Recording - November 2009 - 30

This amp has some interesting features, such as the Vai “Hidden Feature”: If you back off the volume knob on your guitar while having a generous amount of Drive on the lead channel of the amp (set approximately at 6), the channel actually “cleans up”. Vai requested this feature while Carvin was designing his amp, and it’s useful for playing rhythm and lead without switching channels. It also responds to the intensity of your playing, so it becomes very dynamic. ~ Peavey JSX® 212 Combo: The Joe Satriani signature amp [see Fig. 6a] is very versatile in tones and has some cool features. This amp is paired with custom JSX Peavey speakers, and this combination provides one of my favorite distortions for warm tube sounds, great for, well Satch-like tones, due to the perfect match between the preamp, power amp and cab. I appreciated this “real-life” perfection when I tried to match those tones with the virtual cabs that I normally tend to go for. The moral here is that maybe the generic amps will be easier to match up with the sounds that you crave, but then again, unusual pairings could lead to unique sounds that could help you stand out from the crowd. On the back panel [see Fig. 6b] we find a very handy Ground Polarity switch, a High/Low Power switch (for higher or lower output volumes, the latter is great for high levels of distortion from the power amp section at lower volumes, great for HGRM), a Line Out with level knob, the Speaker Outputs, the Cabinet good sounding amp through great emulations is a good path towards good tone, even if you need to invest more time getting the right settings. The 1990 is feature rich in both tonal variety and connectivity. On the back [see Fig. 8b], you’ll find a footswitch jack (Bugera Footswitch included), an FX Loop Send/Return and a Level knob (very cool), a Line Output section with Recording and Direct jacks (sounds like we’ll be using these!), a 3-way impedance selector switch (16/8/4 ohms), the Loudspeaker outs and a Triode/Pentode Power Mode switch (for 120- or 60-Watt operation). Besides the obvious connections from the Loudspeaker outputs to a power attenuator and then to a line-level input on your DAW’s audio interface, this amp offers two more interfacing options, Fig: 8a Impedance switch (16/8/4 ohms), and the FX Send/Return jacks, each with a level control. The latter is pretty handy as you can turn both controls to higher settings and use the effects loop as a footswitchable volume boost. The Send and Return levels should be set in opposite proportions to achieve unity gain and match the level with the bypassed signal when actually connecting effects, and for quiet operation. ~ Marshall Artist 4203: This is a cool little 30-Watt tube-equipped combo amp [see Fig. 7]. From what I understand, it’s unique in the sense that it uses a solid-state preamp section but a power tube amp section. It sports one 12AX7, but its function is as a phase inverter, not a preamp gain stage. It’s paired with a Marshall G12 Vintage by Celestion speaker, and this little guy sounds great. On the back it has an impedance select switch, from 4 to 8 ohms. The Artist 4203 also has a Line Out jack with which you can send directly to your DAW, but I thought it didn’t sound as great as using the speaker outs. As always, experimenting is key. ~ Bugera 1990: This is a newer contender in the amp realm that is making waves for the affordability and impressive tones of its products. The 1990 [see Fig. 8a] offers a hi-gain sound that is said to approximate the classic British tones in a scary way. I was very impressed by how great this 120-Watt amp sounded when cranked up and plugged into a 4x12 speaker cabinet with Celestion Vintage 30s. Initially I was not as spellbound by the tones I was getting using HGRM, it seemed to require more tweaking. But a Fig: 8b both found under the Line Output section: The “Recording” jack offers a filter to optimize the signal for a recording device or PA. It performed very well with HGRM. The DI out supplies an “unfiltered” signal—try it and see if you can make it work for you. This is NOT The End We still have a ways to go with this HGRM. Next we have to move from the physical (guitars, pedals, amps, power soaks, cables, etc.) into the virtual and examine the ways we can use tracks in our DAWs to achieve the mixing and matching of cabinet simulation that provides the crucial ingredient to our HGRM. Then we’ll have to inspect a selection of plug-ins that can do that emulation. All this we’ll do soon in another edition of Recording, together with an update on more related hardware that came to us late in the preparation of this article. Stay tuned, and check out the audio examples at www.recordingmag.com. Fernando Curiel (curiel@recordingmag.com) is a guitarist, engineer, and the Editor of Recording’s Spanish-language sister publication Músico Pro. Fig: 7a Fig: 7bRECORDING NOVEMBER 2009

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Recording - November 2009

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