Why am I such a twit? I know you can't answer that, the question was really meant for me.
I kept on hearing all these rave reviews about the Blue Angels' breakup character but never experienced it for myself. Why? Because I never crank my amp. Why not? I guess because I tend to think in polite, non-offensive terms and I want my guitar playing to "fit in" with the rest of the band. Will I ever learn?
I finally realized that my 1x12 BA breaks up at 3 o'clock or higher. I tried going up past noon before, then up around 2 o'clock and everything stayed pretty clean. I started to just accept that my BA wasn't very dirty. It still sounds terrific for cleans! Having studied the schematic and read everything I could find online about the BA, I understood that by design, it's all about power tube breakup. I just figured that I wasn't getting any due to the bias of my particular tubes or something. That may be why it only breaks up at 3pm, but it DOES break up, and quite nicely at that.
My BA has a Mojo Greyhound in it, which I chose because it sounded very Blackface-ish when clean FWIW. I was wondering if maybe I needed alnico for speaker breakup, but that doesn't make sense since most 1x12s come with the MC90 and people still love them.
Anyway, the epiphany came in 2 parts as I "discovered" how good my Barber Gainster can sound. I already loved it for the quasi-TS sounds it gives, but from the beginning it was best known for being a challenger to the mighty Klon for goosing an amp on the edge. Today I finally heard it.
When the BA was struggling to hold it together, stepping on the Gainster unleashed a SICK tone of oozing love. Combined with the BA dirt discovery and I am VERY happy to own this gear right now. Can't wait to play some more and I need to figure out when I can crank her up! Whole new amp and all I had to do was keep cranking. Who knew? (well all of you did apparently, I just didn't get the memo, or rather I expected to hear the dirt come earlier on) Now that I know, I'll be using it a much as I can. This was only with the 6V6's fyi. There's even more to explore with the other 2 settings!!! Fun times :mrgreen:
I kept on hearing all these rave reviews about the Blue Angels' breakup character but never experienced it for myself. Why? Because I never crank my amp. Why not? I guess because I tend to think in polite, non-offensive terms and I want my guitar playing to "fit in" with the rest of the band. Will I ever learn?
I finally realized that my 1x12 BA breaks up at 3 o'clock or higher. I tried going up past noon before, then up around 2 o'clock and everything stayed pretty clean. I started to just accept that my BA wasn't very dirty. It still sounds terrific for cleans! Having studied the schematic and read everything I could find online about the BA, I understood that by design, it's all about power tube breakup. I just figured that I wasn't getting any due to the bias of my particular tubes or something. That may be why it only breaks up at 3pm, but it DOES break up, and quite nicely at that.
My BA has a Mojo Greyhound in it, which I chose because it sounded very Blackface-ish when clean FWIW. I was wondering if maybe I needed alnico for speaker breakup, but that doesn't make sense since most 1x12s come with the MC90 and people still love them.
Anyway, the epiphany came in 2 parts as I "discovered" how good my Barber Gainster can sound. I already loved it for the quasi-TS sounds it gives, but from the beginning it was best known for being a challenger to the mighty Klon for goosing an amp on the edge. Today I finally heard it.
When the BA was struggling to hold it together, stepping on the Gainster unleashed a SICK tone of oozing love. Combined with the BA dirt discovery and I am VERY happy to own this gear right now. Can't wait to play some more and I need to figure out when I can crank her up! Whole new amp and all I had to do was keep cranking. Who knew? (well all of you did apparently, I just didn't get the memo, or rather I expected to hear the dirt come earlier on) Now that I know, I'll be using it a much as I can. This was only with the 6V6's fyi. There's even more to explore with the other 2 settings!!! Fun times :mrgreen:
