Why Are The Steel Guitar Amps Solid State?

[Dennis Burling]

Looking around at different Amps for Steel Guitar, I noticed that a lot of the ones I've read about on this forum, Fender Steel King, Peavey Nashville and Peavey Sessions, are solid state, not tube amps. Being new to the lap steel and pedal steel, I'm wondering why this is.

If you were buying an amp for the lap steel and/or pedal steel, what would you go with considering it would be for home use and jams, not a band situation?

Does it make any difference if it's for lap steel or pedal steel?

[Donny Hinson]

Yes, it makes a difference. Lap steelers often like a little grit and distortion, as they often don't use a volume pedal, Pedal steelers, on the other hand, like clean tones and ample power.

Solid state amps have the advantage of being lighter, more powerful, more reliable, more versatile, cheaper, and far more widely used nowadays than tube amps.

Tube amps have the advantage of having better sounding distortion.

If it weren't for the "distortion aspect", tube guitar amps would have long ago gone the way of the tube radio, the tube television, and the tube computer. (That is, into oblivion.)

[Dennis Burling]

Yes, it makes a difference. Lap steelers often like a little grit and distortion, as they often don't use a volume pedal, Pedal steelers, on the other hand, like clean tones and ample power.

Solid state amps have the advantage of being lighter, more powerful, more reliable, more versatile, cheaper, and far more widely used nowadays than tube amps.

Tube amps have the advantage of having better sounding distortion.

If it weren't for the "distortion aspect", tube guitar amps would have long ago gone the way of the tube radio, the tube television, and the tube computer. (That is, into oblivion.)

Donny, thanks for the info. I'm getting started with the Lap Steel. I want clean tone. I don't care for distortion at all. So maybe I'm different than most Lap Steel players. I also play six string guitar, mostly electric. I'm the same with the electric guitar, I like clean tone. That being said, with electric guitar, I find solid state amps to be to sterile sounding, lacking warmth and fullness I hear from tube amps. I agree, distortion or overdrive sounds better with a tube amp with electric guitar.

Maybe a should check into one of the solid state amps made for steel guitar. besides the Steel King, Nashville and Sessions amps, what other amps would be good amps to check out?

[Joe Gretz]

I have found that bass amps do a great job for a clean sound, a keyboard amp would be good too. Since I'm primarily a bassist, I have plenty of such amps to experiment with, and they work great for me. One problem though is that bass amps never have reverb, which is a nice thing for steels IMHO!

Loud and clean with a nice tight low end!

YMMV!

Joe

[b0b]

Lots of pedal steel players use a Fender Twin Reverb or (more recently) the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Also, the old Mesa/Boogie Studio Preamp is still very popular among steel players. I personally use a Mesa/Boogie Maverick Prototype on stage, and an old Fender Princeton in my little music room. A few lucky people still use the old Standell tube amps.

Pedal steel sounds good through many different tube amps. The main requirements are a loud, clean sound with good bass response. Most steel players don't like the weight of high powered tube amps, which is the main reason they switched to solid state.

[Jim Ives]

I play through either a Nashville 112 or 1000 (both solid state) and the Fender Deluxe (tube). It is a question of what sounds best to you. The Deluxe is a tiny bit lees powerful but still ample amp (get it!)
-Jim

[Lynn Oliver]

Dennis, I'm not much further along than you in this process, but wanted to share some thoughts:

You don't need much power for practice--something like a Roland MicroCube may be plenty.

Lap steel vs. Pedal steel requirements--this may be the wrong question. I think it depends more on what style you play and what type of sound you are looking for.

Solid state vs. Tubes--people have different preferences of course, but clearly solid state amps are often chosen for light weight and reliability.

If I was buying something today, I'd look into a tube preamp with a switching amp (like the Sarno Tonic and the TC Furlong SPLIT).

[Dennis Burling]

It sounds pretty much the like the same way my different guitar pick'n friends feel. different strokes, for different folks.

I'm using a small battery powered Vox DA10 with my Lap Steel lessons. It's sitting next to my desk top computer. I don't have a lot of room in my office for anything else. Surprisingly, the Lap Steel sounds very good through this little amp.

The Bad news is I sold my Hot Rod Deluxe about a month ago. The good news is I have a Princeton Reverb that's a great sounding amp. I also have a Genz Benz Shenandoah Pro acoustic amp. I can turn off the tweeter, so I may give it a try also. The Victoria Victorilux 115 I sold might have been a good match for the Lap Steel.

On a side note, a buddy of mine in North Carolina offered to loan me his Carter Starter Pedal Steel. He doesn't use it at all. I'm thinking I'd be better off sticking with with the Lap Steel for now. I think it would be confusing trying to back and forth between the two.

Are the Carter Starter's a decent Pedal Steel? I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth, I'm just thinking how critical is is to have a guitar with good playability when you're starting out.

[Brad Sarno]

If it weren't for the "distortion aspect", tube guitar amps would have long ago gone the way of the tube radio, the tube television, and the tube computer. (That is, into oblivion.)

Hi Donny. Again. This is getting fun. I must completely and absolutely disagree with what you said here in the above quote. In my experience, tubes do "clean" better than transistors. Tubes are not only for distortion (although that's very true that tubes rule in that realm of overdrive and distortion). Ask a studio engineer or audiophile. You'll see tubes all over the place in extremely expensive and extremely clean applications. Tubes can be run extremely clean and with very high fidelity (low distortion), and they have a certain character that's different than the sound of transistors when run perfectly clean. They serve a purpose when you want that sound. People don't still record with Neumann U47's worth $10k because they sound distorted. They don't master our favorite records thru tube EQ's and compressors because they sound distorted. Pedal steelers don't necessarily use tube amps and tube preamps because they sound distorted. It's because they sound glorious when run clean. They can shimmer and sparkle with amazing sweetness and clarity yet without harshness. Just ask Lloyd Green or Tom Brumley to name a few.

There are very practical reasons why transistor amps have become the norm for steel, and mainly it has to do with the power to weight ratio. Other than that, it's really hard to argue that transistors actually have a better tone.

IMHO,


Brad

[Bill Moran]

Well said Brad ! Buddy Emmons as well as most of the super pickers are using your pre amp's.
As for me, I just love the sweetness of tubes. I use solid state amps, because of the weight, but I use a Black Box up front for the tube tone.
If everyone were alike we would all be driving a
Chevy !!

[Dennis Burling]

Well said Brad ! Buddy Emmons as well as most of the super pickers are using your pre amp's.
As for me, I just love the sweetness of tubes. I use solid state amps, because of the weight, but I use a Black Box up front for the tube tone.
If everyone were alike we would all be driving a
Toyota !!

Hey Bill, I drive a Toyota Tundra and love it.

[Bill Moran]

Hi Dennis : I didn't mean to single out any one brand. This is the USA. You can support any country you want. USA,Jap,Germany,ect

[Dennis Burling]

Hi Dennis : I didn't mean to single out any one brand. This is the USA. You can support any country you want. USA,Jap,Germany,ect

Bill, I was kidding around with ya

[David Doggett]

What Brad said. It's that harmonically rich but clean tube tone of a Fender silver-face Twin, Showman or Vibrosonic that I love for steel. Mine play clean to the top and don't really distort at any volume. I have some black-face Fenders and other amps that distort, and these are great for blues and rock, but they can't deliver that clean tube tone for country and jazz.

The new Peavey Nashville 112 is light-weight, but the old Sessions, NV400 and NV1000 really aren't that much lighter than a Twin, so I'm not sure how big a factor weight was back in the '70s when Peavey first came out with those ultraclean, powerful solid-state steel amps. At that time many steelers were used to the old distorting black-face Fenders and were very happy to get the ultra-clean and powerful solid-state steel amps. The whole herd converted over to solid-state. Now I think many steelers are coming back to the silver-face Fenders, which are a good compromise between the distorting black-face Fenders or guitar tube amps, and the ultra-clean but sterile solid-state steel amps.

Lap steelers are mostly all about vintage tone, and that definitely means tube amps.

[Brad Sarno]

Yeah David,

that's what I'm talking about. A Twin Reverb or similar is a super clean amp if you don't hog up all it's power. A great clean sound. Undeniable.

It's funny, I observe a trend that seemed to happen in the mid '70s when so many people went to transistor amps. Suddenly, crisp and unpleasant treble became a new issue to reckon with. And in response to this harsh treble problem, people began to wind pickups higher and higher to tame the treble and darken the tone a bit. By the '80s it seems that PSG had a new tone to some degree. Transistor amps and hot, very midrangy pickups. The modern amps tended to offer LOTS of midrange, treble, and high treble tone control to address this harshness.

Then you hear so much talk of the classic, great steel tones, and every one of them, literally it seems that every example of the legendary great steel tones were made with less-hot-wound pickups that had more treble response thru tube amps or at least hybrid tube/ss rigs. I know this is just my theory, but I just can't get away from the fact that my favorite steel albums were nearly all made by using tube amps.

Some Nashville studio engineers say that tube rigs are much easier to mix. One guy said that the way he mixes steel is that he turns it up until the harshness bothers him, then he backs down. With tube rigs he can turn the steel up much louder because the harshness just isn't there. Much if not most of the steel we hear even on modern recordings is done with tubes as well.

It seems that lately I see a lot of guys going back to the good old high power Fender amps.


Brad

[Dennis Burling]

What David and Brad had to say in the above post is what I was thinking. But I thought there was some reason (other than lighter weight and power) that the specific Steel guitar amps were solid state. Like they sound better than tube amps for Steel Guitar.

I've tried a few of the more popular solid state amps for electric guitar in the past and ended up spending my time trying to tweak the sound to my liking. It finally hit me, it was the tube warmth I was missing. Heck, even my Genz Benz Shenandoau Pro Acoustic amp has a tube preamp that you can dial in the amount of tube pre to your liking. I bet a Super Reverb would sound great with a steel guitar.

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

I am also not entirely convinced that the weight-to-watts argument is that strong in favor of transistor amps. I recently sold my Nashville 112 because, for giving up my preferred sound of tubes, I wasn’t really gaining anything weight-wise. 40+ pounds is a lot lighter than a twin, but it is not "light" per se. It still is a noticeable heft if you have to carry it a long distance with a steel in the other hand.

To replace the 112, I put a black-face tremolux chassis in a new Rick Johnson combo cab. With the speaker added it comes in slightly lighter than the Nashville 112. Admittedly, I need to use an outboard reverb unit here and I lose some of the bells and whistles of the Peavey (headphone in, effects loop, etc.), but when it comes down to it, I wasn't getting a "light" amp in the 112 so I went with a similar weight tube solution. My Weber 12F150 arrives next week (to replace the generic eminence speaker that’s currently in there) and should round out a very nice little tube amp.

Dan

[Bobby Snell]

Well-maintained 100-watt tube amps can be expensive and fragile. A beat-up Twin with blue-label speakers would start distorting past most steeler's tastes at around 3. If the six-stringers are using big amps, the steel is lost.


Hartley Peavey gave steel players a tool to keep up with all those Twin Reverb guitarists. And a fraction of the cost. And you could drop them off the back of a pickup and they still work. And they sound about the same from volume 3-10.

The band situatio dictates the amp needed. If the band has bass, drums, and the guitarists are using 30-watt tube amps, then the steeler needs more than a small tube amp for clean, volume pedal playing. If there is no bass and drums and the guitar is acoustic, then a Vibrolux is fine.

[Donny Hinson]

Brad, it's fine to disagree. But, in the realm of the tube amp (for musical instrument purposes, not high-end studio and audiophile gear), I find almost no straight guitarists who buy tube amps for anything other than their wonderful overdrive and distortion characteristics.

I mean, just how many guitar players can you name that don't use distortion or overdrive? Oh sure, there's a few Atkins stylists left that represent what....maybe 1% of the players?

[Dennis Burling]

Brad, it's fine to disagree. But, in the realm of the tube amp (for musical instrument purposes, not high-end studio and audiophile gear), I find almost no straight guitarists who buy tube amps for anything other than their wonderful overdrive and distortion characteristics.

I mean, just how many guitar players can you name that don't use distortion or overdrive? Oh sure, there's a few Atkins stylists left that represent what....maybe 1% of the players?

I guess I'm in that 1% There's a lot of guys my age (61)who are "Clean" players. Well, at least the guys I hang around with.

[Dan Beller-McKenna]

Brad, it's fine to disagree. But, in the realm of the tube amp (for musical instrument purposes, not high-end studio and audiophile gear), I find almost no straight guitarists who buy tube amps for anything other than their wonderful overdrive and distortion characteristics.

That looks like a Fender Tube amp Dale's playing through here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPWzVNDY ... 3&index=40

Sounds nice, clean, and tubey to me.

Dan

[Jack Stoner]

I used to work as an amp tech (in Nashville) and I ONLY use solid state amps for pedal steel. I played through an AB768 Fender twin for about 12 years, first with two 12" JBL D-120F's and later with one 15" K130 JBL. The amp was working "perfect" but when I went to my first solid state steel amp, a Session 500 I was amazed at the clarity and response, compared to the Twin. Within two months of buying the Session 500 the Twin was history.

However, if I was still playing lead exclusively or primarily I would have a Fender tube amp.

Allan Frizzell (Lefty and David's younger brother) made a statement the first time I worked with him. At the time I had a Nashville 400 and our lead player plays a Strat through a Deluxe Reverb. He commented that I had the right amp for steel and the lead player had the right amp for lead. Alan was playing an old Tele, that Haggard gave him, and a Fender (don't remember which model) at the time.

[David Doggett]

Well-maintained 100-watt tube amps can be expensive and fragile. A beat-up Twin with blue-label speakers would start distorting past most steeler's tastes at around 3. If the six-stringers are using big amps, the steel is lost.


Hartley Peavey gave steel players a tool to keep up with all those Twin Reverb guitarists. And a fraction of the cost. And you could drop them off the back of a pickup and they still work. And they sound about the same from volume 3-10.

There's the classic reason so many steelers switched to SS steel amps in the '70s. But notice he refers to a beat-up Twin, possibly a black-face model, that starts distorting around 3. But the 100-135 watt silver-face Twins of the late '70s don't distort even on 10 (that's why guitar players disdain them). Steelers gave up on Twins and converted to SS just as the Twins were getting their loudest and cleanest. And if that wasn't enough clean headroom, there was the 180 watt Super Twin introduced around 1980, which also played clean to the top.

A 100-135 SF Twin set up to play clean to the top will match any Peavey SS steel amp for volume except the 300 watt NV1000. The Super Twin will match the NV1000. Sure, a SF Twin or Super Twin will be a little above 1% THD, but that's the warmth and texture many of us love. It is not full on distortion, but is a clean tube sound.

It is true pedal steel with a volume pedal needs a much bigger amp than a guitar player. In a rockabilly and alt-country band with guitar players playing dimed Deluxes in rock clubs, I had to go to either two Twins or a Super Twin. But my 200 watt SS NV400 also didn't cut it, and at top volume it didn't have clarity - it had blare. Probably a NV1000 would have had enough volume, but I much preferred the tone of a Super Twin to solid-state tone, and so did everyone else in the band.

Jack Stoner's post is another example of a country steeler who wanted Hi-Fi clarity without a hint of distortion. But I'm surprised he didn't realize how clean the late '70s SF Twins and Super Twins could be.

Donny, I think you misunderstood Brad. He didn't say guitar players don't use and love tube amps for distortion and overdrive. He merely pointed to some examples of clean tube tone that is also available.

[Dave Mudgett]

I have to say that, after a lifetime as a largely tube-amp-only guitar player, I have had to confess that I find some solid-state amps sound absolutely fabulous for clean pedal steel. If you can get the tone you want from solid-state, why deal with a PITA tube amp that constantly needs tubes and maintenance? If tubes are the only thing that work, great. But I don't think it's the only excellent option for clean pedal steel.

Something I've been finding lately is that there is a strong matching issue between guitar/steel, pickups, volume pedal, effects, and amp. I mentioned this on an earlier thread this week, but I was startled to discover just how great my Zum with a Lawrence 912 pickup sounds through a Nashville 1000, to the point where I had to have one. A lot of players have told me they just had no luck with these amps - and not all my guitars seem to work with mine. But my Zum and Emmons guitars just sound fabulous through that 1000, to my tastes.

IMO, all amps distort to some degree - it's the amount and character of distortion that is important. But it's not the only important issue. Frequency response is also critical, as is the ability to control it.

I also disagree with the stereotypical "tube amps are only for distorted guitar tones". Lots of blues, country, pop, jazz, rockabilly, and even other types of rock and roll guitar use pretty clean tones. I rarely push an old blackface/silverface Fender into heavy distortion. There's something that I think is fairly intangible about those old tube amps, and it's not only heavy distortion.

But I also hear lots of good guitar tones from solid-state amps. Various types of clean and not-so-clean tones are part of the arsenal of a really versatile guitarist.

Try everything you can and use what works for you.

My opinions, of course.

[Donny Hinson]

I guess I'm in that 1% There's a lot of guys my age (61)who are "Clean" players. Well, at least the guys I hang around with.

Yeah Dennis, most all the "clean players" are the older guys. There's probably a dozen of them in this country alone!

I can think of only one I've heard lately, Scotty Anderson. He's a young guy, and in a world chock full of distorted and overdriven Teles, his playing is refreshingly clean (and totally awesome).