Getting great guitar tone part two
By MNJ
| Posted in Guitar
About 25 years ago or so, the traditional valve manufacturing companies like Mullard, GEC, Phillips and RCA stopped making vacuum tubes. This was a time before the mass emigration of electronic goods and components manufacturers to the Far East, which meant that at the time it looked like the end of the line for valve loaded guitar amplifiers as we knew them. It also coincided with the dawning of the digital age in music making as the synthesiser and drum machine began to replace guitars as fast as you could say ‘printed circuit board’.
Demand for valve amps diminished fast. It was worrying – amplifier companies like Mesa Boogie used valves exclusively, and Fender and Marshall were heading the same way after having become seriously unstuck with some disastrous moves into solid state production in the 1970s. I well remember looking at my Boogie MkII combo at the time and thinking that one day it would be have to be tossed into the skip like an old washing machine because the valves integral to its very existence would no longer be available.
In the event, the valve guitar amplifier not only survived but flourished as never before, due not only to valve manufacture being taken up by Russians and Chinese factories, but by the sheer weight of demand from guitarists and bass players worldwide. They were convinced – correctly – that valve amps sounded better than their solid-state equivalents, even though the cost of manufacture was, and still is, greatly increased. I struggle to imagine where we’d be today if these events hadn’t happened – if all guitar amps were now solid-state or digital. There’d be no ‘boutique’ amp makers for a start, and maybe we’d all now be on stage with laptops, who knows?
Whenever anybody asks me for advice about buying a new amp, I always ask them the same question, which goes along the lines of: ‘What sound are you looking for?’ If they know, you’re already half way there, and it’s still the best place to start from in my opinion.
What’s the alternative, buy an amp because Jeff Beck makes it sound good and then hope it’s going to do the same for you? It’s not going to happen I’m afraid. The quest for tone should start in your head – think carefully about what you want to hear. Take into account your level of skill on the guitar which will determine how refined the amp needs to be, how loud you need it to be, which kind of guitar you will use primarily, whether it’s for live use or recording and, most importantly, is it going to realise your tone for you?
In part three, I will be discussing several answers that I’ve given over the years to my question about the sound that people are seeking and how I’ve tried to – hopefully – point them in the right direction, usually toward a valve amp.
Tags: getting great guitar tone, solid state amplifier, valve amplifier