please define "great tube sound"..help!

[dschwartz]

I have been thinking about new designs and sounds, but often i end up with a basic problem..

what do i want to achieve? what sounds good? good for what?
this questions bugs me a lot...i´m kind of lost..  i´ve read a lot about differences between tubes and SS, and still cannot tell the big difference, i´ve heard some tube and SS amps and i swear i dont hear or feel any significant difference between the two..besides one is more expensive, heavier and need a lot of maintenance..

I dont think i have a tin ear, i can clearly identify a type, brand, channel, guitar, and sometimes speakers if i hear it.. but this subjective terms like "sterile", "punch", "warmth", "brownier" really puts me off...

can you give some explanation and/or representative examples of this terms?
what´s the "holy grail" of sound?
something like SRV? Lynyrd Skynyrd? ZZ top? metallica, what?

[Baktown]

Good question!

A lot of people would consider the bands and players you mentioned as having great tone, which is their opinion, and they're certainly entitled to it.  I, however, have always preferred a big loud crunchy rhythm tone to be more pleasing.  My favorite type of music is not 60's classic rock, but late 70's punk rock, which is much more rhythm oriented.  To my worn out ears, Johnny Ramone had the best guitar sound ever, and he played Mosrites and Marshall's.

Having said that, I really don't know what sounds best, tube or SS.  It's such a subjective concept that it's bound to inspire a lot of passionate responses, but I've always been of the opinion that I don't care about the purist aspect of an amp, I just want something that sounds good to me.

Rock on!

Axl

[michal_k]

well if you don't know what you're looking for just listen to some clips of tube amps and try to design a circuit with response as close as possible to the one you like the most.
however i think that you should start with some basics of tube theory. there's a great book written by g. s. cykin but i don't know if it was translated to English(it's written in Russian and was published in polish in 1964). then just try to make a simple tube preamp or a 5W amp. listening to things you built and designed is the best way of figuring 'that sound' out.
if you haven't heard any difference between tube and SS amp they probably wasn't cranked up properly.

[dschwartz]

well if you don't know what you're looking for just listen to some clips of tube amps and try to design a circuit with response as close as possible to the one you like the most.
however i think that you should start with some basics of tube theory. there's a great book written by g. s. cykin but i don't know if it was translated to English(it's written in Russian and was published in polish in 1964). then just try to make a simple tube preamp or a 5W amp. listening to things you built and designed is the best way of figuring 'that sound' out.
if you haven't heard any difference between tube and SS amp they probably wasn't cranked up properly.

i´ve heard and played both cranked.. i have both types of amps (tube and ss) and very similar in characteristics (a 90´s bandit, and a 90´s triumph pag120).. the SS (bandit) sounds a lot better at practicing/home level than the Triumph.. but the triumph handles big volumes a lot better, without losing definition and bottom end.. BUT i cant´see why not any SS amp with more power and better speakers would not handle low end and definition better...for example, Crate´s g212 handles power and definition pretty good, better than some jcm900 i´ve tested

what happens, in your opinion, when tube amps are cranked up?
compression: ss can do that
Output tubes clipping? : SS can do that, too
OT saturation: dont know if SS can do that..maybe there´s the magic?..but, wait..what does it sounds like? or feel like?

this misterious sound makes me imagine that i´ll even play always the right notes when cranking a tube amp..

[newfish]

Woo!

Prepare for an entirely subjective answer...

Your ears are as individual as your fingerprints.

My guess as to the 'holy grail of tones' (tm) is the one that makes the hairs at the back of your neck stand on end and gives you that "Yes!  That's brilliant" grin. 

There's no right or wrong answer as far as I know...

If it works for you, then it's right.

[foxfire]

i'm a tube guy. to my ears a good (and some bad) tube amp will sound more "natural." i find most but not all SS amps to be too "sterile." i've never heard a SS amp do what my Sound City can do. i guess i'd liken it to GE vs. SI transistors. i don't know any of the math behind it and i'm sure there are really nice sounding SS's out there. and they can stay out there. 

[Baktown]

I suppose with unlimited funds a person could achieve their idea of the "Holy Grail" of sound, but for most people I think it becomes a compromise between affordability and tone.

I agree that a high quality ($$$) tube amp gives a more organic sound, but it might not be the "sound" for everyone.  Case in point:  Dimebag Darrell sounded great in Pantera and he used a SS Randall Warhead, but in Damageplan his sound was awful, and he was using Krank amps, which are supposedly high quality tube amps (although mine sounded terrible).  I really think it depends on the type of music you're playing as well.  I've heard so called "boutique" amps that blues and classic rock fans drool over that I didn't really like, but yet the cheap Marshall MG100 head I bought my son for Christmas sounds great to me, even though I've been conditioned over the years to look down my nose at SS amps by all my "purist" tube amp friends.

It's like the old saying "I might not know ART, but I know what I like".

My rambling 2 cents worth...

Axl

[drewl]

To me most of the best tones I admire in rock or any music comes from certain tube amps which I either own or have built.

FWIW played some of my really nice sounding pedals through a Crate last night and they all sounded horrible.

[Baktown]

There you have it.  It all comes down to what you like.

I don't really care for the classic rock tones that so many players find appealing, I much prefer a higher gain sound, but to each his own.

BTW, I own several tube amps in addition to several SS amps, so I'll play whatever suits my fancy at the moment.  For the record though, my gigging amp is a Kustom 72 Coupe Hardtop, which is most definitely a tube amp! 

Rock on!

Axl

[Somicide]

Woo!

Prepare for an entirely subjective answer...

Your ears are as individual as your fingerprints.

My guess as to the 'holy grail of tones' (tm) is the one that makes the hairs at the back of your neck stand on end and gives you that "Yes!  That's brilliant" grin. 

There's no right or wrong answer as far as I know...

If it works for you, then it's right.

I had that happen when I heard the Dirty channel on a Bogner Ueberschall... shivers!  If I could have an awesome expensive rig right now... A/B between Fender Twin for Clean, and Ueberschall's Dirty channel... Sexy.

[greigoroth]

As far as I understand solid state will almost always sound better at low volume. That is why it is so fashionable with low wattage tube amps at the moment, because the desirable response that you want from the tubes occurs when they are driven hard. Even a 2W tube amp with the volume pretty wide will be really loud in a livingroom environment. One of the other guys will probably be able to explain the effect of how hard you drive the tubes on the load on the speakers and transformer and such - I know nothing about that. But I believe that there are certain technical aspects that make cranked tubes sound like cranked tubes - it is a pretty complicated interplay.

There is on the other hand, nothing that states that tube is better than solidstate. I think part of the problem is that solid state amplifiers are cheap and relatively easy to design, so they populate the "cheap and nasty" end of the market. I can really not think of a lot of high end SS products for guitar usage (the fact that they don't clip in the same manner as tubes is on the other hand why SS is applied in hifi applications, as far as I know). The Roland JC120 is however well reknowned for a very pristine clean sound. There was also a really interesting amp I found on the net many years ago, some sort of "boutique" solid state job that apparently was designed to have a plexi-like channel. I remember only that the soundclips sounded fantastic! Can't remember the name...

I think also that there is a preponderance of total rubbish tube amps on the market as well, that sell purely because most guitarists don't actually listen to anything they buy! Out of all the amps that are in stock in my local store there is not one I would put my money on. But guitarists (gross generalisation, but hey!) assume because it says Brand X and "Tube" it must have awesome tone.

All of the words you refer to "sterile", "punch", "warmth", "brownier" are, in my mind, abstract words used to describe the interaction one has when playing a certain amp. "Warmth" for one player may very well be "woolly" for another. But, when I plug my guitar in and play with my gear in my way I describe that feeling that I get out of it as "warmth". I really don't think these words are amp specific. There is to my mind no amp that you can plug in to get instant "warmth". People ascribe them to the amp, but really it is the whole chain, beginning at the fingers and ending at your ears hearing back what you are playing.

If you don't feel or hear any difference than good for you, you have used your own senses to achieve your own idea of a good sound, which is more than many do!

[Solidhex]

Whew

 Where to start. From my experience a tube amp in general seems to have a more directly dynamic "feel" than a solid state. Even when its compressed and distorted. My favorite guitar amps I own are my 57' fender champ and my 74' Marshall Superbass. On bass my favorites are my Silverface SVT and my Acoustic 360 (gotta have the matching cabinet with the 18" and the power amp). The 360 is a solid state amp though! I'm not not a tube snob and I love my Marshall microstack but tubes win for me. Check out some more amps. Most modern tube amps with high gain cascaded stages etc... are very mushy. The sound can be similar to solid state especially in amps like Peavey and Crate. Check out some more amps. I would think eventually your ears will lead you to the answer you're looking for.

--Brad

[dschwartz]

well, i´ve had that "hair lifting" feeling sometimes even with my guitar plugged to a fx processor (with cab sim) going to a 2.1 pc speakers...

for me a great guitar sound is defined this way:
- Touch sensitive: it detects every little nuances, your fingers touching the strings, the palm over the bridge moving..it must help you to play, feel the strings lighter and your fingers stronger.
- Controllable gain: i have to be able to control the  gain from the guitar using the vol...it MUST go from at least 90% sparky clean to death metal, compressed, full bodied distortion, just by turning up the guitar vol.
- Versatility: 1 channel must do almost everything tweaking the tone shaping and gain control knobs
- Power: the amp must cut trough the loud drummer, and have enough low end to feel it on your ribcage, but not to bury the bassist. Never losing definition and have a lot of presence, but not being too trebly and harsh. It must not hurt your ears, it must please
'em!!!
- Right freqs: it should never sound like a hifi amp..this has more to do with speakers
- Sparkles: i love sparkles (high order harmonics??) specially at clean/slight overdrive settings...mud is for pigs...for me, sparkles in the high gain channel are.....
- Lot of harmonics: i has to help me to get any pinch/tap/pick/natural harmonic that i want.. it´s so frustrating when you want to make a pinch harmonic or a dive bomb and nothing comes out..
- brown sound : hmmm...dont know..maybe more "baby poop" yellow-brown is better? 
- Warm: dont know either..is the same as "not harsh" point? or "touch sensitive"?.. maybe some tubes will give me warmth cause they have heaters!!! aren´t they? 
- Punch:  isnt the same as "power" point ??

[DDD]

As for me, the difference between ss and the tubed amp is:
1. In the "clean" zone the ss is "too clean" in opposite to the tubes giving some pleasant harmonics even at low output power
2. Heavily overdriven ss gives harsh sound while tubes sound "cleaner" and "more concentrated".
3. SS amp needs specially designed input stages to produce "good" sound, tube amp sound good due to the specific properties of its output stage.

[dschwartz]

As for me, the difference between ss and the tubed amp is:
1. In the "clean" zone the ss is "too clean" in opposite to the tubes giving some pleasant harmonics even at low output power
2. Heavily overdriven ss gives harsh sound while tubes sound "cleaner" and "more concentrated".
3. SS amp needs specially designed input stages to produce "good" sound, tube amp sound good due to the specific properties of its output stage.

IMHO, point 1 & 2 are pretty relative..sounds like by SS amp you mean "Hi fi" amps..
i think your good point is n° 3..tubes sound good by themselves (although i not 100% agree..some tube amps sounds bad) , but SS needs more toneshaping and auxiliar circuits in order to achieve good guitar sound..

i´ve heard really harsh tube sounds, my real mctube sounded like total crap..and very sweet, harmonic clean overdrive from SS preamps..
is easier to make SS sound bad.. take this idea:

make a tube amp/preamp using tube´s datasheet application circuits..you´ll have a nice fender bassman

make a SS amp/preamp using SS datasheets application circuits..you´ll have a nice piece of crap...

[greigoroth]

well, i´ve had that "hair lifting" feeling sometimes even with my guitar plugged to a fx processor (with cab sim) going to a 2.1 pc speakers...

for me a great guitar sound is defined this way:
- Touch sensitive: it detects every little nuances, your fingers touching the strings, the palm over the bridge moving..it must help you to play, feel the strings lighter and your fingers stronger.
- Controllable gain: i have to be able to control the  gain from the guitar using the vol...it MUST go from at least 90% sparky clean to death metal, compressed, full bodied distortion, just by turning up the guitar vol.
- Versatility: 1 channel must do almost everything tweaking the tone shaping and gain control knobs
- Power: the amp must cut trough the loud drummer, and have enough low end to feel it on your ribcage, but not to bury the bassist. Never losing definition and have a lot of presence, but not being too trebly and harsh. It must not hurt your ears, it must please
'em!!!
- Right freqs: it should never sound like a hifi amp..this has more to do with speakers
- Sparkles: i love sparkles (high order harmonics??) specially at clean/slight overdrive settings...mud is for pigs...for me, sparkles in the high gain channel are.....
- Lot of harmonics: i has to help me to get any pinch/tap/pick/natural harmonic that i want.. it´s so frustrating when you want to make a pinch harmonic or a dive bomb and nothing comes out..
- brown sound : hmmm...dont know..maybe more "baby poop" yellow-brown is better? 
- Warm: dont know either..is the same as "not harsh" point? or "touch sensitive"?.. maybe some tubes will give me warmth cause they have heaters!!! aren´t they? 
- Punch:  isnt the same as "power" point ??

Brown sound is simply Van Halen's sound, specifically on those first 4 albums. It is arguably one of the single most desired sounds going round
Punch, as I understand it, is how much a note will cut through without sounding harsh - maybe something about the response of the amp as well is inbaked in that term?
Warmth is to do with the treble response. Similar I guess to not harsh. Yeah!
I imagine that "sterile" is mostly that the amp does not colour the sound enough, in that musical way that good amps do. The JC120 is sometimes labelled "sterile", while others call it "pristine". I guess if you are feeding it a piece of crap guitar then it won't add to the harmonic content and won't add that generally well-liked slight distortion that you will get in a tube amp that can help add some character to a bad guitar.

[Alien8]

This topic fits exactly into what I am currently experiencing with my set-up.  IMO Here's what I've found:

Brown Sound:  represents an era beginning late 80's where the cranked marshall (British amps usually EL84 tube) tone was saturated with gain and mids which ultimately stuck.  The lows were tight and present and the highs are subdued compared to "crystal" sounding.  And when I say crystal sounding, I mean the sound of a steel ball bouncing down a marble floor hallway with glass walls, or the sound of unsheathing a samurai sword.  Van Hallen is known for brown sound...

American - very clean, or very crunchy "big" sound - british vs american - el84 vs 6l6

Sterile:  see above description of marble bouncing down hallway...  no fullness - missing the important middle frequencies that make a speaker do some fantastic things, no dynamics or response to playing.  Lacking harmonics, plastic.

Punch: can be directly related to power.  Comparing SS and Tube here is subjective to volume and room size.  I see punch as being the point right before the speakers start to fart.  When you can Pete Townsend a string, hear the tone, and feel it in your chest, but not your ass.  Quick speaker response.

Warmth:  This one is tricky, but it can best be described by the comparison between single coil p/u's and HB p/u.  When distorted they make very different tones.  The humbuckers are thick, they have a full mid sound, where single coils can have more of a flat mid sound.

Bite:  picture raking the strings with a cranked amp and a little bit of gain added.  Crisp sounding, precise sounding, very responsive to picking dynamics.

Over the years as I have developed my ear, I've played with everything.  I was raised on the blues, "The Band", and funky groovy music, not pop.  My dad has a '65 super reveb, and I will never forget cranking that amp... I'll never forget running a Danelectro Fab Tone distortion pedal through the thing.  I've never been able to find that tone agian...  One day he will pass it to me, and I have to be patient until then.

I started with a Fender SS, and loved it, ran pedals through it, and learned what sound is and how to play.  Once I understood the variables I had to encounter, I went on a search... with limited $.  I bought a Line6 modelling amp.  This thing rocked, I don't care what they say, at that time in my life that amp was perfect.  Then I played the '65 verb for the first time in a while.  The next day I traded my Line6 in because it didn't do what I felt it needed - the sound was there with respect to tone, but it lacked feeling, it lacked my personality of playing.  It didn't have the expressiveness that the '65 had, it didn't make the hairs stand like the '65 did. 

I bought a blues tube amp - have I mentioned that I play loud rock, "nu-metal" and spatial etheral rhythms with a fonk back bone, that's right, fOnk. 

My goal, after being raised on blues purists was to take a completely blues sound, and blues aimed equipment and turn it into a fierce "nu" sounding rig.  Distortion that is thick, tight, and bites, but still allows the sound of the guitar to be at the root - that's where the fonk hides.  I have always thought that the scooped metal sound is derived from a pure blues tone, I can hear it in the blues.

Since I don't have the money to buy a Deizel, or a Messa, or a Bonger, I have spent about $1500 over the past 5 years, and I have a sound that makes my hairs stand each time I play.  Some people love my sound, and others don't understand it like I do, and they don't have to - it does it for me, and I play for me.  My dad likes my sound, and he hates heavy distortion.  (think Adam Jones of Tool, or the guitarist in Faith no More). 

How did I do it - I listened.  I began with a tube amp that is good at all volumes, and placed an EQ in the FX loop, this gave me a great base to start with as I had a scooped fat sound.  The I added the likes of a Tube Screamer and OCD out front to take some fat out and add some punch, and bite.  Then I got an enclosed cab, and it all fell into place.

The point - Not one thing in my rig is perfect alone, but together they make something that is perfect for me.  IMO you will never find "one" thing that makes YOUR sound right, but usually a combination of things.  Most famous musicians had some combination of things to make their sound - SRV, Hendrix, May, Clapton, Van Halen... they all have some sort of solid state + some sort of tube.  If you like a certain aspect of some tone, and of another, combine them.

Hope this helps, sorry for the rant...

[d95err]

what happens, in your opinion, when tube amps are cranked up?
compression: ss can do that
Output tubes clipping? : SS can do that, too
OT saturation: dont know if SS can do that..maybe there´s the magic?..but, wait..what does it sounds like? or feel like?

The main difference is in the poweramp. The smooth transition from linear response through compression, slight saturation, soft clipping to hard clipping in a tube poweramp is very different from an SS poweramp which goes from linear to hard (and harsh) clipping almost instantly. That's probably the key to why tube amps often have (subjectively) better dynamic response than SS.

SS circuits can be built to simulate all this reasonably well. However, if you look at 99% of all (analog) SS amps, they don't have such circuits. Manufacturers don't bother with such circuits because they want their amps as cheap as possible. Digial modelling amps do it better, but I still find digital simulators lacking in many ways.

In terms of practical guitar sounds, the main difference can be herd in clean-ish and lightly overdriven sounds. That's when tube compression and saturation shines and the dynamics really come through. For heavy metal distortion or crystal clean sounds the difference is very small. The difference between SS and a modern mastervolume tube amp will also be much smaller, because MV amps doesn't push the poweramp very hard.

To really hear benefits of tube sound, you need a low powered amp, perhaps 5-15W. With a 50-100W tube amp, your ear has already started to compress and distort the sound long before you get to the sweet spot, so you can't hear the difference properly there.

[Baktown]

Alien8,

You pretty much nailed the descriptions of tone that most guitarists use, which is tough considering how subjective this is.

Funny you should mention Line 6.  I have one of the first 100 Line 6 AxSys 212's that were made (in the USA).  I used it at a gig a couple of years ago using the Marshall JCM800 preset, and for kicks I covered it with a sheet so nobody could see what it was, and after the gig I had several people compliment me on the sound.  They actually thought it was a Marshall!  One of the guys who told me how good it sounded was the manager of the local Guitar Center!  He was shocked when I pulled the sheet off and showed him it was a digital modeling amp.

I guess my point is that if an amp sounds good to your ears, who cares if it's SS or tube, and long as you like it.

Axl

[theundeadelvis]

To me there is so much more than just tube sound. I don't think I could ever have a SS amp as my main rig. At the same time I don't think I could ever enjoy having the majority of  mass produced tube amps either. When you play a good tube amp like a Tweed Deluxe or 18 watt or or a Deluxe Reverb for example, you realize how much more of an instrument the guitar and amp together can be. It adds many more facets to your playing, like how hard you pick, where your volume control is set, and how your fretting is done all affect the tone coming out of the amp much more through a tube amp. That being said if you always play SS and you plug into a tube amp you're probably not going to notice this right away.

A good tube amp is very organic in how it responds to what you are doing with the guitar. It's not just a device that makes your guitar louder and adds distortion it's part of the instrument as a whole.

One of my tube amp books makes an interesting point. Plug a $3000 guitar into a crappy cheap amp and it will sound like garbage. Plug a cheap guitar into a $3000 amp and it will probably sound pretty good. So often the importance of the amp is overlooked.

YMMV