Does everyone arrive at tube amps, eventually?

[richard parker]

I gigged for three years with a Yamaha THR 100 Dual and 2x12 and loved it. Sold my very nice Cornford because I stopped using it. The year before last I needed a small combo for a different gig. I wanted to get another modeller/solid state amp and tried a Katana, a Blues Cube Artist and some Vox thing and hated all of them. I ended up with a Bassbreaker 15 combo and I'm very happy with it. I've heard a few demos of the new Quilter Aviator Cub and it sounds really good but I wouldn't buy one without playing it first.

[devastone]

Ty Tabor

[GuitarStv]

forgot Robert Smith!

Didn't Johnny Greenwood use a solid state amp?

[NegativeEase]

Andy Summers
B.B. King
Dimebag Darrell
Ronnie Montrose
John Fogerty
Robert Fripp
Joe Perry
The Edge
Joe Walsh
Glen Tipton

All guitar players that have used or returned to solid-state amps at some point in their careers.

forgot Robert Smith!

[devastone]

Don't know how many times I have mentioned it but Judas Priest use 20 - 50 watt solid state Marshalls in the studio. Just because an amp is inexpensive does not mean that it will sound bad. Especially these days

I didn't know that, always thought they used tube Marshalls, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Iron Maiden used GK SS amps for the Somewhere in Time and 7th Son albums, "surprisingly" it just sounds like Maiden. (" "s for sarcasm font)

[Securb]

Andy Summers
B.B. King
Dimebag Darrell
Ronnie Montrose
John Fogerty
Robert Fripp
Joe Perry
The Edge
Joe Walsh
Glen Tipton

All guitar players that have used or returned to solid-state amps at some point in their careers.

[beaubrummels]

Can someone post a video that gives a good example of what they mean by "fizzy"? I see this term written over and over, but I can't think of a tone I think would be accurately described by the word.

I don’t have a clip handy to post, but “fizzy” is definitely the Marshall’s with a master volume that used clipping diodes in the pre section for distortion. It exhibits a fixed, crispy, sizzling kind of distortion that is not as dynamic and organic with touch on the strings. Like when you try to play lightly, instead of cleaning up, it still has these crispy unnatural sparkles of distortion on top of the clean sound, whereas older NMV Marshalls clean up, the distortion darkens, softens and rolls off as you lighten touch and it becomes almost completely clean with light touch. The fizzy diode distortion amps also lack string definition when playing chords - just sounds like a shaving razor or white noise on top of a guitar playing. To be honest, I hear it way more standing in front of the amp. When I record and mix it, it’s not as apparent.

[JMP/HBE]

Having grown up in the 1960's ive never been anything other than tubes except for my Scholz Rockman for practice.

[Phantasmagoria]

I started out in the early 90's with a 20W POS solid state amp and then a friend went abroad and left me with his JTM 45 for a couple of year's. Now, playing that, I did'nt get what the fuss was about tube amps ...always thought that thing was weak, kinda buzzy & lacked gain (this was still the early 90's & I was into thrash & death metal), was'nt happy until I put a DOD death metal pedal in front of it What a difference...that sound was IT for me! Anyway after losing the Marshall I bought a used H&K Switchblade (jumped on it 'cause it's what Lars from Candlemass was using/endorsing at the time) still thought I needed a "tube amp" (with a dod death/metalzone in front) to sound good/get my sound . I think I got some of my ****tiest tones ever out of that thing. Cold, harsh, thin, sterile, buzzy...you name it

Looking back it must have had something wrong with it ....a busted tranny or cold solder joint or something. At the time there were NO tech's I could take it to here, so I sold it " as is" for next to nothing. Since then I've had both tube and SS amps...none of them expensive or high end (Bugera 333XL, AMT Stonehead, Randall T2, A pair of Laboga the beast 30 watter's, Chinese 15W monster I bought for $150 & a few others..) but I got them 'cause they all sounded awesome (to me) and not based on whether they ran tubes or not. Never had the slightest problem with any of them. They all run like butter, are all equally fun to play & sound killer..

I'd been avoiding modelers for years because they always sounded wrong/plasticy/synthetic to me, but now that I have a couple, I think they can be made to work just fine, sound (and in some cases, even 'feel') awesome & are actually the best/easiest/quickest to work with for recording..

So yeah, point being it's like different flavors of ice cream (tube/SS/modeler), they all taste great & they all have their place. I enjoy the differences between them & it beats sticking to just the one thing (tubes). Variety ..that's what it's about.

[Demanic]

So, the Full Bore Metal is hated too? That's good to know. I happen to like it, as well as the Metalzone, especially the gate feature.

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[AdrianSD]

Don't know how many times I have mentioned it but Judas Priest use 20 - 50 watt solid state Marshalls in the studio. Just because an amp is inexpensive does not mean that it will sound bad. Especially these days

Yeah, I could get some pretty crazy high gain tones using both Boss Metal Zone and the hated MXR Fullbore metal after I started to connect them into the effects return loop of Vox AV60 and Roland JC (think 40?). But it took me a lot of time to get the tone I liked out of them. Compared to that, getting all gain I need from a tube amp *I like* and using an overdrive to boost it with an EQ in the loop is where it's at for me. It's really simple and covers almost everything. I don't even use any modulation effects, except for the pi$s poor reverb of the DSL

[Securb]

Probably has something to do with the fact that not all solid state amps are "cheap" or more to the point cheap sounding.

Don't know how many times I have mentioned it but Judas Priest use 20 - 50 watt solid state Marshalls in the studio. Just because an amp is inexpensive does not mean that it will sound bad. Especially these days

[Top-L]

Sounds about right. Using a tube amp is kind of a right of passage for guitarists. But that doesn't mean you have to use them forever and many don't due to the issues that come along with tube amps.

Thats true. It was a "rite of passage".

And here we are in 2021 and I see tube amps for what they are. Just one possible way.

[Demanic]

This was how I started. With a cheap solid state amp.

IDK why the face palm.

Probably has something to do with the fact that not all solid state amps are "cheap" or more to the point cheap sounding.

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[AdrianSD]

Can someone post a video that gives a good example of what they mean by "fizzy"? I see this term written over and over, but I can't think of a tone I think would be accurately described by the word.

For me it means that very brittle high end coming as a byproduct of cranking the gain up. I like distortion (quite a lot actually) and between using pedals into a clean SS amp and a boosted tube Marshall I chose to stick with the latter. It's just easier to dial in the tone I like. With SS amps it's much harder to dial in the right amount of gain without it having it sounding like a tin can full of wasps. It's like when connecting a 1W subpar speaker to a 100W hi-fi amp and have it maxed out, you get that annoying distorted sound.
If that makes sense.