Dialing in a tube amp

EricTheWeary

SimonC said:

Maybe all amps should be set this way at the factory, then manufacturers could do away with all the pots , simple.

Didn't Vox do a run of AC30s with no tone knobs but just set to how Brian May likes them to sound? 

I always thought that Matt Schofield style approach wasn't about finding were an amp sounds best but just where it was at it's flattest, rather than assuming everything at noon, from which it is easier to adjust to taste rather than random experimentation on an unfamiliar amplifier.

bodhi

I think it's about finding the spots where the frequencies are right on the cusp of shifting, and then controlling it with your playing as best you can.

I've just tried the Schofield method and it seems to me as valid a way of adjusting your amp as any other.  I actually think it works quite well.

But if anyone else thinks it's complete bollocks, then that's cool, too.  One sheep's bollocks is another man's something else.

randella

bodhi said:

I think it's about finding the spots where the frequencies are right on the cusp of shifting, and then controlling it with your playing as best you can.

I've just tried the Schofield method and it seems to me as valid a way of adjusting your amp as any other.  I actually think it works quite well.

But if anyone else thinks it's complete bollocks, then that's cool, too.  One sheep's bollocks is another man's something else.

I don't think it's complete bollocks at all, just that it's a danger that people come to accept it as the done thing which, at its extreme, stops experimentation. It sometimes feels as though the Internet is becoming some sort of nanny; it's all very well checking if the toaster you're about to buy is useless but I pride myself on having good tone (compliments from the band are the yardstick here) and it's not something I want YouTube telling me how to do because my tone is *mine*. As a helper, a means to an end, it's good, but as a complete solution, not so much. 

I dunno, I've banged on too much on this one already I think.

JayGee

Damn. And here's me doing it wrong all these years by just turning the knobs until a noise I like comes out...

Philtre

Try it. If it works for you, great. If something else works for you, also great.

/thread

bodhi

Philtre said:

Try it. If it works for you, great. If something else works for you, also great.

/thread

Exactly.

No-one said that adjusting your amp by ear isn't valid, or is "wrong".

Probably best to not discuss tone on a guitar forum, along with politics and religion 

guitarfishbay

Volume = tone.

Also

Speed = emotion.

Works for Yngwie!

simonbeckwith

@timmysoft excellent use of the word flannel mate!

richardhomer

professorben said:

Bass 1
Mid 2-3
Treble 7-9

Huge V in a graphic eq after the gain of which there is a huge amount. 

Works for my amp. 

Ymmv 

You've got a Boogie, haven't you?

guitarfishbay

richardhomer said:

professorben said:

Bass 1
Mid 2-3
Treble 7-9

Huge V in a graphic eq after the gain of which there is a huge amount. 

Works for my amp. 

Ymmv 

You've got a Boogie, haven't you?

Soon as I saw Bass 1 that's what I thought 

professorben

@guitarfishbay  @richardhomer ;
good eye, yep it's a studio preamp. 
So kinda Mark series tone wise. 

roberty

It's about EQing to fit the rest of the band as well though, right?  And the room too I guess.  Better to have a good "right" sound than a perfect not-right sound