"Amp feels good under the fingers"... WTF?

  • Thread starter Thread starter napalmdeath
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311splawndude said:
Cool. Thanks for the response. And yeah, I was hoping it showed dynamics and responsive :dunno:
Def not sound or accuracy or ability (on my part) :LOL:
Yes, I heard the 3 preamp Splawns were the best. Hard to find now.

For the record, I just went and checked out a bunch of Hermansson's clips on YT (for another thread) and they all sounded very flat and unresponsive IMO and I hear his mods (Marshall and Mesa) are some of the best. Maybe it was in in-room mic?
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His stuff is generally quite compressed. I love the ones I’ve got, but they’re a very specific flavor that wouldn’t be for everyone. They are much tighter and faster in response than anything else I’ve tried except a Dino. To me they feel amazing when playing anything fast or with lots of palm mutes (they work with me rather than against me). If you play stuff that isn’t aggressive or fast they don’t generally work as well imo, but if you play to what I think is to their forte you get a lot of unique attack nuance and aggression, so they can be in some ways dynamic/responsive if you play the right way on them, but I agree can be flat and very bland if you don’t. His amps don’t have warmth or much richness to the tone, very hollow in the midrange, cold, but in a way that can be cool, not cold in the typical sense like the Engl’s. I feel even more connected to the strings in playing feel than even my iic+, but it depends on style a bit

I did like the early 3 pre Splawn’s more, but they still to me had the same overall flavor as the other era’s AB’ed in the same room, just for me better
 
Racerxrated said:
It's not the sound, dude. It's the FEEL. They sound good, as does the Suhr stuff I played. But some amps seem to have a dead, flat or sterile feel to them. If you play a vintage Fender or Marshall, for example your fingers feel like they are attached to the strings...every move they make is picked up by the amp, like there's a small electric charge that you pick up when your fingers fret the strings. Old Mesas also have that, Wizards, Naylor....but the few Splawns I've plugged into don't have any of that, nor the Suhrs (only played 2, 3 Splawns). But the tones from those amps, sound good. I played a 3 pre QR that was a BEAST. Very tempted to pick it up long ago.
Feel is something that you either care about, or don't. Doesn't make or break an amp choice for lots of players.
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I think this is partly why I describe my favorite gear as seeming more lively or organic because we feel more connected to it, so it’s not dead or sterile. I know it sounds very cheesy, but it is like us and the instrument becoming one. I find the sound and feel almost always go hand and hand with each other (even on classical guitars) and by being the player of it the added feel component further solidifies our opinions on it
 
311splawndude said:
Cool. Thanks for the response. And yeah, I was hoping it showed dynamics and responsive :dunno:
Def not sound or accuracy or ability (on my part) :LOL:
Yes, I heard the 3 preamp Splawns were the best. Hard to find now.

For the record, I just went and checked out a bunch of Hermansson's clips on YT (for another thread) and they all sounded very flat and unresponsive IMO and I hear his mods (Marshall and Mesa) are some of the best. Maybe it was in in-room mic?
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It really not something that you can tell from any recording, be it pro level or room clip. You have to play the amp yourself, or trust in someone else’s opinion of the feel of that particular amp. It would be interesting to really find out what ingredients are necessary for really great feel…probably a lucky accident but maybe there’s a common denominator?
 
Racerxrated said:
It really not something that you can tell from any recording, be it pro level or room clip. You have to play the amp yourself, or trust in someone else’s opinion of the feel of that particular amp. It would be interesting to really find out what ingredients are necessary for really great feel…probably a lucky accident but maybe there’s a common denominator?
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One common denominator to some is the makers are also good players (Hermansson and Cameron as some examples), but I don’t know, almost all my favorite sounding amps also feel just as good or better for me to play. I actually did sense the Herm’s would feel great to play based on his phone clips because even though I didn’t like the hollow sound it just somehow seemed like the response was immediate and I just felt like I could see it shaping in a good way the way he played, especially in his before and after vids of the mods, he actually played better once the mod happened vs stock (like his recto mods)
 
I can’t stand the feel of my 6505+, for whatever reason my picking and that amp just do not get along, I dont know if it’s too much sag or what the deal is but I’ve never felt so disconnected from an amp.
 
I played a Bogner Goldfinger 45 (while stoned to the bone) and really felt exactly what the OP noted...good under the fingers...I could hear and feel the bloom in the notes through the amp...the actual ebb and flow of the picking and volume knob dynamics.
 
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LPMojoGL said:
There's a technical term that I can't think of, it defines the audio/feel feedback loop between what a person plays on their instrument, and how it sounds coming back to them. It's a real thing, quite fascinating when you get into the particulars. Wish I could remember the name.
But yeah, how an instrument or amp feels under the fingers is a real thing.
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Is there a link you have to read about this . It’s fascinating
 
I don't tour as much as I used to,but the term I heard thrown around backstage a lot amongst the headliners and crew about how certain amps felt when playing them was
very "forgiving or unforgiving". FF to 2023.I totally get it. Having now owned,friedmans,splawns,fenders,vhts,deziels,soldanos,bogners,marshalls,boogies, badcats,and demoed wizards,cae,mezzabarba, ..and this was with NO pedals involved,guitars tuned to a 440.....note: they had great tone,but some were tougher to play than others.My iic+ and red stripe coli are on the top of this list for most fun to play,for me anyways.
 
napalmdeath said:
I don't get WTF people are trying to say "Feels good under the fingers". What kind of TGP nonsense is that? Maybe I'm dense... I've been playing close to 40 years, and I've never said, "Hey, this feels good under the fingers".. Maybe a guitar, but an amp?
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Some amps feel really dry and stiff.
have you ever played a Hiwatt?
great amp but you better have your chops in order. not a forgiving amp. everything is out in the open.
As opposed to say a 50watt superlead. much more responsive and dyniamic but also very liquid.
wether its attack, dynamics or harmonic some amps just feel better as well as sound better
my opinion of course..
 
MrScratch said:
Some amps feel really dry and stiff.
have you ever played a Hiwatt?
great amp but you better have your chops in order. not a forgiving amp. everything is out in the open.
As opposed to say a 50watt superlead. much more responsive and dyniamic but also very liquid.
wether its attack, dynamics or harmonic some amps just feel better as well as sound better
my opinion of course..
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Yes the vintage Hiwatt’s sound huge and more open and unforgiving than wizards, but of course need to be really loud to get there. Like any good vintage amp they sound raw, organic and huge, but I don’t care for their voicing with that bland/flat type of midrange that doesn’t really growl or get much personality, but I think that’s partly why they also take to pedals very well as a more bland canvas to work on vs Marshall’s or Fender’s
 
Amp feel is a bigger differentiator for me than the tone when going between amps in a high gain application.

If you've never noticed the feel of an amp I'm guessing you use a boost for everything because that will definitely homogenize the feel of different amps. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but it's a byproduct of boosting especially if you do the metal "level on 10" method for boosting.
 
311splawndude said:
I know what you talking about. I brought it up in that 'Tone is in the Fingers' thread not too far back. Not sure if there is an actual technical AUDIO term but certainly our brains make very quick and sometimes subtle adjustments to our playing (brain, nerves, muscles, pick attack, etc) that affects the tone. Timbre maybe. I was saying it is not one (fingers) or the other (gear), but the sum of all the parts in the chain, including your ears, brain, nerves, etc back into the gear and out the speaker as sound waves back the ear etc., in a continuous loop. :yes:
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This is exactly it
 
It's not nonscence at all. I bought a brand new mesa mk5 35w head that I thought was going to be the greatest thing. No matter what I did and even took it to jam with the cover band I was in. I never lived with it and it felt extremely stiff and sterile under my fingers. I was really disappointed
 
311splawndude said:
OK, I'm really putting myself out there with this one but does this sound flat or unresponsive to you? Being serious, not confrontational.

Keep in mind, I'm new to this and further more, this was one of the very first things I ever recorded. :) :(



Obviously, I could find better examples in the wild :LOL: but I felt this clip captures responsiveness and dynamics. :dunno:
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To my ears it sounds more like tickle me elmo...it has the same low end clank, same dynamics and character.
 
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