Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
User Journal

Journal blinder's Journal: Calling all guitarists 21

Journal by blinder

Lets see, in my never-ending quest to capture the ultimate tone I have found myself at a fork in the road.

I can either continue down the same path of the emulator/simulator or head down the darker, stranger path and go with the amp-head artificial-speaker-load and attenuator path.

I've almost completely decided to go down the dark path, for reasons that are, to me, pretty obvious. In my chase for the elusive warm natural tone, the only way to really get that is to have it for real. Alas, the problem, in my current living situation prohibits me from using any sort of amp with any power -- but through something like this or this is actually quite do-able.

So, with that, I am considering the purchase of a nice amp head. The two candidates are:

Marshall JCM 800 re-issue
Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier

The JCM 800 is a classic, and back during my gigging days, I played through a JCM 900, not exactly the same thing... but well... if you love the sweet tones by the likes of Fugazi (and others) that is all JCM 800. A single channel, zero effects, and all tube (in the pre and power amp stages -- absolutely no solid-state circuits anywhere).

The MesaBoogie Dual Rectifier is just a hyper aggressive, but soothingly warm and rich beast of an amp head. Yeah, a lot of people complain that the Recto is "character-less" but I would disagree... its full of MesaBoogie character! Yeah, yuck yucks like Creed and other big-time "acts" rely on the Recto for their sound... but there are ways to add individual color to just about any sound :)

So, what do you like? What's your taste?

OH yeah, heh, my main git-fiddle is my standard les paul... but for my b-day, i'll be picking up a SG.

Any recommendations outside of the Marshall or MesaBoogie? What are you playing through? Hey, any Vox AC30 owners out there??? I've been wanting to play through one of these for a while.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Calling all guitarists More

Calling all guitarists

Comments Filter:
  • What's the latest news on the next issue of the magazine? I don't see a dated update to the website newer than two months old.
    • heh, working on an update! I've had a lot going on the past month or so. I've been working like mad on an upgrade and fixes for diysearch.com and that has been my time-sink-hole lately -- but i'm nearing the end (probably another week) -- then its back to -1 with gusto!

      Basically I'm just at a point where I know where the gaps are for version 3 and I can then get a much clearer picture of where it sits... but I won't try that right now because I just don't have a clear picture :)

      Sorry for not keeping thing

  • hey (Score:1)

    by subgeek ( 263292 ) *
    i don't play guitar. i play bass. i have just a standard type amp for it, nothing fancy with a separate head/cabinet. it's a polytone 101. i must say that i really like the way it sounds. that's absolutely no help to you. i especially like the way it sounds when i play may bass through my octoplus pedal and then through the amp.

    have you heard things recorded using a load simlutor compared to recordings where an actual amp was miced, preferably using the same amp head? the cabinet used can have a big
    • have you heard things recorded using a load simlutor compared to recordings where an actual amp was miced

      Yes, actually many guitarists, in the studio, prefer this method because it provides a lot of control over the over-all tone... in fact I was just talking with a online buddy of mine who was telling me a story of how his band had recorded guitar tracks using a mic'd cabinet AND used a simulated speaker load... and they just dumped the mic'd tracks in favor of the simulated speaker load.

      Also, there's a
  • Crate GX212 [crateamps.com] (Watch out for Flash. Bastards.)

    And I'm quite happy with the tones I get from it. When I was shopping a few years ago for a new amp I tried a similar Marshall but I just couldn't get it to do what the Crate did. If you're looking for head-type solution you might want to give Crate a try.

    OTOH, the JCM 800. Man I'd kill for one of those.
    • Hmmmm. Crate. I once played through a Crate head, long time ago... it was a beast, very loud, but it had a nice subtle overtone quality in the clean channel that when played with this nice Gibson ES 137 (I believe that's what it was) sounded pretty cool.

      The only thing I don't like about Crates, and this is just to my ear, is that when you drive them pretty hard, the overdriven sound gets a bit muddy and lacks a certain "clarity" Also, ugh, most of the bands we'd play with usually had one guy who played th
      • Yeah the overdrive can get a bit iffy if you overdo it. I usually have to tweak for awhile before I'm truly happy with what I'm trying to do.

        And I play rock. But that's a broad term I suppose. One night it might be Tool and (old) Metallica. Another night it might be Tull, Yes and the like. Or if I'm in an odd mood I'll play some classical. My hippy parents started me out on the instrument when I was 5. And considering I turn 40 this year that's a lot of playing.

        My current weapons are a Jackson Dinky XL wi
        • One night it might be Tool

          Oh yeah, I like to warm up, playing Tool... I don't know much of their stuff, just bits and pieces, but its fun to play, lots of string noise, cool pick action and of course lots of palm muting!

          I turn 40 this year that's a lot of playing.

          That's awesome! Compared to you, I'm a total n00b. I got my first guitar when I was 16 (I think there's a law that says any american boy on his 16th birthday must be equiped with a guitar).

          I had been playing drums since I was 6 or 7 but I r
          • My senior year in high school and the first few years of college were spent in many bands, even doing some touring, recording... signing to small labels and such... but when I finally got myself wised-up, I just decided the band thing wasn't for me any more. I got sick of the ego-clashing... I just wanted to play music not try to be scene god... there were enough of those anyway.

            Hallelujah brother. Sounds like we should have been in a band together. :) Your band history sounds a lot like mine.

            I ran into
  • Why not look into a smaller Marshall? Then rig it with some effect that has a headphone jack?

    Mesa is great but really expensive. I have a Marshall VT30 (all tubes) and a TSL212. The TSL is great for shows and recording. The VT I use in the house.
    • Why not look into a smaller Marshall? Then rig it with some effect

      Ugh... because I am not a terribly big fan of effects (aside from just the smallest smidge of chorus).

      Smaller Marshall... hmmm, well using a speaker load and attenuator -- then size (in terms of wattage) doesn't matter a whole lot (as long as you don't surpass the specifications of said speaker load) in terms of keeping the loudness factor down, because the speaker load absorbs all of that power and what you get out is the tone that is a
      • well the thing of it is this. A JCM 800 ticking over on 3 sounds weak. I understand what you're going for I would just think a smaller amp doing real work might be nice.
        • A JCM 800 ticking over on 3 sounds weak

          yes exactly! Which is the boat i'd be in if I just had a cabinet.... but since I'm considering a load simulator and attenuator... I can crank the head fully, to its breaking point, really exercising the tubes, and have the output be rather quiet.

          • I guess load sim/atts have come a long way. It still reeks of overkill if you don't mind me saying so. I have an SG & a Les Paul too btw ('72SG '90LP)

            • Heh, well, its all about tone... and you go after the gear that produces the sound you need, and if the sound you are after happens to be a beast of an amp, then so be it. To me, there is no room to compromise when it comes to sound... this is something I have just come to learn recently... I've been compromising for too long and now I'm finished with that :)

              '72 SG eh? Now that is awesome. I'll prolly just get a new sg standard -- love that guitar. never owned one before... always been a les paul type.
  • I have this Power Brake. [marshallamps.com] Not rack-mountable, and it doesn't offer as much control (only one knob), and no spkr emulator, although I've never heard one I like besides the red box [amptone.com] on a country-music stage where I was running sound. If you can keep the price on that one down, it'd be sweet. I paid ~$300 for mine, IIRC. Wish you lived closer; you could just borrow it to see if that's what you want.

    The upside is it draws its power from the amp, so in a way, it's a passive unit.

    The lame part is, I don't r

    • I have this Power Brake

      Sweet! Yeah, I've been reading about this, and am very interested in it.

      the red box

      Ah yes, the HK red box... yes, I'll probably end up with one of these, they get rave reviews -- and well it really satisfies all my requirements. Reading reviews at Harmony Central, IIRC, it really doesn't color the sound at all.

      Wish you lived closer; you could just borrow it to see if that's what you want.

      That'd be awesome! I used to love swapping gear -- great way to get a lot of exposure t
        • Power Brake
          Okay, I messed with the power brake. To illustrate how little I've used it, our vocalist informed me that there's a "cool little fan on the side that spins while you're playing." I completely forgot about that. In addition to drawing power from the speaker output, it's self-cooled. Sweet. There's probably more there than just coolness (sorry), but it truly does have a high geek quotient.

          It's really hard for me to tell if there's tonal coloring when the attenuation is cranking. It most d

        • I'm really looking foward to hearing some of your sounds, was wondering if you could do some direct-injection recording with the Power Brake?

          Yes, as far as actually feeling the sound of a pumped cabinet, yeah there are a lot of factors that go into making that sound as good as it does, and well, even sticking a microphone in front of a pumping cabinet still will never completely capture the essence of that experience -- yeah Steve Albini often comes pretty close... heh using like a half dozen mics for a si

Slashdot Top Deals

APL hackers do it in the quad.

Close