There really isn't going to me a whole lot between them:



I wish he had done it with more amps.

If I close my eyes, I cannot tell when the amps switch except for the very first time.

If I close my eyes, I get very angry.

I let it play in another tab while i was looking at something else. I could hear the Soldano when it came through, as it is a bit duller/darker, but there really is very little between them. They may feel different to play, but they record pretty much the same, don't they.

If they weren't stacked one after another.. i don't think you would ever be able to pick one out, out of context.

"What did blahblah use on this record?"
"I dunno, sounds like a 5150."
"Nah man, listen to those lower mids. That has got to be a boosted recto."
"I had a 5153 that would do that sound all day long."
"Seriously man, look into the Jet City, it can definitely do that sound, and they are dirt cheap."
"Last time i saw them live, it was all Engl and VHT on stage."

etc, ad infinitum.

Doesn't help that they were probably the same cab, speaker, mic placement.

But that is the point too. Motherfuckers would be just as well/better off buying one decent high gain amp, any decent high gain amp, and like two or more different cabs.

Problem there being those are three really similar sounding maps too. As someone who is somewhat synesthetic, they all sound red to me. I can tell the Soldano from the other two eyes closed, but not the Peavey or Fender. I hear that they're different but I can't place which is which off the top of my head where the Soldano is obvious. They're also dialed in to sound exactly the same, and they're pretty damn similar to begin with.

IMO, what I hear as colour- actual colour, visual- is the big difference between stuff. I like Dual Recs when they sound red. The Rec I'm borrowing sounds virulent red. Bogners always sound orange to me, at least in person. With the right tubes, so does a Mesa Stiletto. Shivas sound super orange and I love them. The first A Perfect Circle album sounds orangey-brown guitar-wise. Gov't Mule is red and so is King's X's Dogman. I've never head a Marshall sound red. They are yellow. Most shitty tones are grey. My tricked out tube mic pre sounds red on its own. Yes I hear in fucking colour because I am batshit insane.

For the record, Stephanie is yellow, Herbie I have a hard time placing. Too neutral, too refined. Sounds like what Back In Black sounds like, regardless of gain setting. The character.

Clean Fenders sound good grey though.

Actually, now that I've thought about it, I know why I have a difficult time placing Chris From My Band's sound- it's white. Not in the "can't dance" sense. His sounds are as refined as refined can be. His shittiest rig would be a Fender Strat Ultra Plus with Lace Sensors into a Mesa Mark III and Road King cab. (Which are not horribly colourful sounds. Though great.) I don't mean this to knock his stuff either 'cause it's all awesome. My noise is just a rougher noise with a more dramatic spectrum. Oddly, he's more loose and jammy and I'm more tight and metal in terms of playing. Both of us tear it up more than you'd know; he does the classic rock pentatonic thing with a feel I'll never have and I'm harmonic minor metal, and we almost never bust this out live. (I think over the years the odd clip has indicated there's some unsused chops here?) Such a strange band. I digress.

Ah yes I tend to hear guitar tones in colours also.

I thought APC was more of a tan...

My Laney has been blue since it got the KT-77s, though it was kind of brown with EL34.

My Splawn is orange yellow.

Well they are near as damn it the same circuit I guess
I'm waiting for the guy to come out and say its a hoax and he did everything with lecto and lepou

It does make me want to build a SLO though

See also: 99% of all high gain amps. Which is also the point, in my view.

The only place that things get obviously weird, in my opinion, between high gainers, is when the amp utilizes something bizarre in the tonestack, or in some cases even just in the mids control, like the inductor in the Uberschall, or something like that. Because that allows a strange frequency/resonance to be allowed to exist that is not so common in an amp, which can drastically change what goes into a microphone. (though, not always in a useful way, and one is just as likely to hear these amps set up as if "normal", because that is what the guitarist wants to hear, or, that is what mixes correctly in a recording)

As for building an SLO. I was interested in it for a while, but the Jet Citys have really made the homebrew route kind of illogical for me. They have good PCBs and good construction, and they are super inexpensive. Now, i would totally just get one of those, get rid of the blue and the uglyass logo, and at most, mod the circuit to taste for feel and range.

The dirty channel on my Tron amp reminds me of slightly toned down SLO. If I run it with my boost punching it, it gets pretty hairy.

I can relate to hearing sounds in colors, to an extent. Surround sounds trigger an image in my mind, like the dirt channel above gives me a burnt orange feel, while the cleans are a shiny light blueish-grey.

When I click on the mastotron it makes me think of static, or a strobing effect. I think it is because of the buzzsaw grind I usually use it for.

Yeah there are only really a few common high gain topologies:
3 stage > cold clipper > CF - slo and variants
4 stage - engl/splawn
4 stage > CF - laney

Out of those more often than not I like the laney style more as they can still do a good clean for twatting with pedals which you dont get from an amp with a cold clipper in my experience and no one has ever bought an engl for the cleans

I just looked over my trace elliot speedtwin schematic and damn, its pretty much a SLO100 except they've done some stupid shit and put treble snubbers and peakers everywhere. When I fix my AOR I might mod it to SLO spec. I'll need to swap the OT in it though as I blew the OT in it yeas ago before I knew anything about amps and my tech put a 1.7k marshall OT in an amp that puts 500V on the plates. What an asshat. I'm sure thats why it sounds shit at high volume.

If I close my eyes... I cannot see