Tubes

[zeronyne]

Would love for this to not get political. 
 

Anyone who has seen the email from EHX or the YouTube videos from Know Your Gear or Rhett Schull and others already knows that Russia is no longer exporting tubes. Fender has cut their tube amp production in half, and EHX will no longer be taking tube orders.

 

Obviously prices are not just spiking…some bulk sellers of tubes are already completely out of 6L6s and the like.

 

If this permanently decreases the output of tube production to what is coming from Eastern Europe, do you think manufacturers will try to just increase price to make up for short supplies, or will we finally see modeling technology cross the uncanny valley for the purists? (I’m aware that this is not a binary answer…I hope you gave me enough credit to assume that)

[ElmerJFudd]

33 minutes ago, zeronyne said:

Would love for this to not get political. 
 

Anyone who has seen the email from EHX or the YouTube videos from Know Your Gear or Rhett Schull and others already knows that Russia is no longer exporting tubes. Fender has cut their tube amp production in half, and EHX will no longer be taking tube orders.

 

Obviously prices are not just spiking…some bulk sellers of tubes are already completely out of 6L6s and the like.

 

If this permanently decreases the output of tube production to what is coming from Eastern Europe, do you think manufacturers will try to just increase price to make up for short supplies, or will we finally see modeling technology cross the uncanny valley for the purists? (I’m aware that this is not a binary answer…I hope you gave me enough credit to assume that)

Other tube builders will see demand increase.  Enterprising individuals outside of Russia will see an opportunity to make and sell tubes.  Prices will be high until production scales to demand.  This sounds like an opportunity for Behringer - it seems they have figured out how to bring affordable analogue synths to the market.    
 

Modeling technology has been eating into tube amp sales for a good while now.  We can expect it to continue.  

[KuruPrionz]

So my stash of vintage tubes has now increased in value. I like that. 

 

I have 2 tube amps still, with nice tubes in them. And a Hickok tube tester.

I need to get off my ass and test all of my tubes. Then I can sell everything and live a tube-free life.

 

JJ is not in Russia, they make tubes. Ruby Tubes and others have been made in China, that's not Russia either. 

 

I have owned many tube amps and gigged with most of them. Tubes fail, I don't find that useful. I haven't gigged with tube amps for 2-3 years now and I don't plan on going back. 

 

When inexpensive amps like Boss Katana and Peavey Vypyr sound as good as they do (change the speaker!!!) I see no reason to use tube amps again. 

Some really good plugins out there for recording as well. 

And my friend's Headrush system sounds amazing, including a buttload of great effects. Another friend has the Line 6 Helix. Not cheap but tubes will never fail since there aren't any. 

[ElmerJFudd]

2 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

So my stash of vintage tubes has now increased in value. I like that. 

 

I have 2 tube amps still, with nice tubes in them. And a Hickok tube tester.

I need to get off my ass and test all of my tubes. Then I can sell everything and live a tube-free life.

 

JJ is not in Russia, they make tubes. Ruby Tubes and others have been made in China, that's not Russia either. 

 

I have owned many tube amps and gigged with most of them. Tubes fail, I don't find that useful. I haven't gigged with tube amps for 2-3 years now and I don't plan on going back. 

 

When inexpensive amps like Boss Katana and Peavey Vypyr sound as good as they do (change the speaker!!!) I see no reason to use tube amps again. 

Some really good plugins out there for recording as well. 

And my friend's Headrush system sounds amazing, including a buttload of great effects. Another friend has the Line 6 Helix. Not cheap but tubes will never fail since there aren't any. 

I just did a gig last week with a guy who showed up with a headrush.  What I like the best about it, is how the tone is so often right on for the song and it never has to be loud.   In fact, it's pretty consistent all the time.  Clean sound, over drive, heavy lead.   

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:

I just did a gig last week with a guy who showed up with a headrush.  What I like the best about it, is how the tone is so often right on for the song and it never has to be loud.   In fact, it's pretty consistent all the time.  Clean sound, over drive, heavy lead.   

"Never has to be loud" This is the crux of the biscuit, right here. 

The modeling amps can all sound great at any volume from a whisper to a scream. 

The only way to get a Fender Deluxe to scream is to dime it and guess what? It's LOUD. 

I used to play a dimed Champ through a 12" speaker, that's too loud and it's only about 6 watts maybe. Sounded great but loud just isn't fun any more. 

Add to that - tubes don't last so long when you push them into the tones you like. They get really hot too so you need to bring at least one spare amp.

 

I don't seem to have those problems with solid state gear. There might be one guitarist out in the audience who notices a solid state amp and doesn't like it.

If they never saw it they probably would never know.

[Anderton]

For a while tubes were being made in China and the Slovak countries, but it's difficult to find out the status of production. I talked to one manufacturer who gets tubes from Czechoslovakia but I don't know if they're NOS or recently made. For sure, the bulk of the tubes used by guitar players come out of the Sovtek factory that EHX owns. At this point, tube are a super-niche market that won't get bigger, so there's not a lot of financial incentive for companies to build facilities. Aside from Russia, this Chinese company still seems to be selling tubes. The rumor is that they still produce a limited number of high-end tubes after their factory move, but I don't know the reality. 

 

So tubes may be on their last legs. Another consideration is that environmentally speaking, they kinda suck. Class A amps in particular draw a lot of current, and the things generate heat.

 

I gave up on tubes in the late 60s, and never looked back. I built my own tube amps and at that time, the quality was just too iffy. It got better in later years, but by that time I had already moved on. Bear in mind that I'm not a big fan of the tube sound anyway, I'm more into multiband distortion. Tube nuances become far less relevant under those conditions.

[GovernorSilver]

I have a THD Hotplate that I got for my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe - this was when more peeps were buying power attenuators for their tube amps.   I last used it when my bandmate wanted to record her guitar parts for a demo, in my apartment - almost 15 years ago.

 

I've kept it around, thinking that I'll use it when my guitar playing gets good enough to justify recording with real tubes.    This day has yet to come.  😃

 

For practicing and recording ideas for songs, the amp modeling devices I've used have proven to be up to the task.  If I'm not a good enough player to bring out the differences between the modeled amps in my HX Stomp and a real tube amp, it's not worth the extra effort.

[ToddP]

On 3/13/2022 at 10:44 PM, Anderton said:

For a while tubes were being made in China and the Slovak countries, but it's difficult to find out the status of production. I talked to one manufacturer who gets tubes from Czechoslovakia but I don't know if they're NOS or recently made. For sure, the bulk of the tubes used by guitar players come out of the Sovtek factory that EHX owns. At this point, tube are a super-niche market that won't get bigger, so there's not a lot of financial incentive for companies to build facilities. Aside from Russia, this Chinese company still seems to be selling tubes. The rumor is that they still produce a limited number of high-end tubes after their factory move, but I don't know the reality. 

 

So tubes may be on their last legs. Another consideration is that environmentally speaking, they kinda suck. Class A amps in particular draw a lot of current, and the things generate heat.

 

I gave up on tubes in the late 60s, and never looked back. I built my own tube amps and at that time, the quality was just too iffy. It got better in later years, but by that time I had already moved on. Bear in mind that I'm not a big fan of the tube sound anyway, I'm more into multiband distortion. Tube nuances become far less relevant under those conditions.

JJ in Slovakia is in full production. AFAIK the only other factory is in Russia. China closed its factory in 2019. The factory in China manufactured Ruby, Mesa Boogie, Valve Art, Golden Dragon and other smaller brands of tubes. The factory in Russia manufactured Sovtek, Electro-Harmonix, Mullard, Tung Sol, Gold Lion, Svetlana, Mesa Boogie, and a few smaller brands of tubes. I can only imagine that the QC will suffer as JJ tries to keep up with demand. 

[Greg Mein]

On 3/13/2022 at 10:44 PM, Anderton said:

At this point, tube are a super-niche market that won't get bigger

Class A amps in particular draw a lot of current, and the things generate heat.

 

I bought a Tech 21 Trademark 60 back around 2000 and it became my main guitar gig amp. It was dependable, lightweight, consistent and I got all the sound I needed out of it. I've never been what you'd call a guitar "tone snob" even though it was often my primary instrument in bands. I actually enjoyed poking tube snobs with a stick on forums and even wrote a song called Tube Ode about it years ago.

 

Back in the mid/late 80's I traded a Gibson Les Paul Custom for a '78 Twin Reverb (a sad story I've often lamented) and spent years tweaking and modifying it. It was actually defective out of the factory; the Normal Channel didn't work due to missing wires. I did use the amp at gigs but as the years went by it became a rare occurrence to drag that boat anchor around. I finally sold it a few years ago to a young guy who was thrilled to get it.

 

When I made my best pawn shop score ever; a friend notified me he'd discovered what turned out to be a '59 Les Paul Junior, it also came with a little Gibson Skylark amp. It's a really fun little amp but was never really practical for gigs although it did get out to some. You plug a Telecaster into that thing and the twang will take you right back to Nashville circa 1963!

I used it with the last band I was in where my main function was keyboards/synth/sequencing. I played guitar on a few songs and tried to get away with just using a Tech 21 Fly Rig but they really thought I needed an amp so I started taking this one (it's small and very lightweight) and used the Fly Rig in front of it. The sound company mic'd it, everyone thought it was the bomb and I couldn't disagree. I placed a little battery operated fan on it to keep it from burning up.

 

I don't dislike tube amps, in fact, I love them but I just don't foresee using them on gigs anymore.

[KuruPrionz]

2 hours ago, Greg Mein said:

 

I bought a Tech 21 Trademark 60 back around 2000 and it became my main guitar gig amp. It was dependable, lightweight, consistent and I got all the sound I needed out of it. I've never been what you'd call a guitar "tone snob" even though it was often my primary instrument in bands. I actually enjoyed poking tube snobs with a stick on forums and even wrote a song called Tube Ode about it years ago.

 

Back in the mid/late 80's I traded a Gibson Les Paul Custom for a '78 Twin Reverb (a sad story I've often lamented) and spent years tweaking and modifying it. It was actually defective out of the factory; the Normal Channel didn't work due to missing wires. I did use the amp at gigs but as the years went by it became a rare occurrence to drag that boat anchor around. I finally sold it a few years ago to a young guy who was thrilled to get it.

 

When I made my best pawn shop score ever; a friend notified me he'd discovered what turned out to be a '59 Les Paul Junior, it also came with a little Gibson Skylark amp. It's a really fun little amp but was never really practical for gigs although it did get out to some. You plug a Telecaster into that thing and the twang will take you right back to Nashville circa 1963!

I used it with the last band I was in where my main function was keyboards/synth/sequencing. I played guitar on a few songs and tried to get away with just using a Tech 21 Fly Rig but they really thought I needed an amp so I started taking this one (it's small and very lightweight) and used the Fly Rig in front of it. The sound company mic'd it, everyone thought it was the bomb and I couldn't disagree. I placed a little battery operated fan on it to keep it from burning up.

 

I don't dislike tube amps, in fact, I love them but I just don't foresee using them on gigs anymore.

I owned and gigged a Tech 21 Trademark 60 about 10 years ago. I liked it, also had a Trademark 10 which I wish I'd kept. 

We have lots of options now that sound great. I notice the same things, the presets are way over the top and don't sound like what I want to sound like. You have to learn how that amp responds and dial in the tones you love but they are usually there. Some of the plugins sound amazing as well, and the pedal solutions like the Fly Rig and the Helix. I wish Peavey made a modern Vypyr floor pedal, I love the VIP series. One of the best analog solid state "tube" amps out there if you put a good speaker in them. 

[Anderton]

29 minutes ago, KuruPrionz said:

...the presets are way over the top and don't sound like what I want to sound like.

 

No kidding. I use only a handful of effects in most of my Helix presets. Mostly I'm just looking for a good amp+cab replacement, and Helix does that just fine once you know how the parameters affect the sound.

 

I definitely have a nostalgic space for tubes...taking them down to the tube tester at the local drug store, and picking up a shiny new 12AX7. In the winter, the warm orange glow and heat generated by an All-American 5-tube superheterodyne made the nights go a little better, especially when I could tune in stations from thousands of miles away when the atmospheric conditions were right. For power amps, you had those big-ass 6146s with the little cap on top.

 

But I think the best place for tubes to live is in my memory...I like the current solid-state reality a whole lot better. 

[KuruPrionz]

59 minutes ago, Anderton said:

 

No kidding. I use only a handful of effects in most of my Helix presets. Mostly I'm just looking for a good amp+cab replacement, and Helix does that just fine once you know how the parameters affect the sound.

 

I definitely have a nostalgic space for tubes...taking them down to the tube tester at the local drug store, and picking up a shiny new 12AX7. In the winter, the warm orange glow and heat generated by an All-American 5-tube superheterodyne made the nights go a little better, especially when I could tune in stations from thousands of miles away when the atmospheric conditions were right. For power amps, you had those big-ass 6146s with the little cap on top.

 

But I think the best place for tubes to live is in my memory...I like the current solid-state reality a whole lot better. 

I still have a nice stash of vintage tubes, I gutted a few thrift store organs, sold amps and speakers and kept the tubes.

And I have 2 tube amps, a converted Hammond, now a variant of a Fender 5D3 Deluxe (50's) and a hi-fi amp that has become a Top Cut channel from a 58 Vox AC 15.

I keep them so I can test all the tubes and sell them but I don't seem to get around to it. Great amps but too loud for me if I want that tube tone. I can get a Vypyr to scream at a whisper and it feels right. 

A friend has a Helix and gets great tones with it. I know they are in there but I'm scared to sound like Mr. Guitar Center Boy so I never goof off with them at music shops. 

[The Real MC]

1 hour ago, KuruPrionz said:

I'm scared to sound like Mr. Guitar Center Boy so I never goof off with them at music shops. 

I don't mind a couple of people trying amps out.

 

But ten teenage novice wankers all at the same time is too much.  I learned to stay out of GCs outside of school hours.

[KuruPrionz]

1 hour ago, The Real MC said:

I don't mind a couple of people trying amps out.

 

But ten teenage novice wankers all at the same time is too much.  I learned to stay out of GCs outside of school hours.

It really depends. I went in once and a couple of Canadians were checking stuff out. They were great jazz guitarists and were cutting heads back and forth. 

People probably pay to see them and worth it. 

I won't describe the bad stuff I've heard, we've all been afflicted.