Laney 'tube-fusion' amp: tell me more!

Hi, mattyj from Sydney, Australia here. Just stumbled across the site last night while I was lusting over guitars.

I play left-handed, playing an Epiphone Sheraton II, through a Laney Tube Fusion 65w amp. I think it's called the TF200. When I bought it (I payed for it with an insurance cheque that I got for a Marshall Bass head that was stolen), the shop guy told me that the Laney is a 'solid state amp with a tube in the pre-amp'. Does anyone know anything about these amps? How do they work?

The clean channel sounds like a typical solid state amp. Which I'm not a fan of. The first 'drive' channel I have the gain on 9-10, which I use as a more distorted rock kind of sound. With fresh strings, it's nice and smooth with nice sustain. Once the strings get a bit yucky, it sounds really muddy.

The second 'drive' channel I have the gain 3-5, and it gives a nice clean-ish, warm tube sound, especially with the spring reverb wound right up and playing through the neck pickup ... probably a bit more overdriven than a true tube amp though. If i turn the gain up to 9-10, it has a very heavy metal kind of distortion, tons of sustain ... but I'm not into heavy metal.

This is all with the 'vibe' button turned on. Off, it sounds terrible.

So my questions:
1) does anyone else play anything like this amp? I've plugged into other 'fusion' amps made by other brands that have a tube in the pre-amp, but they don't sound anywhere near as nice.
2) even though there's a tube in the pre-amp, it's not a true tube amp is it?
3) how much of the 'sound/tone' of guitar amps is linked to the speaker? I tried DI'ing my amp through a big sound system (from the 'line out' jack in the back), but it sounded cheap and nasty, completely different to what was coming out of the (british made) speaker in the amp. I now stick a mic in front of it, and it sounds lovely and warm through the PA.
4) do tubes ever need replacing?

cheers

ok, I'll tell myself more: mine's the original Laney TF200 that I bought about 10 years ago. On the back it says 'Made in the United Kingdom', and there's a union jack on the back of the celestion speaker.



The newer Laney TF200 II is made in china, and has some extra effects built in.

There's a few buttons that I make sure are always on: on the clean channel, I always keep the 'bright' button in. It just sounds muddy otherwise. That said, lately I've kept the clean channel volume on zero and I switch to that in between sets of songs or during sound check when the keys, bass or vocals are being dialled in at the sound desk.

The other button I always keep on is the 'vibe' button. The manual said something about replicating a big stadium rock show kind of sound, basically it seems to scoop all the mids out. It gives the 2nd drive channel a really nice warm tube sound with the gain on about 3-4. I'd say a lot warmer than a fender sound. With my Sheraton's neck humbucker, it sounds incredibly bluesy, I love it. I use the 1st drive channel with the gain on about 8-9 for a more drivier distortion sound.



That said, last sunday I cracked out my old Boss DS1 and with the gain on that wound right back, on top of the 2nd drive channel, sounds a bit ... 'fresher' ??? More smooth, creamy distortion? Ah, I find it hard to describe sound.

I've been playing with the idea of selling this amp and replacing it with a Fender Super Champ XD, though I think I'm very used to a very scooped mid-section, which the Fender doesn't seem to have, and on the fender's tone controls, there's only bass and treble, no mid! After fathers day, I'll play around a lot, then make up my mind.

Also, comparing it with a friends Laney from the 80's, the build quality seems heaps better.

I've also seen the chinese made TF200 II in a local music shop, and it's build quality didn't seem great either. But mine seems pretty solid. It's vibrated a bit on the neck humbucker when I've had the bass right up, but just the feel of the dials and stuff feels more solid than the newer one I've seen.

I found a chinese website that says that it uses an ECC83 tube in the pre-amp. I know nothing about tubes.

My footswitch died after about 9 years. I found a $40 replacement, it seems to take any two-button footswitch.

Oh, and the chrome-paint is starting to chip off the knobs, but I guess relic'ing is all the rage now, so I should probably drag my keys across it or soemthing!

ok, just found a pdf of the manual that I lost when I moved out all those years ago:

the Vibe button:

cool.

The Bright button:

oh, the ENHANCE knob. I was hoping this would enhance my playing ability. But no.

Can't remember if I said anything above about that.

It's got a line out, to plug straight into a DI box, but this sounded cheap and very nasty through the brand new system that my church got. Micing sounds so much nicer, especially with brand new Shure SM58's! or whatever the instrument mics are called...

oh, it's also got spring reverb, which sounds ok. adds to the bluesiness described above.

sorry that I kept making posts. feel free to merge them if you want cary.

I had a mate in High School (Florida) who had a Laney half stack. It sounded decent for the type of heavy metal he was doing (Metallica, Malmsteen, etc). He would turn the mid-range down and make the amp really chug with low end.... I did sound for one of his shows once and had to physically get on stage during his set and turn up the mid eq so the the mic for the PA could pick it up.

I used to have a Dean Markley hybrid tube/solid state 12 inch combo amp in the mid-80's. It was a rackmounted amp that was mounted on a slant above a 12 inch speaker. The distorted channel sounded pretty good. The hope was that you would put it in a rack and drive a half stack with it. It had a true effects loop and a clean channel that seemed made for using external tone shaping pre-amp effects. I was playing a lot of Rush, Journey, Yes, Genesis, U2, and other 80's Rock/Prog Rock back then.

It looked kind of like this but with 2 rows of knobs:



I played it about a year into Berklee, then traded it for a Roland JC-120 on casters so I could do more jazz and R&B gigs...and roll my way through the rehearsal halls. It was loud and I was only playing distorted occasionally (through a ART multieffect rack unit). Granted...this was 20 years ago.

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haha, nice!

actually, the shape of that amp is identical to my laney; the face of the amp is angled, with the speaker on much less of an angle.

I've found the sound that I really like with my archtop. I've never actually owned a solid-body, single coil electric gutiar, so it'll be interesting to play around with my amp pre-fathers day.

I should record some stuff and post it somewhere for you guys to hear what I mean... where would I host short mp3's? apart from doing a MySpace thing ... to many of my youth group kids are on MySpace and it'd be a bit embarrassing!

GarageBand.com : upload your music
or perhaps just a free file hosting site or Google/Yahoo account with a shared public folder.

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