Brick Spieth
From:
San Jose, California, USA
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Posted 18 Oct 2008 9:35 am |
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Although I'm getting pretty good sounds from my low to med power tube guitar amps, especially since I dug out my old stomp box eq, the quest continues. I play bass in a band with two guitar gear junkies, and here's some gear that is sitting around unused that I could reasonably buy.
I have two cabs now, a 1x15 Weber California, and a 2x12 Emi loaded cab, so I could use these in a stereo setup with a Peavey power amp I have.
Boogie pre. I would have to get an effects unit on top of this.
Carvin quad X pre. A real sleeper of a product.Would also need effects unit.
Digitech 2120. This is a pre plus effects in one.
Or should I just get a Nashville 112 and be done with it. Any of these options would cost about the same.
All of these could be had for $350 + or- |
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Jim Sliff
From:
Lawndale California, USA
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Posted 19 Oct 2008 6:17 am
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| Quote: |
| The home practice setup has been discussed quite a few times here and it always makes me wonder why you guys are spending the money to get a seperate piece of equipment for home. What is wrong with whatever you use or might want to use on stage. |
Mainly too much power. Most amps sound good when they are being driven a bit (even SS ones) and that means most high-powered amps sound like crap when run at really low volume (i.e a Twin or a 300-watt SS amp turned up to "2") unless they are run with a really efficient, low-wattage speaker - and that speaker would not take stage volume. That's the second part of the equation - it's often hard to move a speaker matched to a high-powered amp at low volume; they are built out of heavy-duty materials, with stiff cones, large voice coils and often heavily-doped surrounds, and they won't "open up" or "bloom" until the volume level is too loud for home use.
Players who have never used a smaller amp for practice would have no way of noticing, and often think their stuff sounds fine - but it you put a 30-watt tube combo (or a 100-watt or less SS combo) next to a 200 or 300 watt SS stage rig and play them both at bedroom volume, the tone of the smaller amp will normally blow the doors off the big-rig.
Using multiple amps seems much less common in the steel world than in the 6-string world, where almost every working musician has a REALLY small amp for home use (many, many 6-stringers use a half-dozen or more amps at different times depending on the size and configuration of a venue; I have at least a dozen myself, and they ALL get used.) A Deluxe Reverb equivalent is about as big as you can get and still get the tone to bloom at reasonable volume with 6-string (where cleaner tones are not as critical). With steel, for "normal" clean playing a 40-watt amp like a Pro Reverb, Super Reverb, Vibroverb, etc. works for home use; as far as solid-state goes I've found that most amps up to about 100 watts will work...more power than that and you're too loud, and again it takes more power to get the best tone out of a high-powered speaker.
If I have to play REAL quiet, but don't want to use headphones, I use a 1/2-watt ZVex Nano tube combo with 1 12" Celestion Greenback (a 25-watt speaker). I can get full, fat and rich sounding clean tones at conversational volume, and the amp head is the size of an MXR stompbox (yes - a TUBE amp that size.)!
www.zvexamps.com
Oh - and so as to not hijack the thread, I'd go with the Carvin preamp, but I'd run the volume pedal and any tone-shaping effects (distortion, fuzz, overdrive - all different effects - graphic or parametric EQ, compression, clean-boost and wah) between the guitar and the input, and time-based effects (delay, phase, flange, digital reverb etc.) in the effects loop of the preamp (if it has one - I don't recall) or simply between the preamp and power amp. I'd NOT use a multi-effect unit. I prefer choosing my own effects boxes, and a multi-effect always has some good, some fair, some clunker, and rarely any *great* effects. It's more expensive that way, but YOU control your sound, not some computer programmer - plus they're plugged into the amp correctly that way.
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No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional |
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