Christian LeBlanc wrote:Alain Benoit wrote:I was merely trying to...explain to Christian at the same time the shortcomings if you will of that particular topology.
To further those statements, that tightness required for the style is as you all now all in the low end, the lower end of the spectrum is of course as most know where all the energy is, that energy has to be reproduced by the output section, it just ain't there.
A.
And it's appreciated! I couldn't sleep last night, so I was poring over a thread at gearslutz where one guy kept going on about how low-wattage amps can't even convey clean guitar properly, because they physically don't have enough power to carry those necessary lower frequencies...why you'll never see a 5 watt bass amp, for example. Would I be missing something fundamental if I went with the H&K? If I were to buy a 7-string guitar to chug away on some electronic doom metal, would the H&K be, let's say, less than ideal? I guess my muddled impression of it right now is of a 3-band eq missing the bass control...a neopolitan ice cream missing that sweet dark chocolate. But I sure didn't notice anything missing when I tried it Sunday night, cranking the gain and scooping the eq. So if I can't even notice it, is it worth worrying about? Or is it the type of thing I'd notice in an amp shoot-out, testing one against the other, or when it came time to do a mix of one of my songs?
On the other hand, wouldn't mixing be a little easier, since there wouldn't be those lower frequencies fighting with the bass? The guitar is a mid-range instrument, after all. Maybe if I absolutely have to get a low-sounding crunch, I can put a mic in front of my bass amp and run my guitar into that; the other 99% of the time when I'm recording a song that has bass, guitar, and 2 or 3 synth melodies, I don't think the missing low-end of the H&K would bother me, would it?
My other question: I love fussing around with effects pedals. Would I not get some of those lower frequencies back by using eq? Or would I just be boosting something that was never there in the first place? If I have a distortion pedal that boosts lower frequencies really well, will it just sound thinner through a lower-wattage amp?
If you were doing 7 string electronic doom metal the H&K definitely wouldn't be the amp for you. However the amp that would be good for that, probably might not be good for a lot of other stuff that you do. There's not an amp in the world that will every guitar tone perfectly.
With this, or any other low wattage amp, there won't be low frequencies missing and the bottom end won't be cut off. The reason people don't use them for metal is that they're not tight enough which shows up primarily in the low end. This is what Al was referring to about slew rate which is basically how fast the amp can push the speaker out and have it return to neutral position. The faster an amp can do that the "tighter" it will be perceived and you can play faster parts with more definition. For metal this is obviously a very attractive attribute. For many other genres it's actually the opposite. Having a little bit of mush, particularly at a higher gain setting can be advantageous for creating a smoother more gelled sound.
If you want to cover multiple types of tone you really need multiple amps. Which is why a studio like Fluid has piles of them. Although I've never heard the H&K from the sounds of things it should suit you well. Can be played at lo/no volume, has a decent array of tonal capabilities, and hey it glows blue! Sounds like a good amp to start with and then you can always buy/rent/borrow more amps down the road as you find you need.