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- "Dude, you ok?" - "F*uck no."
Hey, guys, how's it going? It's Andy here once again. It's been a while since I've last Vloged, I've been busy, but I got some extra time in this rainny Friday in Rio to record something for you guys.
This video was inspired by a great friend of mine that finally bought his first tube amp and, even though he is very well informed, it was clear to me that there's a lot of mysticism regarding these devices.
So I decided to record this quick video and explain how they work and maybe help you purchase your own tube amp.
Well, first of all, the transistor is a high fidelity component while the tube isn't. People tend to think valves have a purer tone... No, they don't. Transistors reproduce perfectly the incoming signal.
Tubes, on the other hand, work as a filter, eliminating some frequencies and harsh, irritating harmonics. So, by definition, tubes make your guitar sound more pleasant to the ear.
Still, there are people that claim to get a great tone with solid state amps and I honestly disagree. Solid state amps do not sound good and there's nothing in the world that'll make me change my mind.
I'm not pragmatic nor nostalgic but... it's complicated, because... transistors suck. So, if you want a good guitar tone, you must have a tube amp, wich does not prevent you from being a good musician,
and gettin a "nice" tone from SS amps. The point is, your tone would be a hell lot better if it came from a tube amp, but that's not the goal of the video. Purism will be the topic of another of my Vlogs.
So, tubes color the sound on a pleasant way, wich transistors don't do. A friend of mine once said that, if your signal is a white light, once it goes through a tube circuit, it comes out as an yellow light.
If it were a solid state circuit, it would come out as white as it was when it went in, but too much white can blur your vision.
One of the most FAQs is about output power. People tend to consider buying 50 or 100W amps thinking lower power won't be enough. Guys, let me tell you something...
I use 100W amps because I am crazy, totally insane. *How boring, huh*
The thing is, tube amps are loud as hell. Mr Pedro Viana is right beside me, we bought our tickets to Guthrie Govan's clinic today... How boring, huh...
He owns the Orange Jim Root Head that I reviewed, it's 15W of power and he is often asked to turn the volume down on small club gigs. Volume and output power rise in different proportions.
Your ear does not hear linearlly. 100W are not 10 times louder than 10W. You hear everything logarithmically, hence the fact that the DeciBel is used for such measurements, to compensate that.
In order to double the volume, you must have 10x more power, wich does not mean you'll hear it twice as loud, that must be clear.
Now, let's talk about structure. Amplifiers have three stages: preamp, poweramp and speakers, the last one moves the air and make the soud travel to your ears, so you can understand what's being played.
The preamp takes your signal, wich is really weak, in the mV range, and bumps it up to around 1V, where it can be more easily manipulated and sculpted to reach your tonal intentions.
When it comes to the guitar, you have access to parameters such as an EQ and a gain, that dictates the sensibility of the preamp before it generates harmonic distortion (another Vlog on that later).
On the poweramp, you have a volume control, basically, also called a master volume. Some amps offer EQ, such as presence and depth/resonance/focus controls to further enhance your tone shaping.
The poweramp takes that 1V signal from the preamp and bumps it amp to absurd levels, in order to sufice enough power to move the loudspeakers and generate that sound.
Now, you have extra components, like multi-channel and FX Loops... Let's talk about distortion for a minute. It's a fact that any distortion pedal will sound better when plugged in a tube amp.
Some amps have built-in distortion, which is wonderful, in my opinion, because I love those distorted tones and prefer amp driven distortion over any pedal simulation.
The problem is that some effects depend of a decay phenomenon to achieve the desired sound, and I'm talking about reverbs and delays, basically, and how they simulate different environments.
Distortion is, by definition, compression, and it brings the two extremes of the dynamic range closer to each other. So the compressor evens out whatever goes through it, in terms of volume.
It kills a bit of the dynamics and, if that's good or not, it depends on the context and on the person behind the chosen parameters. And the point is it would flatten out the decay of the effects I mentioned.
To solve that, companies added the FX Loop, that is a gap between the preamp and poweramp stages, wich allows you to add post-distortion effects, even when the overdive is created in your amp.
So, if you're a guy looking for an amp because of it's distortion and likes to use delays and reverbs, keep an eye open for that FX Loop because it will really make a difference in your effecs placement.
The multi-channel feature allows you to have different "pictures" in the same amp at the click of a button. The clean channel generates clean tones, generally, with no gain saturation at all,
and it'll be ready for you at any given moment. The other channel is probably distorted and will generate your drive sounds, allowing you to change between both channels with a simple footswitch.
That's really cool, but it's up to you to decide if it's essencial or not, because it may be useless, depending on what/how you play and, of course, is a feature that rises the price of the amp subtantially.
I know people that prefer to have a clean amp an use a distortion pedal to generate such tones, not forgetting to mention that you may not be able to take your amp with you to every gig.
If you're the digital preamp guy, that likes to emulate different amps via an effects processor, it may be a good idea to plug in the FX Return of the amp instead of sending your line signal to the mixer.
That way, your simulated preamp will go through real poweramp and speaker stages, wich you drastically improve your tone, since you won't have to emulate what's real and in front of you.
And guitarrists like to move air and to have speaker moviment is essential to sculpt your tone, since the speakers are as important as the amp itself. This is a great solution to improve the tone on this approach.
That works for Line 6 PODs, Boss GTs and Laptops + Interface as well, with your software of choice, wich will let you have your programmed tones with a more realistic performance.
That's a hell lot better than plugging in the input, because that will generate noise and difficulty in tone shaping, since you're adding preamp gain stages from the real thing and the simulation.
Well, that's today's video. If you think this was informative, click the "Like" button, subscribe, add to favorites and share with friends. Until next time!!
*How boring, huh?!*