Joker Verox

Archive for March, 2010

have a JCM 900 50w 4502 combo 2×12 and the front input jack is out. Very little signal coming through. The FX loop input in the rear of the head CRANKS though. All the tubes are lit up orange, preamp tubes included. HLP PLZ?
Cables are A-OK and my SG has a dirty vol. pot but thats about it. I can plug the rest of my rig into the fx loop and get a great sound thru my TS-9. I’ll try workin the 1/4" in and out. thX!

Well, I think that sounds normal as far as the tubes go. If the fx input works, but you don’t get sound from the input jack…. and you’re sure its not the cable, not the guitar, and not the volume, and it is plugged in… and you still get some signal (intermittently? or just quiet?)… then it’s most likely a dirty input jack or a bad soldering joint.

You can try to fix it if its the first…. plug in and unplug the cable in the input jack a couple dozen times. Seriously. If its a dirty jack, that should fix it.

If that doesn’t fix it, it’s probably a bad soldering joint, you should have an amp tech take a look at it.

Saul

I’m a guitar player, and I prefer the factory presets. How can I learn more about editing the effects to get the sounds I want. I need to know, because my user presets don’t sound good to me. So, by default, I’m stuck using factory presets.

factory presets does very well

I have been playing for about 6 months now and I have a Peavy Raptor Plus guitar and a Silvertone Smart III. I like them, but I would like something better. I like to play classic rock, rockabilly, blues, and sometimes punk or metal. What is the best guitar and amp can I get for $200-500? Thanks for your help!
The Silvertone Smart III is the amp, sorry I forgot to put that

Have you checked out any tube amps? While stock tube amps arent the greatest for metal, they are an industry standard for classic rock, blues, country, rockabilly.. etc. An amp thats slamming the market right now is the Blackheart amps. 5 watt tube amp, with 12 inch speaker in a combo amp is 279. (Tube head and single 12 cab is 299) Dont let the 5 watts fool you…. 5 watts of tube power is more like 30-40 in solid state. Another, 399 bucks, is the Crate V1812. 18 watt Class A tube amp, reverb, and 12 inch speaker. I just bought one, and this amp is outstanding for recording, plus, again the tube power. This 18 watt amp will keep up with any 60 watt solid state amp out there.

I would highly discourage any "modeling amps." If you ever plan on taking to the stage, the presets for various amps are useless in a professional setting. They are very inconsistent in volume levels from pre-set to pre-set. Same with onboard effects. While some of the pros use these, keep in mind that these are highly modified amps from what you see on display at your local Guitar Center. The Fender Blues Jr. is also another good tube amp to keep in mind. Get a decent amp now, research what your favorite blues and classic rock guitarist are using in their pedal chain, and add a pedal here and there over time.

A decent guitar for about 270 is the Epiphone Dot Studio. Because they are not some of Epiphones better quality guitars, take someone who knows what to look for if you want to check one of these out. Things such as fit and finish of the guitar, and most important, the neck and frets, wouldnt hurt to have someone go over it with a fine tooth comb.

Another option would be a Squire.(not the Affinity model) While im not particularily fond of them, ive seen some very decent ones. Again, hit and miss on the quality of these.

Last, and certainly not least, the Schector Omen 6 is a very playable and decent quality guitar for about 300 bucks. Seems like what you have now is not to bad for playing for just 6 months. Might be worth your time to save a little longer, and spend 100-150 more on guitar and amp and have higher quality gear that will last a lot longer.

Most important…. Keep Playing!

I have to pick between a GK Blackline 110, Warwick Blue Cab 60, and a Fender Rumble 60. All these have the same watts except for the GK which has 70. The bassist from Avenged Sevenfold uses GK amps. Mike Dirnt from Greenday uses the Fender Rumble series and so does the bassist from Anthrax and Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy. I have no clue who uses Warwick amps. I play all kinds of rock so im looking for something that can be used for metal, punk, alt rock, hard rock and good old fashioned rock rock. The Fender one has some lights at the bottom that flash as you play but no F/X. The other 2 have some F/X but no cool light show =(. Which would be most versatile? Best sounding? Most reliable? Looks cool? Heres the links for the 3 amps

GK
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Gallien-Krueger-Backline-110-Combo-103055984-i1145823.gc

Warwick
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Warwick-Blue-Cab-60-60W-1×12-Bass-Combo-Amp-483056-i1321474.gc

Fender
http://www.guitarcenter.com/Fender-Rumble-60-Bass-Combo-Amp-102497088-i1145412.gc

Almost forgot, If you have any other recomendations post those too. But im mainly looking at these 3.

I have 2 GK Keyboard amps, which we use in tandem for stereo, rather than the usual setup. They are over 20 years old – and work a CHARM. We had the speakers replaced this past year – gee, after 20 years, we took them in for a check-up – they were STILL playing fine when we took them in! We run mixers thru them, and they have bounced all over our gigs ( we are classical musicians, but amps are amps!). They LOOK great, sound fabulous, pump out 100 watts per channel, and have NEVER let us down. AND – since they are concentric, they are smaller per watt, and LIGHTER per watt, than ANYTHING else out there. Every so often, I *go shopping* again – and ask all my friend whose opinions I respect – and NOBODY EVER comes up with anything to touch these. Yes, – they cost a ransom – but divided by the number of YEARS they work??? I have turned over ALL the equipment in my rig ( that’s into 6 figures worth) at least TWICE – and still kept these. If they were stolen today, I’d buy the SAME ONES tomorrow.

How’s THAT for an endorsement – in case you wondered how they hold up over time?

Brian (above) is close but he doesn’t win the cigar.

Most (not all) acoustic guitar amps have inputs that are very sensitive to the voltage that the pickup produces since most acoustic pickups are much weaker than the typical electric models.

Plugging an electric guitar into an acoustic amp MAY overdrive the preamp and cause a bunch of distortion and shorten the life of the amp.

Most of the modern day amps use a combo of 12AX7s and 6L6s or sometimes EL84s to drive the amps tone and typically the same sized speakers (for example, two 15s or four 10s). Sure, some of the speakers may or may not be higher end. Celestions, I guess, are pretty sought after for clarity. Which leads me back to my original question, if most of today’s tube amps (Mesa/Boogie, Soldano, Marshall, Peavey, Hughes and Kettner, Crate) have similar components, then why does everyone claim that they all sound so much different from one another. There are little nuances in sound that make them slightly different sounding, but really, at the end of the day are they THAT much different from each other?

Absolutely!

Its not the size of your tube, its how you use it. *grin*

Seriously, though, tubes are tubes, just like transistors are transistors…. you use ‘em a certain way, you get a certain result. Aside from the very different tonal qualities of different cabs and speakers, amps use gain stages and EQ in different combinations to get their tone.

Probably the biggest difference between amps is how much gain they apply to the signal, and what they do to the signal in-between all that amplification. With the understanding that each preamp tube has two sides, each of which can amplify the signal, early amps only had one tube and some tone controls. The classic Fender "tweeds" are examples of this. They’re relatively clean, with a relatively tame degree of gain and distortion.

Two gain stages (one tube) became three, then four or more, over the years, as guitarists began wanting more and more gain on tap in search of even harder and crunchier tones. Mesa Boogie, for instance, has 4 or 5 gain stages in many of their amps. Other amps even go further – there’s a Soldano with 6, iirc.

More gain stages means more distortion – but distortion isn’t everything. The other half of the equation is what you do with the signal in between all that gain, and especially when you add more gain stages, that makes a lot of the difference in your end tone. The tone controls are pretty important too, as they impart characteristic sounds as well. A Fender/Marshall/Vox tone stack will sound different than a Big Muff style tone control, for instance! A bit of a silly comparison, as most tone stacks are based on FMV, but it paints the picture.

…

Hmm. Well, if you aren’t a guitarist or a musician or don’t have the immediate experience of being around and/or playing with different guitar amps, you won’t have the background to hear the differences either.

It would be kinda like me saying "Toyota? That’s basically the same as a Mazda, right?" to a car lover! To me, they kinda are the same – I can drive them from point A to point B, and beyond that I don’t really care all that much.

So I’m not sure what your perspective is, but I’ve given a moderately technical response. As a guitarist and musician, I absolutely guarantee that there is a vast difference between the characteristic tones of a Marshall and Mesa Boogie, for instance. In fact, the trademark tones of those brands (the JCM800 and the Dual Rectifier) are two of my favorite tones, and ones I constantly refer back to when I’m dialing in my gear…. but they’re very different, from the number of gain stages to how much more bass the Marshall cuts.

Its also worth mentioning that everything starts to sound the same when you’ve got the gain on 10.

*grin*

Saul

I have the following guitar effects pedals: Boss TU2 (tuner), CS3 (compressor), SD1 (overdrive), dunlop wah, dunlop volume ped, Boss RV2 (reverb), DD3 (delay), CH1 (chorus), and finally NS3 (noise suppressor).

This concerns the NS3. It’s got send-return jacks on it, besides the input-output jacks, and I’m trying to decide if they’re worth using.

Here’s my current chain:

Guitar – TU2 – vol – wah – CS3 – SD1 – Input to NS3 – Output frm NS3 to Input of amp; Effects send from amp – CH1 – DD3 – RV2 – Effects Return to amp.

But, would a better chain be one like:

Gtr – Input to NS3 – Send from NS3 to vol – wah – CS3 – SD1 – Return to NS3 – Output from NS3 to Input of amp; then Effects Send from amp – TU2 – CH1 – DD3 – RV2 – Effects Return to amp.

I’m hopeful some knowledgeable fellow guitarists can follow that and give some advice on setups that work. I know it’s an individual thing, just want some ideas on what you guys do or would do.

Thanks in advance,

Chris

Always put the Noise Suppressor at the end of the chain with your overdrive pedal.

The NS3’s function is to silence any extra noise coming from the other pedals, so if you put it first, how can it silence anything?

Extra noise usually comes from the overdrive/distortion pedal, so put it at the end of that chain.

I’m primarily a drummer but I’m trying to branch out into playing guitar, and I’m in an informal, casual jamming situation with some friends. I’m looking for a guitar amp that’s cheap but just suitable enough to be used in a full band jamming situation with a bassist and drummer. What’s the mininum amount of watts that I should look for in an amp?

That depends on a few things. How loud does the drummer and bassist play and what type of amp? I have seen 5 watt class A amps that are louder than a 30 watt solid state. My suggestion would be at least 15 watts for a class A tube amp or 50 watts for a solid state amp. With solid state it doesn’t matter so much if you get too much power, but with a tube amp it makes all the difference in the world. If you buy a 60 watt class A tube amp you will never be able to turn it up enough to saturate the tubes and get a good sound, so you want a wattage that you can turn up a good bit to get that real over-driven tube sound. I bought a 40 watt Fender Hot Rod Deluxe about a year ago and it was too loud for almost any situation. Traded it for a 15 watt class A Princeton Reverb and it sounds way better just because I can actually turn it up past 2 without my ears bleeding. A 15 watt class A like the Fender Princeton or Blues Jr. is a great choice if you want the Fender sound. If you like more overdrive look at the Orange Tiny Terror. I have that amp as well and it is awesome for a high gain tone. Good tube amps a re fairly expensive though. The Blues Jr. is probably one of the better deals. To me a good Fender tube amp combined with a good overdrive/distortion pedal is the best of both worlds.

Hello, currently I have a Mesa/Boogie F-30 tube amp, but I really need to crank it for it to shine, which I can’t do too often in my house, so I’m looking to buy a solid state amp, 15-30 watts. I’ve been looking at the Fender Front Man II’s and the FM’s, the 15 and 25 watt ones … and for Line 6 the Spider II and III 15 and 30 watts. Does anyone know which would be the best purchase? Which is better over the other? Worth buying the 30/25 over the 15 and vice versa? Lastly, I’m looking for an amp of this size that has a nice variety of tones, and isn’t too powerful, can anyone recommend anything outside of these groups of amps I’v mentioned? Any answers to any of these questions would be greatly appeciated, thanks!

I have a fender FM100 head with the 4×12 cabinet – and I recently was relocated for work – into an apartment. So what I did was buy a very nice set of AKG head phones. They sound great – and I can play as loud as I want. If you figure on spending say 75 – 150 dollars on another amp – to continue playing quietly – I’d say that was a waste of money. The headphones were a great solution for me, so I will include the link for musicians friend. Good Luck

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/home/navigation?q=Head+Phones

Ive been playing acoustic guitar for a little while now and I have been wondering if i should get an amp

Is there any particular type of amp i should get

Im looking to spend something in the region of about £75 – £120

Any suggestions

Any working and good amp should do. I don’t know if you’ve already, but try musiciansfriend.com, I think you can search price criteria. Try this http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Acoustic-AG15-15W-1×8-Acoustic-Guitar-Combo-Amp?sku=500132. I’m not sure if they ship to europe. If you speak german, try www.session.de, though it might just be easier to go to a local store. It’s really your decision, based on what kind of sound you want, what kind of quality you want, whether you want the best brand or not – it also depends on what kind of guitar you have. I assume you have an acoustic that is compatible with an amp?
You could stick a microphone in there.