AMT Solid-State tubes

Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

I was going to start a thread about these the other day. I'm intrigued but skeptical that they will have the same warmth, liveliness and dynamics of real valves.

They will not.

Are you familiar with AMT?





If anyone can do it, they can.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

Only one way to be sure! Spend the Bucks! :)

You know it might be worth it if you don't have to replace tubes. Here's the thing. Let's say they sound great and make a long-lasting or permanent solution to vacuum tubes then that's a good alternative. The next question would be whether a variety will be made of them so that you can sculpt your tone a bit the way we do with vacuum tubes. It's interesting and and a long overdue alternative to solid state processors and amps. I want to try them out.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

You know it might be worth it if you don't have to replace tubes. Here's the thing. Let's say they sound great and make a long-lasting or permanent solution to vacuum tubes then that's a good alternative. The next question would be whether a variety will be made of them so that you can sculpt your tone a bit the way we do with vacuum tubes. It's interesting and and a long overdue alternative to solid state processors and amps. I want to try them out.
I am with you 1,000,000% and beyond, which is why I forked over BIG BUCKS to get the Tonegrinders. I had to know, if for no other reason than to see where the 'state of the art' is, and where science meets magic.

I am now firmly back in the magic camp. :)
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

I am, and personally think their stuff sounds like @ss. There is no tone in their products. They make neat toys, not tools for musicians looking for great tones.

You are in the minority with your opinion, and probably not part of their target audience.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

I'm not going to say a cross word about AMT even though I have only tried a couple of their products and haven't been able to find something useful for me yet. Perhaps they do have something useful, but they are very scarce around these parts so it's not like I can got o GC and demo them. I've always wanted to try an Astral Tube pedal. At one time I saw a new one on clearance for $45, but when I went to buy it, someone beat me to it by 30sec. I haven't seen them as cheap since and they stopped making them.

I did see those videos, and more, of their solid state amp. It still sounds like a solid state amp, especially the clean channel. Marshall MG's and other solid state amps can be fun to play, but their sound begins to irritate me after a few hours which is why I don't own any. I'm still interested in their solid state tubes. If anything, they would probably be good for a beater tube amp that you can kick around for gigs and not have to worry about the tubes going out - and a lot of people don't worry about their tone as much in day-to-day gigs.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

Getting a tube amp and converting it into solid state. Talk about doing things the hard way.

Considering that one of their JFET preamps + a little classD power amp blasted some legendary amps off the pool during reamping a year ago / dry facts, recording everything with the same gear, A/B/C and choosing the best one /, I'd wait to say that until testing :)


I am, and personally think their stuff sounds like @ss. There is no tone in their products. They make neat toys, not tools for musicians looking for great tones.

Personal opinions can oppose but it doesn't mean that they collide as tastes differ / despite that I might be a valid musician and someone who is always looking for tone :) /. For example I sound like ass on a Mesa Recto as a player (I must add that as a recording producer I love to work with it behind the mixing board), the most boring amp that ate the biggest amount of dust among all amps I've ever had was my classy Hackman / Diezel V2 proto costing a fortune and I'm still happy using a $30 KORG G1 for shooting solos sometimes. You see the point.

Since I've been using AMT preamps I'm motivated to play a lot again after all those years and a load of tube gear that should have done it for me but all failed for certain reasons, inspiration mostly, I focused too much on gear and less on music. There were only two tube amps that stayed and I thought I will use them as long as I'm around as a player but spine problems said goodbye to them. Now I sound and feel better with pocket amplification. Life has strange turns.
 
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Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

Are you familiar with AMT?





If anyone can do it, they can.

Based on these clips, I wouldn't be too excited to try their tube replacements.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

They will not.

ah of course. As we all know, given any two companies take on a similar product, there will be no discernible difference between them.

I find it interesting that people think that we aren't "there" technologically yet. Its not the technology. We have computers that can perform nearly 20 petaflops (1 x10^15 floating point calculations per second). THAT'S A BILLION MILLION CALCULATIONS PER SECOND. I think we can make a solid state component sound like a tube one. They are mathematically pretty similar. The issue here is widespread thinking that follows the whole "SS will never be as good!" It discourages companies from seriously thinking about creating high quality solid state amplifiers for guitar. The product will never be engineered unless the demand is there, that's how business works. We need to get our collective heads out of our asses and start to realize that there are sounds and soundscapes out there that we haven't even come close to achieving yet. You can always add back in the imperfections that tubes add, but you can never get lost sonic information back...

Guitarists confuse me, often
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

I'd be interested in trying these things. I love my Metaltronix but I wish the pre section was a little more aggressive, at times. It's got plenty of gain but it mushes up a bit.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

I'd be interested in trying these things. I love my Metaltronix but I wish the pre section was a little more aggressive, at times. It's got plenty of gain but it mushes up a bit.

From what I've read about the Jet City Retrovalves, the Red "tube" is like putting a tube screamer in front of the amp. If AMT has something similar, that may be exactly what you're looking for.

Getting a tube amp and converting it into solid state. Talk about doing things the hard way.

If these sound close enough to tubes, you'd see more people that like the reliability of solid state amps picking up tube amps. There's plenty of tube amps that don't have a solid state equivalent, and vice versa. (For example - 5150/6505, and JC-120.)
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

ah of course. As we all know, given any two companies take on a similar product, there will be no discernible difference between them.

I find it interesting that people think that we aren't "there" technologically yet. Its not the technology. We have computers that can perform nearly 20 petaflops (1 x10^15 floating point calculations per second). THAT'S A BILLION MILLION CALCULATIONS PER SECOND. I think we can make a solid state component sound like a tube one. They are mathematically pretty similar. The issue here is widespread thinking that follows the whole "SS will never be as good!" It discourages companies from seriously thinking about creating high quality solid state amplifiers for guitar. The product will never be engineered unless the demand is there, that's how business works. We need to get our collective heads out of our asses and start to realize that there are sounds and soundscapes out there that we haven't even come close to achieving yet. You can always add back in the imperfections that tubes add, but you can never get lost sonic information back...

Guitarists confuse me, often

Honestly I think a lot of people are using Digital more then Tubes or Solid State with things like the POD and AXE FX you can do so many things and keep the tone consistent. I owned and used a Tube amp for maybe 2 years now and used a SS for a lil longer but I think as guitar players we want the reliability and convience and ease of SS but the tone of Valves. SS even for the higher end amps are cheaper then valves and depending on the application can sound better then some valve amps I know Randall is know for some good high end SS amp tech.
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

I would take a slight compromise in tonal quality for a set of back up tubes.

Like say one of my precious hand-picked tone-friendly cork-sniffed NOS tubes goes bad before the first song is over... I would like to own a device that can do what a tube does but can sit in my emergency tool kit without needing a bunch of protection.

Or for a back-up amp, or an amp I don't use as much... save all my fancy old tubes for the 68 Bassman, but use these AMT's for that old Univox I scored that is just loud and clean and mostly reserved for bassists and other guest musicians...

cream123 is right...the tech is getting to where this sort of idea is definitely feasible...but for me, part of the fun of using vintage gear is using it in a vintage way... I'll admit freely that I'm more interested in keeping the spirit of 60's and 70's hard rock alive than I am in "pushing the boundaries of soundscapes" or what the hell ever... because it's the classic rock stuff that got me excited to play and it doesn't sound right through modern stuff. Power to the modern musicians and their modern tools...hopefully someday their tone will be as good as mine :smokin:
 
Re: AMT Solid-State tubes

cream123 is right...the tech is getting to where this sort of idea is definitely feasible...but for me, part of the fun of using vintage gear is using it in a vintage way... I'll admit freely that I'm more interested in keeping the spirit of 60's and 70's hard rock alive than I am in "pushing the boundaries of soundscapes" or what the hell ever... because it's the classic rock stuff that got me excited to play and it doesn't sound right through modern stuff. Power to the modern musicians and their modern tools...hopefully someday their tone will be as good as mine :smokin:

and I think that's a valid attitude to some extent. at the end of the day, it all comes down to sound and what you are looking for, I understand that. Sometimes I think that people just write off newer gear because its new.
 
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