Hot _Grits
Buttery Toneologist
I finally got the chance to fire up my Vibrolux and Blue Angel yesterday, and holy sh*t did I like what I heard!
I set the two amps up about two metres apart so my very screwed mono hearing could 'move' between the sounds to see what each amp was adding to the sound. Initially, I ran them through the stereo panning outs of my DD5 on a very subtle panning delay equivalent to a touch of reverb, and later added a G2D classic overdrive and a crucible fuzz in front. Guitars were my 57ri with aps2s and a texas hot in the bridge, my CU22 with 59's, my tele custom and my old custom built shredder with a dimarzio PAF.
First up, I was blown away at how good the Blue Angel sounded. It's been worked on by Clarrie, the guy that modded my Vibrolux recently, and it sounded sweet in the extreme. The 6v6 setting had that beautiful glassy fender high end, and the el84s had a crystalline shimmer. Every guitar sounded clear and balanced through the BA. The reverb was the better of the two, as well.
Moving into overdrive, the 6v6s really impressed me. They have a sweet treble breakup that really suits strat neck pickups. The el84s had a fatter breakup that's very much in the vox camp, as you might expect. Both settings did tend to get a bit 'idiosyncratic' when dimed, though. The 6l6s got quite fuzzy on 10 and the el84s were a little indistinct. Combining the two sets of tubes did help balance the tone, as well as push the volume up, but I think I prefer the individual settings on sub-8 volume. The BA sounded very balanced and musical, and better than I remember it.
In comparison, the Vibrolux sounded more mid-focused, which is much to do with it's ten inch speakers and pre-blackface circuit tweaks. Clean, it has that classic fender 6l6 'click' to the high end, and sounds a little more rough and ready than the BA on clean settings. As you start to push the amp, the 6l6s come into their own, however, with a fat smooth overdrive that stayed focused. Dimed on 10, the overdrive tone was killer. i have to get a transparent boost for solos at gigs, SD perhaps...
So what about the two together?
-well, I only played for a couple of hours, and there are so many ways you can tweak the amps, but tone of the day was setting the vibrolux to the point of breakup at about 4 on the bright channel and adding the BA on 6v6 with slightly more breakup. the el84 setting gives a bit more glisten and shine for chording, though.
Overall, the BA added complexity and shimmer while the vibrolux did the hard yards of hauling the mids. A very nice combination that never sounded like there was too much double teaming of one tonal area, which is the great weakness of multi-amp setups.
I also managed to get a killer hard rock tone with the classic and my old shredder. Very much in the early EVH end of things, though slightly lower gain than most, which makes gymnastics a little taxing.
I'm a very happy puppy.
I set the two amps up about two metres apart so my very screwed mono hearing could 'move' between the sounds to see what each amp was adding to the sound. Initially, I ran them through the stereo panning outs of my DD5 on a very subtle panning delay equivalent to a touch of reverb, and later added a G2D classic overdrive and a crucible fuzz in front. Guitars were my 57ri with aps2s and a texas hot in the bridge, my CU22 with 59's, my tele custom and my old custom built shredder with a dimarzio PAF.
First up, I was blown away at how good the Blue Angel sounded. It's been worked on by Clarrie, the guy that modded my Vibrolux recently, and it sounded sweet in the extreme. The 6v6 setting had that beautiful glassy fender high end, and the el84s had a crystalline shimmer. Every guitar sounded clear and balanced through the BA. The reverb was the better of the two, as well.
Moving into overdrive, the 6v6s really impressed me. They have a sweet treble breakup that really suits strat neck pickups. The el84s had a fatter breakup that's very much in the vox camp, as you might expect. Both settings did tend to get a bit 'idiosyncratic' when dimed, though. The 6l6s got quite fuzzy on 10 and the el84s were a little indistinct. Combining the two sets of tubes did help balance the tone, as well as push the volume up, but I think I prefer the individual settings on sub-8 volume. The BA sounded very balanced and musical, and better than I remember it.
In comparison, the Vibrolux sounded more mid-focused, which is much to do with it's ten inch speakers and pre-blackface circuit tweaks. Clean, it has that classic fender 6l6 'click' to the high end, and sounds a little more rough and ready than the BA on clean settings. As you start to push the amp, the 6l6s come into their own, however, with a fat smooth overdrive that stayed focused. Dimed on 10, the overdrive tone was killer. i have to get a transparent boost for solos at gigs, SD perhaps...
So what about the two together?
-well, I only played for a couple of hours, and there are so many ways you can tweak the amps, but tone of the day was setting the vibrolux to the point of breakup at about 4 on the bright channel and adding the BA on 6v6 with slightly more breakup. the el84 setting gives a bit more glisten and shine for chording, though.
Overall, the BA added complexity and shimmer while the vibrolux did the hard yards of hauling the mids. A very nice combination that never sounded like there was too much double teaming of one tonal area, which is the great weakness of multi-amp setups.
I also managed to get a killer hard rock tone with the classic and my old shredder. Very much in the early EVH end of things, though slightly lower gain than most, which makes gymnastics a little taxing.
I'm a very happy puppy.
