Done bought a vox ac30

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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Pens »

Yeah, the Rat is a special kind of pedal. I have played and built so many of them at this point, and one thing I always noticed: it either sounds like trash, or goddamn amazing. It depends on what amp you run it through. A good, clean tube amp is the best for them. I picked up an attenuator on a holiday sale, so I could use my Twin at home for practicing and recording without blowing out my hearing. Through that, the Rat sounds fucking incredible. Through all of my other amps, it sounds way too harsh.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by ekwatts »

Hurb wrote: Tue Dec 06, 2022 9:22 pm So you really don't like greenbacks Eric? Haha
I think they are too low wattage for the 1x12 anyway from what I've looked into it.

I have brought my silverline home from the practice space to have a play about. Firstly to see if I can get it to sound anything like the ac30 (which would kinda make the ac30 redundant as the silverline is way more practical) and then try it through the blackstar cab v12s. My bass player has the cc2 vox amp with greenbacks in so will get to try it through some greenbacks anyway.

For the places we will play up here this setup would be too big...but it looks pretty!
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After that post I thought I'd go and look up what other people had to say about Greenbacks and apparently the consensus seems to be that they sound "better" the more of them that you have. I imagine that part of that also involves being able to potentially turn the amp up past 0.5 on the volume, too. But yeah, something about them in that 2x12 just sounded bad to me at the time.

I think at the time I was kind of really taken with the idea of these old classic valve combos, like Fender twins and AC30s, and I had an idea of what they were "meant" to sound like in my head, and the AC30 just didn't match up. Combine that with the fact that neither me or my brother were in band situations that meant we could really utilise such a crushingly, insanely, disturbingly loud amp like the AC30, so the whole thing was kind of wasted in the first place.

Somebody come at me with an example of a Greenback-equipped 4x12 cab teamed with a Matamp and maybe I'd change my mind, who knows? Plus, my tastes have almost definitely changed anyway.

But I've just always found it funny that I fucking hated that "classic" Greenback AC30 sound. It's like reading about chocolate all your life, and then you finally get your hands on some and think it's fucking shite, but it was actually one of those weird gourmet chocolate bars that have like fucking salt, avocado or chilli in it or something and you end up like "Chocolate is fucking shite!" I guess.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Pens »

Not to put another idea out there, but personally I swapped in Eminence Legend 1218s into my Twin and it made me very happy. I also am not a huge fan of Greenbacks, they are just really, really overdone to me, but it's whatever. I can attest, though, that the Legends sound amazing in a mega-clean loud amp.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by plopswagon »

Pens wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:17 pm Yeah, the Rat is a special kind of pedal.
Sometimes I think it’s the only one I need. Pedal monogamy.
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ekwatts wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:53 pm The word "moisty" has made me irrationally angry.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

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Hurb wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 12:43 pm Both amps together as cool as it looked kinda just made everything sound worse.
Hmmm, did you try turning it up loud as fuck? That usually works.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Pens »

Bacchus wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 3:46 pm
Hurb wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 12:43 pm Both amps together as cool as it looked kinda just made everything sound worse.
Hmmm, did you try turning it up loud as fuck? That usually works.
Maybe phase issue. You could try swapping the polarity on one set of speakers.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Hurb »

Yeah could of been I don't really know if the M9 would be set to sort that? But yeah could of been. I just think the blackstar didn't sound as good so took away from the Vox maybe?

Only slightly louder than living room levels so maybe not a good test.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Pens »

I have found that turning up loud as fuck does indeed fix most sound issues.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by plopswagon »

What?
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ekwatts wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:53 pm The word "moisty" has made me irrationally angry.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

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plopswagon wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:24 pmWhat?
:lol:
Personal pronouns he/him
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Bacchus »

Pens wrote: Wed Dec 07, 2022 8:03 pm I have found that turning up loud as fuck does indeed fix most sound issues.
Yeah, this was more what I was thinking, rather than anything as technical as phase issues.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by NickD »

Re. Speakers - I used these guy’s 10” speaker shootout when picking speakers for mine, maybe helpful in highlighting the differences.





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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Hurb »

Good shout nick. Will get my headphones on those videos.

Will be able to turn the vox up loud on Friday. Will report back.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by dub »

If you liked it through the grey cab, those V-Type speakers aren't too spendy.

Got no dog in the greenback fight (never played them for real) but they are my favourite IRs to use. I'm still using a cheap oversized, ported 4x12 with T75s in it (two of which are from the mid 90s I think) I have had for years. They get a bad rap, probably becasue they're the stock marshall speaker and tone sniffers need to justify replacing them, but put enough volume through them and they sound pretty good.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by ekwatts »

In case it wasn't clear, no, I wasn't being completely serious about the Greenbacks. My limited and historic experience with them has given me a kneejerk reaction to them whenever they're brought up, and I used that as a jokey way to recommend the only speaker I've ever seriously loved, the Celestion V30. You know, something, something, something, I'm a caveman philistine with strong opinions, etc. Putting Greenbacks in an AC30 is one of those traditional things you're kind of expected to just accept, though, so I thought I'd combine my analysis of my kneejerk-ism with that.

I also thought my verbosity (yes, it's a real word, shortscale's own spellchecker didn't put the red squiggly line under it LOOK I'M PUTTING MORE WORDS IN A POST) in response to such a brief post was kind of funny in and of itself? I dunno, maybe I don't come into threads about gear with a predisposition to actually picking a fight over how many words somebody used in a post on a *checks notes* message.. board... in which the primary method of interaction is *checks notes again* the written word.

I fully accept the possibility that the tone and intention of my original post may not have landed for everyone. But that's a "you" problem. Not a "me" problem. Thanks.

TL;DR - Greenbacks really are shit and, if you like them, you probably eat dogshit off the street.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

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ekwatts wrote: Thu Dec 08, 2022 10:23 am In case it wasn't clear, no, I wasn't being completely serious about the Greenbacks. My limited and historic experience with them has given me a kneejerk reaction to them whenever they're brought up, and I used that as a jokey way to recommend the only speaker I've ever seriously loved, the Celestion V30. You know, something, something, something, I'm a caveman philistine with strong opinions, etc. Putting Greenbacks in an AC30 is one of those traditional things you're kind of expected to just accept, though, so I thought I'd combine my analysis of my kneejerk-ism with that.

I also thought my verbosity (yes, it's a real word, shortscale's own spellchecker didn't put the red squiggly line under it LOOK I'M PUTTING MORE WORDS IN A POST) in response to such a brief post was kind of funny in and of itself? I dunno, maybe I don't come into threads about gear with a predisposition to actually picking a fight over how many words somebody used in a post on a *checks notes* message.. board... in which the primary method of interaction is *checks notes again* the written word.

I fully accept the possibility that the tone and intention of my original post may not have landed for everyone. But that's a "you" problem. Not a "me" problem. Thanks.

TL;DR - Greenbacks really are shit and, if you like them, you probably eat dogshit off the street.
So what you are saying is you know you write too much, but it's our problem, not yours?

I wouldn't go so far as to complain about the length of your posts, but I do skim read for something that might be relevant (and not about Corbyn) rather than reading every word as I would in a more concise post. It must take bloody ages to write them too, I don't think I'd have the attention span to.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by Pens »

I've always appreciated EK's verbosity and loquaciousness, even though I occasionally disagree with his logic.

Then again, it's not unknown for me to write essays-as-posts, either.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by plopswagon »

If it’s a difficult concept to explain, sure a long post is needed but there’s also a point where it ceases to be a conversation.

Fine lines. Don’t ask me to define them tho…
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ekwatts wrote: Wed Dec 21, 2022 12:53 pm The word "moisty" has made me irrationally angry.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by NickD »

I’m mostly joking, but not about the skim reading. TBF I’m probably the other way when posting, a little too concise.

Paul’s pretty much summarised it perfectly.
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Re: Done bought a vox ac30

Post by dots »

ekwatts wrote: Mon Dec 05, 2022 1:48 pm
Mike wrote: Sun Dec 04, 2022 9:03 pmGet a greenback
Don't do this. Sounds like shit. I don't care what anyone says. We had an anniversary model with two greenbacks that was gifted to my brother by Bernard from New Order. It had a busted transformer, so we thought it sounded shit because of that (for the five minutes it would stay on before the sound just faaaaaaaded ooooouuuut...), but we got that fixed and it still sounded like shit. So we plugged it into a Sound City cab with Vintage 30s and it sounded incredible.

Greenbacks are wank. I don't understand why people like them. They're proper shit. Total shit. Really, really bad.

I'm joking, they're not that bad, I just didn't like the way they sounded. I think it was something to do with the totality of the setup rather than "just" the speakers, but it was also the first time I'd ever fully realised what a difference different speakers actually made when I was A/B'ing the differently-equipped amps and cabs we had available. The AC30 was fucking skull-crushing at high volumes, and something about the Greenbacks made that kind of painful in a way that I can't quite explain (not least because this was way over ten years ago and I used to be wasted near constantly so WHO THE FUCK REALLY KNOWS), and plugging it into literally any other speaker smoothed that out in a much more pleasant way. From that point on I sort of never really "got" the appeal of Greenbacks. Specifically, I never got why they kept being loaded into AC30s. I can actually fully imagine them sounding great for all kinds of other amps, but the AC30 just seemed ill-suited to them. Another thing I appreciate now is mixing speakers, so a Greenback paired with another with differing characteristics... that could probably sound ace. Obviously not an option if you've got a 1x12 model.

I also think I have a problem in that I seem to be absolutely fucking addicted to slapping Celestion Vintage 30s in everything. I bought an Ampeg GT50 that had this Celestion 7080 speaker in it. It sounded fine. So I slapped a V30 in there and it sounded amazing. I have an Orange Tiny Terror combo with a V30 and it sounds great. I used to love my Peavey Classic 30, even with the stock Blue Marvel speaker. But I tried a friends with a V30 in it and it sounded so much better that it made me depressed. I had a custom Zilla cab built and loaded it with... well, Eminence speakers, actually, but one of them was basically just a copy of a Celestion V30. It sounds great.

So maybe don't listen to me. I just think everything should have a Celestion V30.

It would sound good with a V30, though. Maybe.. maybe look into that.

And yeah, speakers are fucking insanely expensive now. As I remember, back when I was building shit and doing things, I was picking proper Celestions/Eminence speakers up for somewhere around £60-£80. It's been 10 years since I replaced a speaker but that doesn't feel like enough time for the prices to have literally doubled... I dunno, maybe it is. Cost of living crisis, Hurb.
yeah, no, this is all wrong. greenbacks in my ac30 are brilliant, dynamic, and have never failed to provide gobs of headroom or breakup beautifully based on my usage.