Why is it to incredibly difficult to achieve the damnation clean tonepe

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rocklobster

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Apr 16, 2006
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I've been looking to buy an amp for a while now. Preferably tube amp in the 5-700 range. Maybe i could save more if absolutely needed.

But yeah i've tried many amps so far. peavey xxx, marshall dsl 401, vox ad100 vt, that b52 asomething serites combo, fender hot rods and fender twin, some other marshall...

And it is fucking impossible. Everything seems to have either bad cleans from the start, or in many fenders' case the cleans start off nice but get very distorted when you turn it up to reasonable volumes.

I've long ago given up on obtaining good amp distortion, it seems like almost no amps have a good metal distortion. But i was hoping to at least have an amp with acceptable cleans.

Do i have to get a damn high end mesa or laney or something to have acceptable cleans? And do i have to get a PRS too?
 
for starters stop trying to buy a metal amp if you are looking for clean tones.

1. you dont need a prs
2. you dont need a high end mesa or laney.

these are sugar coating. they are nice. they do improve things. they are not *necessary* i would argue. if you want killer clean tone, look into a clean tone amp, not a xxx or a DSL
 
That is the reason i started looking into fenders, but the hot rods seem to get distorted quite early. You would think an amp that's meant for good cleans, and has 60 watts of tube power, would be a acceptable for small shows and such. But if you're trying to play windowpane and it distorts because the volume is over 4, people will cringe. And if you lower it, they will simply not hear you over the drums and bass.

And the distortion on fenders, with a pedal of course, seems nice at first but i was told at higher volumes it is not nearly as good as it seems, and ebaying a used mesa or something when i have enough money may be a better idea. Not sure how true this is, i didn't have the opportunity to compare a fender with a pedal to a different amp with a pedal when both are cranked.

(oh, and yes, the marshalls and peavey went out of the question pretty fast once i saw that they have poor cleans)

(also, i'm not sure how that "pe" got into the thread title, but you know what i meant)
 
i have a laney vc-30, that i bought for 300 dollars. its the same amp that they used on the damnation tour. i can get similar cleans, but i can't get the squishiness.
 
rocklobster said:
it seems like almost no amps have a good metal distortion. But i was hoping to at least have an amp with acceptable cleans.
Click to expand...

WTF man?? Do some research on what amps other bands use too..there's plenty of amps that do metal distortion without a pedal.:Smug:
Check out the Peavey JSX. It's pretty cheap, has BEAUTIFUL cleans, and does "Metal Distortion" without even cranking the gain all the way. :kickass:
 
I'll try out the jsx, for some reason there are not many peaveys around here. But anyway i have no problem with using a pedal.

About the laney vc-30...i am confused as hell. How is it possible for a 30 watt tube amp to produce loud cleans? The fender hot rods sure as hell don't seem to be capable of doing so.

Another problem about laneys, i live in the US. It's not easy getting one here, unless i'm paying 150 for shipping.
 
personally i use a marshall and can *almost* get that damnation tone, but i'm not out to copy so i'm happy with both the cleans and the distortion. i think with some tweaking that tone could be done.
 
My cleans sound pretty good with my fender strat... then again, I don't own an amp, and the only thing I have played on Damnation is the Windowpane solo. Reading tabs is for non-lazy people. I prefer sitting in my chair staring at the Opeth board and making up shit.

in other words, i cant help you with tone :D
 
rocklobster said:
I'll try out the jsx, for some reason there are not many peaveys around here. But anyway i have no problem with using a pedal.

About the laney vc-30...i am confused as hell. How is it possible for a 30 watt tube amp to produce loud cleans? The fender hot rods sure as hell don't seem to be capable of doing so.

Another problem about laneys, i live in the US. It's not easy getting one here, unless i'm paying 150 for shipping.
Click to expand...

well, when i bought it, it broke up at around 5 when playing it hard. i swapped the tubes out for some jj's, had them set cold or something...now the amp is darker, smoother, and has more headroom. it is a fairly loud amp. the cleans are plenty loud unless you're really digging into the guitar...on damnation, they are definetely not playing the guitars very hard. the tone has a warm swell, which from my experience, comes from turning up the volume and playing soft.
 
50 bucks. www.eurotubes.com

they are a sweet tube. dark and smooth.

i emailed bob, gave him some specifics about the tone that i was going for, and he responded within 5 hours. he's a fucking cool guy...really passionate about what he does.

i installed them myself since the vc-30 is a cathode based (unofficially class a) bla bla bla something...anyways...it automatically biases, which is something that most a/b amps don't do. so, i just plugged them in and played.
 
Hah damn that's quite nice. Is it really loud enough to overpower a drummer and all that without getting crappy sounding?
 
By the way, on the JSX - It is far too expensive for me. If i'm going into the over 1000 area i might as well take into consideration various mesa and laney heads and some type of cabinet. But i'd rather not at the time, because i need money for a new guitar as well, and a 100 watt+ stack destroys my house entirely when i practice. Which is hilarious, but a 40-60 watt combo would be more practical, as i don't play in HUGE places and i would like to be able to use whatever i get to practice at home.
 
^ You'll get the LIVE damnation tone, not the album tone - they seldom make use of these pedals in the studio...

But yeah, you can get a pretty close one... Fuck, who needs exactly the same tone anyway :lol:
 
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