So, the drummer in my band is many things (awesome drummer, singer, band leader, gear expert,...) and an experienced pro sound guy. Last practice when complimenting him about about how good our sound was and how loud I was at the same time, he actually told me when guitarists talk about getting good tone in the mix, they really mean volume. In his words "You guys all talk tone, but what you really want is to get lit up with SPLs!"
Guilty! I thought about this and have to agree. Both the other guitarist in our band and I have been struggling with keeping our volumes down enough to not bugger the sound mix and still get the sweet sweet sounds we need from our great tube amplifiers. Is anyone surprised? I'm not. Here's why...
Tube amplifiers are not very linear. There are portions of their operation that are, but the reason we use them is not necessarily for clean faithful tone reproduction like when listening to music, it is for generating wonderful tones and originating music. Actually, human hearing is not very linear either. Check this link out for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour . Stereo equipment used to have a "Loudness" control to use at lower volume levels to compensate for the human ear's frequency perceiving. I am not sure if these exist any longer, since most current sound equipment is 5.1, 7.1, x.1 with subwoofers, etc. But tube amplifiers are definitely not linear and that is a wonderful thing.
The tube amplifiers I use and build can be quiet, and can be loud, but are most fun in that volume range where they are "loud enough" to be in the sweet spot. This is where less guitar signal means clean, more guitar signal means compression and slightly overdriven, and even more guitar signal gets more compression and more overdriven. Of course, there are extreme cases: the Fender Champs which are 6W and not often clean at all, the 100W Marshalls that "only sound good on 10", but you can't be in the same room without permanent hearing damage, or the Fender Twin Reverbs which never actually sound overdriven. Solid state amplifiers are much less dynamic so typically have similar tone over a greater volume range, and compared to tube amplifiers, poorer tone at most volume levels.
The amplifiers I use and build are all in that 15W to 50W zone, so can be set to be in their sweet spot in most stage and studio situations. The lower powered amplifiers may need more PA support to push their great tones into the FOH speakers, but that works fine. The Fat One originals like the Jammer, Clubber and Stager all have Master Volume controls to further control the volume levels, while enabling the Highs and Lows controls to push more or less signal into the Pre-amplifier stage. Using a Stager with one of my closed back Guitar Cabinet 210 or 212s is a great way to make my sound more directional so I can get my SPL jollies without inflicting all that volume on my band mates, and still get mic'd for great FOH sound. Like my band email sig says: Loud guitars are good guitars!
