Home (amp tone and effects placement)




>>Many guitarists have a tube amp and effects unit. And they would buy an
>>isolation cabinet if they knew about them. Once you go that far, I'm
>>pointing out the advantage of an additional effects unit after the amp,
>>offering programmable post-amp level and eq control *as well as* post-amp
>>effects which sound very trippy and clear. And I've taken the idea to
>its
>>logical conclusion by defining an entire standalone unit including final
>>power amp and monitor cabinet.
>>
>>I dislike the complexity of this system, but it could be manufactured as
>a
>>compact and inexpensive system. Such a system has several powerful and
>>valuable capabilities unlike any guitar processing approach we've seen.
>>This system deserves to exist, despite its complexity. It does what it
>>does, very well. You should hear it, when it's properly set up.
>>
>>
>You should hear a '72 Super Lead with 2 4x12s. >Actually Marshalls of this era are very easy to set up, just turn it up
>past about 3.

There is a severe drawback to your proposal -- many guitarists live in an apartment and can never really play the amp into saturation when at home. There are some compromises however. All systems have their pros and cons. Some systems are more generally useful than others. In a world of apartments and neighbors, a speaker isolation cabinet is an acceptable approach to getting actual cranked power tube tone and cranked speaker tone. A Marshall stack is not acceptable, and neither is a 5 watt tube amp, which
is as loud as a trumpet!

The Marshall stack deserves to exist, and it thrives. But the world has far too many 50 watt tube amps, and not nearly enough 0-5 watt tube amps and speaker isolation cabinets. The volume problem is the *number 1* gear and tone problem for rock guitarists, especially those amateurs who don't perform or record in a studio often. This amateur market could *explode* if companies would quit their exclusive obsession with monster amps and provide all combinations of power-tube saturation, room-noise attenuation products.

I have deep compassion and sympathy for apartment guitarists who crave great tone, and I take their need seriously. It's really an easy problem to solve; you just have to get serious about the number of components required to solve this problem. And you have to consider the pros and cons of all combinations of related gear.

I'm posting about compromises and options in alt.guitar.amps - topic "Actual cranked tube amp tone, quietly".

"Just plug in and crank" is not a solution for the majority of guitarists at home, no matter how elegant this impossible solution seems.


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