ryjan said:
This being your first tube amp will also cause your head to spin. My first tube amp was a Triaxis and a 2:90 (learning curve). For a while I was dissapointed in the Triaxis and thought something must be wrong with it because I didn't hear the sounds comming out of it that I had heard at Metallica concerts. In the end I learned a lot about (the lack of) my playing technique and settings. Good tubes, factory recommended settings, practice, fresh strings, and more practice. Playing through a tube amp is very, very different and can be frustrating until your ear and style developes.
+10
I was showing my cousin-in-law my tube gear today. It was interesting to hear him play with distortion because he was obviously very unfamiliar with the subtle nuance that accompanies playing gain tones with a tube amp.
I find that pick attack is THE most important thing. I do like more gain for solos because it phattens up single note lines and still sounds saturated for soloing and shredding, which often requires very small and gentle motions. You can't wack the strings like you do for chording and maintain a reasonable amount of velocity while playing.
So ya, chording, muting, etc is very different on a tube amp. I generally put a lot of 'weight' into my strokes for heavy tones. It isn't so much strength or force as it is a heaviness. When I want to sound heavy, I angle the pick very much sideways and I rake it across the strings so there is more noise heard while chugging. Rather than a
chug chug chug like in punk rock, you end up with a
SSSSCHUG SSSSCHUG SSSCHUG which just sounds so much heavier and brutal. By contrast, I use a floppy dunlop nylon 0.60 pick for punk rock and I hold the pick parallel to the strings and let it flop off while chording. This gives a light and crisp attack which is more suitable for that style. Another trick during palm muting is to catch just a bit of flesh from your thumb on the strings. This emphasizes the harmonics and gives much more bite / highs to the tone. I figured this trick out when my old punk band was covering NOFX back in the day. I always wondered how they got those brighter more aggressive tones as well as the phat crunch. That was my solution.
Tube amps are VERY dynamic and you can get a myriad of different tones from one channel by working volume and tone controls as well as how hard you attack the strings. While you have the luxury of 4 channels, I only have two so I rely heavily on my volume knob to transition between heavier and lighter tones. I find that with my volume knob at 7, I get a lighter crunch, at 8 I get a phat punk rock type tone, 9 is saturated with more highs for metal, while 10 is reserved for shredding and soloing. With extra channels, you don't need to do this so much but do work on your nuance while playing. Technique helps define your tone. I mean I've heard many different people play my amp with my guitar and my settings and the tone is often drastically different.
Hmm, do be aware that the Roadster may NOT be the amp for you. One guy here named Yetti traded his Roadster for a Rev F 2 channel Triple Recto. He just finds it much heavier and brutal. There are countless other tube amps out there and many of them offer heads tailored to metal: Bogner, Engl, Rivera, Splawn, Framus, Soldano, Peavey, etc. Still, don't give up on the roadster just yet. It may take a bit of tweaking to get what you want. Maybe do a forum search for tones the other Roadster guys have uploaded.
If you are going to look at 4 x 12s, I HIGHLY Recommend you check out Mills Acoustics cabs. 9 out of 10 metal guys here recommend them!
