Having multiple amps/cabs/speakers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter War_in_D
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War_in_D

War_in_D

Well-known member
After going through the trouble of putting the amp switcher back in the rack and hooking up all my amps/cabs some things occurred to me.
  • If we dial in amps to get "our tone", what's the point of having several amps if you're just going to basically dial them all in to sound the same to your ear?
  • IMHO, cabs/speakers seem to make way more difference than the amp in the overall "tone".
  • Does having multiple amp options cause some kind of "decision paralysis" where you have too many options to choose from? Does it make you spend more time trying to figure out what amp you want to play, than actual playing?
  • I've got a small collection of vintage/NOS preamp tubes and I would like to do some rolling but where do I start? "What if" these tubes sound great in this amp, but they might sound better in that one! GAH!! What do I do?!?!
  • Nothing, that's what.. because I'm too busy spending time on a forum instead of playing. :ROFLMAO:
Sometimes I long for a simpler time.
 
NowYou'rePlayingWithPower said:
Well, if it makes you feel better; you could be going through a million amp and cab sims along with tweaking whatever other plugins and noise trinkets are involved.
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War_in_D said:
After going through the trouble of putting the amp switcher back in the rack and hooking up all my amps/cabs some things occurred to me.
  • If we dial in amps to get "our tone", what's the point of having several amps if you're just going to basically dial them all in to sound the same to your ear?
  • IMHO, cabs/speakers seem to make way more difference than the amp in the overall "tone".
  • Does having multiple amp options cause some kind of "decision paralysis" where you have too many options to choose from? Does it make you spend more time trying to figure out what amp you want to play, than actual playing?
  • I've got a small collection of vintage/NOS preamp tubes and I would like to do some rolling but where do I start? "What if" these tubes sound great in this amp, but they might sound better in that one! GAH!! What do I do?!?!
  • Nothing, that's what.. because I'm too busy spending time on a forum instead of playing. :ROFLMAO:
Sometimes I long for a simpler time.
Click to expand...
1. Yes, it does seem silly to own multiple amps when we all dial them in similarly...but, there are still subtle differences.
2. Definitely! Having different cabs/speakers is one of the easiest 'mods' to do.
3. I usually rotate between my amps, every week...last week, my 72 got most of my attention, starting today my 68 will be the king.
4. Roll them tubes! :love: I'd first start with power tubes, and make sure you can crank the amp because that's when I notice all the differences. Pre tubes, at any vol you should be able to tell. Vintage amps seem more sensitive to tube rolling.
5. Yep we all need to play more....I try to plug in every evening after work, and play during commercials if I'm watching TV.
 
It's THE sickness.

I'll post a clip that I think sounds good and then the next day I hate it. Really it's probably a slight variation of how my junk always sounds but maybe to loud in the mix, bright or to much bass; something like that. But we split hairs on the fine details..

I just went thru this with an amp that I've had for 13 years.. But came to the conclusion that I should let the amp do it's thing and not try to make it sound like other amps..

I think modern amps with many gain stages aren't suited for all NOS preamp tubes because on the whole they are richer and might come off as foggy and bloated. But using them in V1 and having Chinese in the remaining spots works well. But an amp that only uses 3 preamp tubes I'd go NOS all the way!
 
This is exactly what I am going through currently. I have ballooned up to 10 higher gain amps (of which three are from a single builder (Hermansson)) with multiple cabs and am now standing back and asking wtf am I doing🤣

I am now going through and doing a recording analysis to see how they mix/match/pair together in that environment to try and make some decisions on if they all stay or what goes.

Reality? I could be happy with any one of these on their own…but I don’t have to be that strict so can enjoy the subtleties between them. I also will try and force different sounds between them to lean on each ones strengths.
 
All of my amps are very different from each other. Same with guitars.
Have lots of cabs, again they are very different so they match up with certain amps.
Tube rolling for me is a waste of time. I just stick the old chinese in everything high gain. Try to use something old in my vintage amps. If not, chinese are fine.
My live rig really has not changed much over the last 20 years.
 
midnightlaundry said:
I think modern amps with many gain stages aren't suited for all NOS preamp tubes because on the whole they are richer and might come off as foggy and bloated. But using them in V1 and having Chinese in the remaining spots works well. But an amp that only uses 3 preamp tubes I'd go NOS all the way!
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This is my rule of thumb as well, though with certain higher end high gain builders NOS or high quality tubes make a lot more of a difference than others.

If we're talking like a 5-6 gain stage amp? Nah, it doesn't matter, find some good chinese glass to put in there.
 
gybe! said:
..... now standing back and asking wtf am I doing🤣
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This is kinda where I'm at. I know it's blasphemous to say, but I don't really have GAS for anything right now (except maybe the Friedman Jose). But, I'm not really wanting to get rid of anything either. @ewill52 will find this shocking, as he was just ribbing me the other night about the amount of buying/selling/trading I do. :ROFLMAO:

I think I just miss the days of "this is the only amp you have, make it work". So much simpler.
 
War_in_D said:
This is kinda where I'm at. I know it's blasphemous to say, but I don't really have GAS for anything right now (except maybe the Friedman Jose). But, I'm not really wanting to get rid of anything either. @ewill52 will find this shocking, as he was just ribbing me the other night about the amount of buying/selling/trading I do. :ROFLMAO:

I think I just miss the days of "this is the only amp you have, make it work". So much simpler.
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You dreamed as a kid to have all the cool amps. Now that you're there, whatcha gonna do now?? LOL
 
Just enjoy the fact that you have options and you've been successful enough to acquire some of those options ! Congrats !

I recently picked up a Humdinger from gigrig to run two amps at a time. That's helping me to dial them in differently from each other to build a core sound and then blanket another complimentary tone under it.

Definitely agree with you that we dial them in to sound similar otherwise. It was fairly surprising to find that my DS40 was dialed in to sound quite similar to my SLO30. Once I had them going in stereo it was an eye opener. Then it was time to start turning the knobs for that 'blanket' if you will.
 
War_in_D said:
After going through the trouble of putting the amp switcher back in the rack and hooking up all my amps/cabs some things occurred to me.
  • If we dial in amps to get "our tone", what's the point of having several amps if you're just going to basically dial them all in to sound the same to your ear?
  • IMHO, cabs/speakers seem to make way more difference than the amp in the overall "tone".
  • Does having multiple amp options cause some kind of "decision paralysis" where you have too many options to choose from? Does it make you spend more time trying to figure out what amp you want to play, than actual playing?
  • I've got a small collection of vintage/NOS preamp tubes and I would like to do some rolling but where do I start? "What if" these tubes sound great in this amp, but they might sound better in that one! GAH!! What do I do?!?!
  • Nothing, that's what.. because I'm too busy spending time on a forum instead of playing. :ROFLMAO:
Sometimes I long for a simpler time.
Click to expand...
I have 4 amps right now, well 5 if you count my Carvin X1 Preamp with its 1 watt output section.

Of the 4 only two of them have any significant overlap, that is a Reeves DR504, and a Hiwatt DR103. Even those two amps have a bit different character when ran hard. Both punch and have amazing clarity few amps can rival, but the DR504 starts to snarl, grind, and compress a bit faster. It is a little more midforward when driven hard, not like a Plexi, but like a more pissed off Hiwatt. The DR103 is a bit clearer, with huge lowend presence. It still has plenty of mids too, but it is a bit bolder and more open sounding at max settings.

After that I have a Matamp.GT150, and an Ampeg VT22. Despite their huge headroom, and massive volume on tap, both of them sound vastly different from the Reeves and Hiwatt as well as each other.
 
If you have just one idea in your head of "your sound" then yeah you could be fine with 1-4 amps. If you like lots of different flavors then you'll need more amps. I think it starts with the amp and then optimize the speakers, tubes, pickups, etc around it. For me at least
 
went exactly through that and sold everything apart from my Wiz MC1. haven’t been able to dial it to sound AND feel like every one of the gone amps or tones I like and I do miss certain flavours but we’re talking about differences too subtle to justify the cost.
and btw i didn’t keep the wizzer bc it was the best but bc it would be the hardest to buy another one if miss it in the future.
 
I understand the feeling. I tend to dial my amps to sound very similar too.
 
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