Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Seen a few posts about Mesa Boogies... I'm currently playing through a Heartbreaker. (360 and 36012 with scatterwounds). Weird combination but anyone else out there tried this rig? (Still saving up for an AC 30). I'm enjoying the sound...

I play the drive channel pretty clipped and the clean channel, just barely clipped. Both the 360s sound really sweet. I need to put my 480 (with HiGains) back together and see how that sounds.

As for clean (Someone on here asked for a recommendation for a clean amp... They were planning on getting whatever distortion they wanted with pedals)... I currently have an Ampeg Reverb Rocket. For what it is worth, I used this approach with a Fender 4x10 Hot Rod DeVille and currently, my Ampeg (2x12). (Used Danelectro pedals).

As for the clean shimmer... I've never found anthing that compares to a Fender other than the Ampeg... Also, I've always felt that multiple speakers in a combo (2 or 4) delivered that quality the best. Except for lead work (and I play rhythm), I've never been really blown away by any combo with only one speaker.

Both the Fender and Ampeg are reasonably priced, with great reverb tanks, and they are powerful enough to give you plenty of clean volume.

As for reliability, I've heard people criticize modern Fenders, but I gigged mine pretty hard for nearly two years without a failure. My Ampeg went on the blink after about two months, but I think it just needs retubing and a tune-up.

I wonder if anyone has used other Boogies with Ricks and enjoyed the sound or if I am in the minority. Also, I wonder if anyone has ever tried to put a power break on Fenders or Ampegs?

What say you, Tone Man?

JKC

PS Someone wanted me to ask what the first chord in Hard Day's Night is... One merely wonders.

G sus4 played on the 3rd fret..hope you understand, I am not sure this is the way to say it in english
that should be the 1st chord

Francesco,

Thanks, that was supposed to be a joke because someone supposedly posts here trying to figure out that intro every now and then. But, thanks!

Any insight/feedback on the amps?

Regards,

JKC

oh okay Jim..it's hard for me to pick up the english humor sometimes I should have supposed that someone who owns 360-360/12 MUST be aware of the A Hard day's night intro
Amps? I play the bass...I have played with Mesa, fenders and ampeg in studios....I remember that Ampeg sounded really great!
but I still prefere my old Vox...
I play my rick guitars (mostly at home) through AC30

Yeah, a buddy has a vintage AC30, I played through it with HiGains and drove it pretty hard... I liked the sound OK, but I wasn't impressed with the volume, so I was wondering if something was wrong with it... Also, that was with HiGains... Want to try one with my Scatterwounds in and turned up to 11.

Thanks for the feedback.

JKC

you are welcome... lead guitarist in my band has an old AC30...when we play in clubs he usually put the volume around 3 or 4...and he's MUCH louder than the other guitarist who plays a fender 90 with the volume around 7-8....
try again and let us know
Ciao

Based on the sounds that my Tech 21 SansAmp RBI puts out for bass, if I were a serious guitarist I would be tempted to buy a Tech 21 combo amp like the 120 watt 2x12 combo with the three combo amp simulations built in. I think they emulate Fender, Mesa Boogie, and Marshall but can be tweaked for other amp sounds as well. That amp is rated very highly on Harmony-Central. Tech 21 is very under rated as an amp manufacturer, although their emulation pedals and preamps are justly famous. If I didn't own my Traynor YCV40, I might have a Tech 21 1x12 or 2x12 combo amp instead. The Traynor gets deep into Fender and Marshall territory. Never owned a Mesa, so no comment there.

The thing about the Tech 21 SansAmp emulators is that they can give fully cranked OUTPUT tube emulation without the need for full output volume that the tube amps require. They are therefore superior for practice or recording at sane volumes. Something like a SansAmp GT2 pedal and a clean amp and speaker cab does the trick. Played through a guitar amp, the SansAmp sound suffers somewhat. They sound the best through a high end stereo system with lots of power that never goes into clipping and allows the true SansAmp sound to be reproduced. You can't get Fender clean sound when playing any SansAmp through a Marshall amp. I got a surprisingly close Marshall sound when playing the RBI through my stereo, and it's a bass emulator. Any of the guitar amp emulators should do an even better job than the RBI.

I know that Rammstein for one uses the RBI bass preamp for lead guitar tone. At least three of the players in the band own a Tech 21 emulator. My brother has played distorted guitar through my RBI and it seems that it would be very adaptive to heavy metal and hard rock guitar, but it does less distorted tones just as well. It has a good Fender Bassman setting that sounded good on my dad's Oscar Schmidt ES-335 copy through his Fisher stereo system.

I find that getting a good clean sound out of a Mesa/Boogie (at least the DC-5 I have on semi-permanent loan) takes *excellent* ears and a *huge* amount of time and patience (both of which I lack, but a guitarist I jam with has succeeded at getting a clean sound as good as most classic Fenders). They're incredibly versatile amps, but often (IMHO) more trouble than they're worth. To put it another way, their reputation is that they can't get a good clean sound; the reality is that they can, it's just very difficult to dial it in.

Yeah, to be honest... I like the clean sound on my Fender and Ampeg much, much better than what I can get on my Heartbreaker... On the flip side, the distorted channel on both the Fender and Ampeg (IMHO) absolutely stinks... There, the Heartbreaker really shines.

I can dial in on the clean channel, but it is just not as rich. It compliments the Ricks (with Scatterwounds), but saps my Stratocasters.

Just wondering if folks were playing Ricks through Boogies... What are you running through your DC-5? A buddy has that amp.

Philco... Never tried Tech 21. The emmulators you are talking about sound interesting... Which is why I was wondering about power brakes for the Fender and Ampeg... Real clip at reasonable volume levels... Both of those amps will run you out of the room (if not the house) on the clean channel before they break up at all.

JKC

Hi Jim. And Welcome BTW.

I'm saving for an AC30 myself, But have been using a Mesa Boogie Maverick 2X12 for the past five years or so and I've always been very happy with it.

It was the closest thing I get to an AC30 at the time - it's Class A, 35 watts and 4 X EL84 power based and all. I only use the clean channel, in fact, the OD channel doesn't even work now. Which is fine - I hated it, had that tight, fuzzy, metal sound to it, I just use a TS9 for overdrive.

I've got a 325V63, a Tennessean, a 335 and a Strat and I can dial in all those on this amp with no trouble.
I also have a little Fender Deluxe Reverb 2 from the 'Rivera-Era' that's all hand wired. It's nice, but just a little 20watt 1X12 combo, so it's a little weak for gigging. I plug it in when I'm in the mood for that deep reverb surf sound.

Cheers.

Having the tone generated throughout the entire amp system is the old fashioned approach and very limiting since everything has to be changed to eliminate "that" tone and start all over with a different tone. Having relatively cheap little black "tone boxes" where all my distortions are generated is the greatest thing to ever come along since instrument amps were first invented. You DON'T see the big amp manufacturers pushing these designs, since it basically obsoletes their old fashioned amps and literally gives you a "truckload of amps in the palm of your hand" like Tech 21 says in their ads. Need a new amp? Buy a new little black box and stick it in your kit. Free your mind and your *** (and aching back and depleted bank account) will soon follow.

An unhappy SansAmp owner is one who plays their SansAmp though a dirty, ****** guitar amp and thinks the SansAmp is at fault. The initial outlay of a truly clean amp system is fairly costly, but needs no upgrade later. Try to stay with a linear power supply, which is costlier and heavier to build in an amp vs. the lightweight switching power supplies which are hash generators and are digital in nature. Clean is clean. It never changes. There is no difference to market. No reason to change to something else. The amp manufacturers realize this and hope you don't. Players would then key in on just buyng little black boxes. Tech 21 analog distortion circuitry is patented, and amp manufacturers can't steal the circuitry very easily just yet. As my brother said, digital sucks and puts the same dull gray tone on everything you play through it. He is anything BUT an audiophile, and if it annoys him, it would annoy almost anybody. Most player's bad attitude toward effects is probably based on cheap digital effects. If Tech 21 circuitry had existed in the 50's through 70's, many "classic" tube amps would probably not have existed. Old common ways of doing things die hard, or players would be comparing SansAmp settings instead of spending more on endless amp purchases. You can't cross reference the settings until everything after the SansAmp is clean. That means you will NOT be playing through conventional guitar speakers or anything else that has been a staple of the guitar amp market of the past. SansAmp actually means "without (guitar) amp", and you had better take the name seriously if you want it to work to full effect. You DO need some kind of amp, if only a headphone amp, so the name does NOT imply no amp at all. Running it into a guitar amp is OK as long as you realize you just eliminated most of the versatility designed into it and totally removed many of the subtle nuances that are possible.

I enjoyed going to the Tone Lizard website and reading how screwed up and unreliable a lot of classic tube guitar amps really are. You have to laugh at anybody who will actually part with a large hunk of cash to own one of them when all they wanted was a similar tone to them. Many great tube amps THAT NEVER EXISTED IN THE FLESH, and you couldn't afford anyway if they did, are wrapped up in every SansAmp. Just be sure to plug into a clean and accurate wideband sound system after the SansAmp before making a value judgement. Don't be surprised if the store doesn't have such a system. They exist outside the guitar amp market. A recording studio playback monitoring system will probably suffice.

I should also add to the above that the dealer I bought my RBI from no longer advertises it in the catalog. They are a major dealer for Ampeg, Fender, and Marshall which are three of the targeted amp tones by Tech 21. I have no doubt that these companies have called the dealer and voiced their displeasure. The dealer also doesn't wish to kill sales of more expensive amps by selling a Tech 21 SansAmp. Because of my RBI, I no longer wish to buy a conventional tube amp unless I can get it at a price that guarantees I can easily get my money back. This will worry dealers, and you shouldn't expect the SansAmp range to be demonstrated in a setting that gets the most out of them. Instead you will hear, "You will get a better sound from buying a real amp from me". If I made my living by selling amps, I might do the same. The price of used Tech 21 gear is holding strong on eBay, so the public likes it just fine, even if a lot of dealers of expensive tube amps do not. The magazines also don't say as much about the Tech 21 range as they should, because they are supported by advertising from big amp companies that can see loss of sales from SansAmp use. It's not lost on me that almost every guitar and amp on the "Concert for George" DVD was a Fender, a brand that Eric Clapton the host has long been associated with. Gene Simmons was right, music gear review magazines have to follow the advertising money and it's just the same old thing over and over in a different wrapper. Free your mind and your sound will follow.

My ears tell me you can't 'emulate' a tube combo - I've given them a fair try. I guess I'm an 'old fashioned' tube purist, no black boxes for me, thanks. Just a cord. And I want the box's innards to be glowing.

I thought that the reason for the popularity of tubes amps today was because we learned a lesson about solid state technology back in the late sixties. If it was truly better, we wouldn't be dropping 3K on a Vox amp that's exactly like what they had in the sixties. We'd be content with our pressed circuit boards and transistors.

Technological evolution is not always a good thing.

Oh, and I should add to the above :

Are you a Tech21/Sansamp Represenative?



If not - you should send their Corporate Headquarters a link to this thread, they may hire you. Very well spoken, Sir.

I have been using a Boogie DC5 for a number of years with very good results. The DC5 has two seperate preamps with a tube compliment of six 12AX7's pushing two 6L6's, 50 watts. You first need to read the owners manual and be aware that these amps are a very different breed. For example if you turn the mid control past 4 you start to get mid range distortion. If you want that clean, open, glassy sound that is close to a black face then keep the mid down and crank the presence up. These amps will go from a nice clean to a blues crunch right on up to a modern high gain. I bought this in 96' and have never had any problems with it. This amp has been replaced in their line by the F50. Another Boogie with a nice smooth clean sound is the Rectoverb. And yes my former 610 with high gains and 360V64 with toasters sounded great through the DC5. I also have a modded Fender Blues Jr which also has a nice clean sound at a lower power. It has 3 12AX7's with 2 EL84 power tubes, 15watts.