Guitar & Bass Amplifiers Valve (Tube) & Solid State
Amp sims ….. hmmmm. Here at the Home of Music we like to do things right. Amp sims are excellent for writing – & to use as a special effect when mixing – but for true guitar tones – you gotta move some air folks!
Aint no way around it – plugging yourself into a soundcard & dialling in some 1’s & zero’s (digital binary code) may help you write at home – but great guitar tones that you wrench from the very bottom of your soul – for that – as with all spiritual acts – you need to plug into a beast – and make it wail !
You think Stevie Ray Vaughn sweated blood for his people by plugging into his pc?
Hell No! He whacked the gain knob of his Marshall amp up & went at it like the sonic preacher he was.
This is why we at the studio spend so much time & money finding nice bits of gear for or lovely clients to experiment with. We seldom just use one amp for the main rhythm parts – but will use two amps chained together to achieve a special & unique tone to form the bedrock of the song.
Here’s some of our amp collection:
Vintage Guitar & Bass Amps
You can see our full collection HERE – & also read a bit more about what each can do. It doesn’t really matter about wattage (how loud they are) – it’s a recording studio – we can record a mouse fart or a tornado.
What we look for in an amplifier is tone. There’s a lot of modern amps that are built for flexibility – meaning they have a whole bunch of different sounds on tap – none of which are usually that great – these things are generally for gigging use to save carrying multiple amps around.
We have a bunch of individual amps on hand – all of which sound great for various purposes – so we can mix & match tones to suit the song or player. The tube amps range from Metal in a box with huge gain / overdrive at the input to clean – no gain amps with masses of headroom – & serious Funk!