Setting Up A Real Amp - How I Do It.

2011 = pre-bodia :D

You're lucky! There is no pre-Les. Earth didn't exist pre-Les; it's possible that life didn't exist anywhere among the billions of stars and exoplanets in the galaxy pre-Les.

I'll concede that maybe the Big Bang happened pre-Les. Maybe. ;)

Ehh... I think we are just trading places now. :eek:

No; I'm owning the fact that I'm not a pleasant person. You actually ARE a pleasant person.
 
Are we somehow unacknowledged brothers? Because I cringe for exactly the same reasons!

I should add to this that, in general we like the same amps, the same tubes, same guitars...

Could be! Or you may just be more brilliant than you admit ;) Either way, I’m honored at the connection.

I think we came from a similar time when you had the one guitar and amp you could find or afford, and you learned to make music with that. All kinds of music! Options are wonderful, and new tech is great, but coming to that after learning the trade when all this wasn’t the norm puts you in a different mindscape about it, IMO. I’ve come to feel I am very fortunate to have had those experiences then, though I didn’t think so at the time. Now, when my monitor goes dead on stage, it just sounds like it did when everyone didn’t have a monitor... it doesn’t mean I can’t sing in tune or play in time!
 
Could be! Or you may just be more brilliant than you admit ;) Either way, I’m honored at the connection.

I think we came from a similar time when you had the one guitar and amp you could find or afford, and you learned to make music with that. All kinds of music! Options are wonderful, and new tech is great, but coming to that after learning the trade when all this wasn’t the norm puts you in a different mindscape about it, IMO. I’ve come to feel I am very fortunate to have had those experiences then, though I didn’t think so at the time. Now, when my monitor goes dead on stage, it just sounds like it did when everyone didn’t have a monitor... it doesn’t mean I can’t sing in tune or play in time!

You bet!

I had one amp, one guitar, and used the same amp with my little combo organ when I wasn't playing guitar (which was more often the case, since my main instrument is keys). It was that way for years and years.
 
well you know, les, ‘i got to be me’ i feel is a foundational truth.

I have no choice other than to agree - I mean, I've lived by that credo.

But it was still pretty dumb!! :p

Chapter One, page one, and sentence one of the Book of Dumb Things To Avoid Doing:

Don't quit your day job!

Heheheh.
 
Back to basics for a moment:

1. Never mind that I'm having a martini because it's 5:30, and I'm a bit shnockered. I'm still semi-lucid, which is about the most you can expect from me even when I'm not having a martini.

2. I've owned a lot of amps over the past 30 years. Part of me wishes I'd kept them all. Part of me wishes I'd kept a few. But in any case, that'd be more than I currently have. I believe that amps are even more important to tone than guitars. I'd guess that's why I will always be a tube amp, and not a modeler, person.

Especially in my line of work, variety is necessary.

I know, blasphemy, right? But that's how I feel about it.

3. With that in mind, I ordered a KHE 8x4 amp and cab switcher, Swiss made and therefore hopefully that means well-made, that will allow me to send up to 8 amps into 4 cabs, via MIDI or simply by hitting a toggle switch. I think this will either open all kinds of doors, especially to session players who come into the studio, or just be a convenient thing for me ( almost always have a microphone set up 24/7 for each speaker cab, except when I'm taking pics of Studio Craptastic, my shameful excuse for a proper studio).

In any case, I'm looking forward to the KHE. If I'd had one of these in the past I would still have several heads that I no longer own, because I sold a few just to make physical room for others in my studio - I always paired a head with a particular cab.

The KHE switcher was recommended by @elvis, and since he's always right-on when it comes to gear, His recommendation goes pretty far with me!

So thanks, Elvis! You're a pal for recommending this.

4. I'm drooling thinking about the possibilities of switching in an instant between my amps and cabs. Why the heck not take sonic advantage of every cab I own? I can't think of a reason not to. So I will. It shipped from Switzerland. How long it will take to arrive and clear customs, who knows? But the day it arrives will be a fun day. ;)

Except for the part where I have to put it in the rack, chase down any ground loops, and blah blah blah. :rolleyes:

Have a good evening everyone!
 
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You're lucky! There is no pre-Les. Earth didn't exist pre-Les; it's possible that life didn't exist anywhere among the billions of stars and exoplanets in the galaxy pre-Les.

I'll concede that maybe the Big Bang happened pre-Les. Maybe. ;)

This proves what I long suspected. LSchefman is a pseudonym for Keith Richards. Old joke, Adam and Eve are talking with G-d. Adam says, “BTW who’s that over there? G replies, “That’s Keith Richards. He was here before I arrived. “
 
I thought I'd share a few ideas about setting up tube amps, and share a few things I experiment with to discover how to get 'my sound' out of a new amp.

Most players I talk with start by setting everything at noon, tweak from there, and for that reason never get close to discovering what their shiny new amp can really do. Here's why:

Most (not all) tube amps have passive tone controls. That means all their tone controls do is cut frequencies.

It also means that with the amplifie's tone controls set to noon, it's actually cutting bass, midrange and treble. Amps with passive volume controls have a flat frequency response with the tone controls all the way up.

When we read about legendary Marshall or Black Panel Fender players "cranking" everything to ten on the tone controls, well, they're not. They're simply not cutting any frequencies.

Oh yes, the amp has more gain when it doesn't cut frequencies. Makes sense, right? You're letting more signal reach the power amp.

[There are amps that really are flat with the controls at noon, that boost when the tone control is increased, and cut when it's decreased. If memory serves, some Tweed amps do that, as well as others, but offhand I can't remember which ones have those active tone controls. My amps all have passive tone controls.]

On a passive tone control amp, all tone controls on 10 bypasses the tone controls' effect. Bypass the tone controls, and give the amp a little volume and that's what your amp sounds like at heart. Experiment from there.

This doesn't mean you should always (or regularly) put all the controls on ten.
It's simply interesting to see what the amp really sounds like before you cut frequencies. THEN start cutting and shaping the sound.

If you start with no frequency cuts, and experiment with each control, you'll get a feel for what it does. By the same token, if you turn all the tone controls down to zero - you won't get a sound - and go through the entire range of each control seeing what it does, what its turnover frequencies are, etc, you'll get another perspective.

You can't really understand your tone controls if you don't actually have a feel for what each one does.

The same principle can be applied to the volume, gain, master, and other options. Find out the range of each one, and see how the other controls affect it.

Ah, then there's the presence control. Who the heck knows what that thing does. Well, I kinda do, though I can't explain the technical details of how it's done. I'm not Dr. Science. I'm just some guy. You want science? Ask Em7. ;)

What I do know is that the presence control is not part of the preamp section like the tone controls. It's part of the power amp section. It comes after the preamp does its thing, and before the power amp's output does its thing. It usually does something to the phase, which of course cancels out or affects certain frequencies in a different way (phase cancellation is a frequency whose signal is out of phase. When one signal is out of phase, and the same frequency is in phase, the frequency is cancelled. Humbuckers and balanced audio lines use this principle to eliminate hum. A lot of players work on their tone, go into a different room with the amp, and don't want to mess up their carefully set tone controls. So a presence control can help.

Then there's the room.

A substantial part of what you think you hear coming from an amp isn't the amp. It's the reflections off the ceiling, walls, and floor of the room. And every room has different modes that exaggerate or null out certain frequencies, different reflection points, and blah blah blah I could go on, but let's just say that your amp sounds different in a different room. Your amp sounds different raised off the floor than on the floor. It sounds different at different volume levels, not only because of its gain increasing, but because it interacts with the room differently at different volumes.

You'll often hear people say they can't get a recording to sound like the amp sounds in a room. They blame the mic. They blame the engineer.

Well, you don't listen to an amp when you're playing with your ear an inch from the grille cloth; you hear it after all those reflections start bouncing around a room.

It isn't the mic. It isn't the engineer. It's the placement. Put a mic in the room instead of up against the grille, you'll hear something a lot closer to what you hear in the room. Move it closer to the amp to hear less of the room Farther back to hear more of the room.

There are reasons people have cut records since the '70s with a 57 against the grille - to prevent bleed, or isolate the tone, or for a million other reasons. It may be standard practice, but it's not the only way.

Yes, the miracle of microphone placement! But I digress. The point is, respect the room. It matters.

Put an amp on the floor, you've got half space reinforcement of the bass; Bass is omnidirectional and bounces to your ears louder when it hits the floor. Put it against a wall on the floor, and you've reinforced the bass even more, because now you have quarter space reinforcement, both a wall and the floor reflecting the bass. In a corner, there's still more bass - eighth space reinforcement.

"My amp sounds muddy."

Maybe it's not the amp. Maybe it's where you put the amp.

"My amp is too harsh/bright." Maybe you should consider playing it in a space with carpeting and furniture, instead of an unfinished basement, and see what it sounds like there.

"I'm just not bonding with it."

Have you tried it with a different type of cab or speaker? Have you experimented with the tone controls, and by that I mean, really learned what they do?

"It's fizzy."

If all you're doing is cranking the preamp, and the power amp is hardly putting out any volume, no wonder. Preamp tubes create a fizzier kind of distortion.

This isn't to say you shouldn't ditch your amp and go with the Next Shiny Object! That's fun, too. But it's a shame to abandon an amp that might be perfectly great with a different placement in the room.

And - this is a whole universe unto itself - try setting it up with some good NOS tubes, instead of the current junk masquerading as the revered brand names of yesteryear. Some enterprising dudes bought old brand names like Mullard and Tung-Sol, and are now importing junk in boxes that look like the old boxes, and with labels that look like the old labels, to make folks think, "Wow, I just retubed my Marshall with Mullards [insert name of great tube of yesteryear that's been renamed, not cloned, here]."

Well no, you retubed your Marshall with Russian (I think they're New Sensor) tubes that someone stuck the old label on. Actual, sought-after, Mullards were made in England and Europe, depending on the factory that built them (some were made by Philips; the old tube companies often made tubes for each other), and production of those tubes stopped by 1980. The new ones ain't the same. The real ones were made better, and sound different. [End of tube rant]

"Is there a point to this post, Les?"

"Yes. See what your amp can do, and you just might like it more."
Very good info. Some further reading: https://singlecoil.com/docs/magic-six.pdf
 
Very good info. Some further reading: https://singlecoil.com/docs/magic-six.pdf

Great link!

Definitely good to try with a Fender. I had a Bassman head and cab from 1968 (NOS Black Panel) for maybe a decade. It was my last Fender, but not because I didn't like it.

I'm not sure how I dialed it in. Truth is, I had no idea what I was doing on guitar in those days, I was a kid, plus I was mostly playing keys and doubling on guitar as an afterthought. So I set the amp up for my combo organ and my guitar, kind of a neither fish-nor-fowl thing, and it probably sounded pretty bad, although back then we played so loud it may not have mattered. ;)

I haven't owned a Fender since then, and maybe that's unfortunate. I do like the old Black Panel amps - Twins, Deluxes, Bassmans, etc., older Tweed amps, and old Vox AC30s. Problem is, I don't want to bring an amp with 50-75 years of bar smoke & beer stench (and goodness knows what else) into my studio! So I haven't bought one.

I do look at some of the clones of these amps, but for some reason, haven't felt the same way about them.
 
Great info, Les! I cringe a little every time I see the “I didn’t bond with it” statement.
This statement is interesting. Since various amps are intentionally voiced differently, it’s not at all surprising that someone would bond with one and not another, no matter how much knob turning they do. To imply otherwise means that turning the knobs on any amp, would yield the exact tone you are going for, and if that were the case, then you’d only need one amp.

I’ve had amps that I really liked the tones I could get out of them, but in the end, no need for 10 amps whose tones I really liked, but only two that could produce the tones I loved and really wanted.

I’m kind of surprised that anyone would associate a statement of not bonding with an amp, as a lack of effort on their part to explore it’s tonal range. There is one time I COMPLETELY agree with that idea though, and that is when guys buy tube amps that are known for needing to breath, and try to play them in their bedroom through 2 or 4 12s that are barely moving at 65dB and then can’t bond with them. Yeah, that’s on the player 100%.

But I’ve even seen guys (even here) use an amp for quite a while because the tone was SO good, but eventually give in to the fact that THAT tone was not what they really wanted. So no matter how great the tone sounded, it’s not the tone they bonded with, and it got sold. And maybe for something that had tone that was not as good, but was more in line with what they wanted.
 
This statement is interesting. Since various amps are intentionally voiced differently, it’s not at all surprising that someone would bond with one and not another, no matter how much knob turning they do. To imply otherwise means that turning the knobs on any amp, would yield the exact tone you are going for, and if that were the case, then you’d only need one amp.

I’ve had amps that I really liked the tones I could get out of them, but in the end, no need for 10 amps whose tones I really liked, but only two that could produce the tones I loved and really wanted.

I’m kind of surprised that anyone would associate a statement of not bonding with an amp, as a lack of effort on their part to explore it’s tonal range. There is one time I COMPLETELY agree with that idea though, and that is when guys buy tube amps that are know for needing to breath, and try to play them in their bedroom at 65dB and then can’t bond with them. Yeah, that’s on the player 100%.

But I’ve even seen guys (even here) use an amp for quite a while because the tone was SO good, but eventually give in to the fact that THAT tone was not what they really wanted. So no matter how great the tone sounded, it’s not the tone they bonded with, and it got sold. And maybe for something that had tone that was not as good, but was more in line with what they wanted.
Good points, and from the perspective you’re using, right ones too!

My point, and one I should have made more clearly, is that a person generally buys an amp because they know what it’s supposed to sound like. For instance, I bought the HX/DA because it was built to sound a certain way, was advertised to sound that way, and demos sounded that way. Lo and behold, it arrived, I twisted a few knobs, and it sounded as expected. I have had the same experience with Mark Series or Rectifier Boogies, Fender Deluxe Reverbs or Supers, Vox AC30s, Soldano rigs... you get the point.

So I understand that a guy buys a DG30 just to “check it out” and plugs his Strat into it looking for a thunderous metal scooped grind and... no connection. Makes sense. Less facetiously, a person tries an amp they’re unfamiliar with and it doesn’t move them. I get that.

In the end, what I suppose I am not connecting with in such a statement is that perhaps the person simply doesn’t know what a Plexi, Recto, SLO, AC30, etc is supposed to sound like in the first place, yet they buy one. I don’t know why anyone would do that... yet you still hear “I bought this Plexi amp, but didn’t bond with it.” “I bought this Mesa JP2C amp, but I’m just not getting that Roland JC-120 vibe at all!” That’s the part that doesn’t compute.

Probably not any clearer, but at least you know I get what you’re saying.
 
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