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I've always used my hot rod on clean and always thought that my kind of amp was clean one with nice headroom. Today i realized something, i've been using a tod on low gain for months now, and i don't really have any songs on my band that i don't have the tod on or the it on plus more stuff.
Maybe i'm not really a clean amp kind of guy!
I've always liked the sound of an ac30, and i guess it's not a really clean type of amp at band volumes, so i might have to try one. What other good sounding low overdrive amps do you guys recommend?

I dig my Bassman. Clean for practice/rehearsal but recording and live band situations you can really start to push it and make it sound swheeettt. Can sound clean-ish with light picking and fucking crunchy when you dig in. There are better, more efficient amps for doing this but I just figured I'd throw it in there since its my main amp and people misinterpret the "Bassman" sound"

I only play clean, and even I don't like most clean channels. It's like most companies scoop the mids to cop the whole Fender caricature, and it just ends up sounding shrill. Even Fender seems to do this now on occasion. I'd rather have a warm, full tone that crunches and compresses a bit when I dig in. Even though it's distorting, that will sound far more natural and musical than an artificially "clean" amp that just gets louder and more shelved as you dig in.

Really any single-channel amp will never be truly clean. Tiny Terror is awesome, or really any Orange. The classic Voxes that aren't too modernized. Old style Marshalls like the JTM45 and 18W combos. Anything British or tweed-style Fender. The Pro-Jr is a good, cheap amp that is Fender-y without being too brash. There are tons of choices these days in the 15-30W Brit-style amp market.

I use clean a lot. I like the blank canvas you get, but I'll be honest and say that using clean on it's own can sometime sound a bit weak and it just doesn't go your way some days for no apparent reason. If so I just add a touch of compression to fill it out or reverb to give a bit of space and presence.

That said, I do add my TOD in for just a hair of gain but it's still more or less "clean" by any example.

I definitely prefer a tiny bit of dirt as a "clean" signal, especially since switching to a solidstate amp for most of my playing. It just rounds things out a little, reducing the large peaks and generally sounding "warmer". It comes from my pedals though, as opposed to the amp itself.

Obbbbbbviously this compression is already inherent in valve amps to an extent, another reason why they sound so pleasing.

They both have their uses.

Having your amp set super clean is a necessity if you want super spanky sounds or lush clean chording or whatever, but if you've a little dirt on there it's definitely going to make your overdrive pedals melt into loveliness and sound more amp-like themselves. Ditto boosts will go more molten than just LOUD.

However some stuff is going to sound wack into a breakup amp tone - like some Fuzzes, Delays, Modulation pedals and in particular High Gain Distortion boxes if you're trying to DO AN RIFF.

This is very true; may I add that I run a light OD sound before my other effects.. this way, delays stay clean, boosts go BOOST and distortions don't turn into weird swampy messes. Although that sound is also pretty neat.

Doog wrote:Although that sound is also pretty neat.

Agreed. Everyone loves the sound of complete sonic mayhem.

i've really grown to love the cleans with a little hair round the edges. it just sounds really nice and dynamic, then you can boost till your melting faces. i've found that like doog, running a light OD works well before a delay into a breaking amp sound doesn't make the mush you can get sticking it into a maxed amp channel.
also, i like running my amp at lower wattages for that nice tube compression you get on the slightly breaking sounds.

If you like a little hair on your clean check out Orange amps... I love my DT.... if you are thinking about an AC30 anyway deffinantly check the DT.... the power section is similar and both run EL84's.... and as Proggy stated, being able to switch the wattage down is an AMAZING feature......



And Will is also another Orange amp guy too.... one day we shall rule the world!!!

i always have a mild overdrive on, i don't really like cleansssses unless they belong to other people or have a fuzz going through them.

Clean channel on my Rockerverb 50 is lovely, though so is my Princeton and Bassman though utterly different!
Having said that, I nearly never use the clean channel on my Orange...after all you don't buy one for the cleans do you!
Generally I would say I like my clean sound to have a bit of an edge to it.
I used to use the "Crunch Orange" channel at low gain on my JVM as my clean sound, that was a thing of beauty.

Thom wrote:Rockerverb 50... Princeton... Bassman

sp3k wrote:I've always liked the sound of an ac30, and i guess it's not a really clean type of amp at band volumes, so i might have to try one.

It is squeeky clean if you want it to be and still be damn loud. It depends on what setting I'm in as to whether I'm using it dead clean or with a little dirt. Normal day to day playing I have it pretty much clean unless I really rag it and then it breaks up a bit, this is my favourite sound as I can then use the guitar's volume to control the sound more and also I can use my tone control without it getting muddy.

But still however much I love my AC30 its an absolute ball ache to cart around.

stewart wrote:

Thom wrote:Rockerverb 50... Princeton... Bassman

Haha oops!

I plug my guitars directly into a Twin Reverb more often than not. Pretty much everything I play is clean. I'd probably use a little bit of OD if I had it on tap, I suppose; my OD/Distortion pedals are just a little too dirty to offer the really light OD that I'd consider leaving on. An AC30 might give me all the flexibility I'd need? Either way, I'm generally pretty happy playing clean.

Cleans are nevar overrated