Rick Lewis
New Member
Y’all got some seriously gorgeous pairings!
Dammit, I need to buy a DG cab one of these days.
It’s really a great sonic match for the amp. Looks nice with it, too.
Les, of course you're right about that cab. But, we all know that isn't why Sergio wants one. It's all about accessorizing!
These two...
What???
Damn, and here I was thinking the magic is in us, not our stuff
If it was only about the magic being in us, we’d all be on a “The Magic’s In Us” forum instead of a gear forum!
Thank god I don’t have magic in me, music was a difficult enough occupation.
Hey, music’s a delightful occupation if you want to work hard at something, but don’t enjoy money.
Ok I'll play along just because I'm trying to work on being less of a smartass
I have two $5k guitars and one $800 amp, an Orange Rocker 15. Stock photos online, they all look the same. At the time I'd just bought a Gibson LP Standard and that was about all I had to spend on an amp. Actually not even that much, I guilted GC into giving me a discount on a brand new one they ordered in because they threw the box away.
Since then I've had the opportunity to try a few other small tube amps but I really love that little Orange. I had a chance to trade it even up for a Marshall Mini Silver Jubilee but I just couldn't do it. The clean channel on the Rocker 15 is pristine. The dirty channel is pretty darn good but not as good as pushing the clean channel to breakup.
My pedalboard actually cost more than my amp but between the two I can get pretty much any sound I want. I'm not chasing a particular tone, I just want it to sound good. Honestly, I wouldn't know what tone to chase. I like too many different types of music and musicians.
I have a couple of electric guitars that are nicer than anything I ever thought I'd own and an amp that makes them both sound great. I'm already over geared as a hobby player in my eyes, now I'm looking for over talented.
TLDR... I'm both jealous of yours and very happy with mine
I do have a Mark IV, and I still struggle with it, but one thing that's telling to me is that I have a couple guitars that I've never gotten to work w/that amp.
You raise an interesting point - the amp/guitar match (what works and why, what doesn’t and why) is so worth further discussion!
I had a Mk V that I really dug, though each channel was somewhat guitar-specific, which makes sense with each channel being voiced quite differently, and each guitar I own doing its own thing, too. I’m not saying this is a bad thing, especially if one has more than one guitar, it’s just what it is.
We’re all different.
I keep rediscovering that the simpler the amp, the more guitars it works with, and I put that down to my preferences; I want to hear the damn guitar, and not just amplifier grind. Not everyone feels this way, and I’m not suggesting they should, of course.
But I’ll observe for the moment that Alan’s Budda is simpler, needing only three preamp tubes to handle its business, and the Mark needs 5 to deal with all its gain staging.
Early on, I had simple, single channel amps that sounded great no matter what guitar I was playing, like my blackface Bassman. My current single channel PRS amps sound great no matter which guitar goes through them. Everything just works.
I also have a Mesa Lone Star, a more feature-laden two channel amp. One of its capabilities is that one can switch gain stages out of the circuit. Lo and behold, the more gain stages I switch out, the more guitars I find the amp works with. Go figure!
The main reason I don’t play Two-Rock these days is that I thought their cascading gains were absolutely wonderful with single coil pickups, but for me worked less well with humbuckers - given how my tone was evolving (and the evolution of one’s desired tone is a whole ‘nother topic!). Things just got a bit thick with the humbuckers. Makes sense when you consider that adding gain stages naturally adds thickness, and most humbuckers have more output gain than single coils, and therefore drive an amp to more thickness to begin with.
When I had the TRs, I mostly used them with my Soapbar PRSes, a CU22 Soapy and McCarty Soapy, or my 408, with its clever coil splits and less flubby sound. Yet at the same time, my simpler Bad Cat Hot Cat 30 was more guitar-agnostic.
Can conclusions be drawn from these experiences? Hell if I know, but these days I’m fonder of simpler amps. I wonder if a player like Bonamassa switched to Tweed Bassmans because he could get closer to the inherent woody tone of his guitars (not that I have a clue why other folks do what they do)?
I apologize for the derailment!
I found that as I got deeper into the Helix, my rig needs go simpler. Go figure. It is SOOO easy to build an amazing sounding, straight up rig in the Helix. WHen it came time to grab a tube amp again, it was all about Class A, Vox-type circuit mixed with a touch of Marshall. I needed great reverb and tremolo, so I grabbed a Stymron Flint. The Bad Cat Cub IV 15R is exactly what the doctor ordered - loud, semi-aggressive , and touch responsive. Each guitar's character shined through!!
.......... but there are sooooo many other magical combinations that are just as shred-o-listic as a private stock and an Archon.