VH Feel your Love Metro/Friedman clip

[eljodon]

Jim from Scumback speakers turned me on to the Bugle Boys and I love them! I just started getting into NOS or old tubes about 2 years ago so I'm still a novice, so I keep trying to educate myself by reading as much as I can about which ones to get.

[awangotango]

generally ime,
amperex are open with medium minimal distortion and a nice sweet compression
mullards are fat wide deep but not real defined, can be sludgey
sylvania are musically distorted, high gain (get the JAN long plates)
Other usa RCA GE etc are best left for fender amps
telefunken are hifi and only good for us in V3 and only if you like lots of sag/compression
Tesla are high gain but sweet
siemens are complex harmonics sweet, open midrange
modern tubes are week distorted with little character

[eljodon]

Thanks for the tips! I'm going to buy different ones just to try them out. I read somewhere that some tubes are better when they were made in a certain year also.

[awangotango]

yep, older the better. it's hard to find many from the 50's but can still find late 50's early 60's either used or nos. I kust bought some halske off ebay for $40 each. They will last many many years. Also just got some NOS GE 5881's for 20 a pop which are similar to modern 6ca7s which to my ears is less midrange, tighter bass, compared to el34. but the old 5881's are a bit warmer with more character than modern 6ca7;s i've heard. a good old 5881 turns a marshall plexi towards a soldano 50 HR type sound. pretty cool sound especially if you have lots of gain in the preamp section like some of these souped up superleads. helps keep things under control. It doesn't sound like your metro is over the top gainy so you could use el34's in there if you wanted. Theres some decent modern el34's being made.

[garbeaj]

Excellent playing. But I would think it would sound better without the GH track. Do you think you could post the sound of your guitar only? Your playing is head and shoulders above most...why not let us hear you?!

[eljodon]

yep, older the better. it's hard to find many from the 50's but can still find late 50's early 60's either used or nos. I kust bought some halske off ebay for $40 each. They will last many many years. Also just got some NOS GE 5881's for 20 a pop which are similar to modern 6ca7s which to my ears is less midrange, tighter bass, compared to el34. but the old 5881's are a bit warmer with more character than modern 6ca7;s i've heard. a good old 5881 turns a marshall plexi towards a soldano 50 HR type sound. pretty cool sound especially if you have lots of gain in the preamp section like some of these souped up superleads. helps keep things under control. It doesn't sound like your metro is over the top gainy so you could use el34's in there if you wanted. Theres some decent modern el34's being made.

Thanks for sharing! I liked the winged "c" but they don't make them anymore. I'm using EH 6ca7 on the Metro Plexi but I usually use JJ's since I can't find the winged C . I haven't ventured into the old power tube side yet, although I did scored 4 old Mullards EL34, 4 Mullards 12ax7 (all made in England)and 1 Brimar 12ax7 and 1 GT tube (that probably was replaced)that I found in an old Sound City combo that I had sitting around for years.But the difference in sounds wasn't as noticeable as the preamp tubes. I think one of the EL34 might be bad and the other 3 are still ok. But I haven't tried a whole amp with older tubes yet.
I have a Dirty Shirley that uses 5881, but I don't know the brand.I wonder how it would sound with older 5881? I'm curious to see how the Sylvania 6ca7 sounds, but I heard that they're near impossible to find.

[eljodon]

Excellent playing. But I would think it would sound better without the GH track. Do you think you could post the sound of your guitar only? Your playing is head and shoulders above most...why not let us hear you?!

Thanks! I used the multi tracks that I converted to 24 bit 44k, but it took 2 conversions(gog to 16bit-48 kHz to 24 bit-44.1 kHz to get it there. But there's quite a difference in quality when you solo Ed's guitar as opposed listening to it on Youtube. Also the tracks were printed with reverb and the gating on the drums was horrible! I only spent 30 minutes mixing it and then converted it to mp3 which I don't like.

As soon as I get the chance, I'll post it, but I didn't do the tracks to showcase my playing, but just to see what you guys think of the tone. I think my playing was kind of sloppy and there 's a bunch of guitar players that do it much better.
I have tendonitis and nerve damage on my left hand, so somedays is a struggle to play and some days I do fine. I was doing I'm the one which I know pretty well and I couldn't do the intro riff which I usually play it ok, very frustrating! With Ed's playing you have to play the guitar hard or it doesn't sound right!But I do appreciate your complement garbeaj. Thank you!

[garbeaj]

I made a thread called 'The Importance Of Learning To Play' which you have no need to read. The tone was really good, you played in tune and you had a very good grasp of the material. I'm hard on myself too as far as mistakes are concerned, so I can appreciate what you are saying...but really you are one of the few people making clips that can really play and I have to give credit where credit is due.

[eljodon]

Thanks Garjeah, I truly appreciated!

[awangotango]

reslistening to the clips. I must say as good as it is, I think there is too much distortion happening in the pre and not enough in the power section. What kind of volumes are you using and about how many watts is the speaker seeing I wonder? I know those tubes and they can sound fatter and cleaner imo. I hear ed's tone as cleaner sounding in the preamp

compare it to this for example, which is also overly gainy for ed's tone, but even so it is cleaner in the pre and closer to ed's tone. This has a cascaded V1 and I am one who believes ed had only 2 gain stages, but this just clip shows you can have 3 and still have some cleaner tone. It's in the way the various tubes compress instead of distort. Except for a couple tunes on VHI, ed had suprisingly little preamp distortion as we commonly think of it. imo etc etc. just talking tone here and giving two cents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gkyKZ1BdUU

[eljodon]

reslistening to the clips. I must say as good as it is, I think there is too much distortion happening in the pre and not enough in the power section. What kind of volumes are you using and about how many watts is the speaker seeing I wonder? I know those tubes and they can sound fatter and cleaner imo. I hear ed's tone as cleaner sounding in the preamp

compare it to this for example, which is also overly gainy for ed's tone, but even so it is cleaner in the pre and closer to ed's tone. This has a cascaded V1 and I am one who believes ed had only 2 gain stages, but this just clip shows you can have 3 and still have some cleaner tone. It's in the way the various tubes compress instead of distort. Except for a couple tunes on VHI, ed had suprisingly little preamp distortion as we commonly think of it. imo etc etc. just talking tone here and giving two cents
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gkyKZ1BdUU

I'm using the amp all on 10, but also remember, I'm not using the exact gear like the speakers, pickups,wood of my guitar. I'm not even as close as how loud Ed recorded it and even though I have recording booth that was professionally made I can't play that loud so the speakers are probably seeing around 30 watts! And with that loudness my kid's mirror in the bathroom was shaking!
But when I recorded the track I remember not having that much distortion because it was tough to play. But maybe it was the settings in my variac which might have been to low!
I'm glad you're telling me this so I can refine the tone and experiment some more on my spare time because I didn't really try all my options.