What happens when a person far from this sphere writes about a guitar tube sound

Want to write a crazy article? Write about something in which you are far from the topic. A recent sensational article just from this category. I do not understand why writing such articles when you are not a musician, not aware of past and present equipment, leading trends and heaps of experiments. When, being aware of this topic, you see such a linden, or the type of authoritative reasoning that the wood of an electric guitar does not affect its sound, it hurts to write a refutation. And I still could not resist.

I will try to squeeze everything in the most concise frame:

1. A guitar amplifier is not a device for amplifying sound, or rather, this is not the main task. Electro-guitar, and especially rock music amplifier is like a continuation of a guitar, which continues to form a sound until the end result. Neglect of the amplifying part is equivalent to neglecting the quality of the resonator in the pipe, saying that the main thing is the whistle.

2. Continuing item 1, the guitar amplifier trick is not to make the sound louder, but to distort it in the “right” way, or rather to make it the way most electric guitar fans like it. Of course, transistor amplifiers can also be used, but their distortions are not pleasant. So for this they use a lamp, as well as brass for a pipe resonator.
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3. Guitar amplifiers are very different from normal. Engineers creating first-class HiEnd amplifiers, they are completely confused. In their opinion, this will be a completely wrong amplifier. they make the amplifiers so that the distortion of the sound is close to zero, the guitar amplifiers do the opposite so that they distort the sound. They will have wrong offsets, wrong high voltages, lamp mode (450 Volt, for example, against the values ​​2 times less), and all because such an amplifier makes them sing, they can have a return-signal-to-noise ratio;

4. The set of the Klonz project may be interesting, except that it is a delusion that it will allow you to get the sound of any amplifier. And the thing is that in fact the sound in a tube amplifier is formed far from the expense of lamps alone. Maybe the main role in sound is played by the output transformer - a lot depends on the manufacturing technology and iron material. Moreover, the transformer gives an individual color to the sound, so that, like lamps and parts, it does not turn, something permanent will always be at the core.

5. Transistors are unpopular, not because they once failed to unwind, and now unfairly in the shadows. Experiments with transistors by different manufacturers and also radio amateur guitarists continue to this day. But so far no one has achieved real breakthrough success. There are some good results, in which, however, very few people see the point, because the lamp is still better. But the transistor is not bad in the role of "gadgets" (learn the details yourself)

6. Nuances of the type “when I make a flageolet, there was such an echo, but here it is not there and everything sounds differently” is very important, because out of a thousand such nuances a specific composition is made. Of course, if you play trash, then all this may not be so important.

7. For a complete understanding of the nuances of guitar amplification, it would be nice to understand sound recordings as well. Getting the final sound in the guitar business is a long string. In general, it is an electric guitar - cable - lotions - an amplifier (sometimes divided into a preamp and a final amplifier) ​​- an office (roughly speaking speakers, only highly specialized) - and !!! important! - a microphone that removes sound from these speakers. The last point also affects the sound very much, but this is the sound that you will hear in a particular composition. But live it will be another sound. So, when people discuss how best to get sound, it is important to understand what kind of sound, live or sound recording.

8. Digital processors are really a promising direction, but there are a lot of problems.

9. First, it’s not so easy to emulate the processes of a tube amplifier. What can we say, even all reverberation processors to emulate now is recognized as a difficult task, what can we say about a tube amplifier. Nevertheless, digital reverberation is considered by many to be sufficient (with a high-quality performance), but everything is more complicated with a lamp. here, few people even understand what is happening there at the level of physical processes. So do simplified emulation. And what to say, some, even with all the advancement of digital processing, sometimes prefer much more retrograde effects, such as tape delay:


10. Secondly. In general, why are people looking for an alternative? It's not about reliability (tube amps are very reliable, all your digital gadgets will survive) and not retrograde. Just all this is cumbersome. After all, this is not only a big heavy amplifier, which cannot be made smaller (it’s impossible to leave the physics, you can’t do less transformer, some other details also reduce the sound while decreasing the sound), but also a room that is also big, the speakers should be 12 inches, and better at least 2 pieces. This is a huge bandura, but only such a bandura will sound like a guitar. But the problems do not end there. A tube amplifier will really sound juicy only at a decent volume. For home music making it is not very convenient to transport too. So they are looking for a comfortable option. Therefore, the processor has to emulate a lot of things: a tube amplifier, a guitar speaker, microphone muting, possible feedback. There is not much point in making a processor to stick into a guitar column, because the speaker needs a terminal amplifier that can be made ... transistor? .. otherwise what's the point then? All this will again be cumbersome. It is necessary to make the processor with the sound already ready for recording. So, you will lose a live sound, and stuck in incomprehensible speakers you will not understand what. You get a system with some kind of incomprehensible result.

11. Thirdly: great, you make the processor, everything inside is digital, everything inside can be reduced without any problems, increased power, emulated processes. But! How to take the source, and give the result you need in analog form. And high-quality analog electronics is weakly amenable to miniaturization and cheapening. And if the output path may not be so bad, the input path is very important. After all, all the shoals and artifacts can be amplified and heard very strongly. As a rule, processors have simple analog parts with inexpensive D / A converters and ADCs on SMD details that are considered to be analogous to moveton in analog, otherwise cumbersome and expensive devices are obtained - why, if it is still not 100% analogous and only partial emulation, when it’s cheaper You can buy a lamp machine that will be 100% authentic. So if you are looking for a replacement lamp in the hope of saving, take the device for $ 300 - do not even entertain yourself with hopes - it will be one more garbage. Even in today's leader of digital processors: AX-FX is worth the average ADC, despite the fact that the device costs more than $ 2000.

I had several processors. One of them is the progressive Vox Tonelab. The chip of this processor is that there is a lamp. But not just a lamp, a real tube path with a lamp and a microtransformer is built there. Due to the fact that the transformer is micro and works at low voltage (around 5-12 volts like), there can be no talk of any normal lamp mode. Moreover, the lamp that is used to emulate a terminal is used in life for a preamp. Here is a miserable similarity you received for 600-700 dollars. From an engineering point of view, an interesting thing of course. And now about the practice. When I started making music every day, I was disturbed by its sound. And from these sensations, I actively began to turn 30-60 minutes on every possible handle trying to find something that would be more or less acceptable. Having hardly found a less tolerable sound, I scored and tried to practice. Neither comfort nor enthusiasm this situation did not give. Time passed and I bought myself a tube amplifier at $ 700, put a spatial processor G-Major for $ 300 in the gap between the preamp (Vox Tonelab in this role spoils the sound, apparently the G-Major has a better analog part) and you know I just sat down and started playing. I stopped turning the knobs in order to find a good sound, because in any position the sound was tasty in its own way. Moreover, the equalizer knobs really changed the sound itself, while in the processor the sound, although changing a little, always had some sort of “flavor”. The result is that the processors advertise the emulation of the guitar sound of several amplifiers assuming the richness of the sound, but in fact only have a half-sound. Lamp, in spite of the fact that it seems to offer only one sound of itself, the range of the richness of this sound is such that it can easily replace several amplifiers.

The bottom line: the lamp is relevant not because it is marketing, and not because people tend to retrograde, but a real necessity. Alternatives in the form of digital processors have neither practical nor commercial meaning, with the exception of medium-caliber musicians who are burdensome to carry all the equipment that requires a wagon, but they need to tour all over the world and the artifacts in the sound are not so critical - a kind of compromise.