The holy grail of guitar tone. What does it for you?
 

Curious to see what people have for amplification, speakers and guitars.

Personally the holy grail of good tone to me is classic JTM-45 power tube crunch with Weber loaded cabs played with a Les Paul or SG.

Line6 is good for practice I guess.

line 6 is crapola

i play an sg with sd's an sh2 (jazz) on the neck and sh4 bridge and building a custom strat HSS (still looking for the right p'ups) ... building a custom amp from a vintage silverface bassman one super clean fender channel one growling mofo channel.

:GFYBand

Get Carlos on da case.

:GFYBand

YARGH! I be a drummer. I would think it would depend on the sound you be after.

For me Alan Holdsworth's sound is amazing, as is Rammsteins. See what I be meanin' two diffrent styles, I am sure they don't use the same stuff :)

Got any pics of your kit?

Rammsteins tone is interesting. very bright and biting yet lots of low end. It must have something to do with those Peavey guitars they use (or used to use when I used to listen to them, dunno if they still use em or not) and the ultra high gain amps.

I like all types of tone. I have always been a dual rectifier freak for the longest time but lately I'm into the whole Angus Young and Malcom Young tone. Very clean sound. You'd be surprised as to how clean their gear is but when belting out open chords it just growls like a mofo. it gives me wood just listening to Evil Walks.

Looks like your after the same type of tone I am. The bassman's are very similar to the JTM-45's. Just minor differences. I'm ordering my JTM from ceriatone.

Check out ax84.com's discussion forum, lots of amp builders there, great people. You should hear some of the samples they have of their tone. Amazing to say the least

YARGH! It's all electric now. I had some starclassics but too loud. My ears are very bad from years of drumming.

I'll try to find some.

Tone? A Rick 330 -> VOX AC30. Heaven

dimarzio super distortion humbucker feeding into a peavey sheffeild special 2x12 combo. i'm biding my time until i find a JCM 900 head at the local guitar shop. then i'll put that sucker on top of a 1960a enclosure and replace the speakers with celestion green backs. but until i find the JCM, my peavey will do just fine. :pimp

are you handy with a soldering iron? If so, build one. You'll save a fuckload of cash. Find parts from dobermanamps.com or from people at ax84.com. Lots of people there have color coded wiring diagrams that a 5 year old could follow too.
https://schematicheavencom.secure.po...vol_preamp.pdf
https://schematicheavencom.secure.po...w_poweramp.pdf

EDIT: Also, if you would rather wait to buy one, pick up a Peavey rockmaster preamp to push the 2x12 special. They're cheap to buy. You'll thank yourself the second you plug it in and fire it up.

i'm handy with a soldering iron, but not that handy. ;)

i'll check out that rockmaster pre amp though. :thumbsup

Bummer.

I have a couple kits now; one is actually a Starclassic Maple. :thumbsup

You'll be pretty happy with it. In the lead channel you can dial in anythinm from an acdc type growl to a full fledged tripple rectifier gain. The only thing about the preamp is the sound is not consistant. One day it will sound great, power it up a day later and you'll have to adjust the gain and midrange a bit to get that sound again. But all in all, for $100 it's a great preamp. Nice glassy clean tones too.

amen :thumbsup

I'm still cutting and pasteing last nights threads about my guitar question thread, "Who knows about guitars?" I have enough to decipher already! :1orglaugh :Oh crap

YARGH! I get a good sound from me ukulele

http://www.xsitespinner.com/chioukulele.jpg

I've been playing guitar for 2 years and most of this is encrypted to me as well so don't worry about it. :1orglaugh

To be honnest, most people don't get what good tone and eqipment is until they've played for quite a while. That's what happened with me. Sadly. I used to think that solid state was the way to go and a good pedal was the holy grail of tone. Then I was introduced to tube amplification. Nothing sounds quite like a clean preamp section driving 6v6, 6l6 and el34 power amp tubes into total saturation. mmmmmmm.

I am not musicly inclined sadly but I respect those that are

there is nothing like putting a marshall on 10, letting it warm up, and fucking wailing. british tubes are the shit. :pimp

You talking about "the old vacume tubes" that use to be used in t.v.s and radios?

yes. they produce a very unique sound when allowed to warm up.

Believe it or not I like the sound of my Roland AMP:)
Its kinda older from the 80's but it really carries a great 80's metal tone that is really signature with meh equipment.

roland makes good stuff. i have a bunch of their BOSS line of pedals.

Yup. Any GOOD amp has tubes. They have a natural compression that is great for reproducing guitar, bass and vocals. The tubes actually allow the signal to saturate at the plates to give you that nice clipping sound known as "overdrive". Tube overdrive is basically a signal that has distorted but in a pleasant way. Solid state electronics IE: Transistors tend to clip too exactly and give a harsh distortion. Also, since solid state can do perfect reproductions of audio signals it tends to reproduce everything including the less desirable frequencies and overtones. Overtones are the frequencies that happen when two separate frequencies overlap each other. Such as in chords. Since tubes are not as accurate they tend not to amplify the overtones leaving you with a pure signal and well mixed pack of frequencies. Tube circuits are actually better at filtering out unwanted parts of the frequency spectrum. Guitar is in a certain spectrum, I'm not sure of the range but it's roughly 300 to 7khz. When solid state goes into overdrive mode they tend to produce clipping up into the 20hz range all the way down to 1hz. So to clarify, tubes keep the clipping in the proper range and just sound much more warm and natural.

There has been great strides by engineers to reproduce tube characteristics in solid state equipment using a DSP chip but it's still not the same. They tend to lack something, personally I find DSP generated tones tend to be chunky. Like part of the signal is missing and clipping unnaturally.

Line6 is a really popular line of amps because of their DSP that produces decent tones, but it's nowhere near sounding like an actual all tube rig. People claim it does only because they've been brainwashed by smoke and mirrors. Some popular DSP based amplifiers even incorporate a 12ax7 preamp tube in the signal path so people think it has a tube sound. The truth is, their usually just used to pre-amplify the signal before hitting the DSP and that's about it. No voicing from the tube at all, it all gets eaten up by the A/D converters and DSP processing.
Tubes also tend to be much much louder sounding than solid state. I can't explain it but it's a fact. An 18 watt push/pull tube power amp produces roughly the same volume as a 50 watt solid state amplifier. The 30 watt JTM-45 I am ordering is as loud as a 100 watt solid state Peavey combo. Which is fucking loud.
If you listen to recording artists who play guitar you will notice that the distortion sounds tend to be really warm and pleasing, not at all harsh. Then go listen to a crap garage band and you'll hear pure harsh noise coming from their speakers. Usually these crap garage bans are running solid state equipment such as Peavey special 2x12's or old Traynor solid state stacks.
Do your son a favor and hook him up with an all tube rig. I swear, he'll really appreciate the sound and probably proactive until his fingers fall off. Nothing inspires a soul like having good sounding equipment. Just make sure you get him a Marshall power break if he plans to drive the power amp tubes into saturation or you'll all go completely fucking deaf.
If he is serious about music and can wait a little bit of time for the amp you should go to http://dobermanamps.com and order the 18watt Marshall clone or grab a p1-extreme. the 18watt is more like a classic sound, like ac/dc. The p1-extreme is that of a 68-69 Plexi but at reasonable volumes that he can actually jam in a band with if need be and can produce some incredible high gain tones, meaning more overdrive.

Those 80's era rolands were the holy grail of solid state clean channel sound and great for bass. Great little amp you got here :)

Some how I wound up with my Grandpa's old 1956 Fender Tube Pro-Amp. It's looks like hell, but damn...it sounds fantastic.

http://kindtimes.com/content/images/.../Fenderamp.jpg

is that a fat strat in the background? :pimp

My kit is shite in comparison.

Ibanez 470 DX, hooked up to a 505II pedal then into some shitty diamond AX-08 Amp.. I really need a new amp it's killing my sound. My little 10w BC Rich amp produces a better sound than the Diamond does -_-''

Close. :winkwink: It's a Strat Ultra with the lace pick-ups. It's been a champ for me. I just wish I could play it worth a damn.

just remember, it's not about technical knowledge. it's about how big your balls are when you pickup that instrument. play with your heart, and you are already a great guitar player.

Its a Jazz Chorus 250 Watt Tube AMP.

I put my Jackson to it through peddles and if ya double the amplification with the tube and a Peddle it results in hardcore metal era sound with an infinite sustain.
Throw in a little reverb and bang :thumbsup

ooh, I was thinking of another roland amp then.

http://dobermanamps.com/shop/index.p...oducts_ id=22

or

http://ceriatone.com/productSubPages...mpleteAmps.htm

Tone problem solved :)

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I was positive that I had zero rhythm growing up. I bought a guitar when I was 19, and since then I've bought several more guitars, banjos, I've helped host drum circles and music festivals, and even owned a drum shop where we imported drums from Africa and the Middle East. I still have a long way to go...but I'm a believer that success is a journey.

You have to keep trying. :thumbsup

wait a minute. 250 watts? You sure? Which exact model is it? Of all the jazz chorus amps from that era all that exist are ones that are max 120 watts with two independant 60 watt power amplifiers.

yea thats what i was thinking - i had a jc120 and it was nice but sure as hell not tube or 250 watts

never, ever, NEVER sell that amp, unless it's to me ;)

if i had to name names of guitarists, im going for hendrix clean, townshend rock, and slash balls. (lot of marshall in there, i know)

ill check out the forum ... the guy tweaking my bassman is a baaaad mofo one man operation ... ive been waiting 6 months, its almost ready, and i have serious wood. ive already sold my triple rectifier.

http://www.219inc.com/images/BB.jpg

jesus i got wood to play this mofo ...

i got a sweet starclassic maple 6 pc (2 custom ordered toms from japland) with a pork pie bell brass ... :thumbsup ... pics at home pc, im in brasil now (and i'd better get to work!)

I got a Ibanez RG-470 a Hughes & Kettner 4x12" box with a 100w vortex top. And a Tone Works KORG pedal :thumbsup

My Ibanez 12 string acoustic. Sounds like a chior of angels!~LOL

I also have an Epiphone 6 string acoustic, and a strat.

I'm picking up an Ovation, well more than likely go with the Ovation but you never know, this week. I need an acoustic/electric

my advice - get a good acoustic, then have a pro p'up installed ... i have a guild jf50r and tried several pickups ... now i have one under the bridge and it sounds AWESOME ...

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. :winkwink: It was the first amp I played when I was 7 or 8, and subconciously I've compared every amp since to it. I probably won't get rid of it any time soon.

I still have (MINT Condition) my old Music Man 4-10's 130 HD The Tubes are still the original ones that came with it 25 or so years ago. It's sweet with my Les Paul Custom 20th Anniversary. I'm an old Blues, Southern Rock 'n' Roller from the old days :GFYBand

6 months? Man, it only takes 3 days max to build an amp. Why's it taking him so long? Having a hard time finding parts?