have a ? about Peavey or Fender guitar head amp

GARYPHILLIPS · From: SOMERSET, OHIO ,PERRY

Hey Guys, Do any of you ever play uaeing Peavey or Fender or any guitar head amp,and uae them to play your steel in,what ones you think would sound a lot like the Nashville 400.Thanks Gary

STEELIN FOR JESUS

Mike Brown · From: Meridian, Mississippi USA

Gary, many factors contribute to the making of a good steel amp that can faithfully reproduce the sound of that instrument. Most six string guitar amps consist of a "classic" type of equalization, whereas, we have found that the "mid/shift" type of eq works best for steel.

It takes much input from steelers to finally arrive at a suitable voicing of a speaker such as the 1501-4 Peavey Black Widow. It doesn't come overnight. It takes years and years of R & D.

The power amp should be as transparent as possible and the signal that goes in should come out unaltered.

So, you won't find many six string electric guitar amps that will sound very good for steel guitar applications. Check out our Nashville Series here;http://www.peavey.com/support/searchmanuals/results.cfm

If you have questions, I can be reached toll free in North America at 1-877-732-8391.

Mike Brown
Peavey Electronics Corporation

David Doggett · Posted 29 Apr 2004 9:36 am

Gary, as Mike says, I doubt that there is any guitar amp head that sounds like a Nashville series Peavey. For solid state, you would need a 300 watt or bigger head, and you would have to turn the bass all the way up, and have the mid and treble almost off. Somethink like the Line 6 Vetta (?) head would come close. For small venues I have used a Peavey Transtube Supreme 100 watt solid state head. For the fat, thick country sound, it doesn't have the volume and low-end that any of the Nashville series have. I have used it with a blues group, where I need some imitation tube distortion in a small venue. For the occassional country number they do when I need a clean sound, it is pretty lame.

For a tube sound (which I much prefer) I use a Fender Dual Showman head (80-135 watts, depending on year), or one of the Twin family (Twin Reverb, Vibrasonic), with the chassis put in an amp head cabinet. That's about as much usable volume as a NV 400 has, but a little less than a NV 1000. For that level, I use two Fender tube heads, each run into a separate 15" speaker. As a project I am putting a Super Twin Reverb chassis (180 watts) in a head cabinet, that I will use to drive two 15" speakers.

Using amp heads and separate speakers breaks up the weight into light packages, but you have more things to haul around and setup. But there are some other advantages. You can set the amp head beside your steel for easy tweaking of tone and reverb between songs. And I find that if I put my speaker(s) way back behind me out of reach (preferably on a chair), it is easier for me to mix my sound with the bass and drummer. When my speaker is right behind me, it sounds loud to me, but it ends up way down in the mix, both out front and for the rest of the band. Another thing about an amp head is that you have complete versatility in what speaker(s) you hook it up to.

[This message was edited by David Doggett on 29 April 2004 at 10:45 AM.]

Robert Thomas · From: Mehama, Oregon, USA

I use a Peavey MP 5 Plus Amp head. It does everything I require. I have it beside me and my speakers behind. I can access the contols very easily and I need to because I also need to contol my Microphone, Rhythm Machine, Mutron Bi-phase and Roland Space Echo. I play in small and large venues and don't feel that I am missing anything. I guess it all depends on what you need.
It would be nice if an amp head was built for Steel that also had the other amenities found in the MP 5 Plus, but that is not built.

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