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Website, Store / General / Re: Best quiet amp? lower-wattage clean amps, that don't go flubby on the bass?
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on: July 20, 2011, 07:49:25 PM
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If I had to replace what I've got, I'd go with the MXR 10 band. I currently use the Boss GE-7 (I know, Boss... Ugh!), but the price was right, mopney was tight, and it isn't too bad. I don't think I'd buy it again, but for $10 it was worth it. I don't hate all Boss pedals, but I haven'tfound too many I like. This is about the only one I'm OK with. If it is modulation or OD, I run away from Boss and old school Digitech. I've heard some good things about the Digitech Hardwire line. I haven't heard of a Digitech Hardwire EQ, though... It often works out that the old adage "You get what you pay for" rings true... Unless you really do your homework and buy Ceriatone... Do I get free stuff for a comment like that?   MXR one looks promising. I had Boss pedals that killed my tone, so I'm wary. well the same principle applies as with Ceriatone - you can get replica pedals as kits too. Some are very good. I now try to avoid buying a replica if the designer is still making the same quality item at a normal price, but for pedals that are $800 used, I feel OK about getting a kit, same with all the classic valve amp replicas too - I prefer Ceriatone or Victoria to Fender & Marshall reissues |
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64
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Website, Store / General / Re: Best quiet amp? lower-wattage clean amps, that don't go flubby on the bass?
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on: July 20, 2011, 07:27:32 PM
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i was kinda thinkin the same thing, i just don't know how Tone Control feels about SS amps If always an iffy subject to suggest a SS amp on a tube-based board. Many people look down their nose at them. But they have their niche where they really shine...and this is it. It's a fair point, you can make a really nice SS amp, and that would be nice with a hollowbody. I had a lovely sounding Hughes and kettner one once, but my Twin did the same trick, so I lent it to a friend who sold it, I only sold him stuff after that! However, with way too many nice valve amps in this room, I'd feel a bit strange leaving them off to play a SS amp. I want to be approaching the sound and feel I get from the valve amps, and I do live in a brick-built detached house, so it doesn't need to be bedroom-level, just loud hi-fi level. I've tried quite a few low-power SE valve amps (and a low-power PP amp), and they all lack something, I am guessing that it's down to the 50 years of natural selection the bigger amps have benefited from - better designs will arrive one day. The Carr mercury is good, but can flub. My Wienbrock 1w push-pull is good, but a bit too quiet, you can't get much bass out of it of course, and the preamp valve used for push/pull is a very different sound to a 6L6. The 5w Marshall and BH5 are OK, but not great, but that's an growly EL84 sound. I had a BH5 modded to run a 6L6 in parallel. Again, it's good, but not as satisfying as playing a BM50 or DC30 The watkins westminster 10w was nice, would that be possible to replicate? I need to look around.. |
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65
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Website, Store / General / Re: Best quiet amp? lower-wattage clean amps, that don't go flubby on the bass?
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on: July 20, 2011, 07:10:04 PM
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A guy at my church has an Ampeg Jet II around for a back up amp. The thing has almost no clean headroom. IT doesn't get used much because it is such a limited amp.
I have the best solution for low volume I've found yet. Though I hate pedals, I have to use them for what I play (contemporary Praise and Worship). A truly good OD pedal (NOT a Tube Screamer, which is far inferior to my OCD and Zendrive 1), a good compressor sustainer, and a decent guitar eq pedal will do all you want for good bedroom/low volume tones. The EQ needs to be LAST in that chain. The compression is not necessaily great for true tone, but the sustain gives you another component of a cranked amp that is lacking at low volumes. The OD is obvious... The EQ compensates for the lack of fullness that is inherent at lower volumes, and my Bill M modded Blues Junior is good from conversation volume all the way up to the volume required to use it as a monitor (I use it with a mic through the PA) at a range of 4'-6' from me. It keeps up with acoustic drums in that configuration and without changing any settings, so it is versatile. The amp is kept pure clean (pre-amp low, using the power amp for volume).
This all changes when my OTS-50 FM ME with C-Lator is here and done. Then, I'll be doing more or less what Plasticvonaband said..
SOON!!!!
Hope that helps
BTW, the EQ is mid-scooped, with the very top rolled off and the low end pushed. Basically, I do to descending shaoes on a 7 band.. High-Mid-Low-High-Mid-Lower/Mid-Low... It seems to work.
this sounds sensible, for recording through my Isobox, I often have to use a multi-band compressor with a mid-scoop to liven up the mic'd speaker What's a high-enough quality EQ for my lovely amps then? (My favourite OD pedal is my new Zen drive 2 btw) |
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66
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Website, Store / General / Re: Best quiet amp? lower-wattage clean amps, that don't go flubby on the bass?
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on: July 20, 2011, 07:07:05 PM
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I've got an Ampeg Jet II 12R that is very warm and clean at low volumes. It does saturate fairly quickly above about 6 or so, especially with the reissue Mullard EL84's in it, but with the Reissue Gold Lions and some 7025's in the pre amp it is very warm and clean indeed. Some literature suggests that it is a Class A amp, some sources say it is Class AB, so i can't tell you for certain. It does not get flubby in the bass at all, unless you dime the bass control at full volume, and that is with the stock speaker, and i have had the amp since 1994.
another solution involves the BM50, but is a little unorthodox and requires a c-lator, which i can't recall if you use or not. I have been fiddling around with mine quite a bit lately, trying to get Freddie Kings nice warm, yet bright non flubby sound that was a clean, yet overdriven sound, you know the type. He tended to use big clean amps pushed hard, like dual showmans, twin reverbs, concert amps, etc. The big key, though was that he set all the tone controls except the treble to ZERO. I figured the BM is close to a BF fender, so i gave it a shot. First, i pulled the larger 6L6's out and put the JAN Phillips 6L6WGB's back in, and biased them at 42 mA (the lowest i can get them with my current bias circuit). Those little tubes have a much tighter bass response and better upper mid and treble response as well. then i ran all the tone controls to zero, including the presence, and turned the treble up to 10. I turned all the bright switches off, midboost off, and deep off set the preamp volume to 7 (about 1 or 2 o clpck), the master to about 10, set the drive control on the c-lator to about 1 clock, input wide open, about 5 clock, and used the out to control the overall volume per normal. Bear in mind i have Weber 1265 Alnico speakers, which are not as dark as standrard g12-65's, they are a bit more warm and bright, rather than dark and wooly. I gotta tell ya, it sounds gorgeous! Nice and warm and clean, a little dirty if you dig into hard, and gets a nice warm overdrive saturation sound if you use a nice clean boost pedal, or in my case engage the mega PAB. Very smooth singing overdrive sound, and a nice warm overdriven power chord type sound, not crunchy at all. If you don't have a clean boost or dislike the PAB you can crank the drive control up on the c-lator as well, and it can yield the same results, very nice indeed. Also, unless you engage the deep switch, it is NOT flubby at all, and you can control the volume quite effectively with the c-lator, and since the master is up quite high on the amp itself, it is very lively. Mind you this is all on the CLEAN channel, not the OD. The OD side is even more fun! give it a try!
that's amazing advice, shame I sold my C-lator! So you're using hte C-lator as an extra master vol? |
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Website, Store / General / Best quiet amp? lower-wattage clean amps, that don't go flubby on the bass?
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on: July 17, 2011, 10:37:11 AM
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I have a few nice amps which are too loud to play most of the hours of the day. I have an Iso box for recording, but sometimes I just want to play "in the room" at the wrong time of day, not through the desk.
I've tried various single-ended amps, and even the best don't work 100% for me. My latest is a Carr Mercury, and it's good, but I still want to try a quieter push/pull.
I want the feel of a BM50, JTM45 or a DC30, but quieter, and none of those amps retain that feel as the master volume comes down. Maybe I'm looking for the impossible
Away from home, I've tried a 70s Princeton, a Watkins Westminster, and an EVA 18w trem clone, all of which had a good warm clean sound. without getting flubby on the bass (well the tiny watkins speaker flubbed).
Does anyone have any other suggestions for me to test? I'm looking for a clean warm sound, no OD
Having said all this, I got complaints from neighbours when I was playing the Carr, and that's only 7w
really I'm just asking, what are the best lower-wattage clean amps, that don't go flubby on the bass?
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American Style / 5E8A Tweed Twin / Re: A Big Gap Filled in the Ceriatone Line Of Fender Amps
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on: July 17, 2011, 10:22:13 AM
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And I'm not even speaking of Pat Metheny!  I always join in with anyone expressing the sentiment that your sound is largely in your fingers, but: Although I have nearly all Pat Metheny's albums, I don't intend to emulate his sound, I'm more a bluesy rock guy, but I did find his signature Ibanez on sale when shopping for a hollow-body, so given his constant use of it, I thought it must be good, I bought it Since my delay pedal (which I normally have set to a few hundred ms) reverts to it's shortest setting when the power supply is interrupted, by chance it was on a slap-back when I first tried this guitar at home. Very spooky - the PM guitar and a slapback is a lot more of his sound than I would have guessed |
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70
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Ceriatone / Overtone / Re: Cathode Bias
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on: July 03, 2011, 07:01:11 AM
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Of course, the amp would sound completely different and not very D-Like,
Although I also wondered about getting a Cathode biased Dumble style amp, in my case looking to get a more compressed sound, bear in mind that the Fuchs ODS30 I had did not have any compression artefacts - very clean - it sounded cleaner than an OTS, a very refined D-style, and it was cathode biased (you could use 2 x 6L6 or 4 x 6V6) The amp was good enough that a guy who had owned and rejected an OTS took this off my hands with glee. Personally I think the BM50 is better than the Fuchs for that type of sound, but personal taste is personal I have other cathode biased 6L6 and 6v6 amps with amazing compression - 5E3 and Double 5X3-based designs (much more compression than a DC30), so I assume you can design how much linearity you want |
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Website, Store / General / Re: Faulty Celestion Gold - what shall I do?
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on: June 25, 2011, 08:22:34 PM
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I own 2 Golds and I think this speaker is the best speaker out there. Fortunately I have no issues with mine and I'm sorry to hear you have this thing with yours. A friend of mine just bought 50W Tayden for his Bluesmaster and I can't wait to hear how it stands up compared to my Celestion. He tells me it sounds warmer but I guess I need to hear it with my own ears.
Good luck...
My Tayden is a lot brighter than the Gold, with more Chime, I think I prefer the Gold with the BM50 |
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Website, Store / General / Re: Faulty Celestion Gold - what shall I do?
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on: June 25, 2011, 07:33:11 PM
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Celestion have been excellent, they have sent me a new unit, which works perfectly, and another one free, as a gesture of goodwill (not tried that one yet).
I missed the sound of the Gold on my BM50 so much, my EVM12L is good with the BM50, just doesn't hit the perfect spot that the Gold can (the EVM is a little too shrill and scooped, and even when you correct it, the added colour from the Gold is not there)
(The EVM12L is much better for the OTS though, and my Twin II, they need less colour adding)
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Ceriatone / Overtone / Re: FM50 vs OTS50 vs BM50
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on: June 14, 2011, 08:37:44 PM
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I've not heard one but I'd guess that it has the potential to sound a lot brighter than the standard OTS especially when you wind up the presence control as the feedback loop here has a larger capacitor - allows more midrange / Highs to be impacted by use of presence. There has been a whole lot of speculation that the Robben Ford dumble upon which the FM amp has been based is practically unusable without the HF rolloff imparted by the dumblator and even the additional capacitance of cables linking FX send / return. My view is that whether the OTS or FM variant is for you depends upon the guitar(s) that you want to use it with. Personally my OTS is great with Telecasters and H/B equipped guitars but hopeless with Strats. The BM is better bet with Strat probably down to the tonestck which is closer to Blackface Fender. There again, so much of this is subjective.
Yes, I found the OTS better with humbuckers, and the BM excellent with the strats |
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