Whom would I got to to make something totally new?

[JoeM]

Get away from vacuum tube circuits.

[J M Fahey]

So far the OP became member, left the egg and left .
Will he return?
He might be placing this very same question in many forums.

Unable to give a useful answer until OP gives many more details.
And probably some goals will be not doable, or at least conflicting.

[Tom Phillips]

The original post reads like a sophisticated spam bot tuned to formulate a question using aspects of discussions on this forum. Very strange.

[Chuck H]

And probably some goals will be not doable, or at least conflicting.

This is what I am most expecting:

Harmonics that leap out and infinite sustain with low noise.

Rich saturation with punchy dynamics and clarity.

Bottom end definition and a fat top end, but not so much midrange as other high gain amps.

Lots of overtones but with good note definition.

[DrGonz78]

Not too specific...

"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
-Donald Rumsfeld

[ric]

Neshel, A fellow posts here under the name "Trans Lucid". His name is Robert Megantz, and he wrote a cool little book called "Design and Construction of Tube Guitar Amplifiers". The book is a well written, logically organized, step by step intro to the subject. It contains all you need to know to build a Dumblesqe amp and understand what you did. I wish I would have found it years ago. If you only want to buy one book, you could do a lot worse than this one. Good luck on your journey to good tone.

[tedmich]

This is what I am most expecting:

Harmonics that leap out and infinite sustain with low noise.

Rich saturation with punchy dynamics and clarity.

Bottom end definition and a fat top end, but not so much midrange as other high gain amps.

Lots of overtones but with good note definition.

People say the PRS Archon does this... all for under $2k... seriously though one guitarists "tone nirvana" is the next's "audio abortion" there is no universally great amp!

[Chuck H]

Mixing opposing qualities in amp descriptions is common on non tech forums and sales literature. The definitions of the terms or the accuracy of the perceived quality comes into question.

There is a signal. We are clipping amplifiers with it. We can control the amount of clipping. We can control what frequencies are clipped. We can somewhat control the sharpness of the clipped wave form. We can control power supply sag. We can control the symmetry of the clipping. Controlling these things presents checks and balances. This is why opposing properties are, well, opposing. And perhaps by now all the different combinations and manipulations of these properties in various cascade gain stages has been exploited. Claiming that these checks and balances can be or have been overcome is usually either dishonest or ignorant. I hardly know, nor can I imagine, how anyone can make an amplifier that doesn't behave like an amplifier.

JM2C on that.

[eschertron]

Harmonics that leap out and infinite sustain with low noise. Rich saturation with punchy dynamics and clarity. Bottom end definition and a fat top end, but not so much midrange as other high gain amps. Lots of overtones but with good note definition.
Mixing opposing qualities in amp descriptions is common on non tech forums and sales literature. The definitions of the terms or the accuracy of the perceived quality comes into question.

I see what you did there… and I agree that definitions and perceptions will always be quite slippery in the amplifier design business. That is why some sort of guitar amp “X prize” will be elusive.

If there is a pot of a few million dollars that reward someone that can create a guitar amp that is out of ordinary AND people like it better by different judges, You'll get a design very fast. It's all about money and big money attract big brains.

Unfortunately, amp-making is more like the culinary arts than it is rocket science. Sure, there is math and engineering involved. And just like rocketry and cooking, the basics have been established and institutionalized years ago. But the perfect tone is like the perfect sear: to one, not crusty enough; to another, far too burnt – with all the other adjectives that go with the tasting experience!

Specific example: I know that the OT of an amp will tend to band-limit the sound, and when it’s driven very hard it can be quite “mid-rangey”. So one solution is to use a big honking UL tranny, to limit the OT effect on the sound. Another is to scoop the mids and get a big bottom and sizzling top end to try to compensate for the OT’s band limiting. Two methods, two aural outcomes, each with their own set of side effects and additional complications. And while the intent was to solve ONE problem, the two camps of supporters of these types of amps are as far apart as French cuisine is from Polynesian!
Leo Fender’s amps (and I really like the amps, this is not a rant!) are to music as Ford’s cars were to transportation and McDonalds is to dining. Innovative, but also designed according to a business model that emphasized financial success and corporate longevity. The best with what was available under the given economic constraints. The evolution of amps, like cars and fast food, has been to build on the foundation to provide more variety, appeal to broader desires, and fill more diverse niche markets. We are still building on what came before, and there is nothing new – as far as engineering principles go –under the sun, but there’s a lot of cooking to be done by amp designers and modders. And like cuisine, a firm grasp of the underlying science (electronics and music, instead of chemistry and food science) is essential to success.

[highjack] There are many ‘job shop’ and boutique builders in the amp world now. It’s not all about the Fender and Marshall and Hiwatt. So instead of an “X prize” for amp design, direct the attention and the rewards toward those designers who are really working out of their garages and small shops:
How about a reality TV show, some cross between ‘junkyard wars’ and ‘cupcake wars’, that pits several aspiring amp designers against each other and a pile of parts; where they are challenged to put together an amp that meets certain aesthetic (but reasonably well-defined) criteria. At the end of each competition the winner gets a cash prize (probably more like an advance) and the opportunity to develop his or her ideas into an amp with an established amp manufacturer.
I could see Bruce from Mission Amps donating a couple of kits’ worth of material in exchange for a panel seat and the publicity. IIRC Rob Zombie was the guest/expert panelist on a show called ‘Halloween Wars’ one year. So it’s not a totally novel idea. [/highjack]

Everyone’s musical taste, and their aural history, is different. As our expectations of guitar tone are informed – and changed – by what we hear every day, the things we think to try in the next amp design will be different. Subtly different, incrementally different, usually. Radically different sometimes. It took decades for someone to put tone controls before AND after certain amp stages, so that the distortion that was generated in those stages could be handled more clinically. I see amp design like playing with legos. We have the pieces, but haven’t yet exhausted all the ways to put them together in ‘out of the ordinary’ (yet pleasing) combinations.

[neshel]

Hi. It hasn't been twenty-four hours, even. I waited until there were at least two or three responses.

'Distortion' was a side-effect. Men liked it because it had attitude. Hence they wanted more and more of it. Classical instrument design went the other way. Instruments started as crude devices, and were refined and refined until as pure and rich in tone as possible. Gain produces an accumulation of tones, like pulling stops on an organ. An organ, however, doesn't have gristle and sinew. The tones are clean.

I like the tone doubling and sustain of high gain in the ways it particularly does. I don't like the gristle. The grit. And filters can't finely enough remove it. It has to not be produced. A clipping that only produces what is wanted.

Is that more sensical?

[Alan0354]

Unfortunately, amp-making is more like the culinary arts than it is rocket science. Sure, there is math and engineering involved. And just like rocketry and cooking, the basics have been established and institutionalized years ago. But the perfect tone is like the perfect sear: to one, not crusty enough; to another, far too burnt – with all the other adjectives that go with the tasting experience!

Specific example: I know that the OT of an amp will tend to band-limit the sound, and when it’s driven very hard it can be quite “mid-rangey”. So one solution is to use a big honking UL tranny, to limit the OT effect on the sound. Another is to scoop the mids and get a big bottom and sizzling top end to try to compensate for the OT’s band limiting. Two methods, two aural outcomes, each with their own set of side effects and additional complications. And while the intent was to solve ONE problem, the two camps of supporters of these types of amps are as far apart as French cuisine is from Polynesian!
Leo Fender’s amps (and I really like the amps, this is not a rant!) are to music as Ford’s cars were to transportation and McDonalds is to dining. Innovative, but also designed according to a business model that emphasized financial success and corporate longevity. The best with what was available under the given economic constraints. The evolution of amps, like cars and fast food, has been to build on the foundation to provide more variety, appeal to broader desires, and fill more diverse niche markets. We are still building on what came before, and there is nothing new – as far as engineering principles go –under the sun, but there’s a lot of cooking to be done by amp designers and modders. And like cuisine, a firm grasp of the underlying science (electronics and music, instead of chemistry and food science) is essential to success.

[highjack] There are many ‘job shop’ and boutique builders in the amp world now. It’s not all about the Fender and Marshall and Hiwatt. So instead of an “X prize” for amp design, direct the attention and the rewards toward those designers who are really working out of their garages and small shops:
How about a reality TV show, some cross between ‘junkyard wars’ and ‘cupcake wars’, that pits several aspiring amp designers against each other and a pile of parts; where they are challenged to put together an amp that meets certain aesthetic (but reasonably well-defined) criteria. At the end of each competition the winner gets a cash prize (probably more like an advance) and the opportunity to develop his or her ideas into an amp with an established amp manufacturer.
I could see Bruce from Mission Amps donating a couple of kits’ worth of material in exchange for a panel seat and the publicity. IIRC Rob Zombie was the guest/expert panelist on a show called ‘Halloween Wars’ one year. So it’s not a totally novel idea. [/highjack]

Everyone’s musical taste, and their aural history, is different. As our expectations of guitar tone are informed – and changed – by what we hear every day, the things we think to try in the next amp design will be different. Subtly different, incrementally different, usually. Radically different sometimes. It took decades for someone to put tone controls before AND after certain amp stages, so that the distortion that was generated in those stages could be handled more clinically. I see amp design like playing with legos. We have the pieces, but haven’t yet exhausted all the ways to put them together in ‘out of the ordinary’ (yet pleasing) combinations.

Yes, it is all marketing driven......money. There lies the problem, price is too low.

Yes, it is an art to design amp, but I believe it is still electronics. You really need someone that is an engineer AND a good gigging player AND the passion in designing amps. That eliminates most of the people right there. Active in gigging and having extensive experience in designing electronics are both very time consuming, it's very hard to do both. Then you have to have the passion. Guitar amp is NOT the most exciting field in electronics, there are so many jobs that are more innovative, challenging in electronics and research. So even if you can find a person that is a good active player and good in engineering, they might not have the passion.

[Jazz P Bass]

[QUOTE=Alan0354;352709] You really need someone that is an engineer AND a good gigging player AND the passion in designing amps. QUOTE]

Ahh.
You have described our beloved (and MIA) SGM to a T.

[rjb]

Gain produces an accumulation of tones, like pulling stops on an organ. An organ, however, doesn't have gristle and sinew. The tones are clean.

I like the tone doubling and sustain of high gain in the ways it particularly does. I don't like the gristle. The grit. And filters can't finely enough remove it. It has to not be produced. A clipping that only produces what is wanted.

Organ stop - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Excerpt:
Organ pipes are physically organized within the organ according to note and timbre, into sets. A set of pipes producing the same timbre for each note is called a rank, while each key on a pipe organ controls a note which may be sounded by different ranks of pipes, alone or in combination. The use of stops enables the organist to selectively turn off ("stop") certain ranks in order to produce different combinations of sounds, as opposed to hearing all sounds simultaneously.

I'm not sure what you mean by "tone doubling"- but my interpretation is that you want to modify the guitar's timbre by selectively emphasizing certain overtones and not others (or by generating certain harmonics of the fundamental pitch).
Am I close?

I think sustain would then be a separate issue. Compressor? Positive feedback? e-bow?
I'm out of my league.

Would the tone modification you seek have to be built into the amp?

-rb

[Audiotexan]

Hi. It hasn't been twenty-four hours, even. I waited until there were at least two or three responses.

You're absolutely correct. And it's rare that I've seen this forum get this 'excited' with replies in such a short time. So you have that working for you! It's a topic folks are obviously interested in, and more than willing to help so there's that bright side!

'Distortion' was a side-effect. Men liked it because it had attitude. Hence they wanted more and more of it. Classical instrument design went the other way. Instruments started as crude devices, and were refined and refined until as pure and rich in tone as possible. Gain produces an accumulation of tones, like pulling stops on an organ. An organ, however, doesn't have gristle and sinew. The tones are clean.

I like the tone doubling and sustain of high gain in the ways it particularly does. I don't like the gristle. The grit. And filters can't finely enough remove it. It has to not be produced. A clipping that only produces what is wanted.

Is that more sensical?

Makes perfect sense. However, again, it does nothing to define specifics as to your goal, and is largely just "philosophical musings". So I'm gonna have to agree with Tom at this point.

The original post reads like a sophisticated spam bot tuned to formulate a question using aspects of discussions on this forum. Very strange.

Well played OP.

[Jazz P Bass]

Note doubling & sustain in one pedal!
http://www.seymourduncan.com/images/...ouble_back.pdf