Gone back to valves

p90fool

ICBM said:

p90fool said:

Wash your mouth out! Lol 

I quite like them actually - I should probably get another one really! - but they only do one thing, and it isn't what most people would call 'great tone'...

I've owned about three or four of them - I think all bar the first one were given to me broken because the build quality is shockingly poor and they're often not economically repairable. I fixed them for the fun of it and then sold them to people who were looking for a battery-powered busking amp, before you could buy proper things like a Micro Cube.

And the casing has to be held open at precisely 43.65º to get 'the sound' .

So in reality I don't think that having an output transformer is what makes an amp good - or at least not by itself. There are a few other solid-state amps with them too - and they don't, really.

I like mine too, it really has a great, tactile feel, and leaving it flat out and using the guitar controls in conjunction with standing the amp up, lying it on its face or chucking a cushion on it makes it amazingly versatile.
It's a great tool for working at the computer on cover songs of almost any style other than metal.

Being brutal, it's a raspy box of farts, but I haven't enjoyed an amp this much for years - it just seems to sit perfectly in a mix at YouTube volume better than anything else I own.  

John_A

RandallFlagg said:

Agreed, I love the sound of guitar through a valve amp but I have a Helix as well. I use as a programmable pedalboard with the valve amp (Mesa Express+) and as full modeller for direct recording and quiet practice.

Best of both worlds, except 4CM is pain in the tits at times.

For me, the thing I love about valve amps and guitar speakers is that narrow bandwidth of tone, that mid range thing. Modellers through FRFR have too wide a bandwidth and sound too hi-fi, even with IRs etc, there is too much high and lo end and I don't get that satisfying thick midrange sound.

Also, what is it with modellers than brings fret buzz to the fore on clean sounds? It's like when you used to DI a guitar into a portastudio back in the early 90s. A clean sound on a good valve amp with the same guitar doesn't;t allow anywhere near as much fret buzz sound through.

Use EQ and allow exactly how much of what frequencies get to the speaker

RandallFlagg

John_A said:

RandallFlagg said:

Agreed, I love the sound of guitar through a valve amp but I have a Helix as well. I use as a programmable pedalboard with the valve amp (Mesa Express+) and as full modeller for direct recording and quiet practice.

Best of both worlds, except 4CM is pain in the tits at times.

For me, the thing I love about valve amps and guitar speakers is that narrow bandwidth of tone, that mid range thing. Modellers through FRFR have too wide a bandwidth and sound too hi-fi, even with IRs etc, there is too much high and lo end and I don't get that satisfying thick midrange sound.

Also, what is it with modellers than brings fret buzz to the fore on clean sounds? It's like when you used to DI a guitar into a portastudio back in the early 90s. A clean sound on a good valve amp with the same guitar doesn't;t allow anywhere near as much fret buzz sound through.

Use EQ and allow exactly how much of what frequencies get to the speaker

That's the thing I don't get. Why with modelling do we have to fiddle about with hi cut, lo cut, boost mids, cut some low end off the cabs etc etc..it does my head in.

I plug into a valve amp, set 3 tone controls, adjust gain and volume and go.

guitarfishbay

RandallFlagg said:

John_A said:

RandallFlagg said:

Agreed, I love the sound of guitar through a valve amp but I have a Helix as well. I use as a programmable pedalboard with the valve amp (Mesa Express+) and as full modeller for direct recording and quiet practice.

Best of both worlds, except 4CM is pain in the tits at times.

For me, the thing I love about valve amps and guitar speakers is that narrow bandwidth of tone, that mid range thing. Modellers through FRFR have too wide a bandwidth and sound too hi-fi, even with IRs etc, there is too much high and lo end and I don't get that satisfying thick midrange sound.

Also, what is it with modellers than brings fret buzz to the fore on clean sounds? It's like when you used to DI a guitar into a portastudio back in the early 90s. A clean sound on a good valve amp with the same guitar doesn't;t allow anywhere near as much fret buzz sound through.

Use EQ and allow exactly how much of what frequencies get to the speaker

That's the thing I don't get. Why with modelling do we have to fiddle about with hi cut, lo cut, boost mids, cut some low end off the cabs etc etc..it does my head in.

I plug into a valve amp, set 3 tone controls, adjust gain and volume and go.

Because a modelling amp direct simulates a recording, and it's standard practice to high and low pass guitar (and most instruments).  The vast majority of all recorded guitar tones using real valve amps have high and low pass filters or at least some amount of post EQ. 

If you're just plugging in to a combo you don't need to do that because you almost never point it at your head (remember a mic is usually right infront of the speaker and close to it so it's getting brightness and also bass from proximity), and also your ear hears differently to how a microphone picks up (if that makes sense).

Here you go, a typical SM57 graph, not really surprising it ends up with more fizzy 6-8khz than you hear with a speaker cab on the floor.

Phil_aka_Pip

JezWynd said:

Why have a model when you can have the real thing.

using millions of transistors to do what a handful of valves does? except not do it quite as well?

kennedydream1980

RandallFlagg said:

John_A said:

RandallFlagg said:

Agreed, I love the sound of guitar through a valve amp but I have a Helix as well. I use as a programmable pedalboard with the valve amp (Mesa Express+) and as full modeller for direct recording and quiet practice.

Best of both worlds, except 4CM is pain in the tits at times.

For me, the thing I love about valve amps and guitar speakers is that narrow bandwidth of tone, that mid range thing. Modellers through FRFR have too wide a bandwidth and sound too hi-fi, even with IRs etc, there is too much high and lo end and I don't get that satisfying thick midrange sound.

Also, what is it with modellers than brings fret buzz to the fore on clean sounds? It's like when you used to DI a guitar into a portastudio back in the early 90s. A clean sound on a good valve amp with the same guitar doesn't;t allow anywhere near as much fret buzz sound through.

Use EQ and allow exactly how much of what frequencies get to the speaker

That's the thing I don't get. Why with modelling do we have to fiddle about with hi cut, lo cut, boost mids, cut some low end off the cabs etc etc..it does my head in.

I plug into a valve amp, set 3 tone controls, adjust gain and volume and go.

A modeller using IR’s simulates an amp and cab usually with a Mic close up on the cab. When you close mic a cab it creates a proximity effect which gives you a lot more low and high end.

IR’s recreate this proximity effect so in order to tame it you have to use hi and low cuts. Some IR’s are pre eq’d with these cuts (Celestion) to sound good straight out the box, which is why I gravitated towards the Celestion IR’s for my Atomic Amplifire 12. However I still prefer valve amps over digital. As mentioned before there is something magic in the mid range with a valve amp that no digital modeller that I’ve owned or tried has been able to reproduce.

Gadget

Modelling is like eating steak and chips through a drinking straw after it's been liquidized. It has the same ingredients and is definitely more compact and portable. It's 99% there, but the feeling is missing.

siraxeman

I use my Helix for messing around at home/direct recording because its so easy to get a good sound 'on tape'....and I use it for rehearsals - because it'll do and I can't be bothered yanking my AC30 up 2 flights of stairs at the rehearsal gaff. For a gig its amp and pedals all the way...because its just better. The real deal! Its like Coca Cola vs Diet Rola Cola....

Sporky

Meh. I listened to all the people who told me I should have valve amps and "proper" pedals, and sold my VG-88 for a Cornell, an MJW and a pedalboard full of stuff.

Not knocking any of that, but I've done more music in the year or so I've had the Helix than in the five or ten years with amps. So much less limiting, so much quicker to get the sounds I'm after, and so much more fun.

guitarfishbay

Sporky said:

Meh. I listened to all the people who told me I should have valve amps and "proper" pedals, and sold my VG-88 for a Cornell, an MJW and a pedalboard full of stuff.

Not knocking any of that, but I've done more music in the year or so I've had the Helix than in the five or ten years with amps. So much less limiting, so much quicker to get the sounds I'm after, and so much more fun.

Yeah I find I make a lot more music with digital.

The thing I like valve amps for is playing properly loud.  If you can still talk over a tone then digital is fine for me.

John_A

RandallFlagg said:

John_A said:

Use EQ and allow exactly how much of what frequencies get to the speaker

That's the thing I don't get. Why with modelling do we have to fiddle about with hi cut, lo cut, boost mids, cut some low end off the cabs etc etc..it does my head in.

I plug into a valve amp, set 3 tone controls, adjust gain and volume and go.

And if you stuck a mic on it with no EQ and recorded it it would sound like shit.  

Nearly all of the guitars we listen to, at a gig through a PA, or on a recording have been EQ'd, as pointed out above the modeller gives you the sound as if it were picked up from the mic.

In a live situation my Helix produces a sound through the PA that the audience hears that's heaps better than any valve amp I've owned, surely that's what matters

Sporky

I play offensively quietly.

ICBM

John_A said:

Nearly all of the guitars we listen to, at a gig through a PA, or on a recording have been EQ'd, as pointed out above the modeller gives you the sound as if it were picked up from the mic.

In a live situation my Helix produces a sound through the PA that the audience hears that's heaps better than any valve amp I've owned, surely that's what matters

I think that's true, as a listening experience - the question is more why the sound that comes out of a modelling amp's own speaker doesn't correspond well in terms of dynamics and touch-sensitivity to a valve amp through the same sort of speaker, as a *playing* experience. It's that which affects what the musician hears on stage (unless they're using IEMs of course) and is part of the 'feedback loop' that lets you control the sound with your playing. This is where modelling amps (and analogue solid-state amps for that matter) seem to fall down, especially at higher volume.

It's quite baffling why duplicating the response of a very simple circuit with possibly as few as a couple of dozen components in it is so hard... but it is.

John_A

ICBM said:

John_A said:

Nearly all of the guitars we listen to, at a gig through a PA, or on a recording have been EQ'd, as pointed out above the modeller gives you the sound as if it were picked up from the mic.

In a live situation my Helix produces a sound through the PA that the audience hears that's heaps better than any valve amp I've owned, surely that's what matters

I think that's true, as a listening experience - the question is more why the sound that comes out of a modelling amp's own speaker doesn't correspond well in terms of dynamics and touch-sensitivity to a valve amp through the same sort of speaker, as a *playing* experience. It's that which affects what the musician hears on stage (unless they're using IEMs of course) and is part of the 'feedback loop' that lets you control the sound with your playing. This is where modelling amps (and analogue solid-state amps for that matter) seem to fall down, especially at higher volume.

It's quite baffling why duplicating the response of a very simple circuit with possibly as few as a couple of dozen components in it is so hard... but it is.

The 'Playing Experience' varies so much though, it's not often that I've had the luxury of a perfect sound on stage, I've had 2 4x12's blasting at me which it's obvious why a modeller through a 110 FRFR cab can't reproduce, or I've had a small combo that I can hardly hear above the drums.

In my 'proper amp' days most of the on-stage sounds I've been happy with have been big gigs where I can get my amp  to a level where it sounds good, mic'd up and EQ'd by a competent engineer and fed back to be (and the rest of the band) via some decent monitors.

With my Helix and a little wedge I can recreate that set-up in a small pub, the 'playing experience' for me at least is perfect, my guitar sounds great, I can hear it, I can hear everyone else, they can hear me, the audience on the bass players side can hear be because the sound guy hasn't turned me off 'cause my amps too loud, I'm not mic'd with a shit mic dangling over my cab that's been knocked out the way by the drummer as he got on his kit. Best of all I can set-up in 5 minutes

newi123

p90fool said:

No more Algorithm Angst. 

This term should be used more..............

ICBM

That's all true too .

Actually one of the reasons I've always liked the currently unfashionable high-powered master volume valve amps and even big solid-state amps (with valve-based preamps in front of them usually, admittedly) is because they don't rely on a particular volume to sound good - you turn up or down as required without affecting the tone much. So I can usually set up quickly too - if you're properly prepared then the only thing that should really need adjusting is the overall level - so it's likely that I'm actually relying on the touch-sensitivity of the amp less than someone who uses a cranked low-power non-MV amp. But even then, I've always found purely solid-state or digital doesn't seem to respond quite right... I really wish it did, it would be far less of a pain all round in many ways!

robinbowes

You've got to ask yourself, what are your priorities? What do you want? What works for you?

I agree that there's something special about that in-the-room sound using a real amp, but it's not easy to replicate that at gigs. For one, the stage is either too big and open (no room sound) or too small to non-existent (can't play loud enough, or hear own amp due to placement).

For me, I love being able to rock up to a gig with my Helix (I have Rack + Control), plug it in to FoH, and sound awesome*. I can get pretty much any sound I want from one box (Fender clean, country twang, marshall crunch, etc.) and can do it at pretty much any volume.

I'm thinking more about the music and performance than obsessing about my guitar tone, which has got to be a good thing.

I would argue that I probably sound better (to punters) with the Helix than I ever did with an amp and pedals

For me, it's a no-brainer. But we're all different.

R.


* well, at least the same as I did at the previous gig

RandallFlagg

guitarfishbay said:

RandallFlagg said:

John_A said:

RandallFlagg said:

Agreed, I love the sound of guitar through a valve amp but I have a Helix as well. I use as a programmable pedalboard with the valve amp (Mesa Express+) and as full modeller for direct recording and quiet practice.

Best of both worlds, except 4CM is pain in the tits at times.

For me, the thing I love about valve amps and guitar speakers is that narrow bandwidth of tone, that mid range thing. Modellers through FRFR have too wide a bandwidth and sound too hi-fi, even with IRs etc, there is too much high and lo end and I don't get that satisfying thick midrange sound.

Also, what is it with modellers than brings fret buzz to the fore on clean sounds? It's like when you used to DI a guitar into a portastudio back in the early 90s. A clean sound on a good valve amp with the same guitar doesn't;t allow anywhere near as much fret buzz sound through.

Use EQ and allow exactly how much of what frequencies get to the speaker

That's the thing I don't get. Why with modelling do we have to fiddle about with hi cut, lo cut, boost mids, cut some low end off the cabs etc etc..it does my head in.

I plug into a valve amp, set 3 tone controls, adjust gain and volume and go.

Because a modelling amp direct simulates a recording, and it's standard practice to high and low pass guitar (and most instruments).  The vast majority of all recorded guitar tones using real valve amps have high and low pass filters or at least some amount of post EQ. 

If you're just plugging in to a combo you don't need to do that because you almost never point it at your head (remember a mic is usually right infront of the speaker and close to it so it's getting brightness and also bass from proximity), and also your ear hears differently to how a microphone picks up (if that makes sense).

Here you go, a typical SM57 graph, not really surprising it ends up with more fizzy 6-8khz than you hear with a speaker cab on the floor.

So to use a guitar amp modeller effectively, you need to be a recording engineer/sound technician? Not just a plug and go guitarist?

meltedbuzzbox

Sporky said:

Meh. I listened to all the people who told me I should have valve amps and "proper" pedals, and sold my VG-88 for a Cornell, an MJW and a pedalboard full of stuff.

Not knocking any of that, but I've done more music in the year or so I've had the Helix than in the five or ten years with amps. So much less limiting, so much quicker to get the sounds I'm after, and so much more fun.

I have to say I am with him on the making music front.
The helix is a fantastic tool for laying down tracks and working on ideas and it does produce a good recorded amp sound (after tweaking)

I do prefer my amp and pedals though when I have the choice. I couldn't ship out my amps and use the helix as my only guitar amp.

robinbowes

RandallFlagg said:

So to use a guitar amp modeller effectively, you need to be a recording engineer/sound technician? Not just a plug and go guitarist?

There's an element of truth in that, yes.

When you use a Helix patch, it typically has pedal(s), amp(s), speaker(s), but also a mic with some control over the mic used, placement, and room parameters. I generally don't bother tweaking those as I'm happy with the sounds I get from regular cabs with their default settings.

R.