Why can't you be happy with your guitar amp?

[pingu]

Paradoxicaly ...
for a clean sound
I quite like turning up and playing through
different borrowed amps etc ....

For a clean jazz sound (not for blues or rock
distort sound) that sound mainly comes from the axe anyway ...

I've played through all sorts , marshalls , little practice amps , laney bass amps , roland keyboard amps , Hartkey bass amps are
quite funky ...
all fine
get a good sound out of your guitar first I say

then the amp doesn't matter that much

[pingu]

The short answer is "yes".

The slightly longer answer is that the amp is an integral part of the electric guitar, like the sound board on an acoustic. To treat the amp like an after-thought does everyone a disservice. Working on your tone is every bit as important as working on your notes.

I agree on a blues sound or rock sound....

but a clean jazz sound ?
you could d.i. straight into a board/sounddesk and it would sound
pretty much the same
well it would for me

[AlsoRan]

I also love the sound of tube amps. And of course, that comes with a set of challenges like it only sounds great at the sweet spot (typically too loud), breaks up when it is not supposed to, the directionality of the speaker etc.

To me things really changed when I got a Kemper. I just profiled all my amps including a twin, a polytone, an AER and even my LR Baggs preamp pedal. Took a few hours one day (after which I invited my wife for a nice dinner to compensate her for all that noise I made :-)). I profiled with the amps at their sweet spot (yes, that was very loud for the twin).

Now I have that authentic sound through a Bose L1 compact at any volume level with perfect sound dispersion, any amount of gain. The Kemper also let's you tweak it to taste and frequently the profiles sound better to me than the originals. I also think that the built in effects are very very good (Jack Z did not think so, but my perception is different). I have actually not turned on any of my amps since I got the Kemper. With a bit of tweaking one can even make piezo pickups sound good.

It weighs less than 10 pounds and has every imaginable output option. Hence you can drive a valve poweramp or a PA or a powered speaker or a passive speaker and have consistent sound everywhere and at any volume. You can turn off the cab profile when you go into an actual guitar amp and even turn off the mic profile such that it sounds like the actual amp in the room through the FRFR system rather than a mic'ed amp. It really makes playing with a band under challenging acoustic conditions so much easier and is completely convenient for home use too.

There are 7500 or so profiles freely available on the web and for a few bucks more from companies. I think there is something for virtually everybody. IMHO thee is. Nothing not to like. Whn i have time, I'll start a thread and maybe we can compare a few profiles here between those who have one.

Merry Christmas to everybody!

You make one hell of a case for that Kemper. I could not justify the cost right now but if I ever start to gig...

[Alder Statesman]

I past my two year anniversary with my Mustang IV V2 in October. The amp "does it for me". My favorite model is the '65 Twin and it is my default, but occassionally, after a tough day at the office, it is hard to beat the Princeton or Champ models. Really bad days and the '59 Bassman gets me back to earth.

All in all, the MIV V2 is the best amp I have ever owned including some very nice tube amps. The Mustang Mini is great for if I feel like busking or just playing in the park. I have a bad case of GAS right now, but I am set with my main and battery-backup amps for a long time

[Boston Joe]

I've got three different amps and they all serve different purposes:

1. Acoustic 60 watt Lead Series. Solid state. This is my basic all-arounder. It's powerful and light, and sounds great with just about any guitar. The tradeoff - It's got an overdrive circuit, but it's not great. I wouldn't use it for fusion or rock.

2. Dr. Z Maz 18 Jr. - 18 watt tube amp. This the the amp for small gigs and "special" sessions. Best sound of the three. Utter heaven in terms of tone, and powerful enough for small sessions. Overdrives very nicely if I want it to, but has enough headroom for jazz.

3. Fuchs Overdrive Special - 50 watt tube amp. This is my main rock/fusion amp. Powerful enough for any session or gig I'm going to play. Does jazz, rock and blues like a champ. Sounds amazing both clean and overdriven, but because of the wattage, needs to be very loud to hit the sweet spot.

[Robertkoa]

For clean Tones - it's not that difficult IMO
although most Guitar Amps are too loud for Home playing IMO.

The difficulty with Amps was if you wanted really smooth Gain Tones like say Larry Carlton or Hendrix " Watchtower" Tone or Eric Johnson etc. - most Amps don't sound like that even if you can Play and you need EFX to sound as polished..

So for Recording and Headphones and low volume situations Modeling and Tubes often work better IMO with EFX also easily added.

Years ago I had a Fender Champ with an attenuator and into a different speaker and a digital delay and rack spring reverb which was excellent for clean tones but in the 80s it was harder to get the Carlton/ or Neal Schon( Journey) Tones with the smoother gain structure.

I think now some of the Mesas and Other Amps get very good cleans and nice smooth Gain at fairly low Volumes which used to be hard to find at any price.

I think people want to sound closer to Commercial Recordings and most Amps don't sound that way without EFX.

And then there's that little problem of trying to sound like an excellent or great Player if you are not one....a whole other issue.

[Boston Joe]

I think now some of the Mesas and Other Amps get very good cleans and nice smooth Gain at fairly low Volumes which used to be hard to find at any price.

It depends on what you mean by "fairly low volumes." I've had several Mesas. The smallest one was 22 watts, that that thing was still extremely loud. It could get a reasonably nice overdrive sound at low volume, but it sounded way, WAY better loud. There's a lot of stuff going on that gets that sound. A big part of it is power tube distortion, which only happens when the master volume is up high. You can knock down the volume with an attenuator, and get that at reasonable levels, but then there's also speaker distortion/compression, and cabinet vibration, which are bigger contributors to that sound than people realize. I'm not saying Mesas aren't tremendous amps - they are - but at bedroom volumes, you're mostly hearing preamp gain, which can sound good, but is not the sound most people think of when they think of a cranked Fender or Marshall. If you want the sound of a cranked amp, the volume is part of the package.

Modelling amps can get you in the ballpark, but I've never heard one that didn't sound at least a little bit fake.

[wzpgsr]

Lately it's because they rattle too damn much. Both of my old Yamaha's have nasty vibration in the chassis at my usual gigging volume, or even a bit quieter.

[aleksandar]

This thread comes as if the OP was reading my mind, after this terrible, terrible gig that I had this weekend. I was kind of rusty, unfamiliar with the songs (kind of pop-rock stuff) to begin with, and was invited to fill in along with another guitarist and keyboard player with a rhythm machine. So, we went there, and the club was all in tiles and glass, a smallish place. With me I took my 30w tube amp which months ago I loved to play, boss overdrive and my guitar, the other guitarist played through a multi-fx pedal plugged directly into a PA. The whole place was particularly resonant to the low C note, and whenever me, or the other guy played it, a nasty low feedback would occur, and especially me, because I didn't lift the amp off of the ground.

Also, I didn't turn on the amp looong, long time, maybe several months prior to the day of the gig, and I notice it somehow became noisier in the meantime. Does it have something to do with the caps, because I've read somewhere that thing like that can happen if you don't play the amp a longer period? So, at the gig it was noisy, boomy, I didn't know how the hell should I set it. Tried all the possible EQ settings, no man, it just wouldn't get along. I set the mids at noon, lowered the highs to 9 and bass all the way down, and I was left with a midrangey quackey sound, and it was almost lost in the mix. I couldn't crank it, so the sound was bland. More over, the band was placed like in a hole near the bar, in a place barely enough for two people, the amp was behind the keyboard player on the ground, and I could barely hear it in the overcrowded club, while the other guitarist sound was overwhelming, which actually suited me, because he saved the show, but nevertheless, on the songs where I could actually play, the sound was so awful, so I didn't enjoy it at all.

And when the agony was finished, and I picked up the amp towards the car to go home and felt the weigh, boy did I hate that amp. The following days I was contemplating on selling it, you know, the all tube amp, and buying some freaking digital processor or trading it for one, and using the rest of the money to upgrade this solid state amp that I've built, which has a sound to my liking, since I tailored it that way. So I plugged in the solid state, and yeah, I was definitely sure I was going that path.

Today, I decided to plug into the tube amp to see if everything is ok with it, and to take pictures of it, maybe record something and put it in the ads. I decided I wouldn't care for the neighbors some fifteen minutes, cranked it, and man the great sound came back (apart from the noise, it's still noisy). And I didn't use a pedal, just a guitar-cable-amp, and the sound was all that it has to be - clean overdrive - if there is such expression, responsive, broad sounding, bluesy, note definition, it was all there.

I turned on the ss amp to compare it - not even close. BUT, Buuuut, the tubes developed a rattle again!!!!

[christianm77]

For me it's usually how things sound at gig volume. Most cheap amps are designed for non-professional use (i.e. home.) Amps like the Cubes are certainly useable though.

That said, any competently designed amp with a good speaker ought to sound good.

My '55 PRRI does sound particularly good to my ears but given you could easily clone the circuit (which is a PCB) and the speaker? Well I wanted the 'real deal' and having a 'proper' amp does win you a certain amount of kudos in the eyes of other players (here is a musician that takes their job seriously!)

Anyway, all I can say is that the speaker is really important, and most cheap amps have cheap speakers. If you like the sound at bedroom volume but need more at gig volume - maybe try a better speaker?