new guitar amp..... BluGuitar AMP1

The guys with money have bad backs. :D
But it seems like small, light, portable and space saving, yet feature packed is the new trend which probably took off around the time of the Ipod.
My amp is fairly light but then its just a 1x12 combo. I would have got one of the small Victory amps if I could have afforded it and was pretty close to getting a Tiny Terror.
 
Really dude, how frail are you that moving an amp head or rolling cab on wheels wipes you out? :laughings:
well ...... you have to lift the things at times.
For someone with a genuinely bad back it's not doable.
And I almost never do gigs where a 4x12 is usable anymore so I mostly use combos which are heavier since you have the amp and cab together.
Like I said ..... I still do it and it's no problem really.

But 10-12 years ago my fav amp was my Ampeg VT-40 .... actually it still is.
But it weighs 95lbs and I just can't .... I can lift it if I have to but it's an issue for my being able to straighten up afterwards.
10 years ago ..... no problem.

And you know I'll be gigging till I die so in another 10 years what's gonna happen? I imagine some more loss of lifting ability.
Hell ..... sometimes having my sax and guitar hanging from my neck makes my right arm go numb .....

For those of us that prefer gigging to staying at home and want to continue 'till we croak on stage it's a legitimate concern.
 
I'm not saying everyone should lug around full stacks or even half stacks, but like you said, a full combo is heavier than a head, and a cab rolls. Being a drummer for 20+ years, I can't help but laugh at guitarists complaining about hauling gear. Not you guys specifically, but just in general. For me, I way prefer to do my guitar gigs as far as hauling shit goes. A head, cab, and a few cables is nothing compared to a complete drum kit. Playing guitar is like a vacation.
 
Living in a different town in the week to the weekend means I have to lug gear about a lot!
Monday - 6:30 AM, Lug all the gear from house to the car and drive to work.
Monday - 6:30 PM, Lug all the gear to my apartment on the 3rd floor!
Monday - Thursday, usually two evening rehersals so lugging gear back down and then up those 3 floors.
Friday - Lug all the gear back down, drive to my home, and set my gear up for the weekend at home.

If I stay playing with bands in this city I'll probably buy a cab and head to use here and keep my combo set up at home so I've only got guitars, leads bag and pedal board to carry back and forth/setup on a Monday and Friday.
 
I'm not saying everyone should lug around full stacks or even half stacks, but like you said, a full combo is heavier than a head, and a cab rolls. Being a drummer for 20+ years, I can't help but laugh at guitarists complaining about hauling gear. Not you guys specifically, but just in general. For me, I way prefer to do my guitar gigs as far as hauling shit goes. A head, cab, and a few cables is nothing compared to a complete drum kit. Playing guitar is like a vacation.

oh, I totally agree ..... being a drummer has to be a nightmare as far as hauling shit goes ...... I'm glad that's not what I have to do for sure ....... but I carry a HUGE amount of stuff for a single .... (PA head .... 2 15+horn cabs .... keyboard .... guitar rig .... sax .... lights .... various cases ) .

I frequently have people say I should carry less stuff and I always reply with "I'm just not that lazy" ....... as long as I can do it I will.
And young people can so they should.

I hope I can carry heavy stuff 'till I die ...... but I'm glad there will be an alternative if I ever get to where I can't.
 
Speaking of lugging gear - anyone know where you can get those spikey foam filled flight cases from? I wouldn't mind getting one to stick my pedal board and a few bits (mic, cab clamp, a few leads, power supply etc) in. Would reduce the number of things that I have to carry.

edit: that was actually really easy: Guitar Effects Pedalboard Flight Cases
 
oh, I totally agree ..... being a drummer has to be a nightmare as far as hauling shit goes ...... I'm glad that's not what I have to do for sure ....... but I carry a HUGE amount of stuff for a single .... (PA head .... 2 15+horn cabs .... keyboard .... guitar rig .... sax .... lights .... various cases ) .

I frequently have people say I should carry less stuff and I always reply with "I'm just not that lazy" ....... as long as I can do it I will.
And young people can so they should.

I hope I can carry heavy stuff 'till I die ...... but I'm glad there will be an alternative if I ever get to where I can't.

Yeah you have to haul a complete stage set up. That has to suck.

My current live guitar setup is this:
Two Marshall heads
Two 8x10 cabs
Two guitars
A pedal board
A backpack full of cables, fuses, tubes, tools, and extra shit.

The cabs are the only cumbersome part of the operation, but they're not that heavy. They have wheels and handles, and I can always find some bar schlub to give me a hand throwing them up onto the stage if I feel like it. It seems crowd people are usually eager to help out the band in some way. All I gotta do is ask. And what are they gonna say anyway? No? That never happens. No one wants to be that dick. I'm usually set up and ready in 5-10 minutes.

For drums, there's much more shit to do. I usually set up side/back stage while the band before me is playing. As soon as they're done and their drums are gone, mine go up, ready to go. The drum sound check is usually first, so I gotta be ready. Then I wait for my guitar players to figure out their effects loops. :D
 
My current live guitar setup is this:
Two Marshall heads
Two 8x10 cabs
Two guitars
A pedal board
A backpack full of cables, fuses, tubes, tools, and extra shit.
I just HAVE to get there someday and hear that rig at full throttle!
 
so kinda makes this little gadget thingy seem like a good idea.
i'd really like to hear one in person....
 
Really dude, how frail are you that moving an amp head or rolling cab on wheels wipes you out? :laughings:

Really?? You just love to antagonize, belittle, make fun of. Don't you?

Not to mention that you twist words around.
I didnt say I couldn't. I said I didn't dig moving it around.

Big difference in what I said and your response.

:D
 
I just HAVE to get there someday and hear that rig at full throttle!
Haha that would be awesome. Although those 8x10 cabs don't sound bad, they don't have the balls that one 4x12 has. They look cool as shit though. :D

Really?? You just love to antagonize, belittle, make fun of. Don't you?

Not to mention that you twist words around.
I didnt say I couldn't. I said I didn't dig moving it around.

Big difference in what I said and your response.

:D

Lol. Relax man, I'm just busting balls. :thumbs up:
 
Me too :D

When I was gigging a lot I used a 70s 100 watt combo that had a cast basket celestion 12 in it. That fucker was HEAVY.
Still dont remember the model and haven't seen one since.

I made an extension cabinet with a 1 15 Peavy black widow from a pa cab I got cheap cause the horn blew out.

For smaller gigs, it was just the combo, and for others, I'd stack the combo on the 15 cabinet.

That setup worked as well as my plexi head with a 4x12, but with less shit to carry.
:D
 
heaviest thing I ever had was a 4x12 cab with 4 EV SRO 12's in it.
No single human being could lift that thing!! One time a good ol' boy was insisting, "No problem .... hand it to me from the stage " .... it drove him down into the mud!! :laughings:

I also had an old fender Bassman 400 head ..... around early 70's ..... that was a legitimate 2-man lift.
 
On that note, dont you love lifting a fender twin reverb with EVs?
I used to put EVs into everything. Had a 4x12 with those too. Heavy fucker for sure.
:D
 
On that note, dont you love lifting a fender twin reverb with EVs?

:D
or JBLs. Stupid heavy amps with either.

I actually have 4 blown D110s that I keep wanting to get reconed but it's expensive and I doubt they'd sound as good as many speakers I could just buy.

But sentimentality sorta makes me want them working.
 
Well, I've got a Bluguitar AMP1 (as of last November) as well as a Rivera Clubster 45 and a Cornford Harlequin. I just joined the site today or I'd have chipped in sooner.

It's pretty good as a live amp for all the reasons you might expect - light, small, loud enough to fill a 200+ person venue without going through the PA, easy to set it up to be heard in the band mix. I'm not intending to use the Rivera for gigs any more and thinking of selling it. The AMP1 is much easier to set up for live use. The audience hears a decent sounding guitar tone that is totally acceptable for the purpose.

Let's face it, most audiences in small, noisy venues don't hear the finer things in your tone too well. Most people usually can't tell if a recorded guitar is actually a guitar plugin, either. To me, the AMP1 sounds good in the band. If it sounds good, then it is, no matter what technology is being used. Even so, just like any amp, there are tones that are great at domestic levels which sound poor when used at higher volumes and get lost completely in a band mix. Sometimes the tones that sound good in the mix aren't so pleasing when heard in isolation, either.

The preamp is solid state, but definitely analogue, not modelled. It has 4 voices that can be fine-tuned to balance and gain-stage against each other. I particularly like the clean sound (very organic, Fender-ish) and the vintage sound (early low gain Marshall-ish). The power amp has a 'mini' valve which shapes the sound before it (I'm guessing here) goes into a Class D amp to get the volume. Turning down the volume control causes the sound to clean up nicely, BTW. The entire signal path is analogue unless you use the digital reverb, which adds its 'wet' mix into your dry sound. I rather like it, a simple 'spring' type sound similar to a TC Hall Of Fame.

I bought it to play live. But... I'm now toying with using it for my songwriting demos. Here's why:

The amp can run without a speaker load straight into an audio interface. There is some speaker emulation built in that isn't as good as a Two Notes CAB, but it's not bad if you add Space Designer (I'm using Logic Pro) and a free IR file. I've been having trouble getting the Logic guitar amp plugins to sound as good as AMP1 does, which is probably my inexperience with DAWs, but I just want to record demos - I'm not making Dark Side of the Moon (other recordings are available...).

So, hope this is helpful to some. I'm a fan. Any questions, do ask and I'll try to answer.

Cheers, Norman
 
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