When Is Tube Overkill?

So since I bought a tube amp I have been playing around with clean and gain channels. I can't turn the thing up too loud or I'll go deaf. But I am still working on getting a Marshally gain at low output.

The amp sounds really good clean, I like all EQ pots rolled max. I like high state of presence and mid boosted. I don't like bright input because I prefer the more bass of normal input.

I experimented with a couple distortions - Boss MT2 and Metal Muff Top Boost - I decided I was looking more for fuzz or overdrive break up. I also decided I didn't want diode clipping. I am looking more for increase in harmonics and dynamic range rather than clipping the whole signal or bricking it.

So I bought an Earthquaker Speaker Cranker overdrive - it's a one knob booster with slight breakup. It works great with my clean channel and does give me better sustain and some increase in saturation and compression. I can't measure clipping so I don't know to what degree but it's slight because the signal is mostly clean.

I also got a used Electro-Harmonic Line Power Booster 2UBE. It has two 12AX7 tubes run stereo, which can be ganged to mono for a cascaded gain. They both run at 300 volts so a good hot unit for either clean or overdrive boost.

I have been experimenting with turning master volumn high to run more power st the 6L6s. I also have tried reducing it and maxing gain volumn with gain low, or maxing gain preamps with volumn low.

I gotta admit, I am running up a huge amount of possibilities with gain, fuzz, overdrive, distortion settings.

But as you will see I am trying to acheive my overdrives through using the amp and guitar controls. I am not trying to apply too specific modality via pedal.

Do you do stuff like this with your tubes. How much is too much> Or can there never be too many stages of cascaded gain? Maybe some other tweaks. 12AT7 tubes instead in the LPB?

:sultan: what would genie say?

 

It all depends on context.

 

Welcome to the glorious world of tube amps... There's no way to get "THAT TONE" without cranking the shit out of the amp. (and subsequently having the cops beat down your door at 3 in the morning)


Some pedals can come close. Some modeling software can come even closer. But nothing sounds exactly like a tube amp cranked through a matching speaker cabinet. There's a lot of shit involved in making that tone, it's not just a 12AX7 breaking up, or a pair of 6L6s being over driven. Everything from the input jack all the way to your ears is involved. This is also why some amps sound better than very similar amps.


If you really want to get as close as possible I would recommend some type of amp modeling pedal that is using software to create this tone... Sorry to say that, and this is coming from a purest that used to have the 100 watt half stacks.* If this doesn't sit well with you, you can try stacking pedals as this can sound pretty juicy, but in a very different way... Stacked pedals can have great distortion but it's not "amp like" if you get my drift. NOTE: a lot of really good recordings you may have heard aren't necessarily amps anyways.




* This is how I know the cops will bust your door down at 3:00AM :2thumbsup:

 

Pickups man. Matching them to your setup can make all the difference. Even SS distortion can sound great with the right PU.
As for the monster stack sound, after many years of blasting everyones brains out and damaging the fuck out of my own hearing, I'm inclined towards the little boutique 15 watt tubers
and just mic 'em up.

 

You might wire up a millamp meter in the plate circuit of the tubes and stop just below the max amps on the tubes . I have old tube manuals some where , but I have not looked at them in years . desert rat
p.s. this site is good for answers of that type http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/

 

All great suggestions, that I am guessing cost money.

That's a problem.

But, now that I have a tube amp and two boosts, one clean and one with subtle clipping overdrive I have lots of room to play.

Most people say to place the overdrives and boosts before the preamp, but I am also reading that overdrive should go directly to the power tube to saturate the power tube, whereas running a clean boost through clean channel before preamp tubes will contribute to saturation. This placement should produce more natural harmonic soft clipping and not produce the wall of white noise gain which accompanies too much senseless preamp gain. I am suggesting that this path may be a route to producing true saturated, compressed, harmonic overdrive, from subtle clipping sawtooth peaks to all out square waveform.

I think it would be stupid for me to invest more without working with my hard won present resources. And every bit of guitar merchandise has taken me lots of work, explaining, pleading, deals, bartering, trade, study, thought, and desire.

I am reading articles which say to work first with power tube resources and once they are ideal, then work with preamp. I am hearing that preamp is often fizzy. Some people say changing out the tubes is ideal, others, that preamp is entirely overrated, with best sound quality from power tubes, and that mixed preamp and solid state even is just a gimmick with no worth.

On the subject does anyone have thoughts about Genalex tubes versus others? I have been hearing they're the shit.

 

One thing to note.... as soon as you start driving those power tubes volume goes up accordingly. There's no way around that short of using a power soak. Master volume is before power tubes, not after.


And yes, preamp distortion is fizzy.

 

Hmmm, I didn't know that. It doesn't make alot of sense to attenuate ones signal while boosting it. This gets more wheels within wheels.

 

It's they whole system. Yes power tubes, but also the speakers effect on impedance.
When you get to meltdown volumes and heat up the speaker, it changes what the transformer sees as far as resistance, and that changes how the tubes react. Thats why we have seen vintage repro speakers just barely big enough to handle the full output of the amp being used. Power soaks can be used but they are not a speaker, just a big fat variable resistor. One of the best solutions I've seen is to mount the speaker in an mic'ed isolation chamber. Then you can crank up the power-tube magic without knocking down the walls of Jericho.

 

I would say use some ics and transistors , and use the tubes as the final amp , but I dont know if that would get you the sound you want . You might run this past some of the electronics forums and see what they think . I have not worked with vacuum tubes in years and barly remember some circuits . Parts are getting hard to find . Todays stuff is not meant to be takken apart and fixed . desert rat

 

Yep, I believe this is the current trend in the industry anyway, front end is pretty well served by transistors, keeping a nice clean signal to drive the back.

 

This and all of the above... It's the whole system, from input jack to your ears, like I said earlier. Even putting the speakers in an isolation unit can effect how the speaker works. Just like a closed back vs open back cabinet. If the iso unit is to small the speaker can't breathe.


This is why I mentioned a computer modeling pedal or software because all this can be taken into account. Some of the stuff that's available will blow you away as far as accuracy goes. This can be further amplified by a stand alone amp or go straight into the board.



Nothing beats real tubes... until you have to turn it down.

 

True, engineered iso units usually end up way bigger than the cabinet the speaker was originally intended for! lol

I have to admit, those modelers are fucking amazing.
I'll bet a blindfold test would blow any skeptics mind.

LOL Thats what I kept telling those pesky bar-owners. My amp don't work right unless it's on 10!

 

Ghosts appear and fade away... come back another day.. :guitarist:

 

Hear is a list of sites , not all discuss vacuum tubes . Bad caps is more about caps on comp mother boards http://www.badcaps.net/ This place sells old mil. stuff http://www.fairradio.com/ http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/tubes-valves/ http://forums.audioreview.com/news-rumors/samsung-vacuum-tube-amplifier-37804.html http://www.electro-tech-online.com/ http://www.elderly.com/videos/items/49-DVD101894.htm http://www.transcendentsound.com/Transcendent/Home.html http://vintageamps.com/tag/vacuum-tube-compressor/ http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/3/26...-theater-systems-announced-vacuum-tube-hybrid http://www.electronicspoint.com/ http://music-electronics-forum.com/ http://vintageelectronics.betamaxcollectors.com/forums/forum.php There are a bunch more just on ham radio http://www.dxzone.com/catalog/Technical_Reference/Amplifiers/ I can remember when they would use the horz. out put tubes from t.v. and use them for ham radio . desert rat

 

Thanks for those links.

 

Your favorite tubes? 12ax7 and 6l6? Brands and spots.

 

Nos GE and Sylvania...12au7 clean channel, 12ax7 lead channel, 6l6 power tubes.

 

I used to have an old amp made for military use, probably Navy because the whole thing was painted gray... anyways it had a 6V6 in push pull configuration for the power amp section so it was limited to about 30 watts. The phase inverter was a 6SN7. This was a monoblock design, so no preamp. I pushed it with a dual 12AX7 rack mount preamp I made. That thing was smokin' hot and you could really slam the 6SN7/6V6 and stay at "reasonable" volume. It still was loud enough for a band situation. I actually like the breakup of a 6V6 better than a 6L6. If a 6L6 amp has adjustable bias you can plug and play 6V6 in a 6L6 design. It drops your output wattage but it's easier to slam without waking the dead.

Another tube I really like is the 6EU7 which is what was used in the tube Echoplex... The original green luggage case deals, I've had three of these at various times over the years and actually had two at the same time for awhile. (I'm heavy into reverb and echo) Anyways, it's similar to a 6 volt version of the 12AX7 but it's got a really smooth breakup...:2thumbsup:

 

smooth breakup sound sweet but I want the deep bass response...?