Tube amps, distortion: coarse/tight... recommendations, thoughts?

[GodOfRhythm]

Mk III Boogie.

ZIIING! We've got a winner! Or if you want/need more versatility get a Mk IV. It is crazy tight (Mark Morton from Lamb Of God uses them, so do Chevelle, for instance, so they can do brutal as well as the great vintage tones and everything in between!). Nothing is tighter and better sounding, nothing.
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I would also recommend an ENGL Savage 120 though, you might not be a Mesa Boogie person, so if you like the way ENGL's are voiced, the savage can do wonders for you! I posted an insane clip of one in one of the threads in this amp section, it's on the second page or something, I think.

[horns666]

Mrk III..I kept that one for quite some time..GREAT amp..still not "tight" enough for me.

for me..

[GodOfRhythm]

Well Bill, anyone who dimes the gain on their Uberschall requires out-of-this-world tightness!

It is a great amp, though!

[Endrik]

Boogies aren't the tightest for rhythm (I like a little bit of loosness)

but for leads they are tight as hell (suits for me very well)


I remember Bill mentioned that he nailed Gary Moore's Corridors Of Power tone with MK III, Gary's lead tone is pretty much the epitome of tightness

[Soloist1]

Bill you should change you name to shoehorns666.
Annah you should buy a weber bias rite meter. Best money I have spent. It makes biasing a lot quicker and a lot more precise. Make sure you get the model that is switchable between plate voltage and cathode current. Ideally a tube should be biased so it is at or around 70% of the tubes maximum plate dissapation. Max for a true EL34 is 25 watts. So you want to bias it so each tube in the power section was close to 17.5 watts. You get the value for that watts by multiplying the plate voltage that you measure times the cathode current that you measure. IE if the plate voltage is around 400 volts you'd want to bias it so the cathode current was around .043 amps. 400x.043=17.2, which is close enough. Of course as you increase the bias and notice the cathode current increasing your voltage on the plate will decrease. You just need to dial it in till all the tubes are in a close range. If a tube or mutliple tubes are way off of each other than the set wasn't matched properly. But a matched set should have the values all fairly close to each other. 1 to 2 millamps off of each other for cathode current is fine and voltages could vary as much as 10 volts.

[Mr.C]

Annah I have always found the tsl's to be lacking that extra "punch" that's why they are always on the backburner.. I get more crunch out of my JCM's or the Monoblock..

Try a few different pedals that might give you what you are looking for, on a TSL I used an overdrive to give it more growl, but was still unsatified with it.

If your interested I have an extra JCM 800 (it's on loan but due for it's return home) you may be interested in it's a bit beat looking but crushes the earth's atmosphere like no other...

But then I have been on a monoblock kick for the last several months & I don't think you could go wrong with one of those as well..

[horns666]

Boogies aren't the tightest for rhythm (I like a little bit of loosness)

but for leads they are tight as hell (suits for me very well)


I remember Bill mentioned that he nailed Gary Moore's Corridors Of Power tone with MK III, Gary's lead tone is pretty much the epitome of tightness

YES, that it did very well ..for me..that's why I kept it longer than most amps.

Shoehorn666...hmmmmm not bad.

[Adam]

Annah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I have never been able to explain that phemonenon to anybody, but I understand exactly what you mean.

With some amps, it's almost like there are gaps in the sound - like a switch being turned on and off really fast, but not quite fast enough so it sounds broken up. I sold a Mesa Road King for that exact reason, and will never buy another Recto because of it.

As for tightness, stay away from Framus. They're almost as loose as Mesa and Recent Marshall amps. Engl is a good choice, and so is Splawn. The other guitarist in my band uses an Uberschall which is an awesome amp, but it still has some of that coarseness you're hearing in your Marshall.

Here is an older clip of my Splawn Pro Mod. It's with a P-90 pickup in an old Gibson, and I've since fine-tuned my sound to be a little tighter, but I think you can definitely hear the smoothness to it. Maybe that's what you're looking for. If not, like I said, check out Engl amps.

[horns666]

Well Bill, anyone who dimes the gain on their Uberschall requires out-of-this-world tightness!

It is a great amp, though!

Yes, in fact..it still not enough PUSH for all my harmonic tricks..believe it or not..I can nail all the easy "safe" squeals with the Uber...I'm thinking of a trying a pedal to slam the front..just so I could get my crazy shit out...just for solos.

For my crazy leads with squeals, pings and divebombs galore..I use My Marshall 9200w/5881s/JMP-1/JFX-1..I can sqeal every note on every string without effort..it's a VERY "lively" tone for that stuff..

John was here playing the Uber..he doesn't play with a heavily saturated tone, not at all..it's pretty clean and crisp in fact. He agreed instantly that the Uber sounds best with the gain completely maxed. As soon as we backed it off, even just a tad..it lost major coolness. So be it..maxed it shall stay..

So it's just not my ears or imagination..John confirmed it. He was playing some mean YJM licks big time..it was so clear, tight and articulate..he nailed it...feel, tone, vibe and all...I dunno.

[Twisteramps]

V
H
T

[lynchfan6]

S O L D A N O !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You've got to at least try one. Plug in. Turn on. Welcome to tonal bliss.

[Inearthed]

I'm going to echo what Twisteramps and lynchfan6 have recommended.

When someone says "tight" in reference to high gain tones I think of VHT first and Soldano second.

[jgcable]

The Mark III is a great amp but certainly not tight the way you want it.
Here are my suggestions for the Marshall TSL player who needs to upgrade in both tone and tightness:

Soldano SLO100
Soldano Hot Rod 50+
Soldano X88R
Vetta (of course)
Peavey 5150, 6505
Framus Cobra
Engl Powerball
Bogner Ubershall (the aren't as scooped as you think)
Mesa Boogie Roadking
Mesa Boogie Series 2 Dual Rectifier (again... they are only as scooped as you want them to be)

Here is the big question Annah... do you have another guitarist in the band and if so.. what amp do they use?
If its Marshall... I would choose Mesa Boogie Rectifiers in a heartbeat. Its the perfect combination in a 2 guitar metal band.
If its Mesa Rectifier... I would choose the Mesa Stiletto Ace. It was designed specifically for that reason.

[jgcable]

I will say that the tightest sounding amps IMHO are the Mesa Rectifiers.
They are perfect when you want instant response to pick attack.

[GodOfRhythm]

I will say that the tightest sounding amps IMHO are the Mesa Rectifiers.
They are perfect when you want instant response to pick attack.

Wow, I have never heard anyone say that. And you know A LOT about amps! That's weird, but interesting!

If anything I always found the marks to be tighter than recto's and most people i've spoken too, agreed with me on this, but you're pretty much saying the opposite.