Home practice setups

[Brick Spieth]

As a PSG newbie, I've been kicking around various ideas for my home music room setup. I have a ton of tube guitar amps, but have some questions.

So far, the best sounding moderate volume tone I've gotten is playing through a Tweed Champ run through a 2x12 open back cab. Second best is playing through a Silver Face MusicMaster bass 12 watt amp with a 12 alnico speaker. Really good but far too loud is my BF Bassman into a 15 cab.

I've never had a solid state amp, but am willing to get an amp designed for PSG. Can you get a good tone at low volume from a 200 watt ss amp? Tubes need to be driven to sound good, and 12 watts is just about the limit for my practice space. My Bassman at the levels I need not to torture the pets doesn't sound as good as the Champ on 5 or 6.

I also have a Peavey 100 watt per channel PA amp that I could run into my 1x15 on one side and a 2x12 on the other. I would need a stereo pre amp for this. A guitar buddy has both a Carvin quad X and a Mesa Boogie pre just collecting dust, but I would also need to rob my Lexicon reverb from my recording rack or get something else for reverb. It seems like most steel amps have a lot of EQ options.

I could also play through my Peavey floor wedges.

Any thoughts on the best way to go? Late nights I run direct to the board with my Lexicon as effects listening through cans, but I hate headphones. They just don't seem to have any "air".

[Dean Parks]

Do you have a Pod XT? They sound good on steel, and you can use headphones if you want. For live, going into an effects return of an amp (or two, for stereo), if you have any amps with send/return jacks.

[sonbone]

For a practice setup, I would think the Champ with some sort of front end additional eq (and reverb) would be just about ideal. If you could borrow one of your friend's preamps and give it a try, I bet you'd really like the results. If you boost the signal going into the Champ just a bit and drive the first stage of the preamp pretty hard, you can turn the volume down very low and still get a good tone. The volume control is between the first preamp stage and the second one, so you can drive the first stage into very soft clipping with the preamp and get the full bodied tube tone, while reducing the amount of signal to the second stage and power stage and keeping an overall cleaner signal at a lower volume.

I use a stock Epiphone Valve Jr. for my practice rig and use a little homemade jfet preamp for boost and eq. Sounds really good with the volume knob on the Valve Jr. at between 8 o'clock and 10 o'clock. It's basically loud enough to jam with acoustic guitars which is all you need for home practice anyway. Any louder than that and it breaks up too much for my taste.

If you did decide to get a PODxt or the like to use for headphone practice, I bet it would sound good in front of the Champ for "out loud" practice also. Looks to me like you've got several good ways to go.

Sonny

[Bryan Daste]

I got a Peavey KB 60 keyboard amp at a pawn shop for $120, and it works great for low- to mid-volume practice. I have even gigged with it at lower volume gigs. It's not really designed for steel, but it gets a nice clean tone and has a spring reverb.

[Dale Hansen]

This is by far the best home system I've ever had.
It's all through headphones.

It's a Pod XT, a Numark Axis 9, (DJ type CD player) and a Samson MDR 6 mixer.

A few tweaks, and the right head phones, it sounds like you're right in the mix with a CD.
I like the SLogic Utrasone HFI-15G phones, but there are many other good sets out there as well.

The Numark has pitch, and speed controls.
I use the loop feature quite a bit too.
With that feature, I can drill something into my noggin 200 times if I need to, without hunting for the start spot, and pushing buttons the whole time.
It's also easy to operate one handed, while wearing picks.

[Bryan Daste]

I've also used a Vox DA-5 digital amp with built in effects. Pretty cheap and small, fine for low volume, and it even runs on batteries

[Carl Vilar]

I been using a line 6 spider III it was cheap has input for Ipod and it sounds pretty good for a practice amp I did change the speaker to on it that was in my danelectro nifty fifty after the dogs knocked over the danelectro and broke the board under the knobs.

[Brick Spieth]

I forgot to mention that I'm playing through my guitar pedal board. It has a Line 6 verbzilla, a Duncan clean boost, and a Keeley compressor. I'm only using the verb. The small amp/ big cab combo works great.

I'm sure the direct into the board with the Lexicon in an effects loop can be made to sound better. I haven't played with the board's eq much and it has a parametric mid eq. I just don't like headphones too much, and I have a detached office/music room and three hours each work day before the wife comes home that I can practice. No need to be really quiet, just reasonable neighborly quiet.

I guess I'm just hankering to try stereo.

[Ron Randall]

IMHO. Practice with what makes you sound great (because you are)

Don't worry about the name on it.

If your ears are happy, you are happy, and will improve more quickly with lots of joy doing it.

R2

[Ulf Edlund]

Can you get a good tone at low volume from a 200 watt ss amp? Tubes need to be driven to sound good, and 12 watts is just about the limit for my practice space.

I would say yes, well, almost.
My Session 500 mostly serve as a practicing- and recording amp nowadays. That's a 250w monster and has got to be one most powerful steel amps ever built.
Being that it still works at low levels.
It looses brilliance below a certain point, but that can be compensated with some eq.

I would strongly suggest that you take a look at (i mean test drive, they don't look half as much as they sound!) a Peavey Nashville 112.
Takes quite a bit of eq tweaking to find the sound, but once you're there you're stuck.
Don't let the low power rating scare you, it can deliver all the sound you need. Though it was originally designed as a practice amp.

(No, i'm not payed by Peavey )