Boutique Amp Question

noisepolluter

asimmd said:

I know it seems strange after all the talk of Boutique Amps,then i go and buy a Blackstar.

Well we all have to start somewhere,and i thought there was no point in buying an expensive

amp just yet,better to go for an affordable one,then if i get into trouble with the neighbours

or something does not sound right,then i can look for something better.

Remember this is my first amp in about 20 years,so go easy on me.

Have lots of fun working with it and discovering what sounds it can do! Like you say, further down the line there's nothing stopping you from getting an amp that's designed for a more specific set of sounds - you might find that your tonal 'wish list' changes or evolves slightly depending as you get more familiar with your new amp, that's certainly been my experience. Equally you might decide that you can get the exact sounds you like from the one you've got. Enjoy, anyway. Personally I find it's good to have an actual amp to practice/play through; amp sims with headphones/monitors are certainly useful for recording and whatnot but I just find the sound that comes out of a guitar amp speaker more satisfying. 

ICBM

asimmd said:

I know it seems strange after all the talk of Boutique Amps,then i go and buy a Blackstar.

Well we all have to start somewhere,and i thought there was no point in buying an expensive

amp just yet,better to go for an affordable one,then if i get into trouble with the neighbours

or something does not sound right,then i can look for something better.

At the moment my choice of a Better amp would be a Mesa Express Plus 5/25.

That is the one i will probably get,and looking on the bright side,i won't lose out,as i now

have a part ex which i bought for a very good price.

I haven't taken it out of the box yet,so give me a chance and i'll get back to you.

Remember this is my first amp in about 20 years,so go easy on me.

I think it was a very good choice.

You're going to mainly be using it for recording so to have an amp which does that without needing a lot of outboard gear to achieve that is good. It will also be very un-prone to interference and noise compared to a valve amp. It's also an easy amp to set up and doesn't have a minimum volume at which it starts to sound really good, unlike some valve amps.

Having an amp which can emulate different basic types of amp and different output valves might also make it easier to identify what it is you do want if you do decide to get a valve amp. It's probably worth pointing out that I found the valve emulations both quite accurate in capturing the basic differences, but also a bit exaggerated - valve types don't make as much difference as usually thought or implied on the Blackstar. (I can see why they did this though, since if they'd made it 'accurate' there would have been less point in it!) So for example if you find that you prefer the 6L6 settings to the EL84 ones that doesn't *necessarily* mean that a Mesa 5:25 wouldn't be a good choice, but it might mean that you should try something else with 6L6s as well before deciding.

I also don't think it's true that you shouldn't play an expensive guitar through a cheap amp - it very much depends on the cheap amp. Some cheap amps sound really excellent. While I don't disagree that a bad guitar through a good amp sounds better than a good guitar through a bad amp, I still prefer to spend more on the guitar than the amp - the basic tone and how you control it comes from the guitar, the amp is just a box that makes it louder . [/Exaggeration for effect ]. The amp does produce most of the *sound*, but the guitar still produces a lot of the *tone*, if you see what I mean...

I wouldn't play a thousand-pound guitar through a twenty-pound amp, but I'm not sure I wouldn't play it through a hundred-pound amp if I found the right one. And 'right' depends on who you are - personally I hate many small cheap valve amps and love my old solid-state Peavey, but many people would be the exact opposite so there is no right answer.

asimmd

Thanks ICBM

I have already found out that it sounds good on low volume,and the TVP coupled with the voicing

is very good,i like it.

The onboard echo even does Shads echo if you get the Tap just right.

The only thing i am having a problem with is getting a sound into my DAW using the Emulated Out.

I think it's user error,as i haven't had my Focusrite Pro14 very long,and the Mix Control software

is not the easiest to get used to quickly.

I have ordered a Stereo Mini jack to 2 1/4 jacks to connect it properly,that way i get to use the stereo FX if i want to,that

should be here next Tuesday.

So the way is still open to get a Mesa if needed but i will enjoy playing with the Blackstar

for now.

At least i can say i am not disappointed with it,it was the right purchase for me at this time.

Alan

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

I also don't think it's true that you shouldn't play an expensive guitar through a cheap amp - it very much depends on the cheap amp. Some cheap amps sound really excellent.

Agreed, you kind of have to judge each case on its own merits. It also depends on the tones you're after, some types of tone are more achievable on the cheap than others.

Wazmeister

Hey Alan,

No one is being hard on you mate; you asked for our advice, and you got it !

Above all, enjoy the journey ! We are all on it, making twists, turns, mistakes and decisions as we go...

Find YOUR voice, and YOUR sound. Good luck mate.

asimmd

Hi Wazmeister

I didn't think anyone was being hard on me,and i certainly appreciate all the comments

and advice i was given.

In a strange way that helped me to choose the Blackstar,i'm glad i did.

Alan

octatonic

I hate the term 'boutique' when applied to gear.

That said, one of the best non-mass-produced amps is the 64 Amps Soho if you want a killer clean tone.

Also Matchless DC30.

timmysoft

I went all boutique once and got the Cornford RK100. Great amp, possibly the best i've everowned but was it worth the price difference between that and the Laney GH50l?Probably not.

I got bored of boutique amps, pedals and guitars a few years back, 95% of the audience dont care if you're playing a mex strat into a Boss ds1 into a JCM900 or a Knaggs into a Klon into a TwoRock.

A good player who knows their style can make decent gear work for them, i cant really think of an application where anyone would need to spend more than 1500 on an amp.

Dave_Mc

timmysoft said:

A good player who knows their style can make decent gear work for them

I think that's a good point. I don't have much time for the "a good player can make a shoebox strung with elastic bands sound good" brigade- you do sort of need to hit a certain minimum standard to sound pretty good, even if you're a good player (or at very least, that same good player will sound much better with the decent gear than with the rubbish gear). But once you do get into decent to good stuff, diminishing returns set in pretty fast.

I wouldn't want to play with a Marshall MG or something like that, but give me the option of the aforementioned Laney GH50L or a Jet City (paired with good speakers and a decent guitar) or something like that and I'd be happy enough, frankly. That's not to say I might not sound slightly better with dearer kit, but it'd be the difference between sounding good and very good, whereas with substandard gear it's the difference between sounding good and crap.