First tube amp advice?

[Lewguitar]

Re: First tube amp advice?

Fender Mustang III V.2.

Fabulous amp. Celestion 12" speaker. 75 watts. $325.

I leave my 40 - 60 year old vintage amps at home now.

But even at home I practice through my Mustang.

Seriously great sounding amp.

And not just for the money.

No tubes but I'm a tube guy and know tube tone.

I love this amp.

The thing with modelers is you can't just plug in and use the models.

You have to learn to program the amp yourself and use the amp models only as a starting point and then save your changes as your own presets.

I start with one of the amp models located from 80-100, the Twin Reverb setting for example, and then add one of the overdrives, delays, reverbs, gain, speakers cabinets, etc. and by the time I'm done I'm sounding like Santana or Peter Green or....myself!

Then I save that preset in another location, overwriting one of the useless factory presets from 00 - 80.

 

[Lake Placid Blues]

Re: First tube amp advice?

Modelers solve the problem of tube amps being too loud when they deliver the tone you want. They can sound great and give up cranked tube tone at any volume. And they also eliminate a lot of variables that cause inconsistent tone with tube amps, such as tube quality, speaker/output transformer interaction, bias adjustment... and so forth. But as good as, even inexpensive, modelers have become, there's still something special about owning your first real tube amp. I can understand that the OP really wants an all tube Orange amp. And Orange are good amps.

The thing with modelers is you can't just plug in and use the models.

You have to learn to program the amp yourself and use the amp models only as a starting point and then save your changes as your own presets.

Yup, and I have found this out first hand recently by experimenting with a JMD1. I can get great tones from the JMD but it's a lot of work and a lot of time.

I still can't get my favorite tones from it but it doesn't have basic models of my amps. If you want a JMP or 800 2203 sound it does that very well. Or more modern marshalls like the JVM and DSL it does that that well too. I kind of wonder what they were thinking? No JTM45, no EL34 (or KT66) plexi, no Silver Jubilee... two EL84 18 watt models... what is a Haze 40? Why stand alone stomp box models? But it does make a lot of great tube amp tones available all in one unit. It has a tube output section with EL34s and it sounds good at any volume.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: First tube amp advice?

There are a lot of good sounds in a Peavey Classic 30

I have a Carvin Belair that I like

Both of which are $600 new

If you want high gain the I would suggest a Carvin 3VM and a cab

It has power scaling 50/22/7 watts

 

[FuseG4]

Re: First tube amp advice?

I like the DSL and the Vintage Modern but the JVM sounded the best at low volumes, that thing still sings somehow at low levels, at least IMO.

 

[Benthedemon007]

Re: First tube amp advice?

Which is better: a JCM800 with an orange voiced pedal or a Rockerverb 50 with a Marshall voiced pedal?


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[Animal]

Re: First tube amp advice?

The amp that sounds like itself is the best option.

The Rockerverb already has heaps of gain on tap, way more than a JCM800. Putting a Marshall voiced pedal in front won't add much to the amp.

An Orange voiced pedal in front of a JCM800 will probably work better but will sound like a pedal in front of a JCM800 rather than a real Orange.

 

[Benthedemon007]

Re: First tube amp advice?

The amp that sounds like itself is the best option.

The Rockerverb already has heaps of gain on tap, way more than a JCM800. Putting a Marshall voiced pedal in front won't add much to the amp.

An Orange voiced pedal in front of a JCM800 will probably work better but will sound like a pedal in front of a JCM800 rather than a real Orange.

The idea would be to flavor the tone, not necessarily to add gain.