solderdude
Grand Contributor
I was about to post the video about guitar amp sounds but @Blumlein 88 beat me to it. (2 posts above this one).I've seen some pretty crazy things used on stage as instruments FWIW. While my characterization isn't perfect, it does put an SET in the same light as my Blue Sky effects pedal. Or is the same reason recording studios keep older tube stuff on hand, or tape machines, because they add something to the sound they can't get any other way.
And of course tube amps are mostly used as instrument amplifiers rather than home audio. 90% of all tubes are sold for musical instrument amps rather than hifi. Some of those amps, like the Ampeg V4 or Marshall Major, are built to hifi standards of the day. Sunn famously used a Dynaco MkIII as their power amp section. But a lot of that in the old days was how those things were overdriven, which doesn't apply to hifi.
Sure... A guitar amp it can be used as an effect 'pedal' for a single instrument that is connected to it.
It is the often used 'excuse' to believe tube amps are 'musical' because tubes are used in certain cases in the creative process of making music.
Such devices (not just the amp part in that device) is indeed over-driven and distorts heavily even when not over-driven (much more so than any hifi amp) and one should not forget the role the speaker cabinet + speaker have in creating the sound signature these speaker amp cabinets have and are basically parts of electrical instruments. Purpose made ... just like hifi amps are purpose made.
You don't see them used to amplify the whole band or singers as that would sound like total crap. Maybe someone may have abused these kind of devices now and then by lack of PA when performing on the street or so but that does not count.
The added harmonics, modified frequency band, the (soft) clipping, the IM products are used to create an effect for the connected instrument(s) that the artist is looking for.
I have never seen a musician play their instrument through a hifi amp and hifi speaker not using any effect pedals to get a certain sound...
Of course in some cases an instrument is plugged directly into a console but the effect pedals are used or added later on.
(bass) guitar tube amps ≠ hifi tube amps.
The only thing they have in common is that both use tubes as amplifying parts but that is the only thing they have in common. The way those tubes are used is not entirely the same nor the speaker (+ cabinet) is used in home situations for music reproduction.
And .. guitar amps are totally simulate-able and plenty of those exist that can successfully emulate a bunch of different 'classic' amps.
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