The articles have grown.
Written one at a time, where the whole is heading may be hard to see from outside.
So let me line up, once, the amps recorded so far as a map, by system. An index made so that, read from anywhere, what CSL (Chuuni Sound Lab) is trying to keep becomes visible.
(The linked articles below are in Japanese on note; a growing subset is translated here on this site.)
First, what does CSL do?
CSL records real tube amps under fixed conditions and keeps them as Kemper profiles.
The aim isn't to distribute "the one correct sound." It's to keep, conditionally, a unit tidied and actually ringing at that moment.
- Is a Kemper profile a substitute for the real amp? What CSL sells
- Why can't a Kemper profile be chosen by amp name alone?
- What does recording a real amp mean to keep? (translated here)
- Before the guitar amp disappears: what CSL records
- Greats alone don't keep history: the meaning of recording transitional amps
The foundation of the recording environment
As much as what to record, we've decided how to record. Cabinet, mic, preamp, reamp. By aligning conditions, models can be compared on the same footing.
- How far can you fix a guitar amp's sound? Building CSL's recording environment
- Why the Marshall 1912? Fixing the cabinet
- Why does a guitar amp's sound change with mic position? Center, Edge
- GT-67 and SM57: recording a guitar amp from two viewpoints
- The entrance for sending back to the amp: the Radial EXTC-500 and the reamp environment
'90s quantity and multi-feature
What CSL has handled especially much is '90s large, multi-feature tube amps. Starting from the Marshall JCM900 SL-X, tracing the amps that tried to meet the era with quantity.
- Is the JCM900 SL-X a "failed JCM900"? (translated here)
- What's different between the JCM900 SL-X and the 6100LM Ch3? (translated here)
- 1990s guitar amps were still trying to build the future through quantity (translated here)
- The modern amp was already here: the Marshall 6100, a 30th-anniversary summit
- Rack or head? Two forms of doing multi-voice with tubes (translated here)
The lineage of high gain
The flow around "distort more" has also been recorded one at a time. Purpose-designed high gain, the modded-Marshall culture, and boutique as its refinement.
- What was Soldano? The SLO-100 changed the meaning of the high-gain amp
- Not ending at high gain: what the ENGL Invader 150 split into four channels
- Why did the modern amp become simple again? The Friedman Dirty Shirley 40
- Mesa/Boogie isn't one sound: the two high gains the Mark series and Rectifier made
- 1990s boutique amps weren't only about high gain (translated here)
The surroundings of rack, preamp, and digital
Not just the amp itself — rack preamps, hybrids, and the digital surroundings have been objects of record too. A transitional period where the amp moves from "making the sound" to "receiving the sound."
- A front-stage dictionary and back-stage physics: the TriAxis and 395 Simul-Class (translated here)
- The era that took the amp apart: what rack systems left to current guitar gear
- Why didn't hybrid amps become mainstream?
- A digital amp that reproduces no one's sound: why the Yamaha DG series is still interesting
Small, low-output, and era
From the era of high output to small, low output. That shift has been followed on both the philosophy and real-amp sides.
- The era small tube amps appeared in quantity, just once: 2000s low-output tube amps
- Why did the era of the 100W head end? (translated here)
- "The future of the tube amp" forked once in the 2000s (translated here)
- When did Mesa/Boogie become an archive? (translated here)
The unknown units
What CSL has insisted on is, more than staples, the units that haven't been discussed. Vanished brands, models that didn't spread via direct sales, transitional gear whose verdict hasn't settled.
- Recording a vanished boutique maker: Bedrock Amplification, an in-between point
- Why record a small amp tidied by its previous owner? The Greco GVA CUSTOM
- Sound pressure unexplainable by distortion amount: the VHT Pittbull Forty-Five
- It needn't be all-purpose: the Randall RH300 G3 Plus, a metal-dedicated unit
How to use this map
What's lined up here is part of the articles so far. But what CSL has done should be roughly visible from this map.
There's a recording philosophy, an environment supporting it, and on top of that, amps recorded one at a time. At the center is, more than staple greats, "a sound that would disappear unshared as is."
Start reading from a system that caught your eye. Every article connects, in the end, to one question. How to keep this sound, and how to hand it to the next.
Beyond that question is the answer called the Kemper profile.
In short
CSL, while aligning recording conditions, has recorded '90s quantity, the lineage of high gain, rack and miniaturization, boutique, and the unknown units.
This article is a map for surveying the whole.
The records written one at a time, seemingly scattered, face one direction. Keep a vanishing sound, conditions and all, and make it playable again. Enter the map from anywhere and it's made to reach that center.