Chabenda
I am a great fan of my road kill Tete through one of my Roland Cubes. It is the greatest thing out in my opinion. I do find that the high Tele action, that gives a lot of the tone, and the lack of 'give' in the action really hurts the joints in my fingers after 3-4 hours of playing.
A few months back I dressed the frets on my Strat, the last time that I'll be able to do that as they are well worn after forty odd years of use. I broke the nut, like a dumbass, and it has taken a while for me to find enough sober free time to make a new one out of bone (I bought shin bones from the butchery and then dried them in the sun, once the dogs had finished with them). She is now playing beautifully again and her action is so soft that I can play a gig without suffering any discomfort at all.
The problem that I have is that the Cube doesn't give me the sound that I want with the Strat. It's not bad and will do, but it's not the match that the Tele is. I am not into fuzzy, overdriven sounds of death. I find that a tube screamer is generally enough for my needs and I am more concerned about the rhythm tone. My all time favourite amp tone with this guitar came from an old plexi Super Lead with a 4x12. I have owned a JTM30 and hated it, too thin and weedy, bad reverb, MGX30 cheap so no negative comment, Roland Bolt - harsh.
Is there anything, off the shelf, around 40 watts and not in the Kemper price bracket, that will give me the old Marshall plexi rhythm sound?
GuitarDoge
Im not sure if you want solid state or valve, but 2 great valve lunchbox heads are the tiny terror and the night train. Both have great cleans and a nice crunch. The Vox has more headroom however.
Chabenda
GuitarDoge wrote:
Im not sure if you want solid state or valve, but 2 great valve lunchbox heads are the tiny terror and the night train. Both have great cleans and a nice crunch. The box has more headroom however.
I'm not fussy between SS and valve. It's that full, clean and clear rhythm sound that I'm after. One where none of the knobs on the amp are on 0 or 10.
Chabenda
Ha ha! My Cubes do that job ok, for both types of guitar. I have no lead tone issues at all. It's that headroom for rhythm that I am looking for. It seems that a lot of you guys are looking for monster lead and distortion tones these days. Strat's and Teles have that wonderful, almost acoustic, tone. That's what I'm looking for. ?
beardedmoose
If it's headroom your after then you have to go tube as headroom refers to how much gas is in your tube... anyways id say the Ibanez TS15H has beautiful sparkly cleans.Maybe a Fender Blues Junior?? But seriously go check out that blues cube it's really a beautiful sounding amp.. heres a link.
GuitarDoge
I've used my friend's night train a lot, have owned a tiny terror and have tried the ts15h. If you want sparkly and slightly crunchy get the night train.
Chocklit_Thunda
Chabs, please boil the shin bone before you use it.... Otherwise the natural oils are gonna leach out and damage the finish in your neck
studmissile
Chabenda wrote:
GuitarDoge wrote:
Im not sure if you want solid state or valve, but 2 great valve lunchbox heads are the tiny terror and the night train. Both have great cleans and a nice crunch. The box has more headroom however.
I'm not fussy between SS and valve. It's that full, clean and clear rhythm sound that I'm after. One where none of the knobs on the amp are on 0 or 10.
Those older 80's early 90's peavey ss teal stripe amps, had beautiful cleans! Always liked them?
Chabenda
Chocklit_Thunda wrote:
Chabs, please boil the shin bone before you use it.... Otherwise the natural oils are gonna leach out and damage the finish in your neck
Ha ha! Thanks Chocklit! A little late - they were full of marrow and a bugger to get clean. I thought that 44 degrees C and the ants would clean them up but they didn't. Luckily the fretboard is rosewood and it won't look too bad. I'll certainly remember for the next time. Thanks for the tip!
Chabenda
studmissile wrote:
Chabenda wrote:
GuitarDoge wrote:
Im not sure if you want solid state or valve, but 2 great valve lunchbox heads are the tiny terror and the night train. Both have great cleans and a nice crunch. The box has more headroom however.
I'm not fussy between SS and valve. It's that full, clean and clear rhythm sound that I'm after. One where none of the knobs on the amp are on 0 or 10.
Those older 80's early 90's peavey ss teal stripe amps, had beautiful cleans! Always liked them?
With some luck, i'll be in JHB this month and can test some second hand one's. I had a Peavey Studio 65 (?) that I gigged with after putting a mother Eminence speaker in. I can't say that I was too happy with that. Maybe something with a 2x12?
studmissile
Chabenda wrote:
studmissile wrote:
Chabenda wrote:
GuitarDoge wrote:
Im not sure if you want solid state or valve, but 2 great valve lunchbox heads are the tiny terror and the night train. Both have great cleans and a nice crunch. The box has more headroom however.
I'm not fussy between SS and valve. It's that full, clean and clear rhythm sound that I'm after. One where none of the knobs on the amp are on 0 or 10.
Those older 80's early 90's peavey ss teal stripe amps, had beautiful cleans! Always liked them?
With some luck, i'll be in JHB this month and can test some second hand one's. I had a Peavey Studio 65 (?) that I gigged with after putting a mother Eminence speaker in. I can't say that I was too happy with that. Maybe something with a 2x12?
like these?
guidothepimmp
Sounds like a laney cub may dothe deed
Hiwatt g40 also has nice cleans.. damn, the gal from machinerie got some epic bluesy grunt outta that small amp..
Drink enough 2m and everything starts sounding good eventually
Airguitar
The classic clean Strat tone is obtained with a Twin Reverb or Deluxe Reverb amps. These are costly and heavy but are undefeated in the tone department. Peavey amps like the old Bandit 65 etc are also great amps for clean tones and are favoured by Country players. They are lighter, cheaper and very robust.
Psean
Chabenda wrote:
The problem that I have is that the Cube doesn't give me the sound that I want with the Strat. It's not bad and will do, but it's not the match that the Tele is. I am not into fuzzy, overdriven sounds of death. I find that a tube screamer is generally enough for my needs and I am more concerned about the rhythm tone. My all time favourite amp tone with this guitar came from an old plexi Super Lead with a 4x12.
Chabs have you tried different models on your Cube? If I'm not mistaken, the
Classic Model is supposed to be based on a Plexi. Which models have you been using?
Chabenda
Sean, I generally use the JC Clean for rhythm and use the second channel for lead. Whilst they state Black Panel, Brit Combo etc, they seem to be more suited for lead tones than rhythm. Vic once told me to try it through a 12" speaker as the difference was considerable. Perhaps the truth of the matter is that you can't really get the same full sound out of a single speaker that you get from a 4 x 12. Having rambled on, I forgot that the issue was the fact that my Telecaster sounds great on the JC channel once the amp volume gets up to between 10-11 o'clock and that my Strat doesn't.
Airguitar - I reckon you're leaning in the right direction. The Bandit sounds like a reasonable amp. A bit old perhaps but I have always found them to be reliable although their reputation seems to be otherwise.
Guido - If I can I'll give the Laney and Hiwatts a test. The 2M? Tenho dor de cabeça mais uma vez! ?
IceCreamMan
Tone as we know is subjective .... having said that and probably going to annoy the purists here but my lil blackstar 1 watt coupled with my strat with clean settings is really turning me on so much so I am gonna look into the 20 watt blackstar range once I have $$$..... growing up to it seems...
so when in jhb go to marshall, try em all.... then all the other stores and try em all too....
Chabenda
I'll do that. as a by the way, my Micro Cube has some really great tones too (IIMO ?) and I can even use it for rehearsal. It even copes with the volume of the drums. The tone is totally different to my other Cubes though. You may find a similar situation with the bigger Blackstars.
Chabenda
Well, I got to JHB, had some great times with Neon Gecko, Joe Moore, Attila and Aubs, got to see Dan Patlansky at the Barnyard (Thanks Joe!), what a talented player and showman, and got to play some great guitars (about half an acre of Aub's collection! ?).
I played on Orange, Vox, Fender, Marshall, Carvin, Valtron (Chinese valve amp marketed as Fame elsewhere) and a trusty Micro Cube.
As ICM correctly states, tone is subjective, but I would still like to add my 2 cents, my observations on the guitar environment, coming from someone who has been in the wilderness for some time:
Firstly, it seems that the vast majority of guitar players are looking for high output pickups. In my opinion, these pickups ruin the ability of a guitar to produce a nice musical rhythm tone - I am referring to single coils here, never mind the humbuckers which should be connected to the national grid to ease load shedding. It is my opinion that there are enough digital/analogue gizmos that can give a guitar a killer lead sound. The guitar should have a good natural tone to start with. A Strat's D or A string shouldn't sound like someone hitting a galvanised iron bucket with a spanner.
Secondly, I was quite disappointed with the sounds of many of the amps that I played through. The Vox AC (loud!!), Marshall and Carvin amps were shrill, glassy and hard. The Orange hmmmm...nah..., the Fender Deluxe, Black Face re-issue wasn't too bad. The Chinese Valtron - hmmm...much better (IMO obviously), the sound was nice and round and toneful, the reverb ok, none of the dials set on min or max. So I took it. It had nothing to do with price. (let's see how long it lasts!)
I also picked up my BvanS Striatus Custom - and that is another story!! What an instrument! I am going to organise a professional photo shoot to do it justice! ?
aubs1
Airguitar wrote:
The classic clean Strat tone is obtained with a Twin Reverb or Deluxe Reverb amps.
+1 The BEST tone I ever heard a Strat played through, was a Fender Twin Reverb !!! Period.
So why don't I have one?? :-[
