solid state amps suck
Any real player knows that you only use tubes. Solid state amps suck.
Unless you like Les Pauls.
Discuss. 
I disagree because it depends on the type of music you play. If I were a jazz guitarist, for example, I’d choose a solid state over a tube amp any day!
And Les Pauls are great!
Mr Soul
I’ve been wanting to like Les Pauls for ages but I have never tried one I liked well enough to buy or even lust over, so I got me a Firebird V and a Gretsch 6120 Setzer instead. Both had the WOW! factor
If you wanna do metal metal with scooped mids and a super tight low end solid state amps can be hard to beat. I don’t wanna do that so I say they suck
Try telling that to Slash 
'K, send him here next time you see him.
I’ll admit that I like the original blackface Princeton that’s in the next room a whole lot, but the Thomas Organ Co. version of the Vox Pathfinder is cool as well, so there. And how about the solid state rectifiers in the later Marshall Plexis? That makes it sorta solid state. 'Couse you gotta have a big room to record a Plexi, since the real sound happens about 20 feet downwind of one. I cringe a little every time my buddy brings his Plexi by.
And all soild state “amps” clearly aren’t for chumps, especially the API 312 card I’m currently holding 
That sucker is gonna make some mic sing in short order.
But yeah, for guitars, find you an old Valco or Silvertone and go to town…
I like my '61 les paul/SG. I never liked the tone of the buckers on a Paul. The mini buckers cut through a little better. I love my 52 reissue tele the best
'Course you gotta have a big room to record a Plexi, since the real sound happens about 20 feet downwind of one.
It is partly room, but the trick is getting it loud enough to send the output transformer into hysteresis -- can't hold no more magnetic lines... Of course at that point being 20 feet away might be life saving.
It is partly room, but the trick is getting it loud enough to send the output transformer into hysteresis -- can't hold no more magnetic lines... Of course at that point being 20 feet away might be life saving.
Tubes are the way to go, imho. Even with cleaner guitar sounds (jazz, etc) they just add a warmth that solid state can’t match. I haven’t yet heard a solid state guitar amp that I liked enough to want to buy one. Marshalls all the way, baby!
And I love my Les Paul…until I’ve had it hanging off my shoulder for 3 hours.
Hmm… I like my bitzer guitars, I think they’ve had more love put into making them. Don’t like the look of an LP myself.
Bobby Krieger did alright with solid state amps.
Back in 1980, I was looking for a guitar amp that had a very wide variety of sounds, included a foot switchable reverb and distortion and was small enough to take to club gigs for playing jazz. It also needed to be able to be very loud with out breaking up. At the time, I was looking at the Music Man RD112-100. It’s a great amp that fit the bill nicely. But when I went to buy it, there was a Yamaha G100-112 there that had active eq, parametric eq, nice spring reverb and very deep. clear tone. I fell in love. To this day, I still use that amp. It is dead quiet when on and has a shockingly wide variety ot tone palates that you can dial in.
Mike
Well, I dig ‘em both. Tubes are way cool! Solid State gets that modern rock crunch without leveling the neighborhood. I have and use both.
As for guitars, I have an LP, Strat, Godin LGX and a Dean Hollowbody. Again, I use them all for different things. Just depends on the sound I’m after.
TG
PS Sean, you have not had a sore shoulder until you’ve wagged a Godin around for a few hours. The one I have has a solid rock maple body with a mahogany neck. Weighs a friggin’ ton! I love that guitar but man is it a slab…
I evelved all the way.
Started with a strat (copy) - Cort Stat II
Then got a Zoom 505II
Then got a valvestate 40W.
Then got a Boss ME-50.
Then got a Les Paul
Then I got an old (1963) all valve (tube) amp.
Then I got a Marshall DSL 401.
Then I sold the ME-50.
Les Paul into Boss CE-5 chorus into Marshall DSL-401 = Bliss.
Nothing more I need (well, maybe that crybaby)…
To me valve amps just add that naturally compressed phat botton end (clean or overdriven) that works for me.
W.
P.S. you’re right - this is serious stuff.
I have a Crate I picked up a few years ago, has tube or solid state. The tube side sounds ok with a Paul into it. The solid state side sounds ok with nuttin plugged in to it. As far as guitars, I have a couple Pauls, a Tele, a Strat, and a Washburn 335 clone. My favorite is the LP Special with P-90’s on it. Very different sound. But with todays tech, a rack set up or several stomp boxes will make any guitar sound like whatever. My favorite amp is still my old Marshall JCM 800.
DrGuitar, the Music Man was a hybrid, wasn’t it? Solid state preamp and tube power amp? Those actually sound great for clean fender tones. OK for distortion, but only OK.
I have two amps. A Carvin Belaire 2x12 all tube and a Crate GFX212 solid stater. My son uses the Crate 95% of the time. I use the Carvin at church every Sunday and Wednesday and when we gig out places. The boy uses the Crate with his band. (Emo, Screamo, Dad can’t stand it -core music.)
Anyway, the Carvin has two output tubes pulled and the bias set so I run it as essentially a 25 watter. As far as sheer volume goes, it will STILL eat the 100 watt Crate for lunch. It just has more “oomph” to it. For clean or semi-dirty tones, Carvin hands down winner. This thing does not do Metal without some kind of distortion pedal in front. Classic rock distortion is great. Clean with a Strat is where this baby shines! Pure expressive freedom. Click over to the dirty channel and roll the volume down on the guitar and it cleans up without getting weak and muddy sounding. I LOVE IT!
So, if I could only have ONE amp…it would have to be 100% toooob! That said though, I still fire up the SS Crate for recording really high-gain stuff.
TG
PS Tom as far as I can recall…MusicMan never built a 100% all tube amp. All hybrids or all solid state. I very definitely could be mistaken though. I played with a dude that used an MM hybrid and a beat-up Gretsch 6120 with the original Filtertron pick ups. That combo sounded fantastic!! The fact he was an awesome player did not hurt any either!
| Quote (TomS @ Jan. 26 2005,07:10) |
| DrGuitar, the Music Man was a hybrid, wasn't it? Solid state preamp and tube power amp? Those actually sound great for clean fender tones. OK for distortion, but only OK. |
Thats right Tom. I was buying it for the clean tones. But when I played it side by side with the Yahama, I bought the Yahama.
By the way, the Yahama didn't have a wonderful distorted tone either, but still plays like new hundreds (thousands?) of gigs and 24 years later.
Mike
| Quote (DrGuitar @ Jan. 26 2005,16:44) | ||
Thats right Tom. I was buying it for the clean tones. But when I played it side by side with the Yahama, I bought the Yahama. By the way, the Yahama didn't have a wonderful distorted tone either, but still plays like new hundreds (thousands?) of gigs and 24 years later. Mike |
I had a Music Man HD 2x12 130 - first generation of them - it took a beating, the frame on it bent, the drummer threw a stand through one of the speakers, the power transfomer fell out one day...ended up selling it...sigh...
OK, I guess hybrids don't suck, but I still like tubes better.
I’ll run my guitar through a freakin’ clock radio if it sounds good in the mix.