Members cmw Posted April 19, 2006 Members Share Posted April 19, 2006 I purchased a used TubeWorks RT-922 Real Tube II on ebay, which arrived yesterday. After spending a couple hours with it last night, I just could not get a decent sound out of the thing, despite it's rave reviews on harmony central. Mind you, I have never played through a tube amp (or preamp) before, so I didn't really know what to expect. Before I get carried away, let me say that the clean channel, while still a little ditry, sounded pretty good, but the distortion channel was all fizzy and just grating to my ears. Maybe I'm just used to more modern distortion sounds. It was very harsh and biting. Currently, I run a GNX3000 into my rack. It sounds pretty good to me, but with all the hype about tubes, I wanted to give the tube thing a shot. The rack consists of: Behringer BTR2000 Rack Tuner Samson PowerBrite PB9 Lexicon MX200 Effects Processor BBE Sonic Maximizer 422A DOD 231 Two Channel 31 Band EQ Behringer Patch Bay (and a Rocktron HUSH IICX on the way) I use the patch bay right now just to give me some ins and outs. Two outs run into the mixer, and subsequently two Event TRN6 monitors. Two outs also run into two Crate KBA150 150W keyboard amp combos. I definately had better luck getting a half-way usable sound out of the Crates than the nearfield monitors. So what is the problem? Could the tubes be bad? They look stock to me. They have a big yellow "II" logo on them, just like II on the front of the uniit. Plus, they look like they might be hot-glued into place. Could it be that the GNX (with it's built in cab models and speaker compensation) sounds better through a "full frequency" amp (ie, keyboard amp / reference monitor)? And if so ... how do I deal with that? Could it be that it's just not the sound I'm looking for? This thing has 2 12AX7's and the ability to stack channel 1 & channel 2, so I was hoping for a heavier sound (something like an MP-1). Perhaps it's all three! Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Themetallikid Posted April 28, 2006 Members Share Posted April 28, 2006 not to change your thread topic, but what do you think of that behringer tuner? pro's vs. con's I'm thinking of getting one, but I'm skeptical Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cmw Posted April 28, 2006 Author Members Share Posted April 28, 2006 The behringer tuner is great. Keep in mind that I've never used the Korg rack tuner. I like the fact that it's always on. I find that I now notice when I'm slightly out of tune and it's great to visually see how off or on your string bends are. It seems to track quickly enough for my tastes. The four LED lights that shine down on the rest of the rack are a nice touch as well. It has different tuning modes, but I just use the chromatic. It also has a built in metronome, but no speaker, so I don't use it. Seems pointless to have a metronome sound running through the rest of your rig, and cumbersome to run it out of the rack to someplace else. I did find that when I ran a wet signal through it, it had a hard time tracking, but that's to be expected. I'm running into it dry now and it works just fine. On my original topic, I solved my tone problems as well by running my guitar into the input in the RT922 and then running from the instrument level dry-out on that into the instrument level input on the GNX3000. Then I just created some clean patches on the GNX for when i want to use overdrive channel on the RT922. Once I realized that in this scenario, the GNX is in fact acting as my "amp/cab" ... it all made sense. The added benefit of all this is that the RT922 also has a line level dry out that I run up into the rack tuner. I think the line level input helps it track even faster, plus now I can turn use the volume pedal on the GNX to mute myself and still tune. I just ordered some new tubes from dougstubes.com so that should help matters even further as the current tubes are still kinda fizzy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Cougar Hunter Posted April 28, 2006 Members Share Posted April 28, 2006 you need guitar cabinets bro. It sounds like your are running your gear through full-range speaker systems (which is fine with modelers and preamps with cab sims). You need some straight up 12" speakers and a regular power amp. The fizziness is probably coming from a combination of tweeters, horns, ports, the bbe, the eq, etc. you can still use a huge rack, just get real cabs and a real power amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members leadfootdriver Posted April 30, 2006 Members Share Posted April 30, 2006 I'd leave out the BBE, and the 31-band eq for awhile. Less is more tone wise IMO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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