Fender amps why the love??

p90fool

timmysoft said:

Sassafras said:

High gain all day everyday sounds like a recurring nightmare I have.

If you don't high gain then the world will become a vanilla place and vanilla is boring AF

To me, high gain IS vanilla, it's smooooth, compressed, and devoid of dynamics. 

It's like a "guitar" patch on a synth, zero response to anything except note triggering. 

It's shit partly because I hate it, and I hate it partly because I'm shit at it. I love hearing players who are fantastic at it, but in my hands it just sounds like someone vacuuming in the next room. 

richardhomer

It’s amazing what some people will have a pop at, isn’t it? Many ‘benchmark’ electric guitar tones have come from Fender amps - including some of my personal favourites.

The only possible ‘issue’ you might have is that your personal requirements mean a Fender amp isn’t right for you. If that the case, there are ‘many’ alternatives....

dindude

p90fool said:

timmysoft said:

Sassafras said:

High gain all day everyday sounds like a recurring nightmare I have.

If you don't high gain then the world will become a vanilla place and vanilla is boring AF

To me, high gain IS vanilla, it's smooooth, compressed, and devoid of dynamics. 

It's like a "guitar" patch on a synth, zero response to anything except note triggering. 

It's shit partly because I hate it, and I hate it partly because I'm shit at it. I love hearing players who are fantastic at it, but in my hands it just sounds like someone vacuuming in the next room. 

Spot on. Turns the guitar into a games controller. But I do love to hear someone who can shred (properly).

ToneControl

professorben said:

koneguitarist said:

professorben said:

Gassage said:

I hve found this thread very interesting as it reveals that one man's drink is another man's poison big time.

Now, I'm not taking the moral clean signal high ground here, but my route to finding amps I like is basically the clean. If the clean is great, then I can sort everything else and make it dirty.

If it's shite I can't make it sound good clean, and for me, all the sounds I want are in the clean-breakup range (with the occasional drive pedal.)

@jpfamps - I have a book on Fender's amp developments. In the preface it notes the book is 250 pages long and it jokes that if Leo had used all of the prototypes that didn't make it into productiuon, it would have filled those 250 pages alone.

The thing is, when is a circuit a new circuit? Half of Leo's ideas were evolutions rather than revolutions*



(* I'll do it before someone else does- the only amp thing that truly was a revolution was the Vibratone....see, Leslie joke done.)

Very interesting. 
Amps live and die by the drive sound for me. 

if an amp has a killer drive and a terrible clean I'd prefer that over an 'ok' drive and a stunning clean. 

I do use clean tones, but I'd say 90/10 split, so it doesn't make sense to worry about the clean tones so much. 

I'm with @Gassage on this, there are enough OD or distortion pedals to get your dirty sound from anything, it's a case of mixing and matching for right combination. A valve amp to me only truly sounds like a valve amp around that cleanish breakup area which is where pedals struggle.
if Heavy distortion is your thing it doesn't really matter if amp is a transistor, digital or modeller amp as when it's in the mix, no one can tell. Boss OD always sounds really harsh with fender amps, so many great pedals out there though. 

But by this logic you end up on some never ending wild goose chase of dirt boxes, where as within 10 seconds I can hear if an amp has what it takes or not. 

Valve amps around that clean to mid gain tone are the same as digital and I guess SS to a degree.

Its only under high gain conditions that you hear the harmonic complexities and compression of valve amps. 

A clean/crispy JC120, Twin, Katana all sound the same to me. 

But a cranked 5150/Engl/Boogie/Deizel etc all have a different sonic stamp. 

Cos it's what I listen to all day everyday. 

Whereas for me, clean to slightly saturated is the most subtle and amazing part of a guitar amp, and the amps that shine at that are stunning. In my experience they are the hardest sound for high end digital to emulate, and I speak as someone who's owned Axefx and Kempers for many years. I've never heard any modeller sound like my favourite clean valve amps (DC30, Victoria Tweed twin and HRM dumble clones)

Gassage is correct, all manner of subtle overdrives exist now, which offer an incredible range of tones, which can be used with an excellent clean amp to achieve an amazing range compared to any amp.

However, if you either play constantly with high OD, or can afford to run several amps in parallel for different gain settings, a classic high-gain OD monster would be attractive 

koneguitarist

In full troll mode here, but I do actually think this, if you play with heavy distortion then it doesn't matter what amp you use. 
Guys like @ToneControl @Gassage @richardhomer and myself, enjoy the amp tones that's on breakup not distorted or clean that in between sound where the amp responds to the guitarist touch. That's the point that so many modellers and tranny amps can't yet reach, although they're getting very close. 

Teetonetal

So to sum this thread up:

People like the most, what they use the most, hear the most difference in the sounds they spend the most time playing with, and don't get amps that focus on sounds they don't like and wonder why they don't like them.

Added to that, getting the clean tone right from an amp is most important as you can then pick and choose your dirt from a plethora of ODs and Distortion stomps. But it's also better to have the valve amp deliver the dirt you need so that you don't need to muck about with loads of pedals.

Alternatively get a multi amp rig with huge pedal board to cover all bases.

Digital modelling is best at high gain, low gain, and clean. But awful at high gain, low gain and clean. 
For Clean sounds a valve amp is best but the same as a digital modeller or SS amp.
For High gain a valve amp is best but not as good as a digital modeler,  which of course in turn, is best at low gain and clean sounds, but not as dynamic or harmonic.
Low gain sounds don't matter anyway as the blues is done and now just a pastiche of itself..

Do I have it right?

ICBM

Yes, that's about it . But you forgot the final step - amps are irrelevant. A modeller through the PA sounds exactly the same.

dindude

Remember also, the audience don't care

Teetonetal

dindude said:

Remember also, the audience don't care

Judging from most of the shows I get to play in, this is very true.

robinbowes

dindude said:

Remember also, the audience don't care

This is the most important thing to remember.

crunchman

ICBM said:

Yes, that's about it . But you forgot the final step - amps are irrelevant. A modeller through the PA sounds exactly the same.

Based on shows I've seen, if there's a decent PA, the front of house sound is probably going to be better with a good modeller.

ToneControl

I thought there was a consensus that the Axefx was excellent for high gain OD?

professorben

ToneControl said:

I thought there was a consensus that the Axefx was excellent for high gain OD?

It is from recordings and demos I've heard. 

But its £2.5k
a world away from Katana's and Spiders. 

ToneControl

professorben said:

ToneControl said:

I thought there was a consensus that the Axefx was excellent for high gain OD?

It is from recordings and demos I've heard. 

But its £2.5k
a world away from Katana's and Spiders. 

true - but you only need one, and it's so flexible

On mine, the high-gain sounds are amazing (not my thing mostly nowadays though)
I use as a preamp / FX for acoustics and bass too
For cleans, I have a few very clean (like a clean Dumble) patches, but for cleans/slight break up it can't get near the all-time classic amps - so those are the ones I didn't sell off

PolarityMan

koneguitarist said:

In full troll mode here, but I do actually think this, if you play with heavy distortion then it doesn't matter what amp you use. 
Guys like @ToneControl @Gassage @richardhomer and myself, enjoy the amp tones that's on breakup not distorted or clean that in between sound where the amp responds to the guitarist touch. That's the point that so many modellers and tranny amps can't yet reach, although they're getting very close. 

If you think hi gain isn't touch sensitive then you cant play high gain. 

Lescaster

PolarityMan said:

koneguitarist said:

In full troll mode here, but I do actually think this, if you play with heavy distortion then it doesn't matter what amp you use. 
Guys like @ToneControl @Gassage @richardhomer and myself, enjoy the amp tones that's on breakup not distorted or clean that in between sound where the amp responds to the guitarist touch. That's the point that so many modellers and tranny amps can't yet reach, although they're getting very close. 

If you think hi gain isn't touch sensitive then you cant play high gain. 

Yup, just look at Mark Knopfler. Quite alot of his older tones were high gain amps, turned up very loud and played with his amazingly dynamic touch.

ThePrettyDamned

Teetonetal said:

So to sum this thread up:

People like the most, what they use the most, hear the most difference in the sounds they spend the most time playing with, and don't get amps that focus on sounds they don't like and wonder why they don't like them.

Added to that, getting the clean tone right from an amp is most important as you can then pick and choose your dirt from a plethora of ODs and Distortion stomps. But it's also better to have the valve amp deliver the dirt you need so that you don't need to muck about with loads of pedals.

Alternatively get a multi amp rig with huge pedal board to cover all bases.

Digital modelling is best at high gain, low gain, and clean. But awful at high gain, low gain and clean. 
For Clean sounds a valve amp is best but the same as a digital modeller or SS amp.
For High gain a valve amp is best but not as good as a digital modeler,  which of course in turn, is best at low gain and clean sounds, but not as dynamic or harmonic.
Low gain sounds don't matter anyway as the blues is done and now just a pastiche of itself..

Do I have it right?

Yes. 

ThePrettyDamned

PolarityMan said:

koneguitarist said:

In full troll mode here, but I do actually think this, if you play with heavy distortion then it doesn't matter what amp you use. 
Guys like @ToneControl @Gassage @richardhomer and myself, enjoy the amp tones that's on breakup not distorted or clean that in between sound where the amp responds to the guitarist touch. That's the point that so many modellers and tranny amps can't yet reach, although they're getting very close. 

If you think hi gain isn't touch sensitive then you cant play high gain. 

Also this. Even a 6505 at full pelt has dynamics and things like pick attack are crucial to the tone. As much as a clean amp.

I find the easiest gain "zone" is the clean - dirty transition because it makes dynamics so easy and obvious. But then that's where I play mostly so... 

shaunm

I can’t play on any amp so dynamics don’t matter. 

Theres high gain in a school sense, which is just turn it up as much as possible because it covers mistakes but then there’s high gain in terms of Dime and the like. (Ok, some of you might not consider him high gain) And he had a great feel and touch on the instrument. He was a quality player though and could do it clean too. 

I don’t really get the argument of which takes more skill. Pat Metheney is massively skillfull, so are the guys from Lamb of God. But I’m betting neither could do three others job (I’d love to watch them do it though)

professorben

shaunm said:

I can’t play on any amp so dynamics don’t matter. 

Theres high gain in a school sense, which is just turn it up as much as possible because it covers mistakes but then there’s high gain in terms of Dime and the like. (Ok, some of you might not consider him high gain) And he had a great feel and touch on the instrument. He was a quality player though and could do it clean too. 

I don’t really get the argument of which takes more skill. Pat Metheney is massively skillfull, so are the guys from Lamb of God. But I’m betting neither could do three others job (I’d love to watch them do it though)

A lot of sense there.