Guitar companies are making models for the masses while the instruments artists play are typically modified to get special tones in the instrument rather from amps or software (see the 'Schematics' page). All companies have custom shop brands or options where you can get this done for $5 - $10 thousand +. Since 2008 a lot of info has been available on the internet revealing schematics and modifications to get the artist tones. This opens the window to have special instrument tones in your guitar or have a mod guitar that has the features of a $$ custom shop model. This blog will pick a few projects to get classic tones and increased flexibility on board. Not for everyone but it is a matter of style, understanding what goes into a custom shop $10 thousand guitar and why great players use a hand full of onboard modifications to trademark their sound.

Second Hand -"It's probably a well-known story . . . I went into a shop in Nashville called Sho Bud which was owned by Buddy Emmons – the famous pedal steel player – and they had things like Rickenbackers in the front of the shop going for quite high prices. In the back they had this second-hand department, and there was a row of Stratocasters, and I bought them all. Blackie was made out of three of these guitars – the body of one, the neck of another and the pickups of another." Eric Clapton



Amplifiers & Rigs



Everybody has opinions on amps and rigs.  Trey Anastasio has a great quote from a youtube video about keeping it simple and knowing the tones you can get from a simple system rather than getting to complicated and lost.  This section will post on how to get to a good amp setup for at home or small stuff.

 Playing a great guitar through a small amp or a lousy speaker kind of defeats the purpose.

  
This was the biggest, loudest, clearest & most expensive from the 70s.  Here is description 

 "This bold and bizarre experiment in live-sound-reinforcement.  It’s a long and involved and technical tale, but suffice to say this:  this was a band that was willing to go all-out, no expense spared, in order to try and solve what was essentially a new problem: how do you get ‘good’ sound for a loud band in a space that holds up to 20,000 people?  And the space was different every night?  Stanley Owsley, the Dead’s chief sound engineer, explored this issue, and the solution that he chose to pursue was  to build ‘An integrated system where every instrument (PS: and the vocals) has its own amplification, all set up behind the band without any separate onstage monitors” (Jackson, p. 132).   Ironically, this is the same logic that informs the “latest and greatest” “innovation” in sound-reinforcement, the very un-rocknroll Bose L1 system.
The Wall Of Sound did not last long, and the expense and operational-intensity (aka HASSLE) involved with moving and running this system is one of the factors that Jackson cites in the band’s decision to take a long mid-seventies hiatus…"

 More from Wikipedia-

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_of_Sound_(Grateful_Dead)
Big stage rigs can be set up a variety of ways but common setups are below with the final step to mic the speakers to the PA. 




Amps- Tubes or not


Generally, tube amps are preferred for their rich, warm sound that is often lacking in what is considered the more accurate, colorless reproduction of solid state amps. After you have played a while listen to both kinds of amps in order to determine which sound you prefer or if you can tell the difference at all.



A pickup produces a tiny electrical signal which must go through a circuit with higher electrical power that adds the same characteristics or "modulation" to the signal to create amplified sound (larger waves). A tube amplifier or valve amp uses a heated element inside a glass vacuum tube. This system is naturally high in distortion and results in the warm, fuzzy tone of a tube amp. 



Solid state and digital amps uses a system based on crystals and digital processors which have the property of conducting electricity in such a way that the signal is cleanly modulated. Solid state, by design, colors the sound much less than tubes. 



The digital amps also allow modeling the tones of different amp voicing and speaker combinations. This has been advanced by Line 6 and other manufacturers have added similar circuits to tube and analogue solid state amps.  Digital modeling is used for amp voicing to mimic the warm, fuzzy tube amp tones. Digital modeling is also used for effects so digital amp, speaker and effects are being merged in units like the Line 6 pod or amps. 



There are also amplifiers that use a tube preamplifier and are probably the ideal compromise for most users. In most amplifiers, the input signal is too faint to go directly to the output amplifier, so a preamplifier is used. These hybrids include Marshall's Valvestate and others but have the signal colored by the tube preamp.



Tube amps also can be very loud. Concerts at stadiums can be played with 30-watt combos, as 100-watts or more are needed for solid-state. Most can get by with 20-watts or less, and chances are, wherever you play, you will probably be mixed, and not need more than 15 or 20 watts of tube power.

There are many quality tube amps on the market today. Here are some starters and the list here includes heads (amp only) and combos with the head and speakers in the same cabinet,  Prices are listed on some so you can get a feel for the range.

Tube amps
  • Fender HotRod Deluxe- 40 watt single 12" $999
  • Fender Blues Deluxe- 40 watt single 12" $1100
  • VOX AC30- 30 watt 2X12"- $800
  • VOX AC15- 15 watt 1X12"- $800
  • Marshall VintageModern 2266
  • Marshall JVM410C - $1,500 combo
  • Fender Blues Jr.
  • Fender Vintage Reissue '65 Twin Reverb
  • Fender Super-Sonic 112
  • Fender Vintage Reissue '59 Bassman
  • Egnater Rebel-20- 20 watt head only one channel  $550
  • Egnater Tourmaster 4212
  • Orange Rocker 30 combo
  • Orange AD30TC-30 watt head only two channel  $1,700 
  • Orange Tiny Terror- 15 watt head only one channel  $580
  • Mesa Boogie Express 5:25
  • Mesa Boogie Lonestar- 30 watt 1X12"- $1,600
  • Blackstar Artisan Series 30- 30 watt - $2,200
  • Blackstar Artisan Series 15
Boutique amp companies-  Considered more handmade and high quality- Lazy J, Two-Rock (John Mayer favorite), Matchless.  Many models $3,000 to $6,000


Digital and solid state- Just check Line 6

Speakers and Cabinets

Different size speakers and arrangements produce different sounds. Smaller speakers can produce higher frequencies than larger speakers, which is why a tweeter is small and a woofer is large. So in the real world, a 10″ speaker will generally produce a better “top end” than a 15″ speaker. There is also a difference between an open-backed cabinet and a closed-cabinet design. Which is why certain amps, like a 4 x 10″ Bassman with an open back will sound different than a 2 x 12″ Bassman with a closed cabinet. And even though speakers may be the same size, they can still have different sound characteristics.

Blues players swear by old open-backed 4 x 10″ Fender amps, as they can produce a range of tones from smooth to searing. Common big stage setups are a 100-watt head with one, or two, 4 x 12″ cabinets. 

Most of the good quality amps use Celestion or JBL speakers and speaker selection makes a up a large portion of the amp voice.  All speakers do not sound the same.  High quality top of the line speakers also have heavy magnets of 4 to 12 pounds.  





Effects- Analogue vs. Digital

The first guitar effects used analogue circuits (resistors, capacitors,integrated amplifiers) to achieve phasing, distortion, fuzz, compression and other changes to the signal. Digital circuits came later during the 80s and 90s using programed processors and other semiconductors to achieve the same effects but in a clean low energy circuit.  In general using analogue is considered a warmer vintage sound while digital is cleaner with many attributes that can be dialed in. 

If you ever messed around with a digital effects board, software or rack unit then you know the manual can easily be a few hundred pages.  Dealing with effects decides the complexity of your setup so this is different than deciding on amps and speakers.

The flexibility of digital is complex but settings and effects chains can be loaded into presets for easy switching.  Most artists use a combination of both digital and analogue effects and a few are purists using analogue only. Others favor analogue pedals for the simplicity and not having to deal with menus or remember how to use a 'black box'. All personal preference on sound, ease of use and budget.

Some of this is trendy but here are some examples of analogue love:

1. Dave Grohl's Sound City project- Post Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame Grohl decided to save a piece of sound equipment.



From NY Times- Sound City was an analog operation whose heart was a Neve soundboard that recorded on tape, which by the 1980s had begun to be supplanted by digital technology. Mr. Grohl has become something of a musical preservationist, and he and others lament the loss of the human element of the analog era and the emergence of music created and manipulated on computers. It’s not an antidigital argument so much as an antiblandness argument.



Grohl turned his attention to making some new music after he bought the Neve sound board when Sound City closed and installed it in his own studio. He went on to do a documentary, album and concert series.



2. T. Bone Burnett- Long time musician and producer finding new fame with the Cohen brothers movies bringing out music with vintage production analogue tones.  


T. Bone with R. Plant/ Krause at Grammies playing through an old school rig







From recent article "I am not anti-technology; I'm only anti bad technology. There's a reason to not accept technology as a good thing as this overarching concept, like God. Steve Jobs said that technology changes nothing, so we can't forget that, right? Look, I don't want to go backward; I want to go forward to something better than we have now.

But we're not given any real choices. We're given the choice of vinyl, which is not green and not portable and not easy to miniaturize, or MP3 or CD, which is completely outmoded and was horrible in the first place. But what we're working on is greener, more flexible, more durable, more portable analog media. We stopped developing analog technology for sound 30 years ago when we began developing digital technology. Now we have 30 years of digital technology to go back and address analog technology and bring it up-to-date to a place to surpass either one.

The world of music and the world of audio is important enough to address at the highest quality level. That's all I'm talking about. And I have to say that after 50 years of AV-ing sound, nothing has surpassed audio tape, although I think in the world of carbon fiber, we're going to find something that we can miniaturize that is more portable -- that will be able to surpass anything that's available now.

Recently I went to Best Buy and I bought the best stereo that you can get now, and I put on Frank Sinatra's record "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning" and turned it up, and the whole house filled with music in the most profound way. I use iTunes all the time, and you turn it on, and this thing happens -- this facsimile of music takes place -- so it's a totally different experience, the difference between seeing a film in 35mm or a film on your iPhone. We have to take music seriously. I take artists seriously, and I take music seriously."


3. Anyone with a turntable listening to 80s and earlier vinyl.

Recording onto a wax master plate


Personal Rig Amp Project


Before launching into this here is an article on putting stuff together. 
https://www.pmtonline.co.uk/blog/2017/10/05/beginners-guide-to-guitar-effects-pedals/

Considering all this I wanted vintage sound without paying $6000 for a 30 watt Matchless or Two Rock amp and 8 analogue pedals.

I started with a Marshall Lead 12 mini stack from the 80s.  It is a solid state 12 watt amp that you can still find pretty cheap on eBay.  The reason they are cheap is the speakers are low end Celestions but the sound is ok.


Amp Interior


From Review: Marshall Lead 12- Greater distortion at low volumes was also the goal of one of the most interesting amps Marshall released in the early ’80s – Lead 12.  A 12-watt transistor practice amp with a 10″ Celestion, it retailed for under $200 and for many came surprisingly close to capturing the great, warm sound of the distorted Marshall amps of years gone by. It was a favorite of many working musicians, including luminaries like Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top. (http://www.vintageguitar.com/1974/marshall-amplifiers/)
Kurt Cobain used a small, red vinyl Marshall "ministack/microstack Lead 12" head and cabinets. This was just for fun and it was rarely used. Supposedly at the fall 1993 show in Chicago, Kurt asked the crowd if they wanted him to break anything; he picked up the MiniStack and threw it across the stage.




The upgrade of the amp was simple. Replace the low end speakers with a high quality speaker.  I used JBL e110-8 ohm which are relatively cheap on eBay at around $80-$100. If you are choosing speakers listen to them or find someone with a tone you want and see what they use.  The 12 inch version are in old Fender twin reverb amps and the 'wall of sound' at the top of the page used the e120s.  The 110s are massive at almost 12 pounds and it was like having a huge new amp.  


I also wanted tube sound and there are actually internet project pages for converting solid state amps to tube amps.  The Marshall 12 was to small to do this so I decided to buy a tube amp head and put together a low cost high quality cabinet.


Tube Amp with Analog Pedal Effects for Less than $1000


The tube amp summary above lists heads ranging from $700 to thousands before you touch the speaker cabinets. After playing setups in the stores seemed the feel of the amps varied based on the tubes.  Checking around and lots of web research decided on the following:

 Egnator Tweaker 15 Amp Head (Ebay slightly used $300)- Lowest priced 6V6 tube amp and settings to get tonal equivalents of Marshall, VOX, Fender and other amps.



Nice little amp but the logo is 'creepy' big
Kendrick empty 2x10' cabinet (Ebay steal at $200)- added 2 JBL e110-8 ohm (Ebay $160)

 Nova System effects pedal  by TC Electronics (Ebay used $210)- Watered down version of the G-force effect rack unit that goes for $1600.  Analog except for digital pots so attempts to capture the warmth of non-digital pedals.  Some obvious exceptions like reverb since they are not using springs and chambers but TC is known for reverb modeling so not a bad trade off. Comes with 30 preset pedal chains and figured the same as buying 6 pedals


http://www.egnateramps.com/EgnaterProducts/Tweaker/TweakerHead/TweakerHead.html

 http://www.tcelectronic.com/nova-system/


 Heres the little stack which works fine for me and is plenty loud enough for the house and backyard.  Took that logo off the amp head as the last modification.  Feels as good as some of the crazy expensive amps & cabinets I tested.

 Comparing the tube amp to the Marshall 12 solid state amp above (same speakers) there are 2 big differences.  The tube amp is much louder and has a side of clean or crisp settings not in the Marshall.  

Reference






Tubes- Preamp - from reverb.com

The tube that affects the biggest sonic change in most amps is the one we call "V1" (for "valve number one"), the first preamp tube that your guitar's signal hits after entering the amp's input.

The following discussion of preamp tube swaps, therefore, will focus on the effect of changing out the tube in that position, but be aware that you will want to refer to your amp manufacturer's user's manual, schematic, or other technical information for the amp in question to ensure you are correctly locating the first preamp tube in the channel to which you want to apply these tone tweaks. If you have a two-channel amp, for example, and want to alter the characteristics of the second channel, the preamp tube you need to change might actually be the second in line (generally referred to as "V2"), even though it's the first tube in that channel.

Also be aware that in many amp designs, each of two channels uses half of the same preamp tube, since the most common preamp tube types, called "dual triodes," essentially contain two individual gain stages within the same bottle. So consult the correct documents to ensure you're locating the right tube in the first place, then have at it.

 In this article, we're mostly going to focus on altering your amp's sonic performance by substituting different tube types to induce different gain levels early in the preamp stage. You can also achieve slight alterations in frequency response by changing from one make of tube to another—to make a dark amp a little brighter or a bright amp a little darker, for example—but many new-make preamp tubes have been afloat on the market for quite some time, and along with that their manufacturing formulae might change at a moment's notice.

This means that we might discuss a specific tube here as "a good way of adding warmth to your amp," only for that advice to have been made irrelevant by the time you read this and purchase that specific tube to try it out… and discover that they're not makin' 'em like they used to. That being said, if you want to buy three or four 12AX7s by different makers and experiment with the ways in which each induces a slightly different frequency response, go for it. It's a relatively inexpensive means of doing some tube-tasting of a different sort.

More to the point here, though, is the fact that the gain of the first preamp tube—often referred to as a "gain stage"—very directly impacts the tone that you achieve from the amp as a whole. Which is to say, while guitarists do often use that ubiquitous term "tone" to refer to frequency-based sonic characteristics, we're just as likely to equate tone with the gain level induced by any preamp stage, and by other sonic artifacts associated with that gain, such as the proportion of clipping—clean, crunch, or all-out distortion—induced in the guitar signal at that stage.

The Gain Range: Four Levels of Hot-to-Cool Tube Types
To that end, let's consider what four compatible nine-pin, dual-triode preamp tube types can bring to the table as regards the gain-making potential of your first preamp-tube slot, and how swapping one for the other can noticeably alter your amp's performance. And yes, you can reduce the gain level of any channel in your guitar amp by just turning down the first gain control (variously labeled volume, gain, drive, etc.), but changing it up via the correct tube swap can alter the nature of that gain stage and your amp's overall response as a result, in what is often heard as a more all-encompassing alteration of the amp's sonic characteristics.

Note that all of the following tubes can be used as direct replacements for each other in most cases, although one, the 12AT7, requires a slight caveat to that statement.
12AX7 – Gain Factor 100
Mesa Boogie 12Ax=X7 Tube

We'll consider the 12AX7 (called an ECC83 in the UK, or a 7025 in some older US-made tubes) as the bassline in this examination, since it's the most common preamp tube type in use, particularly in contemporary guitar amps. It's also the hottest tube in this selection—that is, it has the highest gain factor, at a factor of 100—so most amps that carry one in the V1 position are coming to you at their highest potential gain level, and that's also the state in which they're most familiar to the majority of players.

Why would you want less gain in this position? If you're going for all-out metal or shred, chances are you don't, and in such cases a good 12AX7 is likely your best bet. But if you haven't tried such swaps before, you're likely to be surprised by what a tube with a lesser gain factor will do to your amp's response, right off the bat. And even many heavy-rock styles can sometimes benefit from a less slamming tube in V1.

A good 12AX7 can sound great kicking off your amp's sonic and gain characteristics, no doubt, but this tube is also associated with a slightly harsh distortion characteristic when pushed hard in some circuit designs, inducing a lead tone that players describe variously as "fizzy", "fuzzy", "tizzy", or maybe that "wasps in a tin can" sound." Tamping down the gain a little can provide a means of taming that.


5751 – Gain Factor 70
Sovtek 5751 Tube
One of the most popular swaps, a 5751 will reduce the gain of your first preamp stage by around 30 percent, which can often be enough to tame a fizzy overdrive tone without sacrificing too much of the power and muscularity from the amp's overall sound.
This tube has been a favorite of many professional players for just this reason, and was one of the tricks that Stevie Ray Vaughan often used in order to achieve a bolder, firmer breed of crunch from his vintage Fender amps.

Lowering the gain to achieve a better overdrive tone might seem counterintuitive, but doing so will often help you induce less distortion in the early stages of the amp, while passing a fuller, more full-frequencied and less compressed signal along to later stages. That, in turn, means you can push the output stage harder to induce a bigger, beefier crunch from those tubes without passing along the fizziness of an already-distorted preamp tube.


12AT7 – Gain Factor 60
Electro-Harmonix 12AT7 Tube
The 12AT7 tube is often found in reverb stages or in the phase inverters of blackface and silverface Fender amps in particular. It can be used in the V1 (or equivalent) position in many amps to lower that first stage's gain a little and thereby achieve more headroom and a tighter overall tone.
Note, though, that while all of these tubes can generally be substituted for each other with no problems, the 12AT7 is often set at a slightly different bias level than the other tubes discussed here, so it might not perform optimally in some circuits. Since you're unlikely to harm the amp or the tube by trying it out, though, the best route if you've got a good spare 12AT7 handy is to just pop it in for a while, play, and see.
Some players find that a 12AT7 yields a slightly dull, cold tone when used in the V1 position, but that conclusion seems to vary from amp to amp, and indeed player to player. If you're looking to tame a first gain stage that's a little raw and hairy and needs some tightening up, the right 12AT7 might be just the trick.
Shop 12AT7 Tubes on Reverb

12AY7 – Gain Factor 40

Its gain factor of 40 might look like a dramatic decrease from the 70 and 60 of the 5751 and 12AT7, but as you work your way down from tube to tube you're likely to notice only a fairly gradual decrease in volume and gain from one to the other. The 12AY7 will push your amp's front-end the least of the four, but in many cases that's exactly what you want.
This was the original tube in the first gain stage of most Fender tweed amps from the mid-'50s on, and those circuits can often sound too ragged and unhinged with a 12AX7 in that socket. Gain aside, a good 12AY7 can still sound very full, rich, and well-balanced, and it makes a great way of achieving maximum headroom and minimum early-stage fizz from many preamps in other types of amps.

Contemporary makers occasionally recommend 12AY7s in newer, non-tweed-based amps too. Brian Gerhardt of TopHat suggests it as an alternative for the V1 position in his Super Deluxe, Super 33, and the Top Boost channel of the Supreme 16. Playing against type, I even tried one in the lead channel of a PRS MT15 Mark Tremonti Signature amp I was testing out recently, and it was just the thing for converting that scorching, high-gain shred channel (great at what it does when you need it) into a channel pitched just right for aggressive blues-rock and classic-rock.


How to Remove and Replace Preamp Tubes
It's relatively easy to swap preamp tubes in most amps, but read your owner's manual and any available warranty information before doing so to ensure you're doing it according to any manufacturer warnings or recommendations—and that doing so won't void your warranty (it shouldn't… but just to be safe). Also, don't touch any hot tubes in the process. If you want to swap in something different after playing the amp with what's already in there, let it cool down sufficiently first.
Before proceeding, turn off your amp, unplug it from the wall, and examine it from behind and remove any necessary panels blocking access to the tubes, and ensure that you will be able to look into the preamp tube sockets to align the tube pins correctly when putting in the new tube before you take out any existing tubes (a flashlight is often a big help here). If these tubes are easy enough to access and the sockets easy enough to see at this point, remove any metal shield over the tube you intend to swap—usually by twisting it about a quarter of an inch counter-clockwise and then pulling gently downward
to expose the tube itself.
To remove the tube, grasp it between thumb and fingers and start wiggling it gently back-and-forth and in a very slightly circular motion, while pulling gently downward. Don't squeeze too hard, wiggle too dramatically, or force it. A gentle, persistent motion should work to pop it out eventually.

Once that tube's out, note the gap between the nine pins in a semi-circle on its base, and how that will guide you in correctly aligning the replacement tube in the holes in the socket. Line it up carefully, wiggle it gently into the pin contacts, and don't force it. If the tube isn't going in relatively easily, forcing it will quickly bend a pin, and possibly crack the glass housing. Take your time, take it easy, and re-align with another look inside the socket if necessary.

If the amp's chassis needs to be fully removed from its cabinet to successfully replace preamp tubes, take it to a qualified repairman for proper service. Doing so yourself will expose you to dangerous—and potentially lethal—voltages.

While checking out these tube swaps for yourself, notice how they don't just alter the gain, but often change the tonality of that channel or preamp stage along with it. That's because the change of tube type and its lower gain factor interact slightly differently with the preamp circuit as a whole, often, for example, taming an overly bright or harsh amp, as well as increasing its headroom. Experiment when you can, with what you can, and see how preamp tube swaps might help to fine-tune your tone.













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