All Tube Amps

Mickey Lawson · From: Cleveland, Tennessee, USA

Brad Sarno
Member
From: St. Louis, MO USA
posted 18 September 2005 07:43 AM profile send email edit
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.dwfearn.com/whytubes.htm

Brad

Donny Hinson
Member
From: Balto., Md. U.S.A.
posted 19 September 2005 01:20 PM profile send email edit
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IMHO...
There's no doubt that tubes have some subtle advantages, but it depends on how the amps are played. I recently did an A/B test with a modded S/S Peavey, and my old B/F Twin Reverb. At low volumes, I think the differences are small enough to be called "insignificant". When the amps are pushed, though, the Fender has a nice round sound, while the S/S Peavey is a little sterile. This is no doubt due to the harmonic structure becoming more notable.

The fact, however, that Peavey provides all S/S amps for the I.S.G.C. speaks volumes about the real differences. Most players there have a fine tone, and the average listener would be hard pressed to say that the sounds there coming from the S/S amps are unsatisfactory.
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Thanks Brad, thanks Donny.
It may just be me but; playing through my all tube Ampeg J-12T, I can hear the melody line I'm playing and know where to move, to play the melody and progression (without guessing). It's a big difference.

Dennis Detweiler · From: Solon, Iowa, US

At my age and years of ear damage, not to mention brain cell damage, I should give it a try.

DD

Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

In the past I would just say that a transistor amp sounded terrible. Well 30+ years later I just say both tube and SS amps have have a different tone that is viable in different situations.

John Daugherty · From: Rolla, Missouri, USA

I continue to be amazed by the emphasis some players put on equipment.

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

John, some of us need all the help we can get.

Brad

John Daugherty · From: Rolla, Missouri, USA

How true that is, Brad. Changing amps never seemed to make me sound better. Locking myself in the woodshed,however,did help a little.

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www.phelpscountychoppers.com/steelguitar

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

I'd be a better player if I had the time, but I'm just too busy messing with my steel equipment to practice.

Brad

Peter Hart · From: Massachusetts, USA

May I add to this. I can listen to a tube amp much longer than a solid state amp. Something deep in my ears (I hope it's not my brain) seems to "rattle" when listening to a solid state amp turned up a bit. It seems to be more noise than music. But, a tube amp sounds much smoother and does not have that irritating effect. Can anybody else relate to what I'm saying?

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Absolutely!

Brad

Jim Peters · From: St. Louis, Missouri, USA, R.I.P.

I almost always use tubes for my guitar, but 99.9% of everything you hear is through solid state amps, and has been that way since I was a kid( a long time ago)!
How many of you had tube-amp stereos while growing up? Did that "harsh transisor sound" keep you from listening to music for hours and hours at a time(like I did).
Too much is made of this issue, fewer people can really hear the differences than would like to admit.I think we sometimes chase the wrong thing. JP

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

I never thought of my Webb as "harsh" sounding. To me it sounds very smooth, clean and pretty. It's easier for me to get accidentally get harsh sounds out of my Boogie (a tube amp).

Any amp can sound very bad if you twist the knobs the wrong way. Peavey's parametric EQ (the "Shift" knob) is one of the most frequent culprits. Misuse of this control is one of the things that gives solid state amps a bad reputation, in my opinion.

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Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Jim, that's true, but keep in mind that you're talking about a playback system listening to finished musical mixes. Even though 999999 out of 1000000 people will be listening to music thru transistors, the music was most likely created with tubes on electric guitars, perhaps vocals, maybe bass, and more, and the entire mix likely passed thru tubes in the final mastering stages. So the tube harmonic and dynamic characteristics have already been embedded into the music. It's still there in the sound regardless of how you listen to the final product.

And Bobby, your Webb uses a few FET's in there to create harmonic artifacts that are quite similar to tubes. That helps give the Webb that silky, smooth sound.

Really, transistors aren't inherently harsh by any means. Typically they're just clean and character-less. We use tubes on instruments to generate musical overtones and to intentionally create certain types of distortion that the ear finds pleasing and musical. We do it to enhance and breathe life into a sound.

Tube-a-holic,

Brad

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Here's the Fearn essay if anyone missed it. It's pretty basic, but I like how it's put.
http://www.dwfearn.com/whytubes.htm

I remember talking with Bobby Hempker about a few gigs he did in Reno last year. He borrowed a tube device

to hook up to his solid state Peavey amp. He said it was the first time in years that his ears didn't ring from his own playing at the end of the gigs. I'll argue to my grave that the highs that you can generate with the use of tubes are sweeter sounding and gentler on the eardrums. Anyone with any degree of tinnitus should find this important.

Opinions-R-Us, Inc.

Brad

Jerry Overstreet · From: Louisville Ky

Mickey, some folks don't hear a difference. Some are more easily pleased. I have always expected a lot from equipment. After all, I'm playing for me too. Getting the sound I hear in my head makes me play better and that makes for a better experience for the listener.

I look for any edge I can get, be it amps, cords, fx, strings, etc. All these things culminate in a better sound for ME!

I use the stereo Mosvalve mosfet amp with the TubeWorks tube driven pre and 921 reverb and it kicks butt! This is the only sound I truly love. It is open and huge and it doesn't hurt your ears no matter how hard you lean on it.

I admit that I am a bit of a gearhead but don't really know what the tech specs mean. I do know what I like when I hear it though and I can certaintly relate to what you, Peter and Brad are hearing with the tubes. I hear it too.

I envy the guys that don't place a lot of emphasis on equipment, preferring to believe it's all in the execution. For me though, my gear let's me hear what I want to hear and that means everything to me!

Jim Peters · From: St. Louis, Missouri, USA, R.I.P.

Brad, you know I respect your ears and opinions a bunch, but I could conclude that we like the sound of music(no pun in.) more because it has been transistorized as a final step to our ears. Maybe you can tell that I 'm using a Deluxe 'cause your ears are that good, but I've played hundreds of great sounding gigs with a PV Bandit, no complaints from anyone!
The great tone that I've heard you display was not an all tube signal path, you were using a POD,which I'm sure was responsible for much of the total sound, if not most.
I get compliments almost every night that I play on my tone, particular on the overdriven stuff, of course that means tubescreamer(solid state). I have also sat in many nights with other bands in St. Louis, and usually I'll bring the Bandit and a tubescreamer, and whichever guitar I pickup(pun intended), it always sounds killer, not a tube in sight!
Get a copy of Little Jim's first CD with Seven Days,guess what amp he used? He told me you liked his tone a lot last weekend, yet almost everything he plays goes thru solid state stuff, easily as important to his sound as the tubes in his Classic 50.
Tubes do sound great, no doubt about it, and the more of a player you are, the more you will be able to use the little subtleties that tubes probably can give you. But for most of us regular people, it has more to do with marketing and the quest to sound just like(insert favorite player here) than anything else.
Keep looking for that voodoo, you come up with some great ideas and products that make us all aspire to be better. JP(SR)

BTW... Most of us here know Brad as the mad inventor of all things tube, but Brad the steeler has come up with a terrific steel part on a local singer's CD. Can you post us a clip somehow? Thanks,JP

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

There are solid state amps out there that mimic the tube tone and do a very respectable job doing so ....The Steel King has a tube tone to it, and especially the Webb....I was SHOCKED when I bought my first Webb only to realize that it sounded more "tube" like than some tube amps I had !!.... In my case, and maybe in some other case's, when I am playing , and the "touch" sensitivity, and the "tone" that comes from it are just right, and the harmonic's flow just right , I am hearing my music at it's best .....If I am hearing my music at it's best , it tends to allow me to play my best .... When I have a tone that grates in my ear, it makes me want to shut down my playing ..... For me , and I will only speak for myself, the tone that my ear's hear as a great tone that makes me want to be a better player comes from either a tube amp, or one that emulates a tube amp .... I get a tube tone from my Steel King ( a solid state amp ), and very brite and harmonic, but then I get a very smooth tone from my Webb ( another solid state amp ) that fills the bottom end out smoothly, and really sweeten's things up.....Put them together , and it's a hard tone to beat ....Now you're hearing this from a die hard tube amp player !!.......Go figure !!......So if it looks like a tube amp, smells, like a tube amp, and plays like a tube amp .....maybe it's not !!....Jim

Mark Eaton · Posted 29 Sep 2005 2:43 pm

I think it has to do with quality of construction and design. After reading the posts of Bobby Lee and James-Webb doesn't exactly give those amps away, and they just plain sound good no matter what the innards are!

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Mark

Gary Walker · From: Morro Bay, CA

One of the smoothest tube amps I played through was an old Magnatone Stereo amp from the late 50s or early 60s. They had a real vibrato that changed the amplitude of the note. They weren't very powerful but had warmth you could defrost an icicle with. They are very collectible and pricey on EBay.

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

I mentioned the warm tube sound to an engineer and he said "Sure; distortion!"

Nonetheless, I love my old Dano amp. Great with a Multi-Kord. Seriously, it gives the Carter warmth, to me.

David Doggett · Posted 30 Sep 2005 7:00 am

Yes, harmonic distortion. I love it. It adds texture to what would otherwise be a cold, sterile electronic signal from a non-resonating solid-body instrument with a magnetic pickup.

Ricky Littleton · From: Steely-Eyed Missile Man from Cocoa Beach, Florida USA

The thing about tube tone is in the physics of the elements - tube or transistor.

Tubes tend to "roll" into saturation or cut-off, whereas transistors, but virtue of their nature and how charges move, are "surgically" clean - saturation or off with clean dynamic range in between. Thats what makes them PERFECT logic devices - it's a 1 or a 0 (zero).

Tubes give that nice warm tone at high outputs because they just don't clip, they sort of roll off - (the compression point is a value that comes to mind).

For "easing" into the high end of the dynamic range without premature clipping or cut-off, a tube is the way.

just my $0.02 worth.

rdl

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Emmons LeGrande - 8x4
Session 400 Ltd, Nashville 112,Hilton Volume pedal, Peterson VS-II Tuner
Dan-Echo, E-Bow, Ibanez Distortion, Bo-Bro, Ibanez Auto-Wah, PX4 Pandoras Box

Brad Sarno · From: St. Louis, MO USA

Another "fun" aspect here is to compare the older discrete transistor circuits to the modern opamp circuits. Many people seem to like the class A discrete transistor stuff. You see it all over the place in studio mic preamps, Neve, API, etc. Also the older Peavey Session 400 and LTD were discrete. The Evans are discrete. The Webbs are discrete. There seems to be more character and musicality to the discrete stuff. The modern opamp stuff is just so clean and uncolored. Good/Bad? Anyone?

Brad

James Quackenbush · From: Pomona, New York, USA

Brad,
That's a tough question .....When talking guitar amps, there are usually at least a couple of channel's ....One clean, and the other overdriven ....RARELY do you get an amp that has a great clean, and a great overdriven tone ....That being said, I find that I can get a better overdriven tone from an amp that is sparkely clean , and then add a pedal or an effects unit to it to get my desired tone .....To try and add a pedal or an effects unit to an already distorted tone , is like adding good to bad , and in most cases causes a bad tone ...
That being said, I would, and DO go for an FET type tone like the Webb, for pedal steel since I'm not looking to overdrive to tone, but like a little hair on my notes to add the texture that I desire .....Too clean is too sterile to me ....No character to the tone .....Sure you can push it high with plenty of headroom, but then you end up with more of a sterile tone .... Start with a good tone, with a good EQ section, and then shape the tone with players technique, and you have the ingredients for some great musical expression ...Jim

Bobby Lee · From: Cloverdale, California, USA

Once I put my Webb on the bench with a dummy load and a sine wave signal generator to see how far it would go. It was putting out a clean, sustained 190 watts RMS before the tops of the waves started clipping. Absolutely amazing!

It is a very, very clean sound. I often stack my little Boogie on top of it to get a bit of that "hair" texture that Jim Q mentioned above. Boogie + Webb - the best of both worlds.

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Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog

Marlin Smoot · From: Kansas

The Steel Guitar Black Box with a Session 400 for me is heaven. Solid State with Tube. The power of solid state and the warmth of tube. Ahhhh.

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