1/15/2024 0 Comments Tube amp guitar![]() Lacquered Tweed Tube Amp Who Should Consider a Tube Amp? You might sacrifice some of the feel of a tube amp, but there are a lot of modern players who are looking to sound like Wild Nothing and not Muddy Waters.” “You can get that pretty easily with a digital amp. “For one track, they might need to have pristine cleans but want to press a button and go to this chainsaw distortion,” he explained. When asked about who might want to gravitate towards solid-state amps, Heins used the example of a band that has a varied catalog of songs ranging from heavy metal to pop and would need to quickly pivot during a set. “If something does go wrong there's a very high chance you’d have to take it to a qualified professional.” Who Should Consider a Solid-State Amp? “It’s harder to troubleshoot a problem if you encounter a problem with a solid-state amp,” Heins said. “If your tubes start going bad, whether from age, use, climate, whatever … your sound’s going to change,” Heins said.īut while solid-state amps can be more reliable on a day-to-day basis, if a problem does crop up it is quite difficult to visually diagnose what is wrong with the electronics. Since tubes use filaments similar to light bulbs, they can burn out and cause noise or signal loss. There are challenges with the maintenance of both solid-state and tube amps. “The effects sound good, not just generic.” “You’ve got to have a good clean tone and a good mid-crunchy tone,” Heins said of Fender's above-mentioned solid-state entries. Solid-state amplifiers have made significant strides in that area, however, especially with Fender’s Mustang GT Series and Champion Series. It’s not impossible, but you really feel it when playing certain tube amps.” “That’s one of the hardest things to replicate in a digital amp. “When it’s set for distortion, not metal distortion but rock distortion, and you roll back your volume knob, you can get the amp to clean up. “With with a good tube amp, you can typically play the guitar with the volume all the way up,” Heins said. Which One Is Better for Clean or Distorted Tones? “Practicing at night, you don’t have to worry about annoying anyone,” he said with a laugh. This means that if you’re looking to rehearse at home or play in your bedroom with headphones, solid-state amps may have the edge there. ![]() Heins believes that the tube sound tends to come to life when the volume is above 3, whereas digital amps “should sound good from the bottom up." To help you on your journey toward an amplified life we asked Heins to break down some of the most common questions and misperceptions about vacuum tube and solid-state amps: What if I Need to Consider My Practice Volume? ![]() “It’s a personal quest, and ultimately, the player has to feel it,” Heins said. The most important thing is to test things for yourself and determining what sounds right to you. To Rick Heins, one of Fender's resident amp experts, there really isn’t one right or wrong answer. More often than not, the first decision to make when looking for the right amp is whether you want to pursue a tube amp or something digital, also known as solid-state.
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