Amp Love Thing

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Too Many Notes
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Messages
34,599
Location
Michigan
It will come as no surprise to my friends here that I’m kind of odd. When it comes to guitars, I can admire them, and think, “Wow, that’s beautiful,” but I don’t get full of crazed lust, no matter how pretty the picture looks, unless I’m in the market or I just play the best guitar ever and discover I need THAT one.

Amps, on the other hand, I have mad lust for, provided they’re mostly vintage style tube amps. I can’t explain this. It just is what it is, and I accept who I am without apology. I spend too much time listening to amp demos. I look at amp photos and get all misty-eyed. I watch That Pedal Show mostly for the amps.

Moreover, my amps all have to be set up, usually miked for recording, and ready to go. I switch between them with a switcher. Each one has a different sounding cab, and I love them all as though they were my babies. This eats up space, and I don’t care. That’s what my studio is for.

A different kinda person would have a modeler on hand, and not bother with a bunch of wooden boxes filled with pieces-parts. Or maybe would have both. I won’t continue to criticize modelers. There’s nothing wrong with them, they just don’t give me goose bumps like the real thing does. There’s respect, and there’s love, and I’m into the love thing when it comes to amps.

With guitars, I can be happy and content for long periods of time. With amps, I’m always restless. Anyone else this way?
 
I mean, I dig amps. All kinds of them. Problem is, they're heavy, they take up too much room, and sometimes they have to be REALLY loud. It's way easier to have 10 guitars hanging on the wall than it is to have a 10 amp fort. Although, that would be cool as hell!
 
I will actively hunt down specific amplifiers but
guitars have a way of surprising me. 5 of the last
6 guitars I got were the result of those 5 guitars
unexpectedly crossing my path while I was
not looking for a guitar. (3 of them were PRSs)
I guess that puts me more in the guitar
lust boat than the amp lust boat.

...and now for something completely different...

Pedals...(see avatar to the left)

I like pedals but...
I will only allow myself a 20" wide pedal board with
1 row of pedals, nice and neat and compact.
(part of my "in and out in 1 trip" NYC gig rule)
Dirt, modulation and some time based stuff.
My needs are simple.

The problem: There are way more than 5 pedals that I like.
The solution: I recently finished building nice neat compact
pedal board # 5.
 
As usual Les, we're brothers from a different generation...

I LOVE amps and would LOVE to have the space and ability to set them up and use them to their fullest potential. I love Fender amps. I really think that Leo got it right. Yeah, CBS screwed things up, but you can still do some cool stuff with CBS amps. If I were granted the Powerball and Mega-Millions Lottery Winnings, I WOULD have every Fender amp made up through 1976. I would have every Fender amp from the II Series. I would have select Marshalls, Oranges, Voxes, etc.

I did have a bunch of Fenders and was very happy just looking at them. My living conditions (space and proximity to neighbors) didn't allow to do anything EXCEPT look at them. It was a waste. I decided to get some "grown up" guitars, and to fund my plunge into PRS, I sold amps galore. I sold guitars galore. I ached from the inside out, BUT, I KNEW it was the better decision because why have a tweed Bassman if you can barely open it up? Why have glorious Blackface amps if you can barely open them up? Why have a Plexi if a Crate SS combo sounds better because of volume constraints?

So....I got a Helix. Looking back, I should have had somebody profile ALL my tube amps into a Kemper, but when I made the switch to digital not many people really knew how to do good profiles. I didn't understand it, for sure. Helix was safer and easier - I had used modeling devices prior.

Oh well. It sucks, from a collection stand point, but my Helix has kept me VERY happy over the years I have owned it. I have also found it VERY realistic since I have owned a lot of the amps (or at least they types of amps) that Line 6 modeled. I can tweak a model and get it within range of what a real one will do. Of course the sonics in the room are VASTLY different, but I can get the goods easier and way better for my space than I could with the real thing.
 
I try to be faithfully monogamous regards amps. I think I'd not be happy with more than one love relationship because I might lose both. Of course we're speaking inanimate objects vs. people who might protest, though if the principle is good for the goose, it's also good for the gander.

Meanwhile, may you enjoy your harems of various guitars and amps. Am just trying to keep my tone needs simple and not try to amass too much stuff.
 
I’m an amp whore too!

I love them because I perceive them as being more diverse than guitars - which may or may not be the real truth, but I think it, nonetheless. Maybe it’s because an amp, especially a dirty one, can start to mask the characteristics of guitars, but it’s harder for a guitar to blur the lines between amps. Being the last step in the tone equation (unless we’re talking mics), they can do a lot of frequency filtering, distortion, etc., and then there’s the consideration of speakers and power and having the right size amp for a certain kind of job. I’ve got everything from 5 watts to 100, with plenty in between, and I can BS all day on why I need them all!
 
sergiodeblanc said:
I’d love to open up a Boogie Mk combo all the way up in a mountain side.... not that I’m a hippie or anything.
Click to expand...

My old house was on a really large wooded lot, and I decided it’d be fine to open up a 100 Watt Tremoverb combo and hear what it sounded like full up.

My son was getting off the school bus at the corner, a good distance away, and said he could hear me playing as clear as day.

It was loud.
 
LSchefman said:
My old house was on a really large wooded lot, and I decided it’d be fine to open up a 100 Watt Tremoverb combo and hear what it sounded like full up.

My son was getting off the school bus at the corner, a good distance away, and said he could hear me playing as clear as day.

It was loud.
Click to expand...

Yes!!!!!

Aww man, did birds fall dead from the sky?
 
Tucson Thump said:
Is this leading to a story or a limerick?
Click to expand...

There was this one time at Amp Camp
When Les was a wee scamp
On his wooded lot
He ran his rig “hot”
And windmilled so hard he got cramp!

LSchefman said:
My old house was on a really large wooded lot, and I decided it’d be fine to open up a 100 Watt Tremoverb combo and hear what it sounded like full up.

My son was getting off the school bus at the corner, a good distance away, and said he could hear me playing as clear as day.

It was loud.
Click to expand...

I went visual and saw you running through the woods, wireless, recklessly “windmilling”!

I love my mind!
 
Alnus Rubra said:
There was this one time at Amp Camp
When Les was a wee scamp
On his wooded lot
He ran his rig “hot”
And windmilled so hard he got cramp!
Click to expand...

Nice!

Ok, my go, and because it's a limerick, it might be a bit off color ...

There was this one time at Amp Camp
When Nigel's had a Mk III stamp
He turned it up loud
And said to the crowd
"This ought to make the ladies all damp!"
 
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