Amps you want to try

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TheGreatGreen said:
Man I can't believe you haven't put your entire life on hold just to make an amp clip for me specifically!
Kidding, real life comes first of course. Thanks for entertaining the idea though!

Can't wait to listen on a clock radio from the other side of a tile bathroom and complain about the tone. :D
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I got one comment saying “this has no low end” haha what?
 
Bram576 said:
I will also add, please for the love of god listen on monitors, a car stereo, or good headphones before chiming in on tones.
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I listened to all the Wizard clips on M Audio monitors and then chimed in on tones.
 
VonBonfire said:
I listened to all the Wizard clips on M Audio monitors and then chimed in on tones.
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You just bring one of those sweet fender amps to the amp fest and you can play a hellraiser yourself. Not that i think it is something for you. But there will probably be some cool amps for you there. No hipsters either
 
Bram576 said:
I got one comment saying “this has no low end” haha what?
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Wizards can easily be dialed to have a presency zing, crispness, and clarity in the highs that few other amps have. Even if you dial in a lot of thump, that high end is still going to stick out to a lot of people as being more than they’re used to hearing.

I think a lot of the comments about that Hell Razor clip you posted most recently with the Mimiq double tracking trick (very cool trick btw) that were critical were referring to those extended Wizard highs. Even if it’s balanced overall, that dry extended high end can stick out in a way people aren’t used to, especially outside of a mix with other instruments.
 
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Bram576 said:
Hey man, you don’t like bright aggressive tones. I’ve got nothing against that. We all got personal taste.
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All that really matters is band context IME I did have a question in your Hell Razor thread about how hard you ran the amp for those clips. I had asked in the thread but didn't hear back. Were you able to run it pretty loud or were you volume restricted? I'm assuming it was a v30 cab or was it IR's, I don't recall if that was specified either.
 
VonBonfire said:
All that really matters is band context IME I did have a question in your Hell Razor thread about how hard you ran the amp for those clips. I had asked in the thread but didn't hear back. Were you able to run it pretty loud or were you volume restricted? I'm assuming it was a v30 cab or was it IR's, I don't recall if that was specified either.
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Yeah amp was as loud as any I run. Cab used.

I also will disclose I use zero filtering on my clips like a lot that are released on the interwebs. Unless it is a full mix. I enjoy giving unprocessed audio so people can truly see what they’re working with micd up.
 
Bram576 said:
Yeah amp was as loud as any I run. Cab used.

I also will disclose I use zero filtering on my clips like a lot that are released on the interwebs. Unless it is a full mix. I enjoy giving unprocessed audio so people can truly see what they’re working with micd up.
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Yep, you and I take different approaches there for our clips. I tend to high and low pass all the guitars in my recordings and EQ them here and there in the middle where I think it sounds good, which is partially why the Wizards in some of my clips sound darker than yours. I went back and listened to my Metallica covers where I used my MCII. Load and ReLoad were very dark sounding albums, guitar-wise, and I post-EQ''d my Wizards by ear to sound as close to the original Metallica guitars as possible, so I dialed out a ton of high end. Listening back without the post-EQ, that Wizard presence comes right back and my MCII has a much closer sonic footprint to your HR clips than anybody might think.
 
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TheGreatGreen said:
Yep, you and I take different approaches there for our clips. I tend to high and low pass all the guitars in my recordings and EQ them here and there in the middle where I think it sounds good, which is partially why the Wizards in some of my clips sound darker than yours. I went back and listened to my Metallica covers where I used my MCII. Load and ReLoad were very dark sounding albums, guitar-wise, and I post-EQ''d my Wizards by ear to sound as close to the original Metallica guitars as possible, so I dialed out a ton of high end. Listening back without the post-EQ, that Wizard presence comes right back and my MCII has a much closer sonic footprint to your HR clips than anybody might think.
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Yeah mixing I usually pass at 70-80, and 12k. Then make dips from there.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
@VonBonfire thanks for the compliments! The clips I did were made with a Modern Classic II Mk II.

The thing about high gain guitar tone that's really deceptive though, is that while the amp seems to always take center stage as far as where people think the tone comes from, the impact of the amp on the overall chain is actually more subtle than you'd think compared to all the other ingredients in there. Replace one high gain amp with another high gain amp in a given rig and the tone will change a bit, but if you keep the same amp and change the cab / mic / post-EQ, the tone can change so much it's like you're playing through an entirely different rig altogether. I don't mean to downplay the importance of a good amp though (I did spend the money on a dang Wizard after all, which I think was worth it for me to find what I think is pretty much the best heavy rock amp I've ever heard or played) but again it's only one ingredient in the stew.

I say all that to say that comparing person A's clip of amp 1 against person B's clip of amp 2 is kind of an exercise in futility and most of the time will not give you reliable info you can use due to the differences between the rest of the rig, which is part of the reason I was asking @Bram576 to pretty please make some comparison videos of his Hell Razor against his MC and MTL. :D He's one of the few people who has all three, and those clips, were he to make them, would all be done using the same guitar / cabs / mics. Putting amps in the same environment like that is kind of the only real way to truly compare them.

I almost hope he doesn't make them though because I have a feeling such a video will end up making me a lot poorer if the Hell Razor compares to the others in the way everybody says it does, lol.
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So true, it's a wonder why people don't talk about cabs and speakers more as they have a bigger impact on tone than the amplifier... too boring for most I guess??
 
anomaly said:
So true, it's a wonder why people don't talk about cabs and speakers more as they have a bigger impact on tone than the amplifier... too boring for most I guess??
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Definitely. My theory is that cabs aren't obsessed over all that much for two reasons:

#1 - Speakers are an inconsistent crapshoot. Every speaker you buy is kind of like playing the lottery. It's really surprising just how different any given speaker can sound from any other speaker of the same make and model, even brand new ones. And then they all age subtly and differently over time depending on their environment and how they're used, so as soon as it becomes an "older" cab then the scope of difference between any two multiplies.

#2 - You can't adjust anything about a cab. It is what it is, and that's pretty much that.

It's easy to talk about amps because they're so tweakable. You can talk about how you approach your settings for any one of them and stuff like that all day long. There are a ton of amps out there, and any one of them can more or less be thought of as an entire platform that gives you a whole spectrum of possibility, and there's a lot over overlap between amps in all different directions.

But a cab is a cab. You plug it in and it does what it does and that's it. What is there to talk about other than very broad truisms about what "most" speakers or cabs of a given type tend to sound like compared to others? Beyond that you can't really get any more specific. And even if you make a recommendation for any given one, the one I get based on your recommendation isn't going to sound like yours.

So yeah it's kind of nuts how vitally important the cab is in a guitar rig, and how inconsistent and unpredictable the tones they give us really are to reliably attain and reproduce. Actually all this talk highlights one of my favorite things about IR's, their tones are locked in forever. Yes the right real cab and mic can by magical but so can the right reactive load and IR, and with those I never have to worry about accidently touching some mic wrong and losing my favorite tone forever at worst, or the consistency of my current project at best.
 
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TheGreatGreen said:
Definitely. My theory is that cabs aren't obsessed over all that much for two reasons:

#1 - Speakers are an inconsistent crapshoot. Every speaker you buy is kind of like playing the lottery. It's really surprising just how different any given speaker can sound from any other speaker of the same make and model, even brand new ones. And then they all age subtly and differently over time depending on their environment and how they're used, so as soon as it becomes an "older" cab then the scope of difference between any two multiplies.

#2 - You can't adjust anything about a cab. It is what it is, and that's pretty much that.

It's easy to talk about amps because they're so tweakable. You can talk about how you approach your settings for any one of them and stuff like that all day long. There are a ton of amps out there, and any one of them can more or less be thought of as an entire platform that gives you a whole spectrum of possibility, and there's a lot over overlap between amps in all different directions.

But a cab is a cab. You plug it in and it does what it does and that's it. What is there to talk about other than very broad truisms about what "most" speakers or cabs of a given type tend to sound like compared to others? Beyond that you can't really get any more specific.
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It's also because everyone tends to use the same handful of speaker types, and knows them as reference points.

So when we hear X amp with Y speaker, we have a reference point for that combination. It's why kyle bull uses a simple 57 on a V30 for all his videos. Because literally everyone whos into tones knows what that sounds like with a few amps.

If we hear a weird, new, or different amp with weird, new, or different speakers, without the reference point that the speakers provide, we won't know what the amp is doing and what the speaker is doing.

Honestly most people find a speaker, cab, or combination that they like, and use that as a "filter" through which they find the amp or amps they like.
 
TheGreatGreen said:
Definitely. My theory is that cabs aren't obsessed over all that much for two reasons:

#1 - Speakers are an inconsistent crapshoot. Every speaker you buy is kind of like playing the lottery. It's really surprising just how different any given speaker can sound from any other speaker of the same make and model, even brand new ones. And then they all age subtly and differently over time depending on their environment and how they're used, so as soon as it becomes an "older" cab then the scope of difference between any two multiplies.

#2 - You can't adjust anything about a cab. It is what it is, and that's pretty much that.

It's easy to talk about amps because they're so tweakable. You can talk about how you approach your settings for any one of them and stuff like that all day long. There are a ton of amps out there, and any one of them can more or less be thought of as an entire platform that gives you a whole spectrum of possibility, and there's a lot over overlap between amps in all different directions.

But a cab is a cab. You plug it in and it does what it does and that's it. What is there to talk about other than very broad truisms about what "most" speakers or cabs of a given type tend to sound like compared to others? Beyond that you can't really get any more specific.
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Ya, you're right, there really isn't all that much to talk about when it comes to cabs I guess?? Their importance can't be understated though.

But... years made specifically have significance on a speakers tone because the materials change over time which is why certain speakers made within the same years or months sound similar to each other. I specifically got some 2021 V30's because supposedly they are voiced similar to the older 2001 - 2003 V30's that everyone raves about. I got them and I'm not dissapointed, they do sound pretty damn good. They have that 5 - 6k roll off which makes them really smooth and easy on the ears.
 
DanTravis62 said:
It's also because everyone tends to use the same handful of speaker types, and knows them as reference points.

So when we hear X amp with Y speaker, we have a reference point for that combination. It's why kyle bull uses a simple 57 on a V30 for all his videos. Because literally everyone whos into tones knows what that sounds like with a few amps.

If we hear a weird, new, or different amp with weird, new, or different speakers, without the reference point that the speakers provide, we won't know what the amp is doing and what the speaker is doing.

Honestly most people find a speaker, cab, or combination that they like, and use that as a "filter" through which they find the amp or amps they like.
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Absolutely.

I found a blend of a bunch of IR's I like, which among other things contain a mix of V30's (you called it :) ), and also Greenbacks and Creambacks with a handful of different mics on each. After I found a general sonic footprint I liked in that area, I've stuck to it as a general base filter for years, and through that, most of my favorite gear works great for me.
 
anomaly said:
Ya, you're right, there really isn't all that much to talk about when it comes to cabs I guess?? Their importance can't be understated though.

But... years made specifically have significance on a speakers tone because the materials change over time which is why certain speakers made within the same years or months sound similar to each other. I specifically got some 2021 V30's because supposedly they are voiced similar to the older 2001 - 2003 V30's that everyone raves about. I got them and I'm not dissapointed, they do sound pretty damn good. They have that 5 - 6k roll off which makes them really smooth and easy on the ears.
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Yep that's what I'm getting at. There are general truisms about speakers and there might be some truth to what you hear about batches between years, but if you load a 4x12 cab with any 4 individual speakers even of the same make and model (even with consecutive serial numbers of pretty much any year) and put them into a 4x12 and stick a 57 on the cap of all 4, and you'll get 4 different tones. They might not be entire worlds apart but you'll hear it.
 
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TheGreatGreen said:
Absolutely.

I found a blend of a bunch of IR's I like, which among other things contain a mix of V30's (you called it :) ), and also Greenbacks and Creambacks with a handful of different mics on each. After I found a general sonic footprint I liked in that area, I've stuck to it as a general base filter for years, and through that, most of my favorite gear works great for me.
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Same. I have a set of four early 90s UK v30s that have gone from cabinet to cabinet with me for 20 something years. They are just the speakers that work for me. I made IRs of them individually, because not only do they sound different from modern variants, they sound different from eachother.

I always experiment with other speakers though, I have a scumback blackback style 2x12 and that new 1x12 with an EVM12L, because it's always wise to have some options on the table.

I think almost all guitarists have a cab/speaker combo that they know works best for them, and they view amps through what they would sound like thru their cabinet. I know I do.

I think it's more fun to talk about the amps you want to try because everyone already HAS their ideal speakers or cabinet, or once they do find it, they stick with it.
 
DanTravis62 said:
Same. I have a set of four early 90s UK v30s that have gone from cabinet to cabinet with me for 20 something years. They are just the speakers that work for me. I made IRs of them individually, because not only do they sound different from modern variants, they sound different from eachother.

I always experiment with other speakers though, I have a scumback blackback style 2x12 and that new 1x12 with an EVM12L, because it's always wise to have some options on the table.

I think almost all guitarists have a cab/speaker combo that they know works best for them, and they view amps through what they would sound like thru their cabinet. I know I do.

I think it's more fun to talk about the amps you want to try because everyone already HAS their ideal speakers or cabinet, or once they do find it, they stick with it.
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Man I'd put two likes on this post if I could.
 
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