Why are so many modern guitar amps so middy and muddy?

ICBM

PolarityMan said:

Well in the bassbreaker one this mic is certainly going to be making that sound darker than you'd expect, its pointed about halfway along the speaker cone slightly off axis. 

That's not enough to account for the blanketed tone you can hear on all of them. It's like someone sticking a giant low-pass filter on everything.

I'm beginning to think digitalscream is right though, since for comparison I looked at a couple of demos of Fender Twins - absolutely NOT a muddy amp in reality - and they're nearly as bad.

Self-reinforcement based on the sort of sounds people use for Youtube is a possibility...

PolarityMan

I looked mostly at the high gain sound because thats what im most sensitive to. On the black star and it seemed to me that the problem was how he dialled it in, he said he was aiming for a mesa tone and engaged some kind of bass boost and scooped the mids so yeah that sounded pretty bad but I think it was more to do with how he EQ'ed it

Couldnt find any high gain tones skipping through the victory one.

ICBM

PolarityMan said:

I looked mostly at the high gain sound because thats what im most sensitive to. On the black star and it seemed to me that the problem was how he dialled it in, he said he was aiming for a mesa tone and engaged some kind of bass boost and scooped the mids so yeah that sounded pretty bad but I think it was more to do with how he EQ'ed it

The other thing about that is that Blackstar have the ISF control the wrong way round . I really don't understand this at all - to me it's very clear that the left side of the dial (the one they call 'American') is the more Marshall-like sound with more upper mids, and the right-hand side ('British') is the more Mesa-like sound with more low mids.

What speakers are you listening on? I'm using a hi-fi amp and speakers and it's really clear that the whole high-end is just chopped off, even though you can hear what seems to be quite a lot of buzz from the distortion under it - it's not unlike simply disconnecting the tweeters.

I'm not sure any of these demos really reflect accurately what you hear in a room with the amps either.

Keefy

ICBM said:

PolarityMan said:

I looked mostly at the high gain sound because thats what im most sensitive to. On the black star and it seemed to me that the problem was how he dialled it in, he said he was aiming for a mesa tone and engaged some kind of bass boost and scooped the mids so yeah that sounded pretty bad but I think it was more to do with how he EQ'ed it

The other thing about that is that Blackstar have the ISF control the wrong way round . I really don't understand this at all - to me it's very clear that the left side of the dial (the one they call 'American') is the more Marshall-like sound with more upper mids, and the right-hand side ('British') is the more Mesa-like sound with more low mids.

The ISF control on my Blackstar Fly would be more appropriately labelled 'DFA'. To be fair, it's a very effective tiny practice amp, but a conventional tone pot would have done it more favours.

I remember trying a Blackstar Artisan combo when they came out, and I seem to recall it sounded quite good, but not good enough to buy. I don't think I've heard or tried another Blackstar amp that I liked.

RandallFlagg

ICBM said:

PolarityMan said:

Does anyone have a link of the muddy tones theyre talking about?

Cos to me the mud is in the low mids nor up at fucking 8k

Audio starts about 4'30".

Also some in this



6'20"-7'20" or so.



Even with the treble boost on it's still far too dull.

All of them sound like what should be bright amps, under a pile of blankets.

They all sound OK to me and the V40 sounds great in my opinion. We're all different, we all like different things.

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

They all sound OK to me and the V40 sounds great in my opinion. We're all different, we all like different things.

That's fine if they're deliberately set to do that - which should be possible with the EQ - but the problem is that they can't *not* do it, even if you don't want it.

This is the whole point of what I'm asking - why are these modern amps deliberately designed to be so muddy even when set to be as bright as possible? No vintage amp I know of is - they (mostly) have controls which give a good range of tones. If you don't want treble, you turn down the treble control (or tone, if it just has one knob). The ones that only have a limited number of controls don't roll off all the treble like that.

I just find it very odd, and from most of the replies above I'm clearly not the only one.

RandallFlagg

ICBM said:

RandallFlagg said:

They all sound OK to me and the V40 sounds great in my opinion. We're all different, we all like different things.

That's fine if they're deliberately set to do that - which should be possible with the EQ - but the problem is that they can't *not* do it, even if you don't want it.

This is the whole point of what I'm asking - why are these modern amps deliberately designed to be so muddy even when set to be as bright as possible? No vintage amp I know of is - they (mostly) have controls which give a good range of tones. If you don't want treble, you turn down the treble control (or tone, if it just has one knob). The ones that only have a limited number of controls don't roll off all the treble like that.

I just find it very odd, and from most of the replies above I'm clearly not the only one.

OK, OK I get it. So you're concern is over the tonal range of these amps, that appear to have a narrow and limited bandwidth of tonal possibilities, tuned towards a darker and mid-range zone which some may like but if you don't you're screwed.

 

Philtre

RandallFlagg said:

OK, OK I get it. So you're concern is over the tonal range of these amps, that appear to have a narrow and limited bandwidth of tonal possibilities, tuned towards a darker and mid-range zone which some may like but if you don't you're screwed.

 

a.k.a the Victory V40. I have one.

impmann

I’d rather have one amp that does one thing brilliantly than an amp that does lots of things disappointingly.

Conversely, there are plenty of amps that others love and seem to get great sounds from that I’d rather eat glass than own. 

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

OK, OK I get it. So you're concern is over the tonal range of these amps, that appear to have a narrow and limited bandwidth of tonal possibilities, tuned towards a darker and mid-range zone which some may like but if you don't you're screwed.

Yes, exactly. My puzzlement is over the reasons for doing that.

It's like building a guitar with a 25K or 50K tone pot instead of 250K or 500K, so you can never turn it up higher than what would normally be about 3 on the knob.

tekbow

Been listening to quite a bit of 80's and early 90's rock/metal recently and I have to say (IMO YMMV) that guitar tones of that type reached what I consider to be a high mark, despite the corniness of some of the tunes.

It was like a balance between the aggressive distortion that would follow later whilst still remaining quite "organic" if such a term can be used credibly with relation to electronics.

Was listening to "Youth Gone Wild" by Skid Row earlier and it's a great example of what I describe.

Very aggressive and raw,, great crunch, present but not shrill or unpleasant, whilst sitting perfectly in the mix in that there's no overlap with the bass at th bottom end or cymbals at the top.

Basically what I'm taking away from this amp is that many modern high gain amps probably aren't for me.

PolarityMan

ICBM said:

PolarityMan said:

I looked mostly at the high gain sound because thats what im most sensitive to. On the black star and it seemed to me that the problem was how he dialled it in, he said he was aiming for a mesa tone and engaged some kind of bass boost and scooped the mids so yeah that sounded pretty bad but I think it was more to do with how he EQ'ed it

The other thing about that is that Blackstar have the ISF control the wrong way round . I really don't understand this at all - to me it's very clear that the left side of the dial (the one they call 'American') is the more Marshall-like sound with more upper mids, and the right-hand side ('British') is the more Mesa-like sound with more low mids.

What speakers are you listening on? I'm using a hi-fi amp and speakers and it's really clear that the whole high-end is just chopped off, even though you can hear what seems to be quite a lot of buzz from the distortion under it - it's not unlike simply disconnecting the tweeters.

I'm not sure any of these demos really reflect accurately what you hear in a room with the amps either.

I'm listening on KRK rokits. I agree I do t think the tones are captured that well.

meltedbuzzbox

I'm getting a sense of old man's opinion will not be changed no matter the example. 

borntohang

I've always felt that some of it was due to the difference between a live guitar sound and a recorded guitar sound. Over the years people have got used to the sound of a recorded, compressed, EQ'd, mic'd guitar amp and started to assume that's how amps should sound in the room, so away they go and build an amp or pedal that replicates that sound without taking the other parts into consideration.

Personally I love a really bright guitar sound but I'm allergic to any 'fizz' on it so the top end needs to be really compressed. I actually run boosted single coils into an AC30 with the TB channel cranked high but also the Cut control all the way clockwise to take off the really top high end; cuts through but doesn't get too fizzy. The other guitarist uses a Blackstar HT20 and manages to get some nice biting sounds out of it, but I would agree that it's not great for open classic edge-of-drive sounds like the Vox is. He actually uses a little Peavey Bandit for practice and I think would gig it if it had the volume...

ICBM

meltedbuzzbox said:

I'm getting a sense of old man's opinion will not be changed no matter the example. 

It's not an opinion, it's a fact - you can measure the frequency response quite easily. (Even though I am probably older than you .)

What I'm puzzled about is why amp companies should choose to do it on purpose - and it very much is on purpose, since it requires extra components to do it... if you simply build an amp with no deliberate frequency shaping then it doesn't have this problem. The most obvious example is a 5F1 Champ - pretty much the simplest, most basic amp there is, and it doesn't have a rolled-off top end. To get from there to the voicing of something like a Cornford Harlequin, you have to add extra caps at various points in the circuit to suppress the high frequencies.

Yes, I understand that there are some people who like that sort of sound - but why not make it optional? That's what tone controls are for - if you want no top-end, turn the treble control down!

There are many modern amps which *don't* sound muddy as well...

meltedbuzzbox

ICBM said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

I'm getting a sense of old man's opinion will not be changed no matter the example. 

It's not an opinion, it's a fact - you can measure the frequency response quite easily. (Even though I am probably older than you .)

What I'm puzzled about is why amp companies should choose to do it on purpose - and it very much is on purpose, since it requires extra components to do it... if you simply build an amp with no deliberate frequency shaping then it doesn't have this problem. The most obvious example is a 5F1 Champ - pretty much the simplest, most basic amp there is, and it doesn't have a rolled-off top end. To get from there to the voicing of something like a Cornford Harlequin, you have to add extra caps at various points in the circuit to suppress the high frequencies.

Yes, I understand that there are some people who like that sort of sound - but why not make it optional? That's what tone controls are for - if you want no top-end, turn the treble control down!

There are many modern amps which *don't* sound muddy as well...

There are many modern amps that dont sound muddy. 
Like there are 9, 8 and 7 string guitars.Pedals that produce broken sounds, All this choice has a target audience.

And poor Blackstar are getting a right kicking throughout this thread do some good amps that have top ends (Artisan and artist stuff springs instantly to mind).  

Your take on treble top end etc could easily by my opinion of shrill and unpleasant.
Even down to playing with fingers/nylon pickups makes a tonal difference (duller).

Then you get someone like Queens of the stoneage or smashing pumpkins that have made a fair few albums using the sounds that are being panned here. It all works in some context. 

prlgmnr

When you think of muddy, dark tone with a lack of top end you think of SMASHING PUMPKINS?

kennedydream1980

meltedbuzzbox said:

ICBM said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

I'm getting a sense of old man's opinion will not be changed no matter the example. 

It's not an opinion, it's a fact - you can measure the frequency response quite easily. (Even though I am probably older than you .)

What I'm puzzled about is why amp companies should choose to do it on purpose - and it very much is on purpose, since it requires extra components to do it... if you simply build an amp with no deliberate frequency shaping then it doesn't have this problem. The most obvious example is a 5F1 Champ - pretty much the simplest, most basic amp there is, and it doesn't have a rolled-off top end. To get from there to the voicing of something like a Cornford Harlequin, you have to add extra caps at various points in the circuit to suppress the high frequencies.

Yes, I understand that there are some people who like that sort of sound - but why not make it optional? That's what tone controls are for - if you want no top-end, turn the treble control down!

There are many modern amps which *don't* sound muddy as well...

There are many modern amps that dont sound muddy. 
Like there are 9, 8 and 7 string guitars.Pedals that produce broken sounds, All this choice has a target audience.

And poor Blackstar are getting a right kicking throughout this thread do some good amps that have top ends (Artisan and artist stuff springs instantly to mind).  

Your take on treble top end etc could easily by my opinion of shrill and unpleasant.
Even down to playing with fingers/nylon pickups makes a tonal difference (duller).

Then you get someone like Queens of the stoneage or smashing pumpkins that have made a fair few albums using the sounds that are being panned here. It all works in some context. 

I agree with the statement about Blackstar amps getting an unfair kicking. My favourite Blackstar amps are the series one stuff. With the EQ at 12 oclock on those amps they are actually really bright. But the EQ does allow you to tame that. I've also had an Artist 15 pass through my hands and I would also class that as a bright amp.

Modulus_Amps

ICBM said:

The other thing about that is that Blackstar have the ISF control the wrong way round . I really don't understand this at all - to me it's very clear that the left side of the dial (the one they call 'American') is the more Marshall-like sound with more upper mids, and the right-hand side ('British') is the more Mesa-like sound with more low mids.

ah, just from looking at the Schematics I would say a Marshall has more low mid and a typical MESA has less low mids, this is set by the slope resistor in the tone stack.... but.. looking at one part of the circuit ignores the rest of the circuit, and the Marshall sound is clearer because it kills more bass up front.

I think the muddiness is also due to the resonance control bass boost that a lot of modern higher gain amps use, Like the BE circuit really boosts those low mids, but in the JJ and the Butterslax Dave took some of the low mids out of the boost, which considering the players they are made for, will sit much better in a heavy band mix.

This is why I came up with this configuration, looks complicated but once you get to understand it is easy to drive, does the modern muddy thing as well as vintage bright and aggressive.

Philtre

In the case of the Victory V40 it's as if the treble control has been clamped at 1/2 of its potential. You just need that little bit more bite at the top...and you can't get it. As @ICBM says, I think Victory put some extra filter caps in the circuit. One thing to note, apparently the V40 deluxe is not so bad. Perhaps they heard the feedback?