fender usa texas special) and it just wasn't a suitable amp for someone who plays single coil pickups. I went through a series of amps after that. There is only one amp I regret selling... :( Zinky.

Through much trial and error and owning everything from random vintage Marshall amps, customer shop designer amps to new-fangled Behringer I feel as though I'm still somewhat at a loss in the amp world.

All I can really trust to let my guitar shine through are the following:

Fender Bassman heads : 1965-1968 non master volume silver faced or black (a little overly specific, but its a great amp and doesn't compare to the other bassmans)

Marshall JMP : a little hard to come by and are single channel but super sweet and warm sounding if you play clean often.

Fender Twin Reverb: anything before the 80's is usually great and then the reissue is pretty fucking good too.

Traynor Amps: before Yorkville bought them they are the best hauling amps. You can drop them down a flight of stairs and they won't break!!

Then it's worth mentioning a few noteable independant amp companies: Reverend Electronics Joe Naylor, (thats right of NAYLOR amps, legendary!!) started this after the NAYLOR series. Although they aren't the same designs as the Naylor amps, they're still pretty damn good)

Zinky Amps- Bruce Zinky use to work for fender custom shop and then branched off and started his own wicked line of amps. He was the first guy to combine, digital, tubes and medi in a guitar amp called "the supa fly!" Also made the Zinky Mofo.. one of my favoriate tube amps! amazing.

So long explination short... you don't wanna hear the amp, you wanna hear the guitar and that requires TUBES in my opinion(hopefully you got a bitchin one) but it depends,cause if your playing music through Fxs that makes guitar sound like keyboard, you might not care as much... and it may not matter as much. i dunno, I play pretty standard straight up rock.

Hope I've been informative. you can't dismiss digital amps if you haven't really played a lot of them. They have some good options for sure, and that Yamaha combo I mentioned was particularly good for a digital amp. But it does get outdated fast...

P.S. Line 6 is pretty much crap besides the Modulation pedal which is just really fun when your stoned... you can make it sound like a chirping bird!