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NAD - Blackstar Stage-100


Kramerguy

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Sorry forgot to take a pic but it looks like all the pics online :) weighs a TON. More than anything else though- it sounds freeking amazing!

 

This has been a monkey on my back for years- I've been playing through digital modelers from Digitech and Line 6 for the last 10 years.. so much programming, tweaking, etc.. only to set up next to another guitarist playing a blues jr, or JCM or anything with a tube, and in every case, their tone blowing mine away. Every time.

 

Finally, I can stand proudly next to these guys and say "you want some TONE?!... "

 

Seriously though, I just took it to the studio today and played it for the first time, and OMG, the clean channel alone is stellar, probably the greatest thing about the amp. I think this is the best purchase I've made in the last 10+ years. Stoked for band practice Tuesday night!!

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Tubes are cool man.

 

I wouldn't knock modelers too much. The trick is to use them properly. Oversaturation has its place but the fact is, they can become a crutch for your playing. 9 times out of 10 when you dial up a setting at low volume, you have too much gain for playing loud.

 

Saturation and volume have an inverse relationship. The more you turn up, the less saturation you need. I'm guilty of it myself.

 

Fact is, High volume + High saturation makes the guitar sound small. Reason being is it has no dynamics left. Its comfortable as hell to have high gain for playing because your picking hand is "masked" by this gain. Your soft picking is just as loud as your hard picking and you don't have to work hard to get your notes to sound even.

 

There is a way to dial in pedals so you have gain and dynamics. The way I do it is to adjust the saturation so it peaks maximum when I pick my strings as hard as possible. When I ease off and pick lightly, I want clean tones or a slight jangle. In between you have half and half. Then when I turn my volume down from 10 to 8 it cleans up and this is where I'll adjust my frequency response. These settings mimic a tube amps response the best and the most I may have to do is kick on a compressor at the beginning of the chain for endless lead sustain.

 

Having the two extremes ensures you have "maximum dynamic pick response" It will make you work harder to get notes to come through clearly but no one said guitar playing is supposed to be easy.

 

You should always remember, dynamic loudness changes "is" what gives music its "emotional" content. Turning up volume with a pedal "is not" the same thing as digging in harder with a pick and making the music go up in volume. The analogy is, you can have someone speak in a quiet voice. If they gradually raise their voice up and up until they are screaming at the top of their lungs, their voice will get raspy. You will feel this change in volume and raspiness emotionally. It may be a sign of anger, or just hyped energy. Preachers in church are especially good at using this technique to keep their followers awake.

 

 

The key is, the proper use of dynamics grabs your attention. Without a contrast between silence and maximum volume half of your musical expression is missing. Having too much drive produces a monotone droning sound that peoples ears block out easily. With dynamics, that part of the brain isn't allowed to go to sleep, and when you get good at using dynamics, you in fact take people on an emotional journey as well as a musical one.

 

Tube amps are cool. I'd put your pedals to bed for awhile and learn how to use the amp effectively. Learn how to coax all the dynamics from it till you have it mastered. Then at some later date, reintroduce using the pedals to "expand" your expression by adding a little icing on the cake, not as a substitute which dominates everything with a heavy layer of noise. Pedals are cool but they should only be tools used to enhance your music, not block it.

 

You'll likely fine tweaks to your instrument work out much better too. You'll be able to hear any flaws in great detail. Any tweaks you do will be zeroed in to the center of that amps tube tone that uses even order harmonics instead of some transistorized pedal that uses odd order harmonics. Pitches will sound truer to your ears and they actually will be because tubes produce realistic ratios of second, third, 4th (etc) order harmonics. Transistors can make notes sound like they are out of tune even though the tuner says they are in tune. Its why tubes are favored by guitarists. Strings that are loaded with harmonics and tubes give those harmonics a natural three dimensional sound SS devices have never been able to completely recreate.

 

 

Anyway, enjoy. I'm sure you'll have endless hours of satisfaction. :music014:

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Hey thanks for the intro, I guess in my haste I should have mentioned that I've been playing close to 40 years, and played tubes up until the mid-90's or so, then discovered the Quadraverb, midi, and so on..

 

Before then, I loved my old marshall JCM combo, and modeled my playing somewhat after Page, using medium gain and presence with volume to get exactly that pick attack you speak of (dirty on the hard attack and clean on the light). The digital stuff was great for a lot of things, but plugging into analog gear wasn't one of them, so I ended up embracing solid state and DI for many years.

 

My most recent digital purchase was the Line 6 HD Pro X.. and I do have to give it some credit- when set up and tweaked, more than a few of the amp models had thumping lows, and pick attack was more natural than modelers of previous generations. Another problem I have with digital is the 2-3 year max lifespan.. the stuff just doesn't last, especially when you are gigging with it regularly.

 

The problem is / was, that even on the best settings, through the best SS clean amps (no coloring), and considering that in a recording situation that the digital sounds nearly as good as anything else..... The digital setup cannot touch a good tube amp in a live application, with exception to some odd styles like Shoegaze or something etherial that doesn't need so much direct presence. But with playing rock, hard rock, blues, anything you'd find on 'guitar hero'.. the modelers just can't cut it when playing next to a decent tube amp. I've tried. And tried. I've swapped out different amps and digital gear- I've run the gamut, to the tune of probably $10k in supporting gear over the last 5 years especially, and believe me, the Pure tube amp wins every single time. In trying to match tones , we had edged the gains / volume / EQ.. taken it down to basics, and just nothing could bring any of my modelers to the presence / punch / tone of the well-dialed-in tube amp.

 

For me, it's been a longing for about a year now.. trying to convince myself to stay on digital because of the investments, and finally giving in and just buying the new head. Soon as I plugged it in and strummed.. it floored me. This is what I've been missing.

 

Not all is lost- last night I reset my HDx and turned off all modeling, cabs, and EQ. I setup new patches for FX only, so I still have a spectacular multi-effects box to run (in stereo!) through the FX loop, and out to my stereo CAB. It's going to be bad-ass! I won't be able to get back to the amp until rehearsal on Tuesday, but I'm going to run it that way and see how the FX chain sounds, and if it's less than stellar, I will just start selling off the digital and get stompboxes. There's some amazing stomps out there anyways :)

 

 

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