I know this is a topic that will hit all over the map...but how many guitar amps do we NEED in a studio? I've got several MusicMan amps, couple of Fenders, and a bunch of rackmounted components....something somewhere HAS to give...

Right now I'm thinking of paring down to a THD Univalve or BiValve head, with several speaker/cab configurations from which to choose...sometimes NOTHING beats the old JBL D130, sometimes nothing beats the Celestion V30 (1st year they came out)...but I gotta tell ya, these things take up so much room! As it stands, I have 6 (!!!) 1-12 cabs of various assorted speakers, a 2-12 Bassman cab, a 1-15, a couple of MusicMan 212RH that are long throw guitar cabs (folded horn like a bass cab, front firing speakers...just too much firepower for any venue less that 200 feet long...)

What do y'all use? Prefer? Experiences? Sally Browder, Pete Naderson, and several others don't even bother micing amps anymore, opting for AmpFarm in TDM...but to me that just seems wrong...like drinking O'Douls...

Thoughts?

i love ( and use the most ), the older Brown Fender Princeton's for probably 90% of anything i do.
also a winner with everyone else.
also, i like the Supper Reverbs for it's awesome reverb.
i have a few amps but mostly fender.
the Mesa Boogie Blue Angle gets some use, as it as a bit more jangle.
still, i some how feel the need to collect more amp's, not really sure why, but i think its is just the old guitar player side of me coming out.
i never thought i would say it, but, i could get by with the Princeton, and a few pedals, ( and i am not a pedal guy ).
now what a can of worms, Pedals that is

P.S.
for bass amps i love the Ampeg B-15, you just can not beat one of these, in my humble opinion that is.
and for the record wireline, every-time i look at the B-15 i can in-vision a REDDI setting next to it i know that is going to cost me: )~

Problem is everytime I track electric guitar, I start think "what would this sound like thru an AC30" or whatever...

I...for one...am never 100% satisfied with anything.

Interestingly (to me, anyway) the BEST sounding amps are the ones being played by the best players....everything else we do and invest in is to make up for the lack of player skills in digging tone out of his/her hands...

Bully Gibbons used (according to Terry Manning) a Legend 50 amp with 1 12" Celestion speaker for ALL of "Eliminator"...Jimmy Page used a Supro for all of Led Zep 1 and 2....yet Brent Mason shows up with 3 or 4 TRUNKS of various guitar amps, heads, cabinets, and layer upon layer of effects, just to get the sound of a Tele thru a Twin...Brent's probably the best player alive today, but c'mon!

Anyway...tonite I'm playing guitar at a pretty big fundraiser...an Elvis tribute guy (pretty dadgummed good, too)...got the best bassist, drummer, and keyboardist in West Texas, a 3 piece horn section, and a 6 voice chorale....and I am playing this gig with a 1st year issue Washburn HB-30 I bought in a pawn shop for $100 2 years ago and a slightly modded Fender HotRod Deluxe...no pedals...just hands. the whole rig (including cord) cost me les than $600...

i am in the same boat, thats why the Princeton get the most use by me any-more.



absolutely!
nothing better to me then a awesome player!



i like the simple approach, i have a tweed super i just love for live gig's, that and a Tele ( and a cable of course ), gets me all i need


now that sounds like fun!!!!
i love working with a horn section

Depends on your recording situation. If you're click-track, instrument at a time, you potentially need only need a couple of basic colors. If you track live in the room with the band at once, the volume that the amp does a particular trick at matters a heck of a lot. That brown Princeton does a sweet clean thing, but not loud it doesn't. Similarly, the Super will break up but at a volume that can hurt and is too much if the drummer is too subtle.

One trick to vary things up is to have a bunch of speaker cabs, largely because you can do not only tone control but also volume control with speaker and cabinet selection. Example: if the wattage is in it's low range, a Celestion Blue or Eminence Red Fang will give a lot more out for what you put in than most vintage Jensens or a lot of more modernish ceramic magnet speakers. If I had the space, I'd probably spend more effort collecting guitar speakers than my beloved dynamic mics.

The problem with amps is you need so many because they not only sound different, but they also feel different. For example, I've heard clips of an actual Trainwreck and a clone posted by the TW's owner. Blind I thought the clone was the real thing because it sounded better, but the player was talking about how much easier the real one was for coaxing the famous controlled feedback. Stiff, spongy, screaming, crunchy--I want all of these characteristics some of the time.

That said, I've got very few amps on hand. I intend to dramatically change that in due time, hopefully with DIY.

Bear

As usual, what I thought was THE best sounding and verstatile solution was quickly rejecteed by the market...Lexicon, MacIntyre, and some other makers produced stupidly superb rack amps in the 3-5 watt range..stereo no less...Seymour Duncan and Egnator tried this, sold out to Randall with the Modular Series, in which various preamp modules (with proper tube and capacitors, rail voltages, etc) were avalable...the MOSVALVE RT962 amp was a drop dead killer amp (featured on hundreds of top 1 country recordings from the 80s and 90s by Fred Newell...)

Like everyone else not working a huge room, space is at a premium...so I really CAN see where TDM Ampfarm will come in more than just handy....BUT it requires reinvesting to PTHD, a step I really want to avoid...but this step takes no real estate.

Can anyone tell me if the AmpFarm TDM can be used close to real time? I mean, there are some pretty good VST plugs, but real time application with them is...stupidly impossible,...and either software platform means going backwards from our work ethic of working OTB as much as humanly possible....

Bear - you say DIY...are you looking to build up a Hoffman, Allen, Ceriatone, or similar kit amp?

Perhaps Pan60 can pull a few strings at ADesigns and incorporate a guitar oriented front end experience with the REDDI as the primary output?

i just want you to know i have been up for hrs now looking on ebay at guitar amps : )~

not my fault man....

While you are searching, if you come across a Trace Elliott Velocette 12R, buy it...15 watts switchable to 6...volume knob, tone, knob, reverb knob...I had one some years back, traded it for something really stupid.

Amazing amp - I used it live with just a couple of pedals for years...always mic'd up...50 seat clubs and 15,000 attendance festivals...mine has a Matchless tweaked Celestion that in itself was to DIE for...

In all my years, I have never had my head as far up my butt as I did the day I sold/traded that amp...

There's all sorts of DIY kits out there. In addition to the ones you named, there's Mission, Weber, Trinity, GDS, Brownnote, Metropolis, and surely a ton more. Unless the world changes by the time I get to it, I'll have to do purer DIY to do the tweed Vibrolux and Tremolux circuits--the component market is more diverse than the kit market, thankfully. (The 5F11 tweed Vibrolux is remarkably similar to the 6G2 brown Princeton in design--no kits for either, and it's a bloody shame.) There's all sorts of fun esoterica that you pick up about this stuff when you work at a circuit- and component level, like that a JTM-45 is only slightly different from a 5F6-a Bassman, but different enough to make a difference, or that the tweed Super, Pro, and Bandmaster in their final versions are the same amp with different speaker configurations. DIY also makes the unattainable attainable (Trainwreck, Dumble, long-forgotten vintage models), so it's an option to consider if you can learn the safety around high voltages.

Those Trace amps were great sounding, if not incredibly durable. I've heard tales of blown output transformers, and the build always seemed a bit flimsy. Then again, the temperament might go with the vintage Vox attitude they were chasing. For the Matchless speaker, try talking to the fellow at Avatar amps about finding a sub--he does some similar tricks to break in a couple Celestions which he puts out under his own Hellatone brand, and he might be able to confirm whether the uncommon Vintage 30L is the variant Matchless used before they started their internal modification process.

DI into the computer-modeler: it might be a good idea to use some splitter to feed part of the signal into any-old little amp or analog preamp/modeler to give the player the direct feel in the phones and beat the latency. If the latency isn't too bad, you could give some of that back, too, if it doesn't sound too weird on top of the real amp. Ah, latency . . . that's a beast that I'm looking carefully at to try to minimize and avoid as I get assimilated into the DAW world.

Bear

sadly, there is no way around it...

An awful lot of what we do is one or two take stuff, almost mixing on the fly... 4 mics on drums, and usually the bass, keys/Rhodes, and guitar going direct....we've tried the Pod and similar gizmos, not much luck there.

There was a factory tech report/mod for the transformer issues in the early TE amps...but like all good things, its moot now, since they were bought out by Gibson many years ago....

Ever heard/played a Wells? They are almost as revered by certain players as Trainwrecks, Dumbles, etc....but there again, there are people who claim they can immediately hear the difference between Gold Lion and Mullard tubes....even Eric Johnson claims (and seemingly has backed up thousands of times) to hear the difference between battery brands in his effects...I can barely hear the difference between a 59 Tele and a 64 Tele

Keep us posted on what you build, and how well it works out...you might just incorporate a reactive power soak/Hot Plate style DI to bring the roar down to headphone or line level....

There's not much to complain about if you have a Deluxe Reverb, even if it isn't blackface...isn't blackface a little out of style, at least in Vaudeville? The Fender amp has a fairly low bottom end and can even be used as a bass guitar amp -- I also like the Blues Pro Junior 15 watts as a bass amp.

My best jazz guitar amp is a Swart five watt Space Tone 6V6 se -- it's very quiet, has no reverb and sounds great with my Gibson L5 Wes Montgomery (finished in red wine; would be worth a fortune if it was clear or star burst).

i see a couple on ebay.

Best guitar sound I ever recorded was a Strat through an old Supro ... and my preference is for a great player playing anything through anything, as opposed to a not great player playing the greatest guitar and amp ever. It's people who make music, not gear!

I like the JCM 800. It has sounds in it that just seem to feel right.

I also like my Gibson Skylark. GA-5, just a loudness knob. Really, that's about all I play through actually.

Hope I'm not a downer.

Sadly, some guitarists are just not up to snuff, performance or technique wise..

Another thing to consider is what happen to the guitarist's sound *after* he/she is no longer in control...what did we use to capture the sound? What chain? Was the right mic positioned correctly? How did we pan/EQ/compress/otherwise mangle the sonics?

I dunno...its as if a good rant is on the threshold...

i love some of those old amp an the supros always sounded ( sound ), great to me!

My fave recording amp is anything small and tube with an alnico speaker. I got an old Music Man HD150 head and a 412GS cabinet for live. It's got that music festival sound (think of Montrose outside).

My other preference is to not over power the room with the amp. That's why I like small amps.

I'm primarily an electric guitarist, so my guitar amp is very important to me. But not as important as it is for Peter Townshend of the WHO. He emphasizes the importance of his amp by choosing guitars to compliment his amp.

It's a well known fact that tube amps are superior to the transistor type. When I started seriously playing electric guitar I did not want to sound like everyone else, so I used vintage tube stuff that was not made for guitars. For years I used a classic "Wollensak" tube tape recorder from the 1950's as my guitar amp. It has an external input PA amp circuit.

Fast foward to the present. I use a "Marshall" 9000 rack tube preamp. It goes into a "Yamaha" G100-112 transistor amp (I bought it off Rik Emmett of "Triumph" fame--we had the same violin teacher in high school). The signal goes into a "Hiwatt" speaker in a Roland cube cabinet I sit on in my recording booth. Basically it sounds like a Marshall amp and I mic it with an AKG D202 E1.

I have other guitar amps (I'm sitting on an "Ampeg" G-100 right now, also acquired from Rik Emmett), but I don't like them except for special recording occasions. I've found that using the Marshall tube pre-amp with a tube amp sounds noisy and horrible. Which transistor amp I use for the Marshall pre-amp doesn't seem to make a difference. I stopped using distortion stomp pedals because the Marshall tube distortion sounds much better.

Since I record EVERYTHING, what does make a difference is the recording media. I get my guitar sound from slamming analog tape, and I have to use a lot of outboard processors to get a similar sound with digital recording media.

I agree with the Princeton. I have one myself. A good, clean studio amp.

Princeton's are great--about every variant, each of which is distinct.

The tweed Princeton is essentially a champ with a bigger output transformer--better bass, a bit better headroom, better bandwidth. Reputedly Duane and Eric used these and Champs for Layla.

The brown-panel Princeton is the 6G2, as are some very early blackface amps with white knobs. As I said before, this amp is almost the same circuit as the Tweed Vibrolux. Very cool trem circuit, and very nice sounds in the range of clean to semi-clean to dirty to almost-like-an-old-Marshall. One-knob tone circuit might hang up some folks, but I don't think it's a problem.

The blackface and silverface Princeton reverb are almost alone in that era for continuing use a bias-varying tremolo circuit, which is quite sweet. Compared to the earlier Princetons, better "Fender clean" out of these amps in that classic Fender reverb-amp sense. These are on more records than you'd think. Larry Carlton reportedly used these all the time because the touch sensitivity, where he could go from clean to break-up by touch. A bit stiffer than the 6G2, IMO, but more vibe than most of its Fender contemporaries.

There was the recent Princeton reimagining that aimed at a blackface Princeton plus attenuator and some built-in effects--I think chorus and compressor--and the idiots left off the trem. Disgraceful. Other than that one, yeah, you want one of each.

Bear

I really dig the older Fender amps for a majority of the electric guitar tones I use. I've an '82 SuperChamp and a '67 Bassman (with matching cabinet) that I really dig a lot. With those and the right pedals, I'm set.

ju

The amp world is upside down...IMO.

A 5-10 watt tube amp with a good/great speaker can cost $500 used and who knows what new.... A 150 POS solid state with cardboard 4-12 cabinets goes for the same money....

Its gonna be a LONG day...

Speaking of good little amps and crazy prices... That Gibson Les Paul Jr. that they are making now sounds pretty good. They've raised the price a few times. They are now $699 at Guitar Center. They've sold them a few times as low as $299. Wow.

You can get a used Marshall JCM-800 combo for those sorts of dollars and you can gig with it too.

I used to have one of those. sounded great with a pedal smacking it. Got cool feedback too.
right now, I have my Mesa MKIV, a Peavey Classic 20 and my buddy leaves his old Marshall Super Lead MKII (75' I believe) with accompanying 4x12. The cab has 3 inside panels signed by Jim Marshall. he apparently used to sign off on stuff. Pretty cool.but one can always use more amps

for shit's n giggles, this is a clip of the Marshall. Guitar into amp. No fx, so mostly all output stage distortion as the preamp stage doesn't really cook like lets say, the boogie for eg.

Its too loud, Baz...turn it down.

I keep wondering if people like Sally Broward and her husband (and one of my guitar idols) Pete Anderson are right...Use a Straight DI into PTHD and Ampfarm...Sure would save a lot of headaches, mic bleeds, etc....

And, face it....most of the time, guitar amps in a studio are really just to make the guitarist's pants leg flap in the breeze..


Until, one needs a Les Paul and a 50 Watt HiWatt with 4-12 Fanes....(think Jethro Tull)...there is, as far as I know, NO way to recreate that in the virtual world.

Ampfarm rocks. I've also used an Alesis QuadraVerb GT. With some manipulation one can achieve a variety of interesting sounds for guitar.

I can't get a sim to sound like an amp. Sorry. Can't do it.

If you don't mind it not sounding like something real, then they're OK.

True. It depends on what you want to do with the gtr sound. There's nothing like a flexing woofer. However, if an amp isn't available, through creative processing and manipulation it can sound pretty good.

Too loud!? And to think I wanted to turn up to 11!

Actually, what I forgot to mention, is that while the Marshall was cranked to 7 (bridged inputs I & II) I used an Ultimate Attenuator™ and it was in reality, just loud bedroom level but with the distortion coming from the output stage, a'la AC/DC

My personal faves have been the Peavey Classic 20(small valve combo, 90s) for warm crunchy rock/blues guitar, and the WEM Dominator(mid-size valve combo, 60s) for harsh, stooges-esque sawtooth distortion, equally great on guitar or electric piano. The peavey series 260 master volume head(70s) is probably my favourite clean guitar amp, it's solid state with big transformers.

What might be interesting to the terminally bored (???!!!) is that to me, getting a clean sound is a snap, and is actualy easier than setting a mic/cab up...same with the over the top grotesque gain-o-rama stuff...where it gets difficult mic'd or DI is the in between stuff....

I'll run a tele into a Dyna Comp compressor, to a Blue Tube II pre (set on clean, of course), into the REDDI...and SMOKE...but its the grit that I can't seem to get...a LOT of Tejano guys are running stupidly expensive guitars intp a Digitech 2112 (? what ever the 2 rack space thing is) and giving me a stereo signal with a pair of Countryman or other higher end DIs...Jazz monsters, they be.\\\

Baz - good to know about the attenuator...and Paul - love that WEM stuff...Pink Floyd and a LOT of acts used those in the 60's/early 70s///

My fave thing is pretty much any small amp (don't care if it's tube or not but I do like the old Traynors, Fenders, Vox and Marshalls moreso than the solid state stuff and especially if one of the above mentioned amps has an alnico speaker) with a ribbon mic into a Great River NV series. I can get a great sound that way automatically. I usually do pretty good with an SM57 and an i5 as well. Emulators drive me crazy. I don't mind going DI but I sort of don't like that all DI sound you get when you make a recording that way. If I start jacking with DIs and emulators, then I want to be looking for an effect.

http://www.myspace.com/okbeckett

Listen to I'm the One on the above page. It's my friend Steve B.

I'm doing the DI thing through a J-Station which to me is better than the POD. Anyhow, the electric guitar starting at :03 to me just sucks. It would have been so much better through an amp. However the stabbing sounding part at :33 is perfect for an emulator. Sounds very cool. To me, this is the sort of use for an emulator and not much more. The effects on the emulators can be fairly cool.

The line up here is:

Fender Blues DeVille 4-10... Not the hot rod thing
66 Ampeg Reverberocket 2
67 Ampeg Gemini V (yes 5) 1-15 also great for bass
Orange tiny terror thru a Marshall 4-10, Bandmaster 2-12 or Orange 1-12
Standel Studio XX 4-10
Marshall solid state some thing 1-12

amps I got rid of and now miss:
82 JCM 800
70's Super Reverb

Paul

i had a Blue Tube II pre with the pedal steel mod for years, i loved it, and i am not sure why i got rid of it but i did.
i am not big on going direct, but i used the LaChapell Audio 583s going straight and was hook on it, probably the most real sounding guitar tone i have ever got with out a cab.