why bother?

[Alan0354]

Just watch, one day a famous guitarist make it big with a Line 6, all of a sudden, old tube amps will be out and DSP will be in!!! A lot of people will loss their businesses because they only do tubes. Actually that won't even hurt me at all. I did have years of experience designing digital processor circuit and system, more experience than designing tube amps for sure!!!

Ha ha!!! Maybe that day, the old Line 6 will become the vintage DSP and will be sort after. People will be looking for the old DSP chip set as they have a certain NOS mystique. People might have to go to India and dig up the land fill to extract the old DSP chips to sell it out!!!!...........That is sarcasm.

[Chuck H]

Yeah well, the Mona Lisa is just a hunk of canvas and a few ounces of paint.

No it's not! It's also an image of a really ugly chick hiding her bad teeth with a half assed smile.

[Mick Bailey]

Just watch, one day a famous guitarist make it big with a Line 6, all of a sudden, old tube amps will be out and DSP will be in!!!

That day came and went. I didn't see tube amps go out of the door.

[Alan0354]

That day came and went. I didn't see tube amps go out of the door.

I hope you are right, I designed a lot of digital systems does not mean I like it. I hated it!!!! Problem is no matter where you turn, you cannot avoid them. I designed so many of the USB interface, the only thing I like is the RF link that I can get back into the analog touchy feely stuffs.

[Enzo]

Tube amps didn't go out the door because the tube amp generation was still here. The kids born in the 1990s have no such legacy to fall back on.


I spent years in the coin-operated amusements field, and for a long time I supplemented my income doing service calls to people's homes to fix their pinball machine or jukebox. Jukeboxes were a hot item. This Lansing area had a number of large General Motors plants, and that meant a lot of workers making oversized GM paychecks. It is truly amazing to me how many of those folks decided they needed a bar in their home. So they would finish the basement, put in a four stool wet bar, and get a pool table, a pinball, and a jukebox. Just like the tavern down the road. I also knew a few collectors of jukeboxes and a couple guys who traded in them. I'd rebuild amplifiers for those guys and rebuild the control electronics.

The bloom is off the rose for jukeboxes. The guys who grew up hanging out in bars, playing the jukebox are all ageing out of the market. There is little demand for them now. Same thing in cars. for a long time a 1957 Chevy was a holy frail of cars - that was the hot car when we were growing up. Now, not so much, now a hot car is more like an Olds 442. Just as today there is not that collective remembrance of hanging out around the jukebox.

Us tube amp guys will age out of the market, and then the average amp buyer will no longer have that nostalgic view of tube amps.

[tedmich]

if its good enough for Angus, its damn well good enough for me!

[JoeM]

Tube amps didn't go out the door because the tube amp generation was still here. The kids born in the 1990s have no such legacy to fall back on.


I spent years in the coin-operated amusements field, and for a long time I supplemented my income doing service calls to people's homes to fix their pinball machine or jukebox. Jukeboxes were a hot item. This Lansing area had a number of large General Motors plants, and that meant a lot of workers making oversized GM paychecks. It is truly amazing to me how many of those folks decided they needed a bar in their home. So they would finish the basement, put in a four stool wet bar, and get a pool table, a pinball, and a jukebox. Just like the tavern down the road. I also knew a few collectors of jukeboxes and a couple guys who traded in them. I'd rebuild amplifiers for those guys and rebuild the control electronics.

The bloom is off the rose for jukeboxes. The guys who grew up hanging out in bars, playing the jukebox are all ageing out of the market. There is little demand for them now. Same thing in cars. for a long time a 1957 Chevy was a holy frail of cars - that was the hot car when we were growing up. Now, not so much, now a hot car is more like an Olds 442. Just as today there is not that collective remembrance of hanging out around the jukebox.

Us tube amp guys will age out of the market, and then the average amp buyer will no longer have that nostalgic view of tube amps.

I mentioned this before, but it had such an impression on me I'll repeat. Many years ago (back in the early 70s) I was fortunate enough to take a master guitar class with the great jazz/studio guitarist Howard Roberts. One statement he made to the class stuck with me:

"When someone says 'I know what I like', they really mean 'I like what I know'" This really applies to tube amps.

[daz]

Fads aren't going to kill tube amps. People who buy an amp because someone they respect make it big is what kids do. When they become experienced players don't buy into that kind of gullibility. Real players always use what works for them regardless of whats popular or not. And till the day when players like that no longer exist, tube amps will always be here. unless that is someone figures out how to copy tube dynamics (note i didn't say tube "sound"....thats been done long ago) with SS circuits.

[JoeM]

You need to get of the bedroom and see what modern guitarists use.

[Alan0354]

Tube amps didn't go out the door because the tube amp generation was still here. The kids born in the 1990s have no such legacy to fall back on.


I spent years in the coin-operated amusements field, and for a long time I supplemented my income doing service calls to people's homes to fix their pinball machine or jukebox. Jukeboxes were a hot item. This Lansing area had a number of large General Motors plants, and that meant a lot of workers making oversized GM paychecks. It is truly amazing to me how many of those folks decided they needed a bar in their home. So they would finish the basement, put in a four stool wet bar, and get a pool table, a pinball, and a jukebox. Just like the tavern down the road. I also knew a few collectors of jukeboxes and a couple guys who traded in them. I'd rebuild amplifiers for those guys and rebuild the control electronics.

The bloom is off the rose for jukeboxes. The guys who grew up hanging out in bars, playing the jukebox are all ageing out of the market. There is little demand for them now. Same thing in cars. for a long time a 1957 Chevy was a holy frail of cars - that was the hot car when we were growing up. Now, not so much, now a hot car is more like an Olds 442. Just as today there is not that collective remembrance of hanging out around the jukebox.

Us tube amp guys will age out of the market, and then the average amp buyer will no longer have that nostalgic view of tube amps.

It is just matter of time. Technology change so fast. I was a photographer before also. Remember for the longest time ( even since the early 90s) we are believe film is here to stay, 35mm is going to be around forever. I spent so much money buying the Rose Royce of camera system.....Hasselbled with 3 lens, finder and even polaroid back. These has been around for ages and actually appreciate in value over time. I had complete set of Nikon system. People thought there was no way CCD can have better resolution as the film. Were we wrong. My whole set of Nikon does worth anything, they change from F to D lens and obsoleted my whole set. Hasselbled still hold some value, but not much as my Nikon D7000 not only can have just as much resolution, I even have perspective control where it costed close to $4000 to get a perspective lens.

The whole business of dark room, 1 hour photo disappeared..........forever. People that do photo touch up will never have business as people use Photoshop.

Then remember VCR in the 80s, replace by Lazer disc.....just to be replaced by DVD.......just to be replaced by DVR!!!!


The only good thing is I think all of us here have been around the block a few times ( nice way to say OLD!!!). Good chance the tube amp is going to out live us. I have been retired for 8 years. I don't think I can find a job even if I want to because technology move on. I remember I worked in a place for 10 years. I decided to move on in 2000, what a shock when I went to a new job. We went from through hole components to full surface mount. And I am talking about 0405 size. People rework under microscope. We did 32 layer pcb, moved from hundreds of MHz to 10 GHz circuits.................

It is the baby boomer that is holding the world and prevent it from turning. In 20 years, a lot of them will be gone. Things are going to change.

Back to my original assertion, we have not have an influential guitarist for a long time since EVH. If there's another guitarist pop into the scene and revolutionize guitar playing and use a Line 6, you guys better be careful. I looked at the schematic of the Fender Super Champ X2, it is a completely different animal. There are few opamps, but you don't have volume, treble, bass or any control in the traditional means. All the pots are just driving a DC voltage into the DSP processor. The processor has ADC inputs and read the voltages and adjust the program accordingly to shape the output. The output voltage can be just a EPROM look up table spitting out data and then an internal DAC transform back into analog voltage. Completely synthesized. Sound is design by firmware algorithm rather by caps and resistors.

I remember I designed a pure sinewave ( not easy as you think) generator by using a processor that read in a waveform and point by point spit out the data value of a pure sine wave. The wave form is completely synthesized. For guitar, it can be just as simple you input the guitar signal and drive the look up table and out come the synthesized wave form!!!! Very little analog to talk about, the design is to create the look up table!!!!

Reverse engineering is 1000 times harder than to read the schematic. It will take a whole team years to develop the algorithm, not just experiment out in a garage. This rules out all the small timers like us.

[Chuck H]

Back to my original assertion, we have not have an influential guitarist for a long time since EVH. If there's another guitarist pop into the scene and revolutionize guitar playing and use a Line 6, you guys better be careful.

There's a snowball effect happening WRT tube amps. I predict they won't go out of vogue because all the influential guitarists today are either using tube amps OR the influential guitarists of yesterday that still have visibility are using tube amps. This is strictly a "guitar player" thing though. There are certainly plenty of Line 6 amps out there and it's probable that some hit recordings have already been made with them. Just none from noted guitar players...Yet. Who knows. I sincerely hope your premonition never comes to pass. I have a hard time thinking any up and coming guitar hero will play through a Line 6 and a Soldano SLO and CHOOSE the Line 6. The digital amps are good for execution of a particular sound profile but they don't offer much in the way of dynamics and feel as yet. I suppose that criteria could change for contemporary guitar players, but I don't think so.

[dmartn149]

Fractal Audio seems to have lots of well known users.

The Axe-Fx II is an all-in-one preamp/effects processor. It contains a incredible virtual inventory of hundreds of vintage and modern guitar amps, speaker cabinets, guitar stompbox and studio effects, and more. It accurately recreates the sound and feel of tube amps and can match the tone of live amps or recordings.

http://www.fractalaudio.com/p-axe-fx...-processor.php

[Enzo]

And who would have thought rap music would still be around?

Back when we had T-shirts that said "Clapton is God." Seen any young musicians wearing that lately?

We sit here in our tubiness and moan that those modelling amps just don;t quite get it, and we want real tubes, we want a 5E3 dammit!!! Not Give me a 19 year old kid playing his shred tone, and plug him into a 5E3... "Yeah well it sounds OK dude, but it has no EFFECTS, and where is the overdrive?" Or Sure that sounds great, but it is a one trick pony, I can play that sound and 10 others through my modeller.

And just because we have a bunch of Line 6 junk today that is basically toys, doesn't mean that tomorrow they won't announce a new line of "LINE 6 PRO" gear.

The 5150 with Eddie Vah Halen's name on it was a huge success for Peavey, still is. EVH endorsement deal with PV expired and he left and took his trademark with him. That is why PV now calls it the 6505. SO Eddie went to Fender and they made an almost identical amp called the 5150-III. How many of those have you seen? How many of them have ever been discussed on this board?

Times change. For all our early breakup and stuff, no one certainly was looking for that 50 years ago when those old Fenders were new. Go to a bar and look at the stage. Or just look at your own floor. I have seen pedal boards the size of my living room. 20 pedals all plugged together. Soldano/schmoldano, by the time you get through all that, tell me you haven;t just created a Line 6 the hard way.

WOuld today's player pick a Line 6 over his Soldano, not likely, but that isn;t the question. The question is this: is there something so timeless about a Soldano that the kid who has played Line 6 amps for 5 years will plug into one and instantly give up what he is accustomed to?

I was at a gig once many years ago, and had my Fender Jazz Bass with me, freshly set up. I let the guy in the young band play it for a song instead of his beater cheapie. He gushed, wow this is so much nicer to play than mine, really smooth, feels great sounds great. I said I wasn't going anywhere, he was welcome to play out the night with it if he wanted, and he said, "No thanks, I'll play mine." Same thing happens with amps.


You know you are talking to a real player when you ask what amp he wants you to provide, and he says" Doesn't matter, just give me an amp, I'll get a tone out of it."

[Alan0354]

There's a snowball effect happening WRT tube amps. I predict they won't go out of vogue because all the influential guitarists today are either using tube amps OR the influential guitarists of yesterday that still have visibility are using tube amps. This is strictly a "guitar player" thing though. There are certainly plenty of Line 6 amps out there and it's probable that some hit recordings have already been made with them. Just none from noted guitar players...Yet. Who knows. I sincerely hope your premonition never comes to pass. I have a hard time thinking any up and coming guitar hero will play through a Line 6 and a Soldano SLO and CHOOSE the Line 6. The digital amps are good for execution of a particular sound profile but they don't offer much in the way of dynamics and feel as yet. I suppose that criteria could change for contemporary guitar players, but I don't think so.

I am just talking out from my behind in this discussion. It's just everything is possible in this age. I sure hope it never come.

I went to GC to test a whole bunch of amps including the Super Champ X2. The distortion sound is actually workable. Those are more artificial. But the clean sound is just very far off. I think that is where it is hard to synthesize. There is a lot of picking pressure differentiation in it and I just cannot imagine people can write the algorithm that easy. The clean sound is just not there at all.

It is the touch dynamics that is going to be a big challenge for the DSP stuff. Actually from working on the amp the last two or three weeks, I feel the clean sound is hard to get.

The other thing more likely is the transistor amps are going to get better and better. None of the DSP, but just making the transistor sound more tube. I tried some SS amp that has very good distortion sound, Fender Deluxe 112 was one of them. That, I think we all manage, they are same different.

[Enzo]

Ah, dmartn posted while I was writing, and his example, why there it is: Line 6 PRO for all the world. I mean conceptually.