Guitar Amp confesison?

[HA_DA_JA]

I am pretty embarrassed about this but I thought I would put it out there as I just came out off the phone from another Guitar guru who is thinking along the same lines.

I have owned a zillions guitar amps from Marshall JTM, JCM800's, Fender Twins, Roland jazz Chorus, Mesa Boogies, Peavey Classics, Matchless, blah blah blah.

I have pretty much sold my collection of amps (a couple more to come soon enough) and now when I play live I just use one of those new cheap Fender Mustang III 100 watt amps.

I am going against the trend of buying more slutty amp gear and now I am downsizing to more usable gear. Is anyone else finding this is happening for them?

I am sick of carting around heavy stuff, and I think the sound from the Fender Mustang nails it enough for the punters ears.

Am I getting soft in my old age?

[GlennS]

In 2004 I was recording guitarist Kevin Bennett for a client's album & he played a Tele with a Hotcake overdrive pedal through a Fender Pro Junior. Awesome tone! I recall the amp had just 2 knobs, probably volume & tone. At the time he was living on Scotland Island & needed and amp that he could easily transport on a dinghy.

[Manning]

I have a heap of amps, but ever since I got a Fractal Axe FX, they sit largely unused.

I mainly record, and frankly the hassle of having to drag the amp out, set it up, place the mics, etc... vs just plugging in and having a great sound immediately.

If I was ever to do a really guitar-centric project I might not be so lazy, but the Fractal is brilliant for getting a "99% sound" immediately.

[Chinagraf]

I've only used a Fender 76 for years. Clean tone is great. Dirty channel sounds crap but I just use pedals for that.
Used to fit in the front seat of my car.
I thought I was just lazy, but maybe I am ahead of the curve?
I do want a Swart atomic space tone though. Just because they are beautiful.

[DarkSky]

For gigging, convenience and "luggability" are stand-out considerations, and there's no shame in that. If you can get tones you want with a compact rig, it makes a certain amount of sense.

Having a few of the "boutique" choices on hand is definitely a plus in a studio situation, tho, IMO.

[waitup]

I'm not sold on amp modeling by any stretch, but I can't argue with the practicality of it. If it's just for a guide, demo or a background overdub there's no way in hell I'm dragging the amp out, mic'ing it up etc when I can just load up guitar rig and get something acceptable.

For the important stuff though I still feel the need for a tube amp and good mics.

[Manning]

I'm not sold on amp modeling by any stretch, but I can't argue with the practicality of it. If it's just for a guide, demo or a background overdub there's no way in hell I'm dragging the amp out, mic'ing it up etc when I can just load up guitar rig and get something acceptable.

For the important stuff though I still feel the need for a tube amp and good mics.

I wasn't a fan of modelling until I heard the Fractal. I'd played with the Digidesign, the Line6 and a few other software/hardware efforts and found them lacking (especially Guitar Rig). The Fractal won me over though.

[Chinagraf]

I know this isn't the thread subject, but I've never found sims or modellers to stack well, especially with a decent number of tracks. Cool for a quick demo, but to me recording without amps is missing out on all the fun of what recording is about and why you get into it in the first place..moving mics around, combining them to get different tones, experimenting etc... like BFD is cool for a quicky, but nothing like the experience of recording real drums. Not much fun in sitting there tweeking parameters.

[Kurt]

My band's album was all tracked, 2 takes each of 2 different guitar amps, each with two mics, plus clean tracks and lead tracks. We'd shelled out to take the finished product to a local mastering guy. Then we really listened to it and decided we had been too "she'll be right" (lazy and slack) and while the guitars sounded huge, our playing was shit.

We then redid all the guitars in a week or two, using a DI and a Roland cube 15 (shit sounding thing that is!) for monitoring. All guitars were bussed into two stereo freeware sims, out to stereo freeware convolvers running free impulses. The guitars still sound huge, and they're played right!

Additional sims (freeware) were used for clean guitars and leads.

All drums were real!

[Kurt]

A bit more on topic...
Quite a few guys are showing up to play metal gigs these days with Axe FX, Line6 and Zoom emulators, they all sound pretty damn good. A couple are even using an mbox and macbook with guitar rig!

[Drumstruck]

sounds like the roadie has been made redundant

[Chinagraf]

I wonder how long till they turn up with Guitar Hero controllers....?

[Chris H]

For my taste, electric guit sims have got very good for clean sounds but still don't cut it for all the distorted sounds I look for. At the same time I would say many amps don't cut it for distorted sound! Generally speaking, here I think in two groups, old distorted and new distorted. For example sims don't deliver the particular sound that is typified by Larry Carlton or Lee Ritenour playing a Gibson ES335 through an MXR distortion pedal. If I use a Proco Rat I can get the edgy, brighter modern distortion.
All this becomes fairly subjective. A lot of this is about what sound we a referencing to or using as a benchmark for what we or the client is after. A new generation of players may not be keenly tuned in to the ES335, MXR sound. So, over time these reference sounds change and some of the good sounds a player can get from sims become their new reference sounds.

As for the original question:
Am I getting soft in my old age?
Exactly the opposite, you're making decisions based on what works for you as a player rather than everything you have read or seen other players do in chasing sound. I went through a similar thing, thinking I needed a huge amp to get the sound I wanted because that is what "common wisdom " of the day dictated and marshal stacks dominated the stage of most stadium concerts where the photos I drooled over where taken. This was school days for me and I had a small converted PA valve amp.......so uncool!
After school, I went round in circles for years with big amps giving me the shits untill I got serious about stage volume and protecting my ears, this was around 1980. It was also dawning on me that a lot of the sounds i liked on records where from small valve, so called studio amps. Strauss made a few studio amps here in Melb and I hired one to hear how it sounded.........that was the end of big amps for me. I got a small musicman amp,......... never quite got it sounding sweet in the highs like that old valve PA amp I had. After a year or two I played through a friends little Fender Champ and bingo....the lights went on! Now it's circle complete with the two 5 watt amps, a Goldentone and a Rex, and the Egnater Tweeker throught the rolla 12 inch in the projector speaker cab. With the MXR and the Rat distortion and occasional Memory Man delay I get all that I'm after, and also for many of the guitarists in the studio.

[Wiz]

I like little valve amps.

I mainly use a princeton for live and in the studio

I did buy one of those littel JTM-1 Marshalls (1 watt) and it does the JTM thing for sure.

I actually bought a few cheap valve amps last year, jet city (soldano) Hi Watt, and they all serve their function recording wise, and cost about the same as two boutique overdrive pedals.

I used the original pod, and the pod xt and amplitube , guitar rig etc

They are very cool for writing, much like drum programs

But for me, real always wins, so far anyways.

But, I think little valve amps are just peachy.


Jeff Beck did his last album on a fender junior either blues or pro

[GlennS]

You guys make it sound as if plugging in a guitar amp & putting a mic in front of it is hard work.

[Alistair]

I've been using a shitty red knob Fender champ for about 3 years as my main live amp. Bass control is either on or off, so pretty much just a one knob tone control. I'm much happier getting most of my guitar sound through the fold back so I actually have some idea of what's going out FOH.

The big expensive ones stay at home... to be honest I like the champ more- it's size and wattage ensure it's got built in hi-pass and lo-pass filters so it always stays in the right spot. It's hard to balance my space echo on top though- it's bigger than the amp.


Use guitar sims for getting ideas down sometimes, but HATE their clean sounds. The pick attack is always stupidly over-emphasised and the way they handle dynamics are generally pretty poor.

[Gian]

I did the whole separate speaker box(es) rack mount tube amp, rack mount tube preamp, rack mount effects, separate midi controller pedal. And I just got sick of carrying stuff and plugging stuff in.

Then I started using a line 6 floor POD with built in amps, effect, mics and built in pedal board. And I plugged into the PA via the direct XLR outs and monitored of the stage monitors or in ears.

This was very convenient. And I emphasis "very". No one really could tell the difference.

I sometimes went out of the POD into the power amp of a combo. I found (while each amp did give a slightly different tone), I had better interaction between the amp and the guitar. You know how the guitar will respond to the sound of the amp and then you play differently - as well as how you can get those other harmonics and put the sound at an almost feeding back point. And if you slightly angle your body so that the guitar can interact more or less with the amp...cant get that with sims

[ether]

I've almost gone Fractal, but still hesitating.

What I'm dreaming of is a featherlight 1U version that has something like a Matrix power amp built in, that I can easily tote around and plug in to whatever speaker cabs and/or PA that's on offer.

Until then it's a Mesa TA-15 with a Strymon pedal or two in front, and whichever cab I can be bothered carrying.

[Kurt]

A band played at the pub a while ago where each of the guitarists had a sheet of ply with a couple of pedals gaffed to it, one of which was an Electro Harmonix 44 Magnum. They used my quads but the rest of the rig fit in a backpack.

[Chris H]

I am pretty embarrassed about this but I thought I would put it out there as I just came out off the phone from another Guitar guru who is thinking along the same lines.

I have owned a zillions guitar amps from Marshall JTM, JCM800's, Fender Twins, Roland jazz Chorus, Mesa Boogies, Peavey Classics, Matchless, blah blah blah.

I have pretty much sold my collection of amps (a couple more to come soon enough) and now when I play live I just use one of those new cheap Fender Mustang III 100 watt amps.

I am going against the trend of buying more slutty amp gear and now I am downsizing to more usable gear. Is anyone else finding this is happening for them?

I am sick of carting around heavy stuff, and I think the sound from the Fender Mustang nails it enough for the punters ears.

Am I getting soft in my old age?

[tunetown]

The new v10 firmware from Fractal is really quite good. It hasn't made all my valve amps redundant yet but damn, this thing is so easy to dial up a great sound, I'm starting to look at them funny.

[Bent my VU]

I'm down to two amps at the moment and that's the way it will stay. It all comes down to feel as much as tone for me and some amps just feel good to play - I haven't experienced that with a digital sim yet.

[zenelectro]

In 2004 I was recording guitarist Kevin Bennett for a client's album & he played a Tele with a Hotcake overdrive pedal through a Fender Pro Junior. Awesome tone! I recall the amp had just 2 knobs, probably volume & tone. At the time he was living on Scotland Island & needed and amp that he could easily transport on a dinghy.

Yep, 2 x EL84's = 16 watts of juicy tone! I had that little amp here for service and it does sound great within it's
volume limitations. Even better is 4 x EL84's = AC30... I'm still carting mine.

Pretty soon it will become a head and 2x12 box which should be more manageable.