So many of these "covers" are so robotic and mechanical feeling. A good example is listening to Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb as a cover and then listen to the same by David Gilmore. There's no comparison.
Folks don't have to dig deep to get great tone anymore since you can buy an amp that has hundreds of great sounds and has a decent response and feel. I was watching an Eagles cover band while picking up some food for my wife and I couldn't stand the sound. Great musicianship but nothing really grabbed a hold and yanked something out of me. I saw that all the time with the cover bands I ran sound for. Digital amps do have their place but I'm hoping the market swings back to folks wanting a rig where they can get their own sound and not a reproduction. I'm a bit biased though (no pun intended) since I want to sell some of my own designs.
You make amps? Props dude, that is awesome. Love tubes and agree 100%.
What kind of sound are you aiming for? Something in your head that you feel should exist but you cannot find it on other amps?
As an aside, I really want to try a Mezzabarba 100 watt one day. Here are a couple of clips with some "interesting" players messing with them:
There are quite a few amps out there that get in the ball park of what I want but are usually way too powerful. My first tube amp I bought was a Carvin Legacy and I quickly learned how impractical that amount of wattage was for me so I began downsizing. Currently I'm working on a single ended design based on Tung-Sol's EL34B voiced to be more "American" sounding. I've also got a few ideas for a low wattage push pull design and I'm considering utilizing a voltage regulator so I don't have to use exotic tubes (NOS tubes from TVs that aren't manufactured anymore). The end goal is to build amps that sound great in the home or studio and won't get the cops called on you for noise violations.
That Mezzabarba sounds great! Not my cup of tea for a daily driver but it would certainly be fun to own and useful in the studio. Check out Bob Gjika's amp, it's in a similar vein tone-wise.
I remember when "the stage" by avenged came out, and there was a cover about a month after it so I was like eh lets see this.
The tapping at the start was in COMPLETELY the wrong place, so instead of holding a note with your left hand and tapping nice n smoothly with your right she had to fuckin tap with both hands then try to sweep because she gone fucked up the starting position.
Fuckin painful to watch, and I'm not saying I'm good but holy hell that was skittish for the sake of it. Even the live show showed the guitarist playing it where it's nice, easy, and smooth. No excuse.
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