Spoiler alert: there is no ONE secret. The simple answer is that we do our best to go the
extra mile on every step of the way and learn and improve as we go all the time, constantly.
Don’t trust what others say, write or suggest – you can’t substitute experience with internet
“knowledge”. Most of the info out there is not right and the really good advice still doesn’t
reach our brains nearly as well as when we test and see for ourselves, which is when we
really understand and learn something. You can’t really communicate experience – this is
how I ended up with this amp collection in the first place, as I wanted to learn how these
amps actually sound and differ and which one(s) will give up the tones I have been chasing
for almost 30 years now.
I could tell everything I do in minute detail, name every piece of (custom) gear that I use to
capture amps and pedals, how I mic the cabs, etc. and the next guy will end up with totally
different results from the same “recipe”.
The reason is that the devil is in the details and for most of it there is no valid scientific
approach – it is trial and error and deciding what sounds “best” or most musical to me. And
it is as much about the philosophy with that you approach tone and amps as it is about the
ear that judges the tones. My approach is to let the amps be what they are and not to stand
in the way of what they do best. Just as with humans – don’t try to turn them into
something they are not and they will prosper beautifully.
Everything begins with finding and selecting the best amps, the most desirable and musical
models, variations and often specimen. In some cases I’ve cycled through 4 or 5 specimen of
the same amp until I landed on THE ONE.
Once you got the right amp, it all starts with the proper maintenance. It is expensive,
requires yourself or someone else to know how a well maintained unit is even supposed to
sound. Usually the electrolytic filter caps are the culprit, sometimes the coupling capacitors
(e.g. the red “dynamite stick” and later yellow Astrons don’t age well in vintage Tweed and
Brown Panel Fenders), mica or ceramic caps tend to break, Carbon Composition resistors
tend to drift, some weaker solder joints give up, especially during transport/shipping, some
parts around the power tubes get fried over time, etc. Maintaining a vintage amp is not easy
because often you need to desolder connections just to test parts. If you have a museum
piece in front of you, you might be hesitant to do so and make a compromise or a best
guess. One of the reasons we do not go for museum pieces over here usually.
The selection of tubes matters a lot. What tubes are best? No idea – you just have to try and
see what works best with each individual amp. Tubes absolutely do have a sound – don’t
buy into the story they don’t. Vintage tubes can be great, but they are definitely not always
the best choice for what you want to achieve sonically. So don’t buy into that story – vintage
is always better – either. They all are tools for the job and horses for courses. Some tubes or
even whole brands then do sound darker/smoother (e.g. JJ), others brighter/more open
(e.g. EHX). There’s times where JJ’s are absolutely the best sounding option for what you
want to do and other times it will be EHX, vintage or maybe Chinese tubes. There are times
where only vintage will do, as those are the only ones that can take the punishing (Marshall
Major 200 is a good contender here – if you plan on cranking it for extended periods of
time).
Cab and speakers of course matter a ton. Especially getting vintage speakers in good shape
is a huge challenge – the older the equipment the more unlikely that the speakers will still
sound good. But when they still do, they sound better than any modern speaker every day
of the week. Not sure if that is a break-in thing or the composition of the old cones, a
combination of those or other factors entirely, but every time it makes sense and is
possible, I go for the best vintage on the particular amp. When we replace speakers on our
vintage amps, they are era correct replacements.
All our vintage amps have either original vintage or era correct replacement output
transformers – that is the heart of an amp. Vintage amps with the original OT command
about 30% higher prices than ones with replacements. No modern replacement OT will
sound the same as the vintage ones due to differences in the metal composition and
impurities as used back in the day. It is not magic or voodoo, simple reality of old and
modern production contexts.
Mics and micing are absolutely crucial and the highest art form of the whole process. There
is no wrong or right and there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat. I usually go with
some of the industry standards – R121, SM57, M150, U87. I tend to prefer how ribbon mics
sound as I go for rather smoother and more natural sounding representation of the amps
and those are a good helper on that road. It’s close micing for the most part, mic at about
the edge of the speakers cap, a couple of centimetres away from the grill cloth, sometimes
right up against it for more proximity effect – that ever seems to work best for the particular
amp.
I usually mix 3-4 microphones, which is somewhat unusual. It’s a difficult task to align so
many mics so that they are in phase. Modern DAW’s help, as you can see how far off each of
them is when looking at the individual channel wave-shapes. If it is a DI capture and you are
making an IR, it is easier to align the mics as there distance becomes simply a higher or
lower delay, which you can adjust while mixing the mics for the IR. So one of the key
ingredients of the amalgam sound is a multi mic setup with good phase coherency.
Finding the amps sweet spots is another area where experience with many amps is helpful.
Also the way how certain amps should be dialed on and what frequency ranges should be
accentuated at what stage – the amp itself, a pedal in front of the amp, at the position of
the mic (e.g. closer for more proximity/bass), at the EQ after the mic/mic pramp. For
example, the amalgam sound is known for a rather ample amount of bass, which is by
design, as it is easy to dial it out on the capture platforms EQ if necessary, but it is not that
easy to make a thin sound bigger and have the authentic weight of an amp.
Finding the amps sweet spots requires a lot of time, “living with the amp” for a while and
lots of comparisons against the best tones for certain genres to make sure that the tones
don’t fall short. Doing captures daily, having a vast array of amps at your disposal and
constantly comparing the tones you are working on with the best of what you have done so
far is all a part of that. I don’t believe in “golden ears”, but I believe it is possible to train
yours to hear butterflies fart.
If we do DI captures, the amp is still connected to its intended speakers and/or cab. This is
crucial because load boxes, even reactive ones, will have an impedance curve that is a rough
approximation of a real speaker, further more it will be just one curve, not the multiple
variations that various real speakers represent. That will affect the resulting tone. The DI
signal is tapped from the amps output via a custom box we made, but it can be done with
any devise that has a through input for a speaker level signal that goes to the cab/speaker
and a line out jack for the line level signal to go into your DAW.
Last, but absolutely not least, there is the intangible thing of gain staging and dialing in input
levels that simply sound/work best with a particular amp and a particular input on that amp.
Just as with dialing in preamp gain and master volume levels for master volume amps,
where you are basically in a free-style mode and go just by ear, this applies even more so on
this aspect. There is no correct recipe – you have to do this by ear and find what works best
in the particular case. And this is often what makes the biggest difference. Even varying the
input level that goes into the amp for certain sounds often elevates things to the next level.
It can help to compensate for the lack of a proper Tone Stack on some amps to get fatter,
thinner or brighter sounds or just getting different textures from an amp for certain tones.
So… Back to the question – what is the secret to our tones? No shortcuts and an absolute
passion for what we do.