Hello Jose, I understood your post. I just disagree with it.

Specifically, that solid state was developed because of a need for cleaner, truer audio, and for that matter, that it sounds cleaner and truer because it's solid state.

I don't know where you're getting your facts from, but I had learned all of this from an intructional video by the Latin Grammy Award-winning engineer, mixer and producer Charles Dye. Can you provide a source of your point of view? Just want to learn more about it, thanks .

Hi Jose, this topic is even more well-worn then analog vs. digital but interestingly, the arguments of one vs. the other almost read the same.

Mind you, for the sake of this discussion, we're not talking specifically about guitar amps. In that sense we're off topic for this thread and forum. We're talking about cicuitry designed for high fidelity. Console circuitry, and clean power amplifiers.

Here's a start. I googled analog vs. solid state amplification and this was one of the ones on top:

http://www.theabsolutesound.com/newsletter/147/tubes_vs_trans.html

Whats this topic about...It should be named My way is better than your way, Or this is how i do it, so it must be the best.
Cj

This is the real reason why solid state equipment came about, because we wanted to achieve a cleaner, truer sound to our recordings.

Couldn't agree less, mate. I agree with stratton & would add that as with the case of the transition in the '80's from analog to digital synths, it was driven by technology as in: "Ooooh, it's new so it's gotta be good".

In as much as it became more practical to take SS rigs out on the road over valves even though the sound changed, it is now more practical to take amp/speaker sims out on the road. Ask Butch Vig.

If I had a place where I could actually play the damn thing, I'd snap up a valve amp in a sec but I place a higher value on my partner's sanity.

Fact is, we've never had it so good. Celebrate the difference & rejoice, I say.

<Riffs off into sunset... & not that widdly-widdly stuff either>

Whats this topic about...It should be named My way is better than your way, Or this is how i do it, so it must be the best.

Agreed - the best appraoch will always be to treat an argument as an opportunity to share & understand the views of others in an effort to augment their world view, not to beat people's opinions into submission just so you can say, "I won".

Proust always maintained that you can't live a good life without seeing the world through as many eyes as possible & I think it was Peggy Guggenheim who said something like, "There's no such thing as "good taste" or "bad taste" - there's just "taste" ?

Yea Rev. Peoples set-up is a really a personal thing and if you say something is better than their set-up, they take offence and go on the defensive..But i really am enjoying this thread. I learned alot about other peoples set-ups and how they go about recording into sonar..

CJ

There was a great thread on this subject in the Techniques (or Gear ?) forum about month or two ago.

<edit> Nup - 'twas in this forum after all. Here ya go: http://forum.cakewalk.com/fb.asp?m=882575&key=Public%2CApology

ORIGINAL: hockeyjx

I still stand by my earlier comments that only the most trained audiophiles MAY be able to detect a higher-end amp sim, but 99% of people could not correctly identify when an amp sim is being used on a song that is fully mixed. That is my theory!

I think your theory has merit.

I'm a huge fan of modellers (plugins and outboard) and have Guitar Rig 2, DSound Gt Player, Alien Connections Revalver and a Boss GT 8 processor.

The average music listener is not going to be able to tell if my guitar track was played with a Fender Telecaster through an alcino neck pickup, through a Vibrolux amp, and miked with Shure SM 57's; or whether I've used preset 53 from Guitar Rig, or preset 100 from Gt Player.

It's about the music, doing the best with what you have available, and a willingness to experiment with sound in general; it's not about reproducing to a tee a guitar riff produced by Mutt Lang.

I suggest that the idea that tube circuits are inherantly distorted or warm has been perpetuated by companies marketing tube toys.

There are lots of great tube amplification circuits that are splendidly clean. Solid state audio circuits were developed for economy of manufacture and profit. Of course solid state had lots of other more pragmatic uses... the audio was just a spin off.
The U.S. Navy still uses tubes in many of their hi powered circuits because they think its misson critical.
By the earlie 1980's Tube gear became difficult to locate and purchase because it was so much more expensive than solid state mass production. Then came the nineties when musical instrument companies found sneaky ways to market low grade tube circuits to an audience that was willing to buy in to the idea that tubes inherantly sound distorted. A few hi-fi companies tried to do it but found out that hi-fi listeners actually demand good circuits. Luckily if you want and can afford real tube musical instrument or hi-fi gear there are more choices than ever... they are just harder to locate than in the past. It's still being made the best way people know how for those who want to experience it firsthand.

Remember when Jimi asked are you experienced? have you ever been experienced?

well... I have. :-)

After a life time of studying and experiencing the sound of both instrument and hi-fi tube amps I have come to understand that the one "truism" regarding tubes is the remarkably fast transient response. You can measure THD in a tube circuit and you can look at slew rates in Solid State or you can just listen to both and hear the difference. A real tube amp is more responsive to any input. It doesn't matter if it's a electric guitar, electric bass, a nice microphone or a recording of a soprano vocalist.

Personally I think the fast transients of tube circuits provide the "cleanest" musical sound (as opposed to a sterile sound) and think the Fender Twin, and Ampeg SVT are fantastic examples of clean musical instrument amps. I also think it's this basic quality of quick response that allows a tube circuit to sound so speacial no matter what gain structure you arrive at.

Any discucssion of inherant distortion should really be focused on the gain structure of the circuit. That's the distortion every one is talking about... you'd be hard pressed to hear the THD in a single tube, FET, or transisitor operating within its design parameters.

Once you have a circuit operating in distortion then you can easily hear differences in how tubes, FETs, or transistors sound when driven hard in stages. People enjoy the sounds of distorted tubes so much so that they emulate them with digital models.


best regards,
mike

I don't believe SS technology was invented for music. Rather it was adopted by the music industry. SS was mainly developed for military, all sorts of manufacturing processes, space & areonautics...ect