Suggestion for a blues amp

[gnome]

Hi, I'm in the market for a new amp and since the options are pretty overwhelming, I thought I'd seek some advice. I want something that will give me the right tone for a BB King-style blues, preferably for not more than £150 ($300) as that's about as far as my budget can stretch. In terms of tone I hear that tube amps are the best option, but I'm still relatively new to the technology and the sort of maintenance these things apparently require scares me a little. Any suggestions would be appreciated enormously, thanks.

[tubeswell]

Get yourself a second hand tube amp, preferably one of the ones on the following site and do the mods recommended on this site

www.blueguitar.org

I obtained a Peavey Classic 30 (usually really good value for money) and fo ra few xtra cents worth of resistors and caps (plus the odd speaker change) have done quite a few of the mods on this site ( and more besides) and have absolutely no regrets.

[Brad1]

I want something that will give me the right tone for a BB King-style blues.......

....and noting that B.B. is most noted for playing through a solid state Lab Series shouldn't dissuade you from trying to use a tube amp.

B.B. is one of the few bluesmen who can get away with using a SS amp, because he isn't concerned about greasy, sweaty, barroom SRV-clone tone. He's more into single-note lines and jazzy clean.

A good tube amp that doesn't overdrive or saturate too soon through a clean speaker (like an EVM12L, or perhaps a JBL of some sort) should be able to do that.

So, you may want to avoid anything below 20-30 watts to use it live, or you may be pushing it up beyond clean. In this case, more power may be even better.

Just an observation. Dissenting views or corrections welcome.

Brad1

[gnome]

Thank you both for your feedback. Could anyone suggest any specific amps? If I decided to go the solid-state route (which I am tempted to do, considering my budget and lack of experience), which amps would be good for my purposes?

[tommy d]

Try a '70's MusicMan 65 watt 2x10 or 2x12. (Post CBS Leo Fender product out of Fullerton, CA) Great amps and currently undervalued with that beautiful fender reverb and tremolo. I just bought one for $300.00 US with new Groove Tubes and it sounds amazing and looks purdy too - well Mr. Coffee '70's "purdy". (the Mr. Coffee comes from someone elses rant - I just love it!)

These amps have the "master volume" thing that turns Fender collectors off but IMO, these amps are just little blackface Twins with a Master volume and as such you can overdrive either the power or gain stage. I have a real blackface twin but it simply just too loud and too clean for blues without a pedal -- I actually use the twin to play bass through two EVM 15's sounds extra nice

The MusicMan amps are generally purposed for Blues, Country and Rock but not Metal. I use an old Hughes & Kettner Tubeman and get two beautiful channels out of this $300.00 wonder. I would recommend a gain stage pedal for these amps if you want pinch-harmonics at less than hearing damaging sound levels.


I'll second the Peavey Classic 30, very versatile sounding amp but $600.00 US is high. I really like the head only version

[JJGross]

Don't discount the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.
At 40w it's more than loud enough for any gig around. I just used it at a gig outdoors last weekend and it was plenty loud miced through the PA. More than loud enough to hear over the miced up drums.

The HRDx is actually very loud for it's size and a lot of people mod them to get the volume under control. I used tube converters to run mine on EL84 tubes instead of the high powered 6L6 they come with stock.

I got mine in mint condition for $400 with a cover and switch. If you'd like to hear it in action, do a YouTube.com search for "Dirty Ernie Band". A fan took video of us doing a little bar gig and posted them (much to my surprise). Don't expect a great band mix, she was planted right in front of my amp with a pocket camera with the tiny built in mic. Not a lot of drums or bass picked up that way. You can definitely hear the guitar though. If you have a good speaker system on your PC, crank the bass up to make it sound a little better.

In particular listen to our cover of Tab Benoit's "Time & Time Again" for a good Blues tone (IMHO). Rig is MIM Strat w/ TS pups, Bluesbreaker clone pedal (that I built) for a solo boost & grit right to the amp. No other processing used in that song. Another good sound is our cover of Robert Cray's "Smokin' Gun". Same setup, only I used a Boss CEB-3 Bass Chorus to thicken up my clean tone for that song. Again, the BB for the solo.

I've only heard good things about the Peavey Classics and I've heard several in use that were great Blues amps. YMMV.

Cheers,
- JJG

[strangedogs]

hows about a 5-watt PLEXI



Bought as a "No-Name" on Ebay about a year or so ago - found out it was a Multivox (as the tubes are labelled - no name anywhere else). Found it on this website too:

http://www.harpamps.com/premier/later.html

scroll down to the model 45. Tremelo is one of the sweetest I've heard - definitely CCR's "Midnight Special" sound. When cranked to 10 this thing has LUSH, PLEXI disortion you wouldn't believe. It amazes me when I crank her up - wanna try some different tubes but don't wanna mess with a good thing... 2 more sold on Ebay in the past 2 months - $200 & $240 I think - listed with HEAVY DISTORTION, etc. in the auction descriptions...

I'm grabbin' another one asap - I paid $80 for mine GET ONE and you'll be amazed. KICKS the Valve Junior and the Champ's AZZ.

[PRNDL]

Low-cost tube amps

There are some really inexpensive tube amps to try:

Epiphone Valve Junior 5W $150
Peavy Classic_20 $150
Kustom Tube_12 $75

The Epiphone is a great choice; there's a lot of web articles with simple mods to improve tone.

[Steve A.]

There are some really inexpensive tube amps to try:

Epiphone Valve Junior 5W $150
Peavy Classic_20 $150
Kustom Tube_12 $75

The Epiphone is a great choice; there's a lot of web articles with simple mods to improve tone.

I have a Kustom Tube 12 and there is just one tube-a 12AX7 for the preamp. Otherwise it is solid state. It is a lot of fun, and I just put in an Eminence Beta 8 speaker- this is an 8 inch speaker for bass amps rated at 200 watts! LOL

You can check over at Harmony Central for a whole sh*tload of user reviews on it, mostly positive. Note: I leave the gain switch off since the ss overdrive is pretty chintzy.

Steve Ahola

P.S. With the Epi Valve Junior, be sure to avoid the earlier combo versions because they has some serious noise issues. The head version came with the improved design, as did the later combos. So beware when getting a used combo amp from eBay, et al.