How to select an amplifier...

[J M Fahey]

Do you know whatīs the *worst* about it?

IF guys doing so reacted and said "oh shit, this sounds like crap, what happened?" it would be reasonable ... but they keepplaying and othe full show with it.

I ask them: "why donīt you plug straight into the house supplied backline amp and play with that?" .... "oh no, my sound is in this pedalboard"

[Leo_Gnardo]

"oh no, my sound is in this pedalboard"

Heh heh ... then who needs YOU? (The guitarist, just to be perfectly clear.) Oh that's right the band needs someone to stand up front, prance & pose with a guitar. Or a dozen... Fools the crowd, every time.

[Chuck H]

Well the same can happen in different way with tube gear too. I remember being a young player (maybe 22yo) and I really liked my new Peavey PAG60. Basically a Rockmaster preamp feeding a pair of 6L6's into a Black Widow speaker. So far so good, except... The Black Widow isn't as efficient as a Celestion or similar and, as a young player in the beginning of the nineties I had way too much mid scoop in my tone. Worked fine, great actually at home. As soon as I took it out I just couldn't get the amp to cut through the mix with anything I was use to dialing in at home and I couldn't re-conceptualize how to manage it in situ. Very embarrassing.

I bought a Marshall head and a pair of 2X12 cabinets the following week. Then I started tweaking it for the tone in my head with advice from the fine posters here and I've never looked back much.

[olddawg]

Funny thing about modelers and people that use them... I think I’ve mentioned before that I play with this guy regularly.. Our drummer calls his rig “The Starship Enterprise”. He sets a specially built “oversized” 4x12” cab loaded with some kind of Celestians on top of 2 canvas covered milk crates so it’s pointed right at his head. On top of that he sets a JCM DSL 2000 100watt head. Into Main Amp In on the head he runs a big old rack mount Marshall preamp. (So he’s only using the power amp in the head) Into that preamp he runs some kind of older rack mount top end modeler unit with a big floor controller. Into that he runs an OLD VHS wireless unit.. And of course his guitar has to have a Floyd and EMG pickups slamming the the wireless. Somewhere in that mess he runs a DI to the PA. But... he has the preamp master turned down so the stage level is about stage balanced to what my 20 watt 1x12” tube combo is putting out with a couple of pedals.. and my amp is never never maxed out.. and I use a Weber speaker attenuator. To my ears... he can never get a truely clean sound at all and his dirty tone is noisy, hissy, chainsaw with reverb, effected, mess. It takes up half of the stage. He simply has to have it. It’s HIS rig! One gig a while back his controller locked up. He was freaking out and asked me what to do? I said, “Do you have the foot pedal for the JCM in your kit?” He did.. I set up the amp and thought it was the best he ever sounded. Next gig.. back to the Starship Enterprise, lol. You know what... the crowd didn’t care either way, lol. He gets irked that I get more complements. And.. my bass player (who currently is using no amp and DIed with a SansAmp into the WAY to large and complex PA) bitches about my little amp in its collapsible amp stand being so loud sometimes. Some people just don’t understand the difference between being articulate and cutting through the mix and just being a loud mushy mess with no dynamics. AND have no conception of why they are using something. They just keep riding that horse. But I’m old. Its mostly just club gigs now. I just bring my small manageable rig that I can lift, it’s miked a bit, and watch the circus.

[J M Fahey]

Reading your post I was about to scream: "have him plug STRAIGHT into the JCM2000 and play it LOUD" but of course you said so 1 paragraph later
And since it would be WAY too loud, he should use the 50W version ... or simply pull 2 power tubes, AND "downgrade" to a 2 x 12" compact and portable cabinet.
AND junk the f*ck*ng external preamps, multieffects, etc.
Just use a simple classic Distortion pedal to boost solos and maybe one or two "time" effects, such as reverb/delay/chorus/flanger ... 1 at a time.

If you are cooking and add one tablespoon each of paprika/chili/pepper/cumin/nutmeg/crushed garlic/curry/etc. you simply RUIN the stew and make it UNEDIBLE

That said, I meet such people all the time and already gave up all hope of helping them.
meaning I suggest something *once*.

Some see the light, most not, donīt waste time/energy on them

[Malcolm Irving]

Yes, those 'guitar-into-amp' sounds demonstrated in the video of post #25 can sound a bit 'stark' all by themselves, but add drums, bass, singer etc. and they would cut-through beautifully and sound great.

[Chuck H]

All this^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

When I was getting started it WAS the era of rack mount, effects loop, MIDI controlled, burgeoning three channel rigs. The PAG60 was actually my attempt to get back to a simple stage rig. Prior to that I had the full catastrophe. Rack mount Mesa Studio preamp into a Quadreverb, EQ, MIDI controller, stereo power amp and the pair of 2x12 cabs mentioned above. It sounded fine. A little closer to reasonable than the rig olddawg outlined above at least. But still didn't have the sound I was after. Even my first Marshall head was modified with a channel stack and a master volume. I was probably 32yo before I started discovering the benefits of sizing the amp to the gig and then turning it up.

So now I'm a plug and play guy. And my focus has been on how to get ANY useful tone for stage with the simplest rig possible. With my amps designed for more gain than average and to compress and saturate when clipping so that the volume with the guitar turned down for cleans is at a useful balance with the clipped tones. I do miss reverb sometimes. And with such a rig a reverb pedal won't work. Built in reverb might just be ok, but when a customer wanted reverb I built him a dedicated "reverb amp" that filches drive from his main amp to drive the tank. Cleanest possible reverb sound for a cranked up amp. I might build one for myself. I might not. Because overall the more I simplify the better my tone gets and the more versatile I can be in an actual band context. I took a relatively long time to get there, but I was from THAT era (And yes, I had big hair, ripped jeans and Floyd Rose equipped guitar )

[Rotti123]

So many great amps in that price range. I've owned a ton of amps over the years and I've settled on an Orange AD30 and 2x12 open back cab. For me its the perfect blend of vintage tone and feel but still fairly high gain. Also it sits just perfect in the mix when jamming with the band which is where it counts most.

[Justin Thomas]

And all you need up front is a chorus, a disthortotron, maybe a wah, a few other discrete pedals, done. None of this fancy blablooblabloo.

I was going to put up my standard rant about "sound guys" (maybe I'll start calling them soundgurumen). But, long story short, low power (for bass) + efficient & multiple speakers + all-tube = audience-pleading goodness, clarity, and authority that everyone can appreciate. Well, except for the sound guys, who can no longer control you.

Justin

[Justin Thomas]

Chuck, & all,

Guitarists are often derided as "too conservative," "old-fashioned," set in our ways," etc. But it's not like we didn't TRY. Just look at the 80s for proof.

Justin

Huh. I just readmy signature. I think it says all that needs to be said here! Thanks to Chuck, Juan, and Tone.

[Chuck H]

Well, except for the sound guys, who can no longer control you.

Isn't that liberating I remember a gig where the sound guy and the manager of the club both asked if the band could turn down their amps. It was a small gig*** and we were playing to the level of live, un-mic'd drums. So I told the guys to turn UP just a little. When the sound guy and manager asked us to turn down again we just turned down to where we were before and all was well

*** But it was also a packed gig. Standing room only on the floor! The Barenaked Ladies were playing a club just a few doors down and their show was two hours later than ours. There were HOARDS of people in our club until their show started. We had to be loud just to be heard above the din of the crowd. I met Courtney Love that night. She seemed nice, though we all know better

[Justin Thomas]

Full disclosure: I play 95% of mytime out in churches or schools, so my experience may vary.

The job of the "sound guy" is not to "control" musicians. And the fact that they're almost "bred" to think they are is disturbing. If they have constructive ways to make me sound better, we can talk. But most of thetime anymore I've been playing longer than they've been alive. They're also not there to make me & those I'm playing with sound like someone else. And despitetheir complaining, I count the praise & gratitude of those I play for aLOT more than any whinging sound guy. Oh my - and how many of them do I hear claim the title of"engineer!"

How often do they try to make it sound "just like the recording..." Guess what - it's LIVE. It ain't spozed to.

I'm not an asshole, and I've bren doing this a long time. I'd rather not be pre-judged at the outset as an idiotic jerkoff who doesn't know how to exhibit self-control... And my philosophy is, you play loud til the crowd bitches. Then you can turn down. But don't gimme this fraidy-cat scared crap. Nobody's ever complained about volume. What they really complain about is frequency imbalance.

Justin

[olddawg]

Another interesting thing about “sound men”... they are a mixed bag of course.. I find on a local level mostly failed musicians with questionable competency. I had a sound company for a while back in the early 80s. Put it up my nose.. but I have some perspective. Anyway.. the last 10 years I can’t figure out out where these people are coming from most of the time. I’ll be backing up somebody for a showcase at the HOB or something.. for the band immediately before me the guitarist has a 100 watt half stack drenched in reverb and is earpearcingly loud and trebly to me. And I, for example, just had a Valve Jr through a 4x10” 1965A cab or a 1x12” with a Strat running into a compressor pedal and an OD. The sound guy: “Dude.. you have to bring it down!” Me: “But it’s a 5 watt amp?” The sound guy: “Yeah but those little amps can get real loud!”. Go figure..

[nsubulysses]

Full disclosure: I play 95% of mytime out in churches or schools, so my experience may vary.

Well of course everyone is telling you to turn down then if you only play in churches and schools.

In a way I am surprised to see so many people complaiing about sound guys. I guess I am in my own realm where it can be an issue but is usually not. Modern heavy metal is extremely loud and downtuned (you need louder amps if you're tuned to B, or A standard or G standard or something vs regular tuning, so it's not uncommon for people to have guitar amps that are 120 or 150 or 200W instaed of 100W, or use two heads and two 4x12s for one guitarist). Sound guys can be annoying and want to control all the sound sometimes, but if you are in a rock band and play small or medium sized rock venues, or DIY shows, people are used to and expecting 100+ watt amps to be cranking all the time. Worst case scenario is we say, "yes we agree our band is loud. you don't need to mic the cabs though. Can you just put kick, snare, and vocals through the PA and we can handle the rest?" They usually seem happy because they get to do less work.

In my band I am a single guitarist and it's just guitar, vocals and drums. I play a 150W heavy metal amp through a 4x12, a V4 or sound city 120 with an overdrive pedal through another 4x12 on the other side of the stage, and an acoustic 370 through matching acoustic 301 cab for bass reinforcement. People sometimes say, "whoa you got a lot of gear!" but really, we have just as much gear as your average rock band with a guitarist or two and a bass player, 3 heads 3 cabs. What they should probably really say is, "whoa you don't got a lot of band members !!" I could agree on that.

I guess it depends on what kind of music you play

[Leo_Gnardo]

Nobody's ever complained about volume. What they really complain about is frequency imbalance.

Maybe that works in your neighborhood. I learned early on, 40+ years ago, if the bartenders can't hear the customers' orders, YOU'RE TOO DAMN LOUD! Now I cut power to the stage, haul your crap out, you don't get paid, and never come back, sez the manager/owner. Then they install a disco system with a master volume in the office and/or behind the bar, no more live music ever. "Why should I pay a bunch of stinky scruffy deafening wannabee losers $500 a night, when I can pay a DJ $100?" That's the way it's been around here ever since, and the live music scene is only just barely recovering. Tough to find a gig that will pay $100 per musician. Hell we made that money in the 70's. There's been a LOT of inflation since then.