Achieving valve tone with solid state plus..?

[agedhorse]

That’s absolutely not true. Although tube amps are still incredible, the reason people are still using them is usually 3 reasons:
1. They have roadies
2. They think people actually hear a difference and want to spend a bunch of money to look like they know what they are doing.
3. They just hear and feel the difference and prefer that tone.

Modeling is also used where a variety of tone goals are needed, and it’s impractical to carry around (and place on stage) the number and models of cabs necessary to do this (as well as the maintenance and repair that might be needed.

Also, under these conditions, the switching is greatly simplified and more reliable when it’s all done within the modeler/profiler itself.

 

[chris_b]

So I think that's in part snobbishness. . . .

Me too. I think there's a lot of "listening with eyes" going on. Like the "Precision basses sound better in studios" stuff that's been a thing since the 60's.

Valves can sound good and bad, they are not a magic formula. SS and D class amps can sound equally good and bad. It all depends on the guy making the EQ adjustments and the rest of the signal chain.

Make good choices and you can get a world beating sound out of any style of amp.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

But we're not talking about sounding great. We're talking about sounding like an svt fridge
Damn this forum likes to move goalposts

Yeah, the tangent went when I said stale and generic. It is though. But, they wouldn't know/understand that. Obviously.

And the audience can't tell the difference between your P bass, or your musicman live, so that point is dead in the water too.

 

[Guitalia]

These guys are running a helix thru a 100,000.00 sound system not a fender 210.

Speaking of moving goalposts . . . .

 

[Wasnex]

Speaking of moving goalposts . . . .

Not really...IMHO, sound needs to optimized for each location and use. In other words it should be tailored for onstage monitoring and also for FOH for the house mix.

If the bass player uses a 210, 810, or IEM it is part of the equitation that must be considered for onstage monitoring. Ideally it should have nothing to do with how the signal will be processed or mixed at FOH. However, any time you are sending a Post DI signal to FOH, the way you adjust your sound on stage impacts the signal you send to FOH for the main mix. Also unfortunately, the reality is the louder and more bass-heavy your the mix is on stage, the more likely it will have an impact on the FOH mix. Essentially a loud, bass-heavy stage mix takes control away from the FOH mix.

This problem with acoustic crossfeed goes both ways. In other words, the PA mix also degrades the stage mix. Often it is difficult, if not impossible to strike a compromise where everyone gets everything they want. As a result, pro musicians generally learn to work with some degree of compromise. They get what they need rather than what they want.

In the event that you are using a modeler, IMHO it really does make sense to use some sort of FRFR cab if you are not using IEMs. The idea is to design a patch that sounds authentic to an SVT and 810E through a FRFR system like a PA. If you create a patch that sounds authentic through an actual 810E, the signal you send to FOH will need massive EQ and processing before the sound coming from the PA is similar to the sound you hear on stage. Of course if the Helix has two outputs, and you can leave the output driving your cab flat and apply an authentic 810E IP SIM to the output that is sent to FOH, maybe you have a chance.

I know for a fact that modelers can sound as good, if not better than real amps for live work. But it really does take someone who has an ability and feel for adjusting all of the parameters. You really have to dig in and develop an understanding for how sound, amps, and PA gear works on a certain level. You also need to use a bit of common sense, because there are a lot of ways to screw it up.

 

[DwaynieAD]

Speaking of moving goalposts . . . .

Put on your critical thinking cap for a minute and take off your victim cap.

Dude said a helix thru a 212 will achieve the same sound as an svt because bands with 6 figure front of houses use Helix....

So I replied to that.

Or to put it a little more simply so you can grasp it...youre wrong.

 

[mexicanyella]

Yeah, the tangent went when I said stale and generic. It is though. But, they wouldn't know/understand that. Obviously.

And the audience can't tell the difference between your P bass, or your musicman live, so that point is dead in the water too.

Put on your critical thinking cap for a minute and take off your victim cap.

Dude said a helix thru a 212 will achieve the same sound as an svt because bands with 6 figure front of houses use Helix....

So I replied to that.

Or to put it a little more simply so you can grasp it...youre wrong.

I didn’t read that post that way...I read it to mean that the poster was saying sure, something like a Helix can sound okay through a kick-ass PA but that’s a whole other deal than sounding good through a 2 x 10 cab.

Which is a fair point, neutrally and helpfully addressed by @Wasnex.

So why are guys blowing lip at each other about who’s the biggest tube amp jockey? Is there a contest going on I didn’t hear about? I can’t see where this thread even offers a premise over which to trade insults.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

Put on your critical thinking cap for a minute and take off your victim cap.

Dude said a helix thru a 212 will achieve the same sound as an svt because bands with 6 figure front of houses use Helix....

So I replied to that.

Or to put it a little more simply so you can grasp it...youre wrong.

Well, I just said running his Fractal through his tube amp makes it sound real again.

But, pretty much the jist.

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

I didn’t read that post that way...I read it to mean that the poster was saying sure, something like a Helix can sound okay through a kick-ass PA but that’s a whole other deal than sounding good through a 2 x 10 cab.

Which is a fair point, neutrally and helpfully addressed by @Wasnex.

So why are guys blowing lip at each other about who’s the biggest tube amp jockey? Is there a contest going on I didn’t hear about? I can’t see where this thread even offers a premise over which to trade insults.

Really, what I said was that my guitarist running his Fractal through his fender combo gives back the "realness"

And, it's also his thoughts and impression of it also. It's not just me. The whole band actually agrees. But, you know...emotions, thoughts, ideas, boredom, internet.

 

[mexicanyella]

Really, what I said was that my guitarist running his Fractal through his fender combo gives back the "realness"

And, it's also his thoughts and impression of it also. It's not just me. The whole band actually agrees. But, you know...emotions, thoughts, ideas, boredom, internet.

Well, in a much simpler and bottom-feeder-y kind of way, I had a similar experience in my guitar years when I used to “condition” the kind of harsh sound of a ProCo Rat 2 through a DI with a speaker sim filter in it and a pair of little Valco tube amps. The whole was greater than the sum of the parts, for sure...but my take-away from that wasn’t so much “get some tubes in the signal path for realness benefits”...rather, it was “plug everything into everything until you find a combination that does what you want, or you get surprised by a happy accident.”

 

[JeezyMcNuggles]

Well, in a much simpler and bottom-feeder-y kind of way, I had a similar experience in my guitar years when I used to “condition” the kind of harsh sound of a ProCo Rat 2 through a DI with a speaker sim filter in it and a pair of little Valco tube amps. The whole was greater than the sum of the parts, for sure...but my take-away from that wasn’t so much “get some tubes in the signal path for realness benefits”...rather, it was “plug everything into everything until you find a combination that does what you want, or you get surprised by a happy accident.”

Aaaaa, the sweet sound of MORE!!!!

Hahaha, I know thee well

 

[paskisti]

Not really...IMHO, sound needs to optimized for each location and use. In other words it should be tailored for onstage monitoring and also for FOH for the house mix.

If the bass player uses a 210, 810, or IEM it is part of the equitation that must be considered for onstage monitoring. Ideally it should have nothing to do with how the signal will be processed or mixed at FOH. However, any time you are sending a Post DI signal to FOH, the way you adjust your sound on stage impacts the signal you send to FOH for the main mix. Also unfortunately, the reality is the louder and more bass-heavy your the mix is on stage, the more likely it will have an impact on the FOH mix. Essentially a loud, bass-heavy stage mix takes control away from the FOH mix.

This problem with acoustic crossfeed goes both ways. In other words, the PA mix also degrades the stage mix. Often it is difficult, if not impossible to strike a compromise where everyone gets everything they want. As a result, pro musicians generally learn to work with some degree of compromise. They get what they need rather than what they want.

In the event that you are using a modeler, IMHO it really does make sense to use some sort of FRFR cab if you are not using IEMs. The idea is to design a patch that sounds authentic to an SVT and 810E through a FRFR system like a PA. If you create a patch that sounds authentic through an actual 810E, the signal you send to FOH will need massive EQ and processing before the sound coming from the PA is similar to the sound you hear on stage. Of course if the Helix has two outputs, and you can leave the output driving your cab flat and apply an authentic 810E IP SIM to the output that is sent to FOH, maybe you have a chance.

I know for a fact that modelers can sound as good, if not better than real amps for live work. But it really does take someone who has an ability and feel for adjusting all of the parameters. You really have to dig in and develop an understanding for how sound, amps, and PA gear works on a certain level. You also need to use a bit of common sense, because there are a lot of ways to screw it up.

I fully agree, this is true generally in live stage but we have to remember that modern modelers can create 2 individual signal paths. There one can be tailored to onstage monitor, amp or IEM sound and another to PA so they are not depending on each others as long as the DSP is not limiting the number of blocks. When using regular amp I would suggest to use separate preamp for FOH to tailor sound just for that, and amp is your monitor with your perfect sound.

 

[808State]

Far as getting sound to front of house or even a recording console.
Models work very well. Sound is exactly the same.

Far as things sounding " real "
Most musicians are use to hearing a speaker cab at rehearsal or stage.

So if you monitor through a normal cabinet its the same as usual.

Far as tube vs solid state. The warmth or distortion type can sound the same.
You can get ice pick treble or muddy tone from either.
Transformer coupled amp can have slightly different feel
with note attack. Much more notable with typical sealed guitar cabs
or sealed bass cabs.

Far as getting magical " tube" tone with a tube pre.
Usually not. If your shooting for distortion its all in the design.
For generic clean tone. The tube will just guarantee more noise depending how clean the power supply is.
And most the " tone" is whatever tone control your running with the tube.
Nothing extremely magical aside from the usual 3 to 6 percent distortion you get from
basic tube circuit. Doesn't mean its warmer or anything else.
Really basic transistor circuit with some turd old general purpose devices will do the same thing.

Within reason the old saying that the magic in the tube output section actually holds up.
And a tube pre wont emulate the transformer, and neither will a transformer in the pre.

 

[NoiseNinja]

What I use for this is the now out of production EHX Black Finger, which is a tube driven optical compressor, meaning basically an optical compression circuit placed in between the input and output stage of a tube preamp, that runs it's 2 preamp tubes at proper high 300V plate voltage.

I have the compression threshold dialed in so the compression basically never kicks in and the input gain set high, to drive the tubes just at the verge of breakup when I dig in the hardest, giving my signal a nice touch of genuine tube warmth and a subtle tube compression, just ever so slightly rounding off any harshness of my tone, but without dulling it in any way or affecting my playing dynamics.

Here's a professional bass player who uses his EHX Black Finger pretty much the same way as I do (though I use Lamp optical compression source mode instead of LED mode, have the compression dialed in quite a bit lower (basically lowers compression threshold the higher you set it), and the input gain set a bit higher than he has. The video linked to bellow has been set to start at the point where he briefly mentions and demonstrates how he used his Black Finger):



I also own a relatively Art Tube MP Project Series tube preamp, which utilizes starved tube plate voltage, I think I read somewhere around 70V, but I actually like what it does for my signal, and contrary to common beliefs starved tube plate designs actually gives more tube coloration than those run at proper high plate voltage, the character of the tubes just comes through slightly differently, not quite as warm and a tad more gritty and a tad less compressed, if you go this cheap route I advice you to upgrade the cheap crappy Chinese tube it comes with from stock, as that, with the right tube upgrade, will change the tone this preamp reproduces from crappy to great.

I personally prefer using EHX 12AX7EH preamp tubes in both my Black Finger and Art tube preamp.

 

[NoiseNinja]

I also own a relatively Art Tube MP Project Series tube preamp )*, which utilizes starved tube plate voltage, I think I read somewhere around 70V, but I actually like what it does for my signal, and contrary to common beliefs starved tube plate designs actually gives more tube coloration than those run at proper high plate voltage, the character of the tubes just comes through slightly differently, not quite as warm and a tad more gritty and a tad less compressed, if you go this cheap route I advice you to upgrade the cheap crappy Chinese tube it comes with from stock, as that, with the right tube upgrade, will change the tone this preamp reproduces from crappy to great.

I personally prefer using EHX 12AX7EH preamp tubes in both my Black Finger and Art tube preamp.

)* I meant of course :

I also own a relatively cheap Art Tube MP Project Series tube preamp

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

What I use for this is the now out of production EHX Black Finger, which is a tube driven optical compressor, meaning basically an optical compression circuit placed in between the input and output stage of a tube preamp, that runs it's 2 preamp tubes at proper high 300V plate voltage.

I have the compression threshold dialed in so the compression basically never kicks in and the input gain set high, to drive the tubes just at the verge of breakup when I dig in the hardest, giving my signal a nice touch of genuine tube warmth and a subtle tube compression, just ever so slightly rounding off any harshness of my tone, but without dulling it in any way or affecting my playing dynamics.

Here's a professional bass player who uses his EHX Black Finger pretty much the same way as I do (though I use Lamp optical compression source mode instead of LED mode, have the compression dialed in quite a bit lower (basically lowers compression threshold the higher you set it), and the input gain set a bit higher than he has. The video linked to bellow has been set to start at the point where he briefly mentions and demonstrates how he used his Black Finger):



I also own a relatively Art Tube MP Project Series tube preamp, which utilizes starved tube plate voltage, I think I read somewhere around 70V, but I actually like what it does for my signal, and contrary to common beliefs starved tube plate designs actually gives more tube coloration than those run at proper high plate voltage, the character of the tubes just comes through slightly differently, not quite as warm and a tad more gritty and a tad less compressed, if you go this cheap route I advice you to upgrade the cheap crappy Chinese tube it comes with from stock, as that, with the right tube upgrade, will change the tone this preamp reproduces from crappy to great.

I personally prefer using EHX 12AX7EH preamp tubes in both my Black Finger and Art tube preamp.

I have used a very similar approach for several years to add the tube warmth to my sound and simulate the effect of the tube power stage. I finally think I have achieved that goal with my current setup. I originally used both the art tube pre mentioned and the Ehx Blackfinger and both got different levels of the sound I was looking for but it also still had it's own short comings. The Art mp tube pre was good for doing what its name suggest it added the tube preamp warmth but it didn't give me the sag or impact of the tube power stage that the Ehx blackfinger compressor did tho as the Blackfinger did more of the tube power amp stage effect but it was large, noisey, and it uses a very cumbersome proprietary power supply that feels fragile so I ended up selling both of them off. I recently got a SushiBox Fx Deep Dish compressor that is designed after the Effectrode La1a compressor that is nailing the same sound as the Ehx Blackfinger but it has a much improved foot print, noise floor, and I can power it with a Truetone 1 spot. This combined with a Helix Hx Fx, my Verellen Meatsmoke tube preamp, a Two Notes Torpedo Cab M+ with the tube power amp simulation and custom impulse responses has nailed the sound of a full blown Ampeg Svt thru a miced 8x10 but it is all on my pedal board and weighs under 30lbs total. I also have a personal iem mixer and 2k watt power amp on the pedal board so I can pretty much handle any live situation thrown at me including iem, wedges, frfr setups or if the need arrises up to two 8x10 cabs. Note this is spendy and overkill for most guys needs but I can say with confidence theres not a single gig I couldn't handle with this setup.

 

[NoiseNinja]

I have used a very similar approach for several years to add the tube warmth to my sound and simulate the effect of the tube power stage. I finally think I have achieved that goal with my current setup. I originally used both the art tube pre mentioned and the ehx black finger both got different levels of the sound i was looking for but also had short comings. The art mp was good for doing what is name suggest it added the tube preamp warmth but didnt give the sag or impact of the tube power stage and the ehx did more of the tube power amp stage effect but it was large noisey and uses a very cumbersome proprietary power supply so i ended up selling both of them off. I recently got a Sushi box deep dish compressor that is designed after tbe effectrode la1a compressor that is nailing the same sound as the ehx but has a much improved foot print noise floor and I can power it with a Truetone 1 spot. This combined with a helix hx fx, my verellen meatsmoke tube preamp, a Two Notes Torpedo Cab M+ with the tube power amp simulation and custom impulse responses has nailed the sound of a full blown Ampeg svt thru a miced 8x10 but it is all on my pedal board and weighs under 30lbs total. I also have a personal iem mixer and 2k watt power amp on the pedal board so I can pretty much handle any live situation thrown at me including iem, wedges, frfr setups or if the need arrises up to two 8x10 cabs. Note this is spendy and overkill for most guys needs but I can say with confidence theres not a single gig I couldn't handle with this setup. View attachment 4247965

Well to be fair that Meatsmoke looks about as big as the Black Finger and Art MP Tube preamp together, so complaining about the Black Finger being big in favor of the Meatsmoke doesn't seem quite right, and I bet the Meatsmoke cost a whole lot more than the Black Finger and Art MP Tube preamp together too.

I don't doubt that it sounds awesome though.

Also I know the complains about the Black Finger being noisy are quite common, but my unit is rather quiet, and I know other people who report the same, however EHX is not exactly known for their high level of quality control and consistency so not saying that the people, including you, who claim it is noisy didn't in fact actually have a noisy unit, just saying that it seems like not all of them suffer from this issue.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Well to be fair that Meatsmoke looks about as big as the Black Finger and Art MP Tube preamp together, so complaining about the Black Finger being big in favor of the Meatsmoke doesn't seem quite right, and I bet the Meatsmoke cost a whole lot more than the Black Finger and Art MP Tube preamp together too.

I don't doubt that it sounds awesome though.

Also I know the complains about the Black Finger being noisy are quite common, but my unit is rather quiet, and I know other people who report the same, however EHX is not exactly known for their high level of quality control and consistency so not saying that the people, including you, who claims it is noisy didn't in fact actually have a noisy unit, just saying that it seems like not all of them suffer from this issue.

Yeah the Meatsmoke is huge but it kind of needs to be with the massive transformer and dual eq stacks. The Blackfinger size was more a issue for me personally with me trying to fit everything on my board as I didn't want to go any larger. As for the noise issues I think that shows up more commonly in high Rf situations and under poor power conditions, lighting ect. I gig in Chicago frequently and it can be bad there mainly. At home and rehearsals it wasn't really a problem. I do also use multiple noisegates with my setup and in certain situations they couldn't even tame the noise I would still get fairly loud buzz and radio interference.

 

[Ethereal Thorn]

Have you tried pairing the Art tube mp with the Blackfinger yet? I'm curious how that would sound I dont know why I never got around to pairing the two when I had them.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Have you tried pairing the Art tube mp with the Blackfinger yet? I'm curious how that would sound I dont know why I never got around to pairing the two when I had them.

Yes, both are part of my main "ampless" setup, the Art MP Tube preamp being the last unit in my setup and the Black Finger coming right before it going into the Art, both with their input gain set quite high, just on the verge of breakup when I dig in the hardest.

And it sounds awesome, the Art being a clearer more of a somewhat slightly more gritty and glassy type of tube coloration and the Black Finger being a warmer ever so slightly compressed type of tube coloration, together just adding the last subtle touch of perfection to my tone that I wouldn't have thought about missing out if I hadn't thought of adding them, and wouldn't really notice was there until removing one or both of them from the equation.

Now I know some people would reply to such with a lost in the mix or no one notice anyway comment, but I am of the opinion that if it matters to you that is what matters the most, and also not much mix to get lost in when playing in a bass/vocals and drums/vocals duo, plus I'd like to think the kind of audience I make music for would in fact be capable of and able to appreciate/ing such thing.