Valve heads that don't require a boost to get tight gain?

[Hollowway]

ITT - Every amp doesn’t need a boost.

 

[Kyle Jordan]

Question for the OP:

How many strings are you playing?

An amp that is tight without a boost with a 6 string guitar may not be tight enough plugging in a 7 string and even less so with an 8.

My Mark IV doesn’t need a boost or an EQ when I plug my S8 in to it, but cutting frequencies below 250 just a bit clears the 7th and especially the 8th strings up well. This is also true to a higher extent for the Ultra Lead with my S8 too. Again, both amps are tight without anything other than the guitar plugged straight in, and pickups can help tailor further, but both of these can be tight and razor sharp with my Soloists, not quite so with the S8.

 

[Hollowway]

We should differentiate between right and dry, as well. Tight generally means less bass and dry means less saturation. How those things are achieved depends on the amp, but as @Kyle Jordan points out, both a Mark IV and UL are tight. The Mark IV will have more saturation, and be a very different tone than the UL. (Interestingly, the Mark IV was my favorite tone, and dream amp - until I heard a VHT. Now they’re both my favorite.)

 

[Sollipsist]

Randall Diavlo amps (Fortin) have naturally tight bass, especially with built-in boost switched on. Just balance the preamp gain and master volume carefully or the power amp tube sag will start to loosen your lows at higher volumes.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

Diezel Herbert and VH4
Engl SE and Savage 120
Randall Satan
Mesa Mark III/IV
Mesa JP2C
Wizard MTL and MC2

 

[John]

The PRS Archon amps are tight enough to not need a boost in front. That being said, I can't imagine any pedal not going well with the amp.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Fryette (VHT) Pitbull UL. Only amp I have EVER needed to boost to put in saturation and loosen it up. More gain than you will ever need whilst staying tighter than a nun's chuff.

The mark series amps have the same gain thing going on, very focused, tight, so they're worth looking at as well.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

On another note, how is anyone putting the Diezel Herbert in the tight amps category? Sure it's got enough gain to not need a boost, but I'd hardly categorise it as a tight amp as it has that much low end that it is just a naturally loose big sounding amp (although wasn't raw enough). It actually blends exceptionally well with the Fryette UL, precisely because of this.

The VH4 I agree with, as that's very very close to the Fryette UL in terms of character.

Same with 6505+/5153 amps etc, they are not tight amps as they're all about saturation rather than focus, and all of the require a boost pedal to tighten them up.

 

[protest]

On another note, how is anyone putting the Diezel Herbert in the tight amps category? Sure it's got enough gain to not need a boost, but I'd hardly categorise it as a tight amp as it has that much low end that it is just a naturally loose big sounding amp (although wasn't raw enough). It actually blends exceptionally well with the Fryette UL, precisely because of this.

The VH4 I agree with, as that's very very close to the Fryette UL in terms of character.

Same with 6505+/5153 amps etc, they are not tight amps as they're all about saturation rather than focus, and all of the require a boost pedal to tighten them up.

Turn the bass down.

 

[TedEH]

ITT - Every amp doesn’t need a boost.

Realistically though, that's not far from the truth, IMO. If you spend enough time on mostly-heavy-music-centric forums and the common sentiment is that a boost is *the* way to get a good sound, but that's only one way to get one particular type of sound. Maybe the amp is already tight. Maybe the tone you're aiming for doesn't involve that mid boost. Maybe you want something other than "modern metal tone". Maybe you don't djent.

Consider also that lots of gear pushes you in the same direction. Active pickups, to my ears, sound basically like a boost you can't turn off. New amps are also getting tighter (or are more able to be dialed that way if you want). I'm sure lots of modellers are shaped in a way to try to give you something like "that tone" out of the box. Down to people buying ridiculously thick picks made of all kinds of materials in search of every little extra bit of "tone" they can scrape out of what they've got.

IMO the only amps that really need a boost are ones that were not made with "modern" or "metal" anywhere in mind when gain character was decided. If you're either lacking gain, or the gain is the wrong character/shape, then a boost or EQ might be "needed", but not many of the amps talked about on this site fit that description.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

Turn the bass down.

This +1

Turn down the bass and depth pots and it gets plenty tight. Just like a Mesa Mark, you need to keep the bass low or it doesn’t stay tight. Just cause it has more low end than anything else doesn’t mean you have to use it all, at all times.

 

[7 Dying Trees]

Turn the bass down.

Nah, sorry, turn bass down, yeah, mitigates it, but it's not an amp that is focused. It's a saturation based preamp with compression, like the 5150 etc

High gain, yes, focused like a mark/ultralead, no.

If the question is:
quality high gain head, then yes.

But as the question is a head that does tight focussed gain, I still am saying amps like that aren't tight without a boost, and if you're dialing all the bass out, then effectively you're just creating a pretty rubbish sound overall. Sorry, but that is my opinion, and I've owned a lot of these amps and played others.

I've always seen mark series / vht pitbull type amps as old school plexi heads with gain, stay tight, completely brutal on your playing at all times

Soldano Slo based amps I always find are saturated and really do need a boost to get rid of low end flub and wooliness. Sure you can dial the bass out, but then those amps become pointless and end up sounding ear piercing and rubbish.

 

[protest]

Nah, sorry, turn bass down, yeah, mitigates it, but it's not an amp that is focused. It's a saturation based preamp with compression, like the 5150 etc

High gain, yes, focused like a mark/ultralead, no.

If the question is:
quality high gain head, then yes.

But as the question is a head that does tight focussed gain, I still am saying amps like that aren't tight without a boost, and if you're dialing all the bass out, then effectively you're just creating a pretty rubbish sound overall. Sorry, but that is my opinion, and I've owned a lot of these amps and played others.

I've always seen mark series / vht pitbull type amps as old school plexi heads with gain, stay tight, completely brutal on your playing at all times

Soldano Slo based amps I always find are saturated and really do need a boost to get rid of low end flub and wooliness. Sure you can dial the bass out, but then those amps become pointless and end up sounding ear piercing and rubbish.

Channel 2+, turn the bass and deep off, put the gain at 1:30, mids above noon and have the midcut around 11. Play around and to set the gain level, then bring the low end controls back up to where you want it and adjust the gain one last time if necessary. Also turning up the volume will fill up the sound without needing to add gain or bass (and therefore compression/saturation).

It's natural sound isn't tight, but the controls will get you there.

 

[Wizard of Ozz]

I've always seen mark series / vht pitbull type amps as old school plexi heads with gain, stay tight, completely brutal on your playing at all times

Soldano Slo based amps I always find are saturated and really do need a boost to get rid of low end flub and wooliness. Sure you can dial the bass out, but then those amps become pointless and end up sounding ear piercing and rubbish.

The Mesa Mark amps are based on modified Fender Princeton & Bassman amps... not Marshalls. The Fryette UL is most similar to the preamp of the Soldano SLO with 4 cascaded preamp gain stages (4th stage only active and switchable on the 3rd red lead channel)... but a different power amp with a lot different/more filtering. Not a Marshall derivative either. I've got an old plexi... and original 1967 SLP... and it sounds nothing like, nor feels anything like any of the Mesa Marks... or the several ULs I've owned.
YMMV.

 

[Hollowway]

What I think is cool is that no matter what amp a Fryette UL is paired up against, in a tight and dry measure, the UL always wins. Ask anyone what the tightest, driest amp for metal is, and people pretty much unanimously say UL. Other amps people may have differing opinions about, but there is huge consensus on the UL. That’s why I was after one for so long. You gotta respect what Stevie Fryette was able to accomplish with that.

 

[TedEH]

^ Maybe it's just me, but that doesn't sound very appealing to me. Maybe in some scenarios it would make sense, but I think the looseness of some amps adds to their impact. It's one of the things I like about Rectos over the Marks is the way the low end blooms out from under palm mutes and things like that. We've got one or two songs that gets all slow and slammy sounding at certain points, and the dry Mark amp sounds a bit weak in those parts compared to the Recto.

 

[Lukhas]

EVH 5150 III, any version. I find the red channel of my 50-watt head to already sound boosted, and sounds worse when boosted -- too gainy and thin. The blue channel sounds a little better to me boosted, but doesn't have to be.

I agree. The 5150/6505 amps on the red channel are so compressed that a boost is very redundant with them.

 

[MetalHead40]

Savage 120 is the only amp I've owned/played that did not require a Boost. Pure tight metal chug machine plugged straight in. FB100 was close, but I preferred that boosted. I'm currently playing a 20th Shiva, KSR Ares, Freyette D60, and Splawn QR and for my tastes they all need a boost.

 

[budda]

Buy an OG Marshall DSL100, keep the gain low and the volume up. Enjoy.

 

[NateFalcon]

Peavey XXX, Ultra+ and 3120...Engl Savage 120...