Solid State vs. Tubes

So, I know this seems like a stupid question, but I think it's a good discussion. Tubes have that warm, smooth overdriven sound, and good cleans. Solid states have buzzy, harsh OD circuits but really 100% clean sound. What do you prefer?

For a bass, I can't see why solid states are bad. They put a nice clean tone, and a functioning overdrive. The OD on my solid state bass amp is pleasant when I play it with my Jag's J-pickup.

For guitar, tubes. All the tubes.

it depends if you're a bassist or a bass guitarist... anyone who plays bass with a pick will generally sound better through a tube amp. In most situations I like to hear some DIed bass into the desk, compressed and EQed sympathetically with a fairly dry microphone signal carefully placed in front of a tube amp about 50/50 give or take a few dB.

My favorite bass guitar amps are:

blackface fender dual showmans

Ampeg portaflexes, SVTs, V4bs and B25bs

silverface bassman 50s and 100s

Hiwatt DR104s

Orange OR120s

Traynor Voicemasters and Bassmasters

wanna be even more rockin'? run any of those heads but the SVT through a 4x12 with the stock speakers up top and some dedicated bass 12" drivers down below for rumble.

But if you're going to play pop or funk or whatever you will probably be better off with a good transistor amp and a dedicated bass enclosure that's ported. I m really partially to Ashdown's MAG amps and cabs for solid state bass. I think they're hybrid actually but I never used them that way, always set them loud and clean. Eden makes good shit.... I sued tog et a nice clean tone with a sans amp RBI and alesis 3630 driving an enormous crown power amp and a mesa cab with the four 10s and a 15.... anyway

for 'feel it' bas nothing beats the old Acoustic folded horn cabs and the matching early solid state heads, sooooo nasty

Yeah, that's pretty understandable. It's a logical position. However, I don't mind transistors in other places either. ;);)

But for a guitar, nothing beats an AC30 or a Thunderverb. Tubes are the guitar thing.

I don't really like the modern oranges... they're all just AC30s or JCM800s with darker voicing and more gain. I miss the old oranges that sounded like nothing else and I wish they would reissue one of those models or at least make something similar with the baxandall 2 band tonestack and concertina PI

The only rule is that there are no rules.

Generally there is not as big a stress on using tube for bass as there is for guitar. Bass is my second instrument after guitar, so I have not bothered with paying extra for tube bass amps.

For guitar, my bigger amps that I gig are tube-- Sovtek Tube Midget MiG 50H (50W head), pre-'69 Sunn 200S (60W head), '66 Fender Super Reverb (40W 4x10 re-cabbed into 2x10 combo w/2x10 extension cab). I also have a 15W 1x10 tube combo, a Fender Super Champ XD, which mixes a tube signal path with digital modeling.

That said, whatever works. I also have a hybrid modeler Vox AD30VT-XL, and a bunch of the old '80s "JCM 800 Series" solid state Marshall combos: a Lead 20 (Model 5002, single channel 20W 1x10), a Model 5210 (dual channel 50W 1x12), and a Reverb 75 (Model 5275,dual channel 75W 1x12). I've gigged all of these in various combinations.

Not once when I was playing a hybrid or solid state did I have any tone problems.

the lead 20 is marshall's best solid state amp including the valvestates... its really an all time great solid state amp in there with the jazz chorus, polytone minibrute etc

you have a 200S? that's a classic, man. 69 is prettye arly. I forgot to put sunn on my lsit of old tube bass amps. The 200 and 2000 are both meant to be bass amps actually and sound pretty good in that role though better for guitar.... all the dedicated guitar amps from sunn have trem or reverb and wonky 'contour' controls that are sort of like presence but not... they sound good, but the bare bones bass models sound better.

I agree, Marshall makes a great solid state amp in the Lead 20. For guitar cleans, I think the Roland JC and some Fenders are pretty good solid-state guitar amps.

made, I don't think they've made them since the 80s or early 90s.

Really? I feel like I saw one new... whatever. Maybe a new model? I know they have an O.K. digital modeling amp that models their tubes...

the amp in question is a practice amp from the 80s, I don't think its been in production since I took up the guitar seriously

Yeah, the Lead 20 was a first-gen Marshall solid state combo, in production during the '80's. It was a part of the JCM 800 Series: 1981 - 1991.

that sounds right, I got mine second hand around 93 for 50 bucks or so as a backup to my 60s fender

i remember a neighbor of mine had the lead 20 and I was seriously contemplating stealing it from him one time.

Does anyone have any thoughts/experience on the Peavey Vypyr VIP amps? It seems to be presented as a friendly little mongrel modelling amp that "morphs from a bass amp to an acoustic amp, to an electric amp". Seems perfect for my situation but at the same time, too good to be true.

Peavy used to do multi instrument amps back in the day... Bass/ Keyboard combo... Guitar/ bass combo. Cannot see why they wouldn't be able to do this technology again.

Ask Jim on this one...

no idea about the vipyr, never ehar dof them... I know I've never heard a peavey that sounded good other than their jazz chorus knockoff, but they're also really versatile and sound apssable for about anything.... and they're unbreakable or they used to be. It just seems like there's a lot more fish in the sea that are versatile and reliable for cheap these days. For isntance I just bought a quilter micro45 pedalbaord amp for 149 bucks shipped to ym door and have high hopes. Not sure why i did it, just curious I guess as the demoes sounded WAY better than the similr EHX pedal amps (which don't sound terrible).

Quilter DOES look interesting... could solve my Stadium amp issues... keep me posted please!

I just kidna want soemthing grab and go that's not an ac4.... I liek that Ic an borrow a cab and just take this little thing and a tuner. And its not trying to sound like anything else, it just does its thing with a very interesting one knob EQ

Never heard a Peavey that sounded good? It's not my thing but obviously the 5150 was a popular model for that '80's hard rock sound. And I've never heard a bad word about their tweed "Classic" series amps.

I've used the 5150 for high gaina nd I much prefer the soldano SLO100 and the later hotrods that it ripped off (mesa ripped it off too, the rectifiers are like a SLO100 pre on various weird poweramps with a zillion unnescasarry knobs and switches to revoice the preamp even though the SLO pre works just fine stock and the power amp on the slo is like the hifi-est thing ever in a good waya nd the hot rods are like the ebst tweed abssman amrshall examples of teh vintage era but emsa gave you options even though none fo them touch the originals).... I dislike the classics, the 30 is like a shit ac30 with choked bandwidth and the 50 is a choked out marshall voice. But they are cheap and relatively reliable. I thik if i ahd to pick ebtween a fender hotrod and a classic 30 or 50 I might just go epavey because they sound more british. although on a similar budget I might go laney voer either.... the GH50L always pelased me for marshally stuff and the little voxy lanys are not abd at all, totally eat the epavey 30 for breakfast... but I really love a Soldano hotrod 50+, even a 5150 I is like apale immitation

the delta blue amp particularly offended me LOL.... I am going to say I have ehard 1 peavey I legitimately liked other than the chorus SS amp, I like the 100 watt all tube classic from the 70s that's bassman inspired. Not a bad amp if you can find one.

YMMV though, this is just one guitarist's opinion... not everyone has my benchmark