There is this Brian May signature Vox ac30 wich has, as Brian insisted on, only a volume knob. One really good sound is worth more than all the Flammas in the universe!
I think that the Flamma Preamp for the price seems to be a very compelling piece of gear. Maybe a slim chance that an analog solid state preamp/amp would have all the features and versatility that the DSP based Flamma has, but I still put some faith in well designed analog SS circuits. Could be that for analog solid state guitar amps and preamps, that ship has already sailed a long time ago. I am still building stuff in the "analog domain", but I am not a purist as to whether it has to be tube based, transistor or op-amp based. DSP has definitely made it's case, especially in the last few years and will continue to move forwards in quality of sound and price point. The Spin FV-1 and similar DSP chips could be an interesting basis for a plug in tube emulator that one could build into an amplifier and load multiple "preamp profiles" into it's memory. At least it's a more DIY approach if your up to the challenge of programming.
Maybe, maybe not. Here is where things get extremely individual.
Certainly, there are a few guitarists in popular music, who have built their entire career around one single instrument, and one single sound. Willie Nelson and Brian May are two notable examples. B.B. King was another.
Nelson has played the same acoustic guitar for five decades. During all those thousands of hours of playing, his right hand has worn a large hole entirely through the guitar's wooden top. Even with a big hole through the top, Nelson claims to believe it is still the best sounding guitar he has ever heard, and he refuses to play any other. Nelson gave his guitar a nickname, probably a part of his "shtick" to give his fans something to identify him with.
Brian May has played his home-made Red Special guitar through a Dallas Rangemaster (pedal) and a Vox AC30 for his entire career. During the band's early impoverished years, Queen bassist John Deacon fished a discarded transistor radio out of the trash, mounted its audio amplifier section inside a bookshelf loudspeaker enclosure, and made himself a bass practice amplifier. Brian May conscripted it, christened it the Deacy amplifier, and regularly used it to play studio overdubs.
B.B. King played black Gibson guitars based on a slightly tweaked ES-355 for most of his career. Like Nelson, he gave his guitar a nickname. Unlike Nelson, King owned multiple "Lucille's", but never really varied his sound or playing style. Once you've heard five B.B. King songs, you've heard them all.
Nelson, May, and King each found one thing they liked, and stuck with it for the rest of their lives. Each of them had tremendous popular success. At the same time, each remained frozen in place, choosing never to develop as an artist beyond the stage at which they found their initial success.
For most creative people, staying frozen in one place, doing exactly the same thing over and over for decades, is a cruel punishment almost worse than death. Indeed, it is death of a sort: the death of creativity, curiosity, exploration, and self-development. The death of everything that actually makes a creative artist, in fact.
Can you imagine eating a baloney sandwich for lunch, every single day, for the rest of your life? You might get very good at making baloney sandwiches after you've made your first thousand, but most people still wouldn't want to eat one every single day, regardless of how good it might be. After a few weeks or months, most people would be gagging on their daily excellent lunchtime baloney sandwich, or maybe skipping lunch altogether, rather than having to force yet another baloney sandwich down their throats.
As it happens, of all musical instruments, the guitar is far and away the most versatile. It's uniquely capable of an almost endless range of sounds and playing styles, particularly when you add pickups and plug it into some effects pedals and an amplifier.
And popular music, unlike classical music, has embraced and been driven by new sounds and new styles for decades.
Combine the drive to be creative, the versatility of the instrument, and the acceptance of new sounds and styles, and very few creative guitar players have any desire to be stuck forever with one sound, and only one sound.
What would Pink Floyd have sounded like, if David Gilmour had stuck with his 1968 guitar sounds from "Let There Be More Light"?
What would Dire Straits have been, if Mark Knopfler had stayed with his early guitar sounds from "Communique", and never come up with the later sounds he used on the "Brothers In Arms" album?
I am no Gilmour or Knopfler, not by a long shot. But I would quickly lose interest and burn out as a guitarist if I was stuck doing the same thing, with the same guitar and the same sound, over and over.
When I got back into music a dozen years ago, after some years away, I discovered to my delight that if I avoided famous brands and expensive models, I could afford multiple different instruments for the same money. I would much rather have a cheap (but well made) acoustic steel-string guitar, a cheap acoustic nylon-string guitar, a cheap Les Paul clone, a cheap ES-335 clone, and a cheap electric bass guitar, than one single expensive guitar that costs as much as all the other five put together. The five less-expensive instruments open up an enormous range of musical possibilities to enjoy exploring.
No such luck with guitar amps, though. Solid-state ones claimed versatility, but at that time, offered only multiple horrible sounds. Tube amps could sound great, but at $500 - $3000 USD a pop, there wasn't much chance of owning a variety of different-sounding ones. Nor did I have the room to put them, never mind a venue where they could be played at the intolerable loudness most produce.
The Flamma Preamp finally brings what I had been missing, to electric guitar amplification. A vast range of very good sounds, at an extremely affordable price. With a couple of button presses and knob tweaks, I can enjoy playing anything from Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car", to clean-tone bluesy licks like B.B. King, to Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends", to classic rock. Add a delay and a reverb pedal, and I can enjoy making sounds reminiscent of David Gilmour, or any later "harder" forms of popular music.
Really the major remaining limitation is only my own playing ability, which is exactly as it should be: With the Flamma Preamp and a handful of pedals, my gear isn't limiting me, only my own abilities are. That means I have room to grow and develop.
Along those lines, recently I've been enjoying experimenting with two-handed tapping as part of improvised guitar solos, a playing style I've never explored before, partly because it needs a high-gain amplifier to work, and usually that also means ear-splitting volume. With the Flamma Preamp, I can have fun with it at living room friendly levels.
So, speaking only for myself, I would much rather have a Flamma Preamp than a Brian May signature Vox AC 30.
Then again, if someone offered me either one as a free gift, I would take the Vox AC 30 - because I could quickly sell it on Reverb, and with the money, buy a handful of Flamma products, a Strat-type guitar, and a short vacation with my wife. 🙂
Incidentally, if you watch a few of Brett Kingman's You Tube videos (like his Flamma Preamp demo), you'll quickly find out that the central component of his guitar rig is a much-more-expensive DSP modelling guitar amplifier, a predecessor to the Flamma Preamp. These days Kingman seems to be mostly a hired gun for Australia's biggest bands, and the modelling amp gives him enormous versatility, allowing him to produce the right sounds for any song, that any band hires him to play.
-Gnobuddy
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Well, I find that an almost unbelievable statement. But as you say, this is extremely individual! For me, having many gadgets with many presets and knobs tends to get in the way of creativity. There are so many sounds and nuances you can get from just one guitar or one amp, but it takes time and effort to get it out. Spending a lot of time pushing buttons an turning knobs is just not as rewarding in the end.
This comes more close to my point of view. The longer I learn this instrument, the less knobs and effects I use. And the more sound debates are boring to me. I have played the amplified strat on many gigs for nearly 50 yrs - and "converted" to the acoustic now. Just because it is more fun! But that's me.
I used a "Lil' Tiger" amp from the early 70's for guitar (with preamp for a spare amp for the ocational drop in player) and it has minimal gain and only localized NFB. Sounded good.
Certainly, the key words being "too many". I've owned guitar multiFX pedals with hundreds, even thousands, of options (like my old Zoom G5). Too many presets, all of which sound bad, and you never find the sound you want. The G5 was frustrating for me, exactly as you described. Too many options, too many controls.
The Flamma Preamp isn't in that category at all. Have you looked at pictures of the product? It has the usual treble, middle, bass tone controls. It has the usual gain and volume controls. You would find the same five knobs on just about any normal tube guitar amplifier.
In addition to those 5 knobs, the Flamma Preamp has only two other controls. There is one push button that cycles through the 7 available models. There is one foot-switch that switches between the clean and dirty channels of the selected model. That's it.
There is no risk of option paralysis with the Flamma Preamp. Set it like any good guitar amp, select between clean and drive channels with the footswitch. That's it.
People who want a single sound for the rest of their lives can set the Flamma Preamp to produce that single sound, and leave it there for decades until their old, arthritic fingers will no longer work well enough to play guitar. There's nothing to stop them doing that, if that is what they want.
But if too many options are bad, you can go too far in the other direction, too. One guitar and a one-knob amplifier? Perfect if you have very narrow musical tastes and don't want to develop further as an artist. But very limiting to a more creative player.
Certainly. And you can spend your lifetime working on those, whatever amp or guitar you use.
But you will never get the sound of a Dobro resonator guitar out of, say, a Les Paul, no matter how much time and effort you put in. That's why Mark Knopfler used a Dobro on many of his songs. Certainly not because he didn't know how to get the full range of sounds out of his 'Strat.
You will also never get the sound of a nylon-string guitar out of your Les Paul. You will never be able to learn how to play a bass guitar using your Les Paul. You will never learn how to make your guitar sound anything like Green Day by playing your steel-string acoustic.
Limit your equipment too much, and you also limit your musical options, creativity, and ability to develop as a musician.
I have a friend who loves country music, and only country music. This friend is happy playing three-finger chords on a steel-string acoustic, in only three or four keys, and knows only two minor chord shapes: beginner shapes for E-minor and A-minor.
I find that quite baffling. I would quit playing guitar if I limited myself like that. I hate the thought of a lifetime of baloney sandwiches for every lunch.
Incidentally, several of the Flamma Preamp's 14 models are good enough to allow you to get "many sounds and nuances" from each of them, so there's nothing to prevent you from continuing to work on those. There's also nothing to prevent you from setting the Flamma aside, and playing through whatever other amp you own. The Preamp adds lots more very usable options, without taking any away.
Digital guitar modelling pedals have promised this for decades, but always failed to deliver, unless you ponied up four-digit sums of money for a Kemper or AxeFx.
The Flamma Preamp finally delivers champagne quality at lite-beer prices. It's an extraordinary product.
Do you think all the session musicians with large collections of guitars, amps, and effects pedals would agree with you?
David Gilmour is one of the greatest electric guitarists who ever graced our planet, because he has created some of the most beautiful sounds and solos. Do you think the world would have been better off, if Gilmour had stuck with one acoustic guitar, and no effects pedals?
Gilmour even learned to play the saxophone in his old age, and got good enough to play his own saxophone parts, live, on stage, in front of paying audiences. I have a lot of respect for an artist willing to take such a risk in order to continue to grow.
Frankly, I'm astonished that there are musicians who want to limit themselves as severely as some have stated on this thread.
-Gnobuddy
Well, do I have to agree with every session musician?Do you think all the session musicians with large collections of guitars, amps, and effects pedals would agree with you?
Frankly, I'm astonished that there are musicians who want to limit themselves as severely as some have stated on this thread.
-Gnobuddy
Do you think it is creative to reproduce any sound in our beloved contemporary music?
And you vastly over-estimate imho the contribution of electronic amplification to the "sound" perceived.
David Gilmore does not need sophisticated equipment to sound like Gilmore, I am sure.
I looked up the schematic (attached). There is global NFB around the entire amplifier (configured like an inverting op-amp block).
But open-loop gain was certainly very low by modern standards. There is only one gain stage, and even with its bootstrapped collector load, voltage gain was probably limited to a few hundred, rather than the 100,000 - 1,000,000 typical of modern op-amps.
The second image (THD vs power output) tells the tale. Distortion rises quite progressively over the entire range.
Modern high NFB power amplifiers have much lower THD over the entire usable range right up to clipping. But once they start to clip, THD shoots up almost vertically. The third image is for the LM3886, a deservedly well-beloved modern Hi-Fi chip amplifier.
Lots of NFB, very low THD, and generous power headroom is an excellent recipe for Hi-Fi audio. Just not for e-guitar.
-Gnobuddy
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Session musicians are among the best musicians on the planet. Those of us less gifted, all have a lot to learn from them. Why would we deliberately choose to add to the limitations nature already imposed on us (i.e. we have less talent to start with)?
i.e., do you have to ignore the lessons we could learn from better musicians than themselves?
I think it is more creative than NOT having the ability to reproduce anything but a tiny selection of favourite sounds.
Which is more creative: a painter who only knows how to use watercolours, or a painter who can use watercolours, oils, charcoal, pastels, pencils, tempura, structural paint, and more, as she chooses?
Gilmour plays acoustic guitar on a lot of his more recent works. He is still a good guitarist, as always.
But without his electric guitars, and numerous effects pedals, he is limited to merely sounding like a good acoustic guitarist, one more among thousands. It's an enormous limitation for a man of his talents.
Why would you limit yourself to only acoustic guitar? Why would you limit yourself to only electric guitar? Why would you limit yourself to not using any of the vast range of other sounds available via pedals?
-Gnobuddy
Then you are starting to think wrong. I have no commercial affiliations whatsoever, to any brand. You won't find me on You Tube, or any other public website. I have no presence on social media. I don't even have a "smartphone", an ironic term as it seems to rob many people of their brains, making them anything but "smart". I prefer to live a quite life, as privately as possible in this era of universal privacy invasions.
However, I'm not afraid to trust my ears. I find very few amateur musicians are - they tend to be influenced by popular opinions and popular / prestigious brand names. The popularity of the quite awful Shure SM58 is a classic example.
To my ears, affordable DSP guitar amps have sounded very bad, for most of the past 30 years.
A few years ago, the Boss Katana series arrived, with pretty good sounds for $500 (CAD).
Then I stumbled across the Fender Mustang Micro, for $100 USD, with excellent sounds in it, as I've commented before. But also many limitations stemming from its intended use as a headphone amp that plugs straight into your guitar.
To my ears, the Flamma Preamp has excellent sounds, as well as many advantages over the Mustang Micro, stemming from the fact that it works like any other guitar pedal, rather than a tiny headphone amp with microscopic controls.
Currently, I don't know of a third option in this category: excellent guitar sounds at an affordable price.
That's all there is to it. You are, as always, free to agree or not.
-Gnobuddy
Instead of calling people with opinions different two your own I my point your to your own blind spot: Why do you limit your sound to exactly one type of H2 distortion and disgust any other sounds? Your arguments cannot convince me at all. And btw, I played the strat for 5 decades, time check something different now. And your lecturing attitude may be adequate against your students, but not me.
Your arguments cannot convince me at all. And btw, I played the strat for 5 decades, time check something different now. And your lecturing attitude may be adequate against your students, but not to me.
Instead of calling people with opinions different two your lown kind of limiting themseves I may point your to your own blind spot: Why do you limit your sound to exactly one type of H2 distortion and disgust any other sounds?
Your arguments cannot convince me at all. And btw, I played the strat for 5 decades, time check something different now. And your lecturing attitude may be adequate against your students, but not to me.
I don't want to detract from what the Flamma is capable of doing, I have only listened to online demos and it does sound very good. But does it seem that the verge of breakup, low gain sounds have more of a crunchiness to them regardless of the amp they are emulating? I get that many a fine tube amp can do the crunch thing particularly with a boost or overdrive in front. I wasn't hearing much of a glassy, chimey bell like tone from any of the low gain settings. Maybe that doesn't come through on the demo videos. I do know of a couple of preamp style pedals that are FET based and can get that sound..and at higher gain settings have a silkier, "singing" overdriven sound to them.
So there are limitless nuances you can get from a guitar? Sure. And I can cook a piece of beef a hundred ways and get nuances in that realm. That said, is there some reason I should never cook onions with my beef just because I have not yet discovered all the nuances of meat alone? Same argument for guitar.
Same here. As I mentioned earlier, one nit-pick I have about the Flamma Preamp is that I would prefer a bit more treble extension from the built-in cab simulator on some of the clean amp models.
I suspect the Flamma's Fender model would have glassy cleans with a less aggressive cab sim. The cab sim is built in, but can be turned off - but I haven't yet experimented with that option.
To my ears, the Fender Mustang Micro, set to one of the models emulating a Fender amp, is more "glassy" than any of the Flamma Preamp models.
I actually find some of those glassy clean tones in the MM a bit too bright, but they are easily dialed down either with the EQ button on the MM, or the tone control on my guitar.
I should add that this opinion is based mostly on playing a semi-hollow guitar (like an ES-335) with Seymour Duncan humbucker pickups through the Micro. I would think the Mustang Micro would sound even brighter with a very bright single-coil guitar, such as a Telecaster or even a Strat'. I don't own a Tele, and my Squier Strat is undergoing some surgery, so I can't test that out at the moment. 🙂
I haven't heard any other Fender modelling amps in person recently, but some of the online demos of recent offerings also have extremely bright treble. Too bright, to me. Certainly much brighter than either of my two actual Fender tube amps (Princeton Reverb reissue, and a hybrid Superchamp XD).
Care to share any links? 🙂
-Gnobuddy
I was just kidding! Anyway, my point is, what I like most is just playing and see what comes, and sometimes something completely new arrives into the world through me and the guitar. I may not be gifted as a player like session musicians, but I have other talents. And I have found that for me it works best when I keep things simple. Keeping it simple to me is not limiting, it gives me freedom.
Who said I only like one single kind of distortion? What I don't like is harsh-sounding distortion, or distortion that kicks in abruptly, rather than setting in progressively as you turn up or play the instrument harder.
If I only liked one kind of distortion, why would I be making positive comments about a DSP preamp having multiple different kinds of distorted sounds in it, as well as a few good "clean tones"?
No worries. I never expect to convince anyone else when it comes to subjective issues. I mostly find my own way, often with help from other people's experience and opinions. And if I find something I think is better, I share that information because I think it might be helpful to others. But it's entirely up to them what happens (or doesn't happen) after that.
There is a reason why my username here sounds like "Nobody". I am a nobody to you. We are all strangers here. I don't expect you to blindly accept my opinions - but if they help you to investigate and find new opinions of your own, I feel I have contributed something positive to human society.
That actually sounds like evidence in favour of my opinion. In other words, it supports my belief that if you play the same thing for too long, you will burn out, lose creative enjoyment, and stop.
Maybe you would still enjoy your Strat if you had moved around between four or five different guitars and/or other instruments during those five decades?
I've experienced musical burnout myself. The pressures of grad school, a demanding job, marriage, house-ownership, all took over my life, and eventually I just stopped playing. That lasted several years.
When music finally called me back to it, I wanted to avoid burning out again. I had my own ideas, and I also talked with other musicians to find out how they avoided burnout, or how they recovered from it. I read books written by great musicians to find out how they stayed motivated and inspired.
In a nutshell, the key points I came away with were:
(1) Include other people in your music, i.e. don't be an isolated bedroom musician as I had been.
(2) Don't do the same-old-same-old until you get sick of it. Allow creativity to remain alive. Keep trying to do new things, keep learning. Too much repetition is the death of inspiration.
So I started going to live jams (not easy for me at first, and requiring me to pluck up all my courage). If I start to get burned out on guitars, I mess around with a bass guitar and try to get better at that. If I feel bass burnout coming on, I tinker with an electronic keyboard and try to learn piano chords and left-right hand independence. I once took some drum lessons, and I found that learning and thinking about what drummers do helped me play better guitar and bass parts, too.
And if I began to feel burnout on every instrument I own? Then I try song-writing. Writing lyrics, composing melodies, learning how to record and mix on a computer, finding out what drummers actually do, so I can program better drum parts for my song demos. Once I've written a song, that in turn motivates me to go back to playing instruments, to make that song come to life.
With the pandemic having made live music jams unsafe, illegal, or both, I find it is even more important to explore the remaining avenues that help to keep burnout away.
Music itself is endlessly rich, much richer than any one instrument, sound, or style of playing. There is always more to enjoy, if we are willing to look for it, pursue it, explore it.
Sorry to have upset you. I mean that sincerely. We all have our failings, and one of mine is the tendency to get a bit too fond of my own opinions sometimes.
But I still feel sad that you want to limit yourself to only boiled beef, without onions, to borrow Enzo's analogy!
-Gnobuddy
Fair enough!
I once met an artist who, for a period of time, decided to reduce his "paintings" to the ultimate in simplicity. If you strip away colour, contrast, imagery, geometric perspective, and all the rest, what is left? The texture left behind by brush-strokes!
And so he produced a number of paintings that consisted of painting brush-strokes, in colourless clear varnish, onto a white canvas. Nothing else.
Of course, he moved on to other ideas later. For example, for a while he made "paintings" that consisted of machine-shop metal turnings embedded in clear wax. The colour, texture, and complex shapes of the metal scraps that fall to the floor under a milling-machine or lathe became the visual elements in his "paintings".
When I encountered this artist, indirectly, he had taught himself to be an illustrator, and had become a very successful one. Then he became an art teacher, giving lessons on the techniques used by illustrators. My wife is an artist, and took some lessons from him. We went to see one of his exhibitions, and that's how I found out about some of his body of work.
Art can certainly come out of simplicity. But I think the simplicity itself has to move from time to time, to keep art alive. Maybe it moves to the complex. Maybe it moves to a different type of simplicity. But if it doesn't move somewhere, art will die, or eventually turn to kitsch (like "crying" steel-guitar sounds on country music).
-Gnobuddy