The Steel Guitar Forum

What is your favorite small home practice amp? Recently bought a small Peavey Envoy 110 and it seems fine. Anything better?

I use my Roland AC60. Technically it’s an acoustic guitar amp, but it has a pretty sweet tone for steel too. I also plug into a Zoom recorder and run it out to a pair of Roland desktop studio monitors.

I love my Fishman Loudbox mini.
Lots of features that makes it much more than just a practice amp.

Silverface Princeton Reverb with a JBL 10" speaker. I also have a Peavey Backstage Plus, it's pretty good with a JBL or something else more hi-fi than the original cheap speaker it came with. But the Princeton is my favorite.

I use a small mixer and headphones. It keeps my wife from complaining about noise. But when she's out.......I crank the amp up!

I recently bought a Line 6 Vyper. It's just a little S/S amp with an 15 watts and an 8" speaker, but it sounds pretty good clean. It's also go 3 different distortion modes, for the Telewhackers and rock windmillers.

You can find used ones easy for $30-$40.

p.s. Bowie, you have two posts with the same title (Small Practice Amps). You can delete the second one before anyone responds to it.

I use on old Crate, one of the origunal ones that looked like packing crates.

I paid $35.00 for the amp, $30 to have it shipped to me, and $200 to repair the damage it sustained during shipping.

Having offloaded all my big amps I'm left with my three Roland 80XLs. They're fine for my work (always in theaters) and they're compact enough to serve as practice amps here at home too.

tempted to try this out:




otherwise the little yammies (thr10 series) are swell

Like Roger, I use a Roland Cube 80. I like the tone--a bit trebly--the looper, and it is giggable.

And they are available used for 300 or less.


Chris

Looks like your'e an hour's drive from Guitar center in Raleigh, that would be worth dragging out your 6 stringer to try all the new ones from Boss/Roland, Fender, Vox, Blackstar etc. IF you can't try out in person, sweetwater.com has credible reviews

Me: Boss Katana, there's been good feedback (heh) in "Electronics" forum about these, https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=309914

I'd like to also try the Blackstar silverline, Fender mustang and tonemaster, Boss Nextone and Styrmon iridium pedal etc etc

Another Boss Katana 50 guy here. Good price, decent enough sound, has a line in jack so you can play along with your phone, and a headphones out jack, so you can play in the living room without annoying the family too much.

And, it makes for a nice, reliable, lightweight backup amp for gigs.

Justin Emmert wrote:I use a small mixer and headphones. It keeps my wife from complaining about noise. But when she's out.......I crank the amp up!

I do something similar - I plug my mini-rack DI into the mixer input, and the output into my (loud) hi-fi. That way I have all my FX and the option of speakers or cans, depending on the wife's whereabouts

Bowie, I bought a Peavey Backstage from Tim Mosberg. He was playing lead guitar thru it on a regular gig and mentioned he would sell it. I plugged my steel into it and played part of a set thru it. I was impressed with how it sounded and how loud it was for its size. I'll loan it to you to try out. Call me.

I’ve got a little Champ12 (10W - 12” speaker)
Great little amp for practice and ‘acoustic’ gigs

Vox MV 50 with a Bugera 12" turbosound speaker.

Those Vox MV50 amps are interesting! I have heard a couple clips of the Clean version that sound very good!

My at home amp for guitar and lap steel is a '67-ish Ampeg Jet that I got for very cheap a few years ago. I wasn't planning on buying an amp that day until I tried this one. I am glad I went for it! The original speaker blew and it wasn't really worth fixing. I put a Warehouse G12q in it a while back, which is perfect for playing at home. The amp sounds great at lower volume, but really has no power for gigs.

In a larger room it sounds a bit wimpy. But at home it sounds warm and has a really sweet midrange. My Telecaster and my Gibson steel match with it really well for Jazz, Honky Tonk etc. It sounds clean but never 100% clean. I still don't have a louder amp that I like as much!

Fender champion 40 is a great buy. 200.00 for an amp you can use live if you need to.

Katana 100 here. The headphone output is very "steel friendly." With my phone connected to the Aux Input it makes a great practice rig.

A Roland Micro Cube works fine.

Well, I never would have thought to plug my pedal steel into my Fishman Loudbox Artist (current model) until I saw Brooks's comment and read this old thread from Henry Matthews. Dang! That sounds surprisingly decent! I currently find myself without a legitimate small grab and go amp, so this kills two birds with one stone: I can use this and not buy a small old Peavey amp as I had been contemplating; and I finally have a use for the Fishman, which mainly sits in waiting for the rare occasion when I need to plug in my dobro where there is no PA.
I might even venture out this Sunday to gig with this at a low-volume lunch gig I'm playing. Will report back.

Peavey Pacer. Discret transistors. Sonunds quite a bit like the LTD.

Fender Rumble 40. Very light weight, solid-state, puts out a lot of sound for a 10" speaker (of course, since it's designed for bass). It has a good clean sound, and it has a "Vintage" button that adds some hair to the sound (the amount of distortion is controllable with the Gain knob). My older videos on YouTube feature this amp. No reverb, though.

Fender 25r, has head phone jack for silent practice and amazingly has rich Fender tone! Also very loud, great reverb!