so i have been thinking recently and compering the harmonca world and the guitar world..and it seems like where so much more backward in thinking and likes dislikes(about gear and sounds) i know this is a blues forum but it is modern blues and it seems like for a forum like this we`re all remacably conservative..any way is there any consencus abut what type of mic works best with solid state amps..... ---------- jj3ff3ry
@james, I believe that not all SS amps can be lumped into one group, just as tube amps cannot be. My own meagre experience with a SS Vox DA5 is that I can make it sound decent/good with just about any mic, but I get the most of what I'm looking for out of it with a good vintage mic element (i.e. Shure CM). The Vox is a modelling amp, which helps to dial in a variety of sounds, at low volume, which I also like. ----------
Last Edited by mr_so&so on Feb 16, 2016 10:36 AM
I have had good results with my Shure 585SAV, sometimes called PE585, the High-z model with volume control. It is feedback resistant, will break up some with a good cup (though not like a CM or CR bullet), and has good low frequency response. I have used it with several different SS amps as well as tube amps and PAs. It is my favorite mic for playing through any amp.
You can even use it for vocals, though a Shure SM58 is better for vocals. ----------
My one big issue with SS amps was feedback, especially since you sort of need to use a gain control if want that overdriven sound. SS circuits don't seem to react to signal like power tubes do. Most of the tone there comes from saturating those power tubes. Mr. so&so mentioned an amp with a feedback control. Might be the ticket. SS amps are cheaper usually...usually a lot cheaper. ---------- www.bigroadband.com
There's only one solid state amp I'd ever consider using at all, and that's the Quilter Micro Pro. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I like the EH 44 Magnum with a Lil Buddy or a Cannabis Rex for a lightweight amp alternative. Or just as a solid state backup for a tube amp. It puts 44 watts into either an 8 or 16 ohm speaker, so make sure the speaker is rated to handle it. The 585 works well with it.
It sounds pretty good, but not like a good tube amp. ----------
Doug S.
Last Edited by dougharps on Feb 16, 2016 2:17 PM
"Modern" guitar players prefer tube amps. Why do you think most major amp manufacture have reintroduced tube amps. There is also a robust cottage industry of home built tube amps. There is a reason NOS RCA 6L6GC power tubes are going for $125.00 + each. They sound fantastic!..BN
So & So. .... i agree .. kind of. Lol. The DA5 is a modeling amp. While solid state, i think they are lumped into a slightly different catagory. Im actually looking for a DA5 now. Partially due to your experience.
I bought a mustang1 v2 last year before buying my vht and wasnt fully happy With it. It just had that processed sound i couldn't get past. I kinda wrote off SS amps for harp. Until I tried the harp attack. That thing really makes up for it. I bought the HA for the vht so i could get low volume breakup. But ofcourse i tried it on a SS amp and it really sounds good.
Ofcourse, as doug said, it will never be quite as good as a tube amp, but it s close. And to have a cheap lil DA5 to lug around with a Harp Attack might not be a bad option. ---------- "Trust Those Who Seek The Truth. Doubt Those Who Say They Have Found It."
I have one Ss with which the sm58 is best; other mics seem quite harsh. But I have another ss amp with which my vintage bullets are dandy, as long as the volume doesn't push too far into the distortion zone. I've played plenty of PAs with various mics. Quite liked the beta57. My hybrid fender VibroChamp XD is very happy with a hiz bullet.
I use a ss amps a lot. My fave and current go to is an 80's Peavy Studio Pro. I cannot use the same mics with it that I can use with my tube amps. I find that low z dynamic mics are much better with my ss amps and pedals than are high z mics. My face dynamic mic is the Behringer xm8500, which I personally like better than an sm58... ----------
Big +1 for the Quilter amp. Forgot about that one. Amazing technology. Been a tube guy for years...but will own a Quilter before the end of this year... ---------- www.bigroadband.com
You just can't overdrive a transistor. You need to have really good acoustic tone to use a S/S amp. I think this can be a good thing, especially if you are a beginner. You develop a lot of technique and learn to deal with feedback.
If you spend an additional $400 on pedals, now we're talking a whole different scenario. As a pedal platform, I'd recommend the Peavey Nashville 400.
My recollection from HCH is that Billy Branch played through a solid state Peavey with a couple pedals and sounded great! Here is Brandon Bailey playing through his rig:
I have a solid state Peavey Studio Pro 40, but I seldom bother with it. I either use one of my tube amps or the PA, or sometimes with some bands who have invited me to sit in, my EH 44 Magnum and Lil Buddy speaker.
My favorite and loudest tube amp is my Knight KN3245 that has 2 vintage RCA 6L6s, an anti-feedback circuit, and it sounds fantastic. It is one of those old '60s PA heads used in businesses. It is stock, except for a few caps and a standby switch. ----------
Doug S.
Last Edited by dougharps on Feb 22, 2016 7:58 AM
I picked up a danelectro dirty thirty. It pretty much was free. It came with a fender strat for $40 for both. But i have messed with it for harp. The dirty knob just cant even be touched with a mic plugged in. So you have to run it clean and dirty it up elsewhere. I find that the tape recorder mics sound awsome with it. An Aiwa Dm10 or Akai Dm13 makes it sound pretty good for what it is. Add the Harp Attack n Delay and is really pretty solid for a beat up POS amp.
With the right tools, it's surprising what you can make sound passable. As far as cheap mics i also like the pyle rip off sm57. It also sounds great in any amp i put it in. With a imped. xfmr ofcourse. ---------- "Trust Those Who Seek The Truth. Doubt Those Who Say They Have Found It."
The one thing that for me separates Quilter from all other solid state amps is that, except for the reverb, the entire circuitry is analog rather than digital and analog always tends to be much warmer in sound that digital as a general rule. 99% if the solid state amps I've ever tried I'd just as soon throw them in the trash, as I much prefer the sound of tubes, but the Quilter is THE closest to the sound of a tube amp. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I have a video by Billy Branch made around 1999 or 2000 called Billy Branch's Blues Harp. In it he talks about the mics and amps he uses. One of his favorite amps is the Peavey solid-state Special 130 that he uses with a octave petal and a digital delay petal. With that set-up he uses an old Astatic reel-to-reel tape recorder microphone. He likes that mic because he can do hand effects while playing amplified.
I use a Bottle o' Blues mic with my solid state amps. It's fine for my uses and it would probably be good for a pro with a tube amp also. It has a dirty, distorted Chicago-style tone that I like. It's not so good for a clean sound but a serious harp player needs more than one mic anyway.
Last Edited by DanP on Feb 17, 2016 12:38 PM
DanP ... it seems billy branch was pretty keen on SS amps. Ive heard him talk about them quite a bit. The tape recorder mics are nice. Sound good (for dirty) and are cheap. Similar to bottle o blues. ---------- "Trust Those Who Seek The Truth. Doubt Those Who Say They Have Found It."
I think there's a lot of misinformation being passed around in this thread. You can sound great on a Solid State amp, and you can get all the "Honk", "Chicago", "Amped", or whateveryouwanttocallit tone you want. You just need to know how to match up all your equipment, and where to put the settings. To demonstrate this, I made a video this morning of a very minimalist set up through my Peavey "Studio Pro 40" solid state amp. Here's the video:
Yes, I'm mainly just noodling around, but I think it still shows very well that you don't need an expensive tube amp and vintage CM bullet mic to get a good overdriven tone with harmonica. In this clip, I'm playing a Hohner Special 20 in G through a Berhinger XM8500 low-Z dynamic mic ($20), with a $10 impedance matching transformer into a 1980's era Peavey "Studio Pro 40" that I got for about $60 on my local craigslist. I made a footswitch for the amp so I could turn on/off the saturation and spring reverb. That cost me about $10 in parts, bringing my grand total to $100. Normally, I'd also have my Zoom G3 in the signal train, but I honestly only use it for the delays and a few other effects. I also generally go much cleaner than this these days anyway, but I wanted to show here that I can dirty it up easily with this rig. I could have gone even dirtier, and I was nowhere near the feedback threshold, even in that tiny room.
I like these Peavey amps, *because* of their 100% solid state "transtube" circuitry designs, which have a very pleasing overdriven tone. Yes, it is very very very possible to overdrive a transistor, AND to make it sound good. The circuit just has to be designed to do it.
I match this amp with a dynamic mic that is also pleasing when cupped into overdrive. Again, doesn't have to be expensive, but should have a minimum of design/build quality to it. I go into channel 1, which is the regular input (not the high z), and use that impedance matching transform to get signal to the right level. I've got the gain only up to about 3ish, the saturation up to about 6, and the master volume only up to like 2.5. I've got the bass cranked to 8, the mids at 5, and highs cut to about 2.5. I've pulled the "thick" switch to get some more mid presence, and I've got the reverb only at like 2. That's it.
This tone set up should work with most classic Peavey "transtube" amps, like the Bandit, etc., and could probably work with many other solid state amps that weren't built for screaming metal distortion or what have you. ----------
Galien Kruger was one of the first solid state amp makers that began taking on the possibility of getting solid state to sound more like a tube amp because they did a sort of reverse engineering by doing something solid state amps had previously eliminated, and that was output transformer, and when solid state amps eliminated that, when ss amps distorted, they distorted the odd numbered frequencies which, when driven into distortion, it made them sound really harsh and tinny to the human ear, wheras a tube has both power and output transformers, which reverses the signal so that when a tube amp distorts, it distorts the even numbered harmonic overtones and that's why a tube amp distortion sounds so sweet and warm and pleasant to the human ear. So far, from the ones I've tested, Quilter has done the best job of it by a country mile, and on their MIcro Pro seres, the Full Q setting is a tube amp with EL84's in mid, the tweed setting with 6V6/6L6 tubes in mind, the black face sound are the tall bottle 6L6 sound in mind, and the brown sound is more of early 60's mid length 6L6 tube sounds in mind.
I've seen the Peavey ss amps and hated every single one of them for both harp and guitar no matter what mic you have. It doesn't matter about the mic with the Quilter. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
I have a couple of rave reviews (and some first hand experience) with the combination of a Quilter amp and a Bulletini. One of those comes from Charlie Musselwhite, another from Westside Andy - neither of whom are tone slouches. The Bulletini REALLY helps that amp as well as other solid state amps.
(And the 3 of us still prefer a good tube amp given the option.) ---------- *************************************************** /Greg
Unfortunately it's almost impossible to buy Quilter in Ukraine... but I've tried some other solid state amps. Including peavey bandit. The best I've tried is ZT lunchbox. It's lightweight, very loud and hase line out. I've used it with many mics: electrovoice re-10, astatic with CM, greenbullet with CR etc and always I was pleased with results. ---------- Konstantin Kolesnichenko(Ukraine) CDBaby Amazon ITunes Google Music my music on youtube
i was watching a premierguitar rig rundown the other day and a very well respected guitarist was showing his gear and he was using to PODs(hidden of course) in to two powered cabs built to look like "champs". he has an origianl at home and his logic was that the differance was so small live that the audiance would'nt even be able to notice..in the studio is another matter. i just think that what is "good" tone is very subjetcive and to say that you need a certain amp or mic is a bit limiting...juzzie smith uses two PODs and his harmonica tone i think is cool..again subjective....honestly i'm waiting to hear someone play harmonica through a kemper or fractal.... ---------- jj3ff3ry
Everyone's idea of what constitutes good amplified tone is different. If you WANT the convenience, light weight and low cost of solid state - then by all means try to find a rig that works for you.
I've heard plenty of pro players, mostly OUTSIDE of the blues genre - sound fine through solid state stuff. For blues, however, the best I've heard is NOT that close to a great tube amp which, when coupled with a great mic and a great player, is (to me) nirvana.
Note that part of THAT tone comes from overdriving the preamp section of an amp Tubes take to overdriving nicely with "smooth" clipping and increase in even order harmonics. Transistors don't take to it well at all, with jagged clipping and odd order harmonics. To the extent that you want THAT sound - you may or may not ever be able to get it w/ slid state gear.
Well, for quite a while I played through my SWR Baby Baby Blue wHich is an acoustic bass amp with a tube pre amp, a solid state power stage and very sopisticated semi parametric 3 band EQ which is very useful for tone shaping. This ampis also a very good pedal platform. 1x10 with a tweeter that I turned off. 120 watts, and can get VERY loud with no feedback.
Now, I don't use bullet mics, but I A/B'd quite a few mics with this amp and the best sounding was my 545 Ultimate which I also think sounds the best through every other amp I have which all happen to be tube amps.
Billy still uses the same type of amp. I found him a replacement for his old Special 130 about 5 years ago, a less beat up one, and his tone still sounds great.
Here is another clip of Brandon Bailey when I took him to (the now defunct) Artis's Lounge in Chicago on a Monday night. The mic is an Electrovoice RE-10 (same mic that he played at Hill Country that year). I tried to get him to switch to an RE-10, and he did for awhile but went back to the EV 635A.
