Y'all, my Prince-inspired teen years loved the crunch and blistering power of solid-state amps. They lent themselves to Vai-ish aspirations, you know?

Then, I discovered the beauty of SRV and Hendrix, the bliss that comes with transparency and fragility and nuance. The past 4 years or so, I've been digging on Fender tube sounds.

But, I've just plugged back into my Crate solid state, and I'm loving the power again...

What are your preferences, y'all? I have a gig coming up, and I'm thinking about using the Crate instead of my Hot Rod Deluxe...

I can't believe it either.

I've been playing a Crate Palomino tube amp for the past eight months. I dig the "warmth" of tube amps, but I miss that "clean" of the solid state amps I used to play. I don't use the gain at all, since my sound is very clean, funk and I get my distortion from a multi-effects unit (Boss ME-50). Once the tubes warm up, my clean sound tends to distort a bit, even with the gain turned down.

The best amp - as far as cleans go - that I've played is actually the Roland Cube 60. I tried different pedals through it and they sound good as well.

Anyway, good luck with your choice!

Crate is 1 derful, depending on what you do.....

Its all about what u're looking for at this present state and time





Jshua

I played tube amps for 15+ years but since I moved towards funk and jazz it's solid state for me.
When I plug into a tube amp, at first I'm always pleasantly surprised by bthe sound but as the gig proceeds it seems like the tube compression starts working against me and I start to pick harder and harder, my arm tenses up. No good.
Also, adding warmth with your amp can be nice but real (warm) tone is in your strings, your pick and the way you pick. Never forget that!

Right now I use Fender Princeton but I'd love to get me a Polytone some day.
(Check out http://www.murchmusic.com/polytone.htm)

I always come back to tubes no matter what. When they start to sound stale I put some new ones in. For a more processed sound, I add more pedals or my Zoom rack mount effects.

Solid state is okay for clean sounds, but I don't like that artificial sounding distortion, even if you're going for the 80's sound.

I played guitar for years and nobody ever told me about tube amps, I stumbled onto them by accident, now I'll never go back. And I think even the 80's metal heads use them for the most part, don't they?

But solid state is less problematic. My amp (also a fender deluxe) is giving me trouble.

Yeah, the HRDs underwent a revamp a year or so ago that really sweetened their output and took them closer to the vintage sound.

Sadly, I bought mine before that change and the distortion sound is pretty harsh (and, yeah, I already have swapped the original tubes out for some "better" ones).

My crate is less trouble -- but hasn't been perfect, either. Still have trouble getting the effects loop to cooperate and I keep losing the cable for the pedal.

The clean sound isn't as pretty as the HRD's, but the Crate's OD is much, much better.

ThreadBare said:

I used to have some kind of Crate. I could never get a good crunchy sound from it, tho I liked the clean sound a lot.

I have a HRD from about 1996. I always use "less drive" set at about 4 (or clean, but never "more drive"). If I want more drive I use a pedal.

Do you know what kind of tubes you got for yours?

This is allstates Husband, she told me about this thread and I love guitar and amps.....
Thanks for the op to shoot my mouth off, im a toob amp junkie. Not a snob, I look to learn, not to Boss

Tube or S/S
This question has plagued guitar players since 1937. It is absolutely mentally distressing for serious players sometimes.

Guitars and tubes, due to the magnetic reactivity between the string and pick up, how hard or soft you
pick it all equals the dynamic of your tone. We all love the tube tone because guitars and tubes alike emit round wave form tone.
SS amps emit square wave form. Thats why we hear more of a punch from a SS amp and more round warmth from a toob amp.
These days, so many people are mixing things, a tubed pre amp with a solid state rectifier or tube power section with a solid state rectifier.

Rectifiers, rectify the current or correct it from alternating to DIRECT, powering tubes with a solid state rec will make it more harsh. A tube rec is a little smoother depending on the tube used. Mesa, a amp maker, has a dual and triple rec, very metal sounding amps.

Yea, tons of 80's guys used tubes atleast (including myself) a tube preamp like the ADA mp1 with a solid state power amp because it was quiet and less problematic.
Problems that come from a all tube amp are, changing the tubes out and not re biasing the amp and, simple vibration. Vibration shakes the filaments in the tubes and when they are hot, this shortens tube life greatly. Tube rings are cool for this, they help settle the tube and isolate it from the vibration a little. check out herbiesaudiolab.com , u will c what i mean. Its a small tone secret of mine...

A lot of the SS amps are class b and lower. What this means is, Class A amps dont change or add total harmonic distortion, well they do but a very small amount of it. class b and c amps emit more. Here, I made us a graph.




The red is your tone after the pre amp going into the power section, what class it is determines how much distortion will be added to it once it comes out the amp. Distortion in a bad way, not a good way, dostortion as in, distortion of your tone into haywire!

So for guys using SS amps for clean, look for a class a amp with little THD (total harmonic distortion) This means clean power baby! (no, not you robin, were talking guitars, not casios, oh and the answer is NO. I still cant believ I had to listen to that shit am i allowed to say that?)

There are a few crucial parts to a amp
The tubes, the transformers the pre amp the power amp and the out put stage. The tall round glass things are tubes (I know you guys know, im just explaining for those who are just reading...) the square things are transformers. Transformers have stages 4 8 and 16 ohms. ohms = resistance
16 ohms is like driving your purple little mercedes around in 1st gear doing 90 MPH . 4 ohms is like driving it in 5th gear at 100 mph.
At 16 ohms the transformers are 3/4 or more saturated with voltage at 4 ohms they are more like 1/4 of the way, so the amp runs cooler, smoother, not as stuffed up and has a faster reaction but with that tube sag. Sag is what occurs when the tube gets hot and takes a mila-second longer to react or be rectified, so you get a tinge of sag in your tone. Makes for a beautifull full warm poppy tone.

Like a couple guys said up top, there mixing things, a tube amp with some rack FX . If your running a fx loop and it seems to be compressing your tone and making it thinner and more noisy, Then skip it, they rob tone unless they are wired as self switching, taking them selfes out of the line up unless plugged into. Most of the high end boutique amps that are hand made point to point wired, dont have FX loops, FX loops rob tone. Run everything front end, Guitar to pedals then to the amp. Here youll find less is more with all the processing gear. Put the pedal you want to have the most effect last in the chain, put the noisiest first.

I think with your HRD and a tube screamer or fuzz pedal of some sort, throw in a VOX wha for some funk and youd be set. A lot of guys I know are using essentially 2 rigs, this is what I do also. I also have a multi effect unti that allows me 2 outputs, this works like a pre amp. My left out goes to a solid state amp, it is my clean side. I pan it left and also pan some fx into it for a stereo sound. My right goes to the tube amp for the over driven round sounds of SRV and Jimmy. Yes, you too P!

See guitar players have so much to worry about. its called "the sound man" Regardless of how many tubes you have, if your in a medium sized venue or going through the PA system, your being amplified by solid state power amps. The rolling stones, they have over 1 million dollars in crown power amps, it takes a semi truck just to haul the cables (16 miles of cable!) They are all solid state. If your a player looking for a buzz saw type of sound, get a SS class c amp, this will sound buzzy, square waved and with tons of harmonic distortion. This is the problem though, by the time it gets to the crowd , it is double amplified by all solid state amps and your sounding pretty harsh. Then the sound man trys to compensate and next thing you know, you sound nothing like your amp does on stage. Tubes prevent this from happening. This is why a lot of guys in the middle to pro catagory stick to tubes, because they have thier roady play thier guitar and they stand out at the sound booth , and hear them tubes going through a solid state PA system and say, yes, that sounds much better! Some times on stage, it sounds so saggy because they know the SS pa system will tighten it up.

There is so much to it but in a nut shell, TOOBS.

Tone, Tone or feel like Princes or Santana or Vai or EVH, all comes from hours and hours of practice, hard knocks, let downs, disapointments, scouring the earth for what works for you, but mostly, your soul, then your finger tips, if it aint there, then you wont have it in a amp with a million tubes. I saw prince In chicago play a acoustic set on a ACOUSTIC GUITAR mic'd through a solid state pa system , and it knocked my freakin socks off. The man shreds the theme song to the beverly hill billies. No tubes, just heart, soul, finger tips and jamming that would leave anyones neck hair electrified.
Thanks allstate, I love you!

I have a real oddball mix of of gear both tube & solid state. I like both, but for practical reasons I lean more toward the solid state/digital modeling camp. I'm able to get a good low volume tone without too much hassle. I'm not a gigging guitarist and firing up my tube amps isn't a very sane idea, living in an apartment without sound proofing & thin walls.(LOL)

For me it's all about the application & what works in a given situation.
That being said, you might need to think in terms of what's going to work best for the gig.

I think headroom is going to be the biggest deal, as will versatility. I leaning toward the Crate for this.





And, I'm digging the posts!!!!


.
[Edited 8/22/06 10:02am]

The other guitar player in my band is always tinkering with his sound, and he decided to overdrive his amp the old fashioned way, by turning it all the way up and using the volume knob on his guitar to keep it reasonable.

It sounded no different, completely clean, but with a little added noise. He said "well, the clean channel on my amp is solid state, maybe that's the problem."

ya think?

So what kind of pedals are you guys using?
(this is the husband again...sorry, maybe i should get my own name)

I really like the GNX4.
ok, i admit it, it has no tubes. ...
But my power section and rectifier do!!

allstatenorthside said:

I use a Ernie Ball Volume Jr., Boss Tuner, Morley Bad Horsie Wah, Boss DS-1 distortion, Dunlap Rotovibe chorus/tremelo.

I use the volume & tuner the most, though...

allstatenorthside said:

DOD American Metal (B version)
2 Dunlop Crybabies
DOD Envelope Filter
Boss Tremolo
Boss Harmonist
Arion Stereo Flanger
Boss Stereo Flanger
Digitech delay
Ross Phaser

allstatenorthside - "Here, I made us a graph"

absolutely brilliant allstatenorthside .....


I think I actaually learned something about class A sound....

thanks.....




.

So what kind of pedals are you guys using?

Either a Boss Gt-8 if I require quite a bit of processing or, preferrably, just an MXR Dynacomp and a Boss DD6 delay.

Cool!
My 5 days is up and I got my own name now so i dont break the rules using my wifes name. !!!! (all state north side)

I even tried some tests with S/S and tube stuff this weekend. With a band, the tubes combined with the modeling gear, just cut through better, the S/S stuff was not loud enough for me. The strange thing was, The s/s amp was 300 watts and I had it at 12 oclock, the Tubed amp is 100 watts , and at 12 oclock, it was twice as loud, even with the same presets exactly coming from the Floor pedal. I also did some sound clips of the 3 different hod rod deluxe amps you guys are talking about, regular, fender improved modified and personally modified. I just have to learn how to post them in here.
[Edited 8/28/06 8:02am]

guitstoopid said:

Yeah, tube is way louder. My 40 watt Hot Rod Deluxe absolutely blew away my 100 watt Crate.

Of course, my Crate never broke down and my Fender's in the shop as we speak.

Whats it in the shop for? Toob damage?
Hey Look at it this way, this is what takes it to the next level, while its in the shop, itll maybe get some new tubes and caps...when you get it back it should sound better! If you still got the chance and the $$$ ask them to change all your caps to spragues. (for that amp it shouldnt be more than 60 bucks)

I totally agree with you, tubes are louder. Have you guys seen this crate power block? 150 watts, 200 bucks and its tiny 6.5 lbs. I talked to a guy yesterday who says they sound fantastic. Its all S/S. Ill admit, my whole preamp is S/S .....


Hey Euro, are you just using the compression in that MXR or are getting some O/D from it also? I use a Guytron OD, but I have the drive at zero and I just use it as a sustain pedal, about 45% in the over all signal when its on. It is awesome for that. Hit that up and turn towards the cabs and its the glassiest coolest controled feedback Ive ever had.

guitstoopid said:

I got the tubes changed recently, but at my last show it was changing channels on it's own for about two hours. I hear it's a bad solder on a resistor.

I'll look into the caps, though.

Meanwhile this Friday I'll be using our bass player's 30 watt Peavy--very similar to my Fender.

Cool, Im sending my toob amp out for a mod, Im going to be without it for a week and a half., .

Peavey Bass amps are work horses! They sound good and last forever.
I really dig this forum, Ive been in other guitar related forums and never had this pleasent of a conversation with people. Guitar forums are usually so vicious, they would say "your preamp is solid state? YOU MUST SUCK!"
All toob snobs...
I have the means to play whatever I want, what I play, I play cuz it works for me. So, i dont judge what anyone does , if it works for them and sounds good to them, then , its all good!

Hey, I think we hijacked thread bare's thread....