Help me buy a good Processor.

Discussion in 'Guitar Gear Talk Forum' started by mymusicmyguitar, May 2, 2011.

  1. rickkkyrich

    rickkkyrich Guest

    Even i want to upgrade my amp but i cant do it until i sell off my Ibanez... :(
     
  2. tapas.perti

    tapas.perti New Member

    Yes, there are two good amps in that category (7-8k) that I'm planning to buy ... You can go for either for the Fender Mustang I (20W) or the Line 6 Spider IV (15W) ... They won't be too big and will give you a lot of tonal capabilities ... Also, both of them come inside 7k and are good value for money
     
  3. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    @bcrich - i checked the Be3 amps. That seems to be a new company which is in Mumbai, Vashi. Any specific reason why to choose Be3 over Fender, Marshall, Laney and others?

    @tapas.perti - Fender Mustang has inbuilt effects so its completely ruled out. I want some Amp which wud just give me a Clean Channel(to use with Pedals). No other effect is required.
     
  4. flood

    flood New Member

    ansar uses good parts and construction techniques and builds his amplifiers himself. for the money you're paying, you aren't getting nearly the same quality from a big name manufacturer making wave-soldered PCB based amps on a conveyor belt somewhere in china (note: i'm not saying that these amps are severely inferior - just that i feel you're getting more for your money from ansar). the other thing is that he's locally around to service or modify stuff if something goes wrong - servicing a PCB based amp is a nightmare and i know how most "techs" at music stores selling big-name amps work, i've decided that i'm never going to give a music store anything for repairs again.

    if i didn't build tube amps myself, i would buy from BE3.
     
  5. wylder

    wylder Member

    Sounds like you need a Epiphone Valve Junior or one of those new tiny Vox ACs.
    Thats a good choice if you don't intend to play live as clean headroom might be limited.
     
  6. bcrich

    bcrich New Member

    I think the Laney Cub Series too, could work for him..
     
  7. wylder

    wylder Member

    Haven't tried a 6V6 amp yet. I can vouch for awesome clean tones from an EL84 amp...
     
  8. flood

    flood New Member

    6V6s have killer cleans too. my faves for cleans, in fact, after 6L6s. for me, EL84s shine best with crunch and upper mid distortion.

    don't use this as a yardstick though - the design of the power stage in question plays a much bigger role in tonality than the tube being used. you can design an EL84 amp with great bass response, and get gorgeous midrange breakup from a 6V6 too.
     
  9. bcrich

    bcrich New Member

    Ofcourse, 6V6s and EL84s are best for cleans. EL84s for the popular AC30 sound and 6V6 for the Fender cleans.
     
  10. varunmm4

    varunmm4 New Member

    @ mymusicmyguitar,

    Completely agree with flood. Knowing a little bit about what you have here goes a long way in understanding how to get the best out of it. I'm not sure if you are aware of this but a sansamp tri-ac is an amp modeler by itself. It has analog circuitry that emulates fender, marshall and boogie amps (tweed, brit and cali on the pedal respectively I think). Think of it as an amp itself.
    Your amp should obviously always be last in your signal chain so first and foremost, shift everything back before your tri-ac. And using an OD instead of the MT2 is a good idea for the songs you mentioned. +1 to flood for the options(although I cant say much about the bad monkey, EHX LPB gets my vote since you need boost more than gain).
    Now your two flavor effects i.e. chorus and delay either go after or before the tri-ac. Ideally, if you were using an amp instead of the tri-ac, you would put these in the effects loop but since you dont have one in the tri-ac, play with it to figure out which sounds best. I think both after should sound best.
    Now, your tri-ac is an amp emulator but it needs to be heard so you need speakers. Ideal speakers would be FRFRs. But for a rough idea of how it should sound, instead of going into your amp's input, go into the aux in or cd in of the amp you have. This will bypass the preamp section of your amp and go straight to the power amp speaker section. I think your marshall should have a cd in.

    This is what your signal path should look like:
    Guitar->CS-3->MT2->TRIAC->CE5->Delay->(auxiliary in or cd in of your marshall)

    P.S. your tri-ac should always be on since it is your main preamp and your amp's preamp has been bypassed. Store clean AND dirty settings on it and just switch between them like channels on an amp.

    For bedroom practice this should be just fine. For recording, record directly from the tri-ac since it has built-in cab emulation. For live, get FRFR speakers that sit well with your tone.
     
  11. flood

    flood New Member

    somewhat misguided information. not blaming you, these are common myths and i feel the need to correct you here...

    like i said, the sound of an amp has less to do with the tubes than with topology.

    electrically speaking, the 6V6 and EL84 are fairly similar except for a couple of things - the EL84 is driven easier than a 6V6. so - ALL OTHER CONDITIONS BEING THE SAME - the 6V6 amp will be a *bit* cleaner than the EL84 amp - or rather, break up later. i can vouch for that because i built an amp which would take any output tube you gave it and had a switch to choose between 5 cathode bias resistors. everything else being the same, the 6L6 had the best cleans, the EL84 had great chiminess and the EL34 was just seriously ballsy. i felt the 6V6 was the best allrounder with better cleans than the EL84.

    however, this is barely a criterium, because we haven't even touched upon that horrible B word - biasing. then there's screen grid biasing to consider. in practice, all other conditions are practically never the same, and the comparison is often moot.

    the EL84s do play a part in the "AC30 sound", but a pretty small one compared to three things about that amp: a. the abscence of negative feedback b. the notch-filtering effect (unintentionally) introduced by the tremolo channel and c. (HUGE role) the alnico speakers these amps used to be fitted with as stock speakers. bit of a shock, eh?

    anyway, long story short: i would not choose (or consider) an amp based on the tubes in the power stage or generalize things to this extent... the simple reason for the EL*4 being associated with "the english sound" and the 6L6 with the american sound is simply because that the EL84/34 was an english tube and the 6*6 american, so people used what was available easily at the time. since then, things have changed massively.

    so let your ears be the judge; this is guitar amplification, not surgically precise tube hi-fi!
     
  12. bcrich

    bcrich New Member

    Opened my eyes. I read it on the Be3 about the EL84 and 6V6 but YA, ours ears are the judge..
     
  13. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Planning to get Digitech Bad Monkey today. I hope he has other overdrives for comparing.

    About the Amp i am still not sure which one to go for. Its way to confusing with so many options. I better take my setup to the store and check it with the Amp.

    I am using the exact same sequence that you all have mentioned
    Guitar->CS-3->MT2->TRIAC->CE5->Delay->(auxiliary in or cd in of your marshall)

    You have mentioned that "Your Tri AC should always be ON". But when Tri AC is ON and i try to switch on the MT2 it gives harsh weird Noisy Sound (like sound which is blocked in a container and ready to burst out). It does not give me the true colour of MT2. TRI AC kind of restricts the sound.

    I tried the following settings yesterday and here are the results.
    1) TRI AC set to Cali(lot of bass. Mid. Treble - Nice smooth distortion). Now when i added MT2(with distortion settings) to it the sound mixes and gives weird NOISY output as mentioned above.

    2) Tri AC set to Brit(NO Bass, NO Mid, NO Treble, only Drive and Level added). Now Switched on MT2(with distortion settings) yet the same results.

    3) Now reversed the Setup. TRI AC placed before MT2 with the settings mentioned in 2. Gave much heavier sound than what MT2 was capable of. Extremely DENSE and thick tone.

    But if i use setting 3 i am not making full use of TRI-AC. What do u suggest i should do.

    And what can i do for that added Noise? Another Boss NS2 pedal for that :(?
     
  14. flood

    flood New Member

    it's just too much gain, dude. the NS-2 has nothing to do with it... try doing the exact same thing you described with an overdrive instead and you might be surprised.

    i honestly think that the MT-2 is a bit redundant in your signal chain - IMO the MT-2 is best used with a clean or slightly crunchy amp. for the record, i don't like the MT-2 at all. i think it's a horrible pedal, essentially overcompressed fuzz. i can think of at least 3 pedals that beat the MT-2 at it's own game. i'm goin to be modding the hell out of mine to see if i can get better mileage from it.

    what you could possibly try is turning the gain all the way down on the MT-2 and turning the volume up a bit instead. cut the bass and treble and raise the mids. use it as a booster with a bit of clipping (the MT-2 never gets clean, even on the lowest gain settings). you have distortion on the sansamp and distortion on the MT-2 happening - NOT a good thing.
     
  15. varunmm4

    varunmm4 New Member

    yup, best bet is to only use MT-2 before triac when the triac is on clean settings (dont dial in any gain on the triac). Otherwise just dont use it at all.

    If you wanna switch between dist and heavier or more cutting dist, dial in a dirty setting on triac and use an OD pedal instead of MT-2 to push it further.
     
  16. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Well thats true. But i needed some heavy stuff in the chain so added MT2. Lets see if an Overdrive pedal adds something to the sound(will check it tonight once i get it only with TriAc).
    Well i do have someone who is interested in buying my MT2 :p. What should i do? Any other solid distortion pedal suggestion?
     
  17. flood

    flood New Member

    this is getting very complex and thanks to all the gain in the chain you have a bunch of options... you need to fool around with the gain and not go by the "recommended settings" shit that comes with the pedal.

    see, the triac can be set to low gain, but boosted to higher gain with something before it. or you keep the gain down to medium low on both pedals and experiment.

    remember: gain is multiplicative. not additive. you have a great rig going for you, you just need to understand the fundamentals of signals...

    if you're going to use higher gain settings on the MT-2 you MUST keep the gain on the triac low, and the volume level on the MT-2 as well.

    if you are using higher gain settings on the triac, then you must conversely set the gain on the mt-2 all the way down and the volume slightly up so you're essentially boosting the triac with the MT-2

    a good way to start is to set the gain of the triac and start with the drive and volume knobs on the MT-2 set to zero. turn up the volume first, and then slooooowly turn up the gain. the most powerful aspect - and IMO only redeeming factor - about the MT-2 is the equalizer section. you have excellent midrange control. don't forget to tweak that. keep in mind that you want to curb the amount of bass going into your amp, triac, whatever - bass excesses will lead to flabby, muddy, messy low-end distortion.

    spend some more time experimenting; you'll learn a lot more that way.
     
  18. wylder

    wylder Member

    What kind of heavy distortion do you like? What would you prefer between the Mesa Boogie and Marshall type of sound? Maybe its not more gain that you need, just a different kind of gain?
     
  19. mymusicmyguitar

    mymusicmyguitar Active Member

    Bought Digitech Bad Monkey yesterday and i should say it really added that brightness to the tone which was desperately missing. The guitar strings have bcum more responsive now. Simply love that sound. Tested it with the TRIAC. I tried using it before the MT2 and it made MT2's tone bright as well. Its really the tone that i was missing since a very long time. I cud get the Andy Timmons - Electric Gypsy tone (Clean and Overdriven sound) with that pedal :). Does Overdrive pedal add Treble to the sound? I was amazed to not get any noise even after turning the Gain knob to full..
     
  20. flood

    flood New Member

    the overdrive pedal is just that - a gain stage with relatively little distortion of its own. the less gain you have, the less noise too obviously. it will boost certain frequencies, mostly in the upper mids (also depends on how you set the tone knob).

    between these three pedals i would say you have a VERY versatile setup and don't need any more distortion (unless you want fuzz, which is a different thing altogether)... so look at amps instead.
     

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