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Post by andy on Jan 3, 2013 21:24:14 GMT -5
Just got my first tube amp today. I needed a really low-volume output, since most tube amps don't have a headphone doodad, so I chose a Vox AC4TV, which can be switched between 1/4, 1, and 4 watts. I looked at others, like the Fender Blues Junior, but they're just way too loud for home practice purposes.
I tell you what, buddy-- plug a Tube Screamer into this puppy and you've got something going on! No neighbors or passersby will be harmed, but it sounds really great. Now I just gotta get a sustain pedal... and maybe a reverb... oh jeez, here I go again.
(Been using a solid state modeling amp previously-- a Mustang I-- mostly because it had a headphone jack. Tubes are a whole different world!)
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Post by Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu on Jan 3, 2013 22:22:44 GMT -5
Erm.... as a longtime horn player, I gotta ask. Whats a tube amp?
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Post by D. N. Vercáriâ on Jan 4, 2013 4:23:42 GMT -5
An amplifier that is equipped with tubes instead of transistors.
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Post by Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu on Jan 4, 2013 21:12:12 GMT -5
As in, vacuum tubes?
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Post by D. N. Vercáriâ on Jan 5, 2013 5:27:37 GMT -5
Elektronenröhren.  (yeah, vacuum or electron tubes - had to look this up, it's not a term I'm using every day in average conversations) |
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Post by Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu on Jan 5, 2013 5:47:24 GMT -5
But what is the difference in terms of amp quality? Or is it historical curiosity? (Like I said, I'm a horn player and know almost nothing about electronic amplification. I need to go louder, I blow harder.)
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Post by D. N. Vercáriâ on Jan 5, 2013 7:58:02 GMT -5
I don't know if it's an urban legend or not, but some people say that amplificiation by vacuum tubes is providing a "warmer" sound. Which is why some precious HiFi-Stereo-devices are (partly) equipped with vacuum tubes.
In guitar amps vaccum tubes are interesting when it comes to going over input / output limits. This may create very special distortion effects that can be deliberately used by players of electrically amplified instruments; especially in the 60s this became a popular technique of playing the electric guitar.
Recently electronic modelling of such effects (and equipment) has become some kind of a standard, but guitarists may prefer to play on vintage style equipment for the more human touch of the vacuum tube technology.
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Post by andy on Jan 5, 2013 11:27:13 GMT -5
Tubes sound different, and can be overdriven without using pedals (if you want to get really loud). Tubes are more "chimey" and take to various effects pedals better than solid-state amps. I'm looking for a particular sound that I couldn't quite get with a modeling* amp, and tubes will get me closer once I figure out what pedals to use with it.
*A modeling amp tries to replicate the sounds of various amps via the magic of electronics. My Fender Mustang even came with software to allow the amp to be plugged into the computer via USB and then have its settings tweaked onscreen.
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Post by Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu on Jan 5, 2013 11:47:59 GMT -5
Ahhh... I follow you now.
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Post by D. N. Vercáriâ on Jan 5, 2013 12:20:05 GMT -5
More or less unrelatedly, there are strange modeling gadgets out there. For instance, a "Korg MS-20 replica" that is looking like a shrunk Korg MS-20 analogue monophonic synthesizer - but it's only but some kind of a 3-dimensional interface to a software that is modeling the Korg MS-20.
(I don't need this, I've got an orginal, still working, well-preserved full-size Korg MS-10 that I bought back in the early 80s.)
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Post by suorsch on Jan 9, 2013 2:51:32 GMT -5
i have touched my amps (one 60 W crate for bass and 20 W extreme for guitar) and guitars for the first time after almost two years... the work + my bachelor study devours time like hell. deet knows, my music taste is somewhere between folklore and hardcore, excluding opera and country we had/have ( we have been having  english grammar is still after those 30 years of learning english a puzzle to me) a hardcore band with bro (called N"), but my bro - vocalist, has serious health problems and he cannot make vocal noises anymore in the extent he did, so we suspended the recording of our old song, we only did one. |
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(yeah, vacuum or electron tubes - had to look this up, it's not a term I'm using every day in average conversations)
english grammar is still after those 30 years of learning english a puzzle to me) a hardcore band with bro (called N"), but my bro - vocalist, has serious health problems and he cannot make vocal noises anymore in the extent he did, so we suspended the recording of our old song, we only did one.