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Songs that featured solid-state guitar amps

#21
Michedelic said:
Black Flag’s Greg Ginn used QSC power amps, I don’t know what kind of pre-amps(you’d have to check with BF experts), but that’s what I saw live in1984, ‘Slip It In’ tour. Kira, maybe the same, I can’t quite remember( it was quite a night). Henry was in fine form.
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I don't know my Black Flag history very well and can't remember where I read about that, but I want to say the cranked PA head was earlier. I have a dim memory of even seeing a photo or two of him standing in front of a 4 x 12 with an old Peavey PA head on it. But I can't point you to the source and maybe I'm confused on that one.
 
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#24
The standard belief among electric guitar players is that tubes are required for a good distorted tone. I share this belief. Solid state amps have never been able to capture the dynamics of technique in the same way tubes can with distorted tones. Digital modeling is now able to simulate tube distortion very well. If we are talking about good clean tones, solid state amps like the JC120 are well respected, especially among jazz players. It’s not very difficult to get a good clean tone with solid state.

There are not many highly regarded guitar players who use solid state for distortion. One exception is Tom Scholz, who used the Rockman headphone amp on Boston recordings. Dimebag Darrell is another example, using Randall SS amps. Both use solid state technology for very high gain distortion that is compressed and offers substantial sustain. In my opinion, solid state works for these type of tones because it’s weakness in the area of dynamics is hidden.
 
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#26
mmon77 said:
Rockmans were also used to record Def Leppard's "Hysteria" album, believe it or not.
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It is rumored that quite a few artists used the rockman. I have read that Phil Collen was one of them. I really like the tones it gets, but wouldn’t want to play all night with it. It’s a one trick pony and it doesn’t clean up nice when you roll off the volume.
 
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#27
easyj said:
The standard belief among electric guitar players is that tubes are required for a good distorted tone. I share this belief. Solid state amps have never been able to capture the dynamics of technique in the same way tubes can with distorted tones. Digital modeling is now able to simulate tube distortion very well. If we are talking about good clean tones, solid state amps like the JC120 are well respected, especially among jazz players. It’s not very difficult to get a good clean tone with solid state.

There are not many highly regarded guitar players who use solid state for distortion. One exception is Tom Scholz, who used the Rockman headphone amp on Boston recordings. Dimebag Darrell is another example, using Randall SS amps. Both use solid state technology for very high gain distortion that is compressed and offers substantial sustain. In my opinion, solid state works for these type of tones because it’s weakness in the area of dynamics is hidden.
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I have gigged with this guy, and we joked that his Marshalls were on "1" and my SVTs were on "3". He gets all the tone from his pedalboard and technique.



Disclaimer: This is David Santos, not me :roflmao:
 
#28
mexicanyella said:
I don't know my Black Flag history very well and can't remember where I read about that, but I want to say the cranked PA head was earlier. I have a dim memory of even seeing a photo or two of him standing in front of a 4 x 12 with an old Peavey PA head on it. But I can't point you to the source and maybe I'm confused on that one.
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Looky what I found...pretty much like what I remember of the show I saw(except Kira had a Rickenbacker); as far as I can tell, both Greg and Kira have those dark brown Peavey preamps of the era going into second generation QSC's, and then those huge cabs...


trailer said:
Seems like there would be a ton of guys using ss vox amps over the years.
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In America, in the 'Nuggets' era of garage bands, '65-'67, the Thomas Organ-built Vox solid state amps reigned supreme. Everyone wanted a piece of the Beatles(and British Invasion)sound, but the irony was that those amps were nothing like the UK tube rigs, aside from cosmetics. I once read a description, "a blizzard of nails", or something like that, and that's not too far off. While yes, those amps have their fans(a result of nostalgia more than anything else, I reckon), I thought they were horribly shrill. Very expensive back in the day as well. Now of course there was Fender, Sunn, Ampeg Gemini and Rocket, SS Kustoms, and a few lesser-known brands in use by those bands, but for that two year window, Vox was, as they used to say, happening. Once Marshall made it to the US circa 1968/69, all those Super Beatles got kicked to the curb. While Chicago's garage punk kings The Shadows of Knight(of "Gloria" fame)are seen in archival footage using smaller Fenders, to my ears the tone on this track(with some added fuzz, obviously)pretty much sums up the US Vox sound, as I remember it...

Pure conjecture on my part, of course, however...
When The Who finally got to the US to tour extensively for the first time in 1967, they were fairly unknown, and on a minuscule budget. Even though they had moved on from UK Vox gear to Marshall right at that moment, they couldn't afford to bring anything over, so US Vox marketing stepped in and gave them a bunch of Super Beatles to use. But as you can tell from the Monterey footage, it was a very thin sound, Pete also relying on fuzz for some crunch and sustain...

Here's an American band that was on the cusp of garage and psychedelia, and had some great stuff beyond their "Ain't Got Nothing Yet" one hit wonder. Now, of course this is one of the usual lip-synched TV appearances of the time, and I have no idea what they might have used in the studio, but in this clip you see them with Standell 'candy dish' top solid state amps...


In the UK post-punk era, plenty of Roland JC series were used, Siouxie/Banshees, Killing Joke, Smiths, Japan, and so on(XTC and Gang Of Four used some obscure SS stuff)), but there was also H+H, an interesting solid state line. Initially used to some extent by Pink Floyd(Waters), TRex, and Be-Bop Deluxe, Daniel Ash put one through its paces in Bauhaus and Love+Rockets...

As well as the Buzzcocks...
 

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#30
The "blizzard of nails" quote comes from Richie Fliegler's book "Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll."

I kind of like the sound of those solid state Voxes in that Who clip. They definitely don't sound like cranked-up Marshalls though.

Greg Ginn's long and dissonant solo at the beginning of that Black Flag clip is pretty out there, but the super cutting and jagged distorted tone is unusual and pretty cool in places. I can't find the image I thought I remembered of him with the old silver-knob Peavey PA head, but there sure are some people trying to sell them and referring to them as "the Greg Ginn head" in their ads!
 
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#31
mexicanyella said:
The "blizzard of nails" quote comes from Richie Fliegler's book "Amps: The Other Half of Rock and Roll."

I kind of like the sound of those solid state Voxes in that Who clip. They definitely don't sound like cranked-up Marshalls though.

Greg Ginn's long and dissonant solo at the beginning of that Black Flag clip is pretty out there, but the super cutting and jagged distorted tone is unusual and pretty cool in places. I can't find the image I thought I remembered of him with the old silver-knob Peavey PA head, but there sure are some people trying to sell them and referring to them as "the Greg Ginn head" in their ads!
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Here, perhaps? Circa 1979...
View attachment 3313656
 
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#35
mmon77 said:
Rockmans were also used to record Def Leppard's "Hysteria" album, believe it or not.
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easyj said:
It is rumored that quite a few artists used the rockman. I have read that Phil Collen was one of them. I really like the tones it gets, but wouldn’t want to play all night with it. It’s a one trick pony and it doesn’t clean up nice when you roll off the volume.
Click to expand...

The first paying gig I had in the 80s I was 15. The rest of the band members were in their 30s. The sound guy couldn't stand my amp tone (Peavey TKO) so they forced me to buy a bass rockman. Worked like a champ and sounded great. I've missed buying a couple by a few minutes. Great little peice of gear.
 
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#36
two fingers said:
The first paying gig I had in the 80s I was 15. The rest of the band members were in their 30s. The sound guy couldn't stand my amp tone (Peavey TKO) so they forced me to buy a bass rockman. Worked like a champ and sounded great. I've missed buying a couple by a few minutes. Great little peice of gear.
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I experienced quite the opposite: the sound guy hated me for using this cheesy Bass-Rockman in front of the backline Peavey. But I thought I was
the coolest high-end gear using player in the world with my bass walkman.
I always regretted buying one. In Germany it was nearly the price of a good amp head.
Noisy and cheesy and the chorus and the compressor were just so cheap sounding. And it didn't have any real bass. Just threw it away a few years ago. Bought it new in 1988. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night hearing the pumping of the Rockman compressor...
 
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#37
I didn't know that thing about black flag, but I never really cared about their gear. I know the first couple of bathory albums were recorded using a cheap Yamaha combo. I also know Victor Wooten's brother has been known to use a Squier guitar and a crate amp in performances (who really should get recognition for some of their amps),. Other than that I'm not too sure - but I'm sure that there are plenty of examples of people just using whatever is on hand in studios, we make a big fuss about gear on the internet, but at the end of the day it's all just tools and you can either work with with them or you can't.
 
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#38
Michedelic said:
Black Flag’s Greg Ginn used QSC power amps, I don’t know what kind of pre-amps(you’d have to check with BF experts), but that’s what I saw live in1984, ‘Slip It In’ tour. Kira, maybe the same, I can’t quite remember( it was quite a night). Henry was in fine form.
Click to expand...

I've seen him play some older Peavey stuff. He always seemed to have some sort of weird thrown together rig made of PA equipment, 15" bass cabs and whatever he could scrounge together. Whatever it was it sure worked for him.
 
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#40
ElectroVibe said:
Does anyone know of a song or album (1980's or earlier) which used solid-state guitar amps?

Or any recording using an older solid-state amp.

Thanks.
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Dime bag played through randalls. Almost everything recorded in the last 10 years or so is probably DI, and produced in a DAW (solid state).

Edit: okay well, a whole lot of recordings (not almost everything) are produced through a DAW by going direct.
 

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