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My interpretation: nothing beats Fender clean. More complexity, smoother tone, a more pleasant inherent compression. But the Vox has its uses, as a moderately overdriven amp (not demoed here, however).

Bonus points if you can guess the songs I played.

I heard Lenny and Rhinoceros.

The twin sounds really great in that demo. I still prefer the vox, though. Complexity isn't everything.

I heard some of the piano instrumental from Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Way awesome!

I prefer the Vox sound, but that's just me.

Great demos.

Elliot Smith - The Biggest Lie on the Vox demo. nice job.

some Radiohead type thing on the Vox, around the end.

I like 'em both, but as a general rule I've always believed if it sounds good one way, it'll probably sound even better with a little more gain!

Sweet Twin sounds, especially, and well demo'd. I agree about the Fender cleans (use a Twin myself) though I wonder if the Vox, with its emphasis focused more in the midrange, might come through more easily in a dense mix? Of course, Twins wouldn't be legendary if they didn't work well in tons of different situations, but I wonder if they tend to need more mid EQing than something like an AC15 or AC30 once you get a whole band going.

filtercap wrote:Sweet Twin sounds, especially, and well demo'd. I agree about the Fender cleans (use a Twin myself) though I wonder if the Vox, with its emphasis focused more in the midrange, might come through more easily in a dense mix? Of course, Twins wouldn't be legendary if they didn't work well in tons of different situations, but I wonder if they tend to need more mid EQing than something like an AC15 or AC30 once you get a whole band going.

Twins have a Mid control too make up for the usual mid-scooped sound.

The Vox cuts thru a band mix very well, but sometimes that's an issue -- it doesn't really sound great for chimey rhythm tones (imo), it always seems to be a bit too nasally for that sort of thing. If you are primarily a lead player and are deciding between the two, I think a Vox would be a better choice. I know some players love using an AC30 and sound great, but maybe its just that the AC15 is a bit too 'boxy' sounding.

The one big issue though is that the Vox really doesn't like a lot pedals put into it, whereas the Twin can take anything and sound great.

These are all in my opinion though, some people actually prefer the gritty overly-present Vox sound to the more mellow hi-fi sound of the Twin.

I should also note, the reverb on the CC sounds like garbage in comparison to the Twin's. But luckily, it sounds great with a Holy Grail. For these demos though I just went guitar to amp with no effects or post-processing, so what you're hearing is pretty close to what they sound like in real life. I was using a condenser microphone, in some recording situations a dynamic might be more beneficial to capture just the 'preferred' frequencies.

What year is your twin? I also have a silverface (1970, no master volume), and love it.

Oddly enough I almost ended up with the same duo of amps as you, since my twin is a bit too loud for most places I play (that insist miccing all the amps). The weight of the AC15 being nearly the same as my 100w twin plus the fact that the one on display was making fart-distortion noises if I played hard through it turned me off them, at least for the time being.

I've been running a jazzmaster through an ac30 lately, and it's never going to get that twin clean, but it nails the early Who sound. Great for a rock n roll or garage band. Great videos, Aeon, thanks for the demo.

Very nice demos, want to put these on the shortscalegeardemos page? PM me if you need the password