After reading the firewire amp sim thread,
I thought I might post a bit of correspondence between Krispen and I that
relates to this subject, .scroll down to bottom of page for the first letter.
It might have subtitled this exchange “Confessions of a Analog Reactionary”
Bill
From: William Walker
[mailto:billwalker@baymoon.com]
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007 1:22
PM
To: 'Krispen Hartung'
Subject: RE: LoopFest Santa Cruz
Yes , I’ve been really happy with
both the the direct recording and live performance results, and for now,
until I can get my tech friend to do the “Andrew
Mod’ , a simple three or four resistor and capacitor modification some
web techy came up with that de-honks the lead channels, I overdrive the
front end of the formula with either a Duncan twin tube (phenomenal) or a
Keeley modified Boss blues driver (ditto), if I want furrier sounds.
Yes back in the day I had a groove
tubes trio, a boogie 295 later replaced by a 50/50, and a pair of Pacific
woodworks EVM loaded cabinets (same as the boogie theils by a guy who built
cabinets for them) What a loud rig that was. I know what you mean about the
20/20 power amp, that looks really interesting though I would probably
pair it with a 2x10 stereo cabinet for even more compactness. Besides
which I have grown increasingly fond of 10 inch speakers whereas I’ve
been a 12 inch guy all my life. I like the tighter bass response and the
better high end detail. See, a bigger Peepee isn’t always better J My current favorites are
Weber 30 watt Alnico blue pups which I just moved from my vox amp into my
vibrolux reverb (they were way more efficient and powerful than the little 12 watt
vox needed) They are so chimey and lovely sounding, bright without being ice
picky like many ceramic speakers are. I have tried the Vtwin and it is a nice
pedal though I have never tried its direct out thingy, only in front of an amp.
They did make a V-twin rack too though I think the Formula is a bit more
realized as a pre-amp. I briefly tried running a sans amp pedal to warm
up my PRS hollow I (that I no longer own unfortunately) through My Dtar
acoustic pre-amp at a gig I did that was mostly acoustic, to save myself from
having to bring an amp just for the PRS. It was a Bose sponsored gig so of
course I was running through a Bose PAS, and I gotta say, the sans amp did
nothing for me. I couldn’t dial up a decent clean blackface sound to save
my life so the PRS sounded kind of nasaly. This was with a Sans amp original
and I really don’t understand why people like those things. I guess for
its time…..
To my knowledge know one
makes a half rack preamp. I have been trying to persuade anyone I can
coral at Duncan
that they need to build and amp in a stomp box using the high grade Mil spec
subminiature tubes the use in their twin tube overdrive. A thing that could
actually drive a speaker cabinet, but that also had reactive load style cabinet
simulation for going direct. Kind of like what the V-twin was, but
better. What I’ve found currently available is next to nothing.
Digital music corp is redesigning their 3 channel preamp because
their first version wasn’t standing up to heavy road abuse, so its
not available yet, VHT has a really cool two rack space model that is going
through a re-design due to lead content issues (no kidding!) but that’s
big heavy and expensive. Boogie makes A dual rectifier preamp, also big heavy
and expensive, and it seems more geared to hard rock sounds though I may be
speculating, haven’t heard it or read the reviews. Groove Tubes still
makes the wonderful Trio, but that’s also two racks and has no cabinet
simulation. This is why I gambled on the Formula. Its compact,powerful,
and relatively speaking, a bargain. That’s as far as I’ve
researched it but I’m sure there are other things out there and certainly
some older stuff that still sounds great. Part of this desire to simplify
comes from having watched some live footage on Youtube of Jeff Beck playing.
What that guy can do with his hands, an amp and a bit of delay and reverb is
astounding, it has inspired me to clean up my sonic palette and eschew
many of the effects I used to consider essential, like chorus, partly because
when I’m building as many as 8 tracks on the Looperlative, modulation
tends to muddy up the sound if I’m not careful, particularly when
I’m using overdrive as well. Don’t get me wrong I love effects, its
just that with too many choices I end up spending more time tweeking and less
time playing.
See Ya soon dude
Bill
From: Krispen Hartung
[mailto:khartung@cableone.net]
Sent: Monday, August 27, 2007
12:27 PM
To: billwalker@baymoon.com
Subject: Re: LoopFest Santa Cruz
Thanks for this. So you like the Formula? I have heard
good things about it too. Boogies are known, at least in my experience,
for their mid range "tubby" tone, so your comments don't surprise
me. During my rack, small stereo system days, I used to covet
the Formulate in combination with their 20/20 power amp, and two 1X12 Mesa
Thiel cabs...man, that would be a sweeeeeeet combo. Add something like a TC
Electronics Guitar processor in the rack and you have a powerful system.
Have you played through the Mesa V-Twin pedal?
I'm with you though..I just want somethin simple and focused
on generating a good guitar tube sound...I'll do everything else with my
laptop. But I have to have a HIGH quality sound to begin with.
Did you ever try one of the SansAmp pedals? Does anyone
make a botique half-rack tube guitar preamp?
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, August 13,
2007 5:43 PM
Subject: RE: LoopFest Santa Cruz
After researching on the web for a
few weeks and seeing what the options where, (precious few I might add), I
bought a Mesa Boogie Formula preamp off of Ebay for a little under $500 ($479,
I believe). The thing that I kept hearing in reviews was that it had a realy
good clean direct sound and that the lead channels were a bit mid-rangey. I
must admit that I have to keep the graphic eq set to a smile curve to achieve
the blackface midrange dip on both clean and lead channels, but this thing
sounds fantastic going direct or through a full range PA system. Using it also
allow me to integrate stomp box pedals in front of it if I want, and a nice
byproduct of the purchase was that I dusted off my old TC model one which
allows me to run tap tempo delay and reverb in series or parallel, and sounds
better than the similar effects in my two previous modelers, most recently a
Vox tonelab se, and before that a line 6 pod pro. In both cases I fell in love
with the bells and whistles but ultimately soured on issues of digital
distortion (the subtle background kind), lack of headroom, and slight latency
and two dimensional quality. Last year at loop fest I tried to integrate my rack
loop gear and pedal effects with my ancient fender and vox tube amps, with
limited success, mostly due to noise and impedance issues related to the
combination of line and instrument levels. With the boogie pre, I won’t
have to deal with those issues and the extra cartage issues, because with the
exception of my floor effects and midi foot pedal, my entire rig fits in a four
space rack now, not lap top portable, but close enough. I think that micing a
modeling amp is going to give you better results than going direct with
modeling as it adds back that elusive air that the cabinet simulation
doesn’t quite capture, but it also brings up some problems associated
with live mics and ambient noise build up. I honestly have come to believe that
the more analogue devices I can throw in front of my digital gear, the better
and more real my sound will be. Highly recommended.
On a similar thread, I’ve been
in contact with Radial Engineering, the company who makes amp and ABY
switchers, loop selectors and high end direct boxes, encouraging them to make a
stereo loop selector that could accommodate and buffer both line and instrument
level effects processors so I could for example, run my looperlative, or a lap
top looper in line between my stomp boxes and my tube amp, without any
impedance mismatching, hissing or overloading. They seem like they are
interested in doing it, just a matter of when. But it would be a cool device
for guys like me who would love to be able to integrate the old school with the
new.
I look forward to seeing you in October.
Bill