What are your experiences of tube amps, and then solid state? Pros and/or cons? Thoughts?
I grew up in a time where higher gain solid state amps were coming of age (1980s). Most companies had either expensive tube amps or cheap crappy solid state amps. Crate was the big name. Kids starting out, like me, had Crates, and even some bigger name bands used Crate. Looking back, Crate made a few really nice products. Since their demise, I think Line 6 is now the new 'Crate' brand. Better than the amps of the 80s, the new amps will emulate everything under the sun (some better than others). I really got into tube amps years later, especially the Lee Jackson models. I had some Carvins and Marshalls among them as well. Like most say, I found them to be fiesty, tempermental, and somewhat inconsistant. I tried going back to my solid state amps/preamps, but they lacked something. Pantera was big, and we know what he used (solid state). I KNEW there had to be something else. I think it was about that time that I was getting into recording, and the Rockman gear finally started to make sense (up until that point, I had a bunch of Rockman gear, but couldn't figure out how to get a good sound out of it all). I'm convinced, at this point, that most any recorded amp can be made to sound good - of course that depends on style, band, setting, genre, recording setup, etc. Tube amps are great, but I'm sold on solid state.
Besides Rockmans, are there any other pieces of solid state gear that you find worthy of a listen? Line 6 can be great, but you need to spend a lot of time in the programming, to get it right. The really high-end stuff like Fractal Audio is super. Tech 21 has some very nice tube emulation in their pedals. I was also turned on to the pedal company AMT Electronics. They make solid state pedals that emulate high gain tube amps (as well as other things). http://amtelectronics.com/products/
