I've bounced Matt's clips so I'll grab a few sections and post soon, but in the meantime...
Rob stopped by tonight to hear the Tramp for the second time. He remarked at
how different the new and improved version is. I think it's fair to say that he LOVED it!
He agreed that 'Tude is totally worked out now and amazing...
He played a really nice set of clips too that I'm bouncing right now. I think these will be very representative of how the amp really sounds - I recorded the room with them!
Anyway, at Stephen's request we also spent some time comparing the Tramp through different speakers - the Jensen Blackbird 10 that's in there now, 10" Tone Tubby Ceramics that are in my 410, 12" Tone Tubby Alnicos that are in my red Trinity 212, and of course my vintage Fender 212 that I had set up from Percy's session that has Celestion Classic Lead 80's... it was interesting...
The Jensen is REALLY nice, and seems perhaps the most responsive to the amp of any of the speakers. Tweed sounds great, Tude sounds great, clean or gained up, with the VRM up or down, the Blackbird handles it all and compliments whatever's going on tonally. Creamy tones seem to sink into the speaker, dirty tones sound punchy. Very versatile and still my #1 choice for the speaker I'll put in my Tramp...
The 10" TTC's were cool also, but were overall cooler with Tude, than with Tweed. When we pushed the gain, the speaker seemed to "push back", that is there was a stiffness to them tonally that gave the dirty tones an authoritative, strident quality that was pretty cool. Nice when we dialed back Tude to be cleaner, but not necessarily nicer than the Jensens here. In Tweed mode, the TTC's seemed a bit stiff especially in the mid-gain ranges. The creaminess of Tweed had nothing to "sink into" with these speakers. At the really clean end of the spectrum in Tweed though, the TTC's were really nice - cleans were represented in a very solid hi-fi way... What was interesting for me is with these speakers, I definitely preferred to have the power level and master volume cranked. For some reason when I backed off on those controls the tone seemed to go a bit south with these speakers... So as far as the 10's go, Rob and I both preferred the Jensen, unless you were someone that was going to live in Tude all the time in which case the TTC's might be the better choice...
The Fender 212 cab is just simply amazing with the Tramp! Rob actually couldn't believe I have CL80's in there - the tone was so deep, and liquid... to be honest though
any speaker I've had in this cab sounded that way so I think it has more to do with the cab than the actual speaker! Anyway, this is the best sound for the Tramp PERIOD - both Rob and I agreed. Unbelievably good. And regardless of where any of the controls were, it sounded fantastic! I need a couple more of these cabs with different speakers in them, or I need to convince Stephen to start building replicas!!! <wink, wink, nudge, nudge>
I think those of you that end up with a Tramp will definitely want a 212 to pair with it - I'm holding out for the Trinity/Fender replica with two 12" Jensen Blackbirds!! I can imagine that'll sound RIDICULOUS...
The 12" TTA's in my Trinity cab were pretty interesting too. I don't think they'd be my first choice for
everything but they were spectacular for some things. They were a little stiff and hi-fi like the TTC's but less so. There was significantly more prickly top end with the TTA's compared to everything else. And FWIW, with these speakers I preferred them when the power level was turned down a bit - a little sag seemed to warm these speakers up a bit. As soon as he heard these speakers, Rob was inspired to grab a Tele and play in that modern Nashville style a la Brad Paisley. Actually the Tramp with TTA's NAILED that tone. It was pretty cool. But once again when you wanted the tone to sink into the speakers, these weren't providing it. I'd imagine though that there are some of you out there in Trinity-land that will LOVE these speakers with the Tramp...
One other thing that came up... during Percy's session we were using a fair amount of reverb and I realized it was a pretty important part of the tones. Tonight I had my Boss "Fender FRV-1" pedal in line - this pedal models the classic '63 Fender Spring Reverb - and after turning it on and off a bit, Rob remarked (unprompted by me!) how he thought the reverb really added to the sound of the Tramp... so those of you that are planning to have the Tramp might want to look into a reverb pedal if you don't already have one!! FWIW, my EHX Holy Grail and my Boss FRV-1 are both incredible pedals... and even Matt's Digitech Digiverb sounded pretty good... of course if you've got $$ to burn you could always track down a vintage Fender Spring Reverb that the FRV-1 is modeled after!!!
Clips to come...
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Brent Bodrug
Producer-Engineer/Songwriter
www.slyfichapel.com
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And yeah, spent most of the day in the Tramp again... 
But I'm thinking y'all have at least some idea of how the Tramp sounds at this point!!!! 
Matt's clips are cool and very different because so much of his tone is in his hands and the way he manipulates the guitar. His pedal board is very much a part of his sound too... Check him out here:
