Where have I been? What's with all the small low wattage heads these days...

  • Thread starter Thread starter elenore19
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I'll admit that I haven't read all of this thread, but I've noticed a lot of people seem to think you NEED a powerful amp to play a rock show and be heard. My band just played a show using my drum kit and a 100w solid state Fender amp. We had one PA speaker solely for vocals. We started with the amp at a fairly high volume, somewhere around 8, and my friends in the audience kept complaining that it was too loud and drowning everything else out. So we turned it way down. At one point in the show, we switch to two guitars and no drums, me on a Fender Blues Jr. and expecting to have to crank it, but I had to turn it down certainly less than half, and that's only a 15w amp. Now, this was all without a PA system. If you had a PA system, there would be absolutely no point in a louder amp because it would be miked anyway. So I really don't understand why you would bother with a louder amp, especially given that most people believe that amps sound better in the louder part of their range and louder amps can't go into that range without hurting your ears.
 
thebigcheese said:
I'll admit that I haven't read all of this thread, but I've noticed a lot of people seem to think you NEED a powerful amp to play a rock show and be heard. My band just played a show using my drum kit and a 100w solid state Fender amp. We had one PA speaker solely for vocals. We started with the amp at a fairly high volume, somewhere around 8, and my friends in the audience kept complaining that it was too loud and drowning everything else out. So we turned it way down. At one point in the show, we switch to two guitars and no drums, me on a Fender Blues Jr. and expecting to have to crank it, but I had to turn it down certainly less than half, and that's only a 15w amp. Now, this was all without a PA system. If you had a PA system, there would be absolutely no point in a louder amp because it would be miked anyway. So I really don't understand why you would bother with a louder amp, especially given that most people believe that amps sound better in the louder part of their range and louder amps can't go into that range without hurting your ears.
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Welcome to the low wattage side to the argument:):D:cool:
 
thebigcheese said:
So I really don't understand why you would bother with a louder amp, especially given that most people believe that amps sound better in the louder part of their range and louder amps can't go into that range without hurting your ears.
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That's true for vintage style amps that rely strictly on power tube distortion to create a certain tone. Modern amps with cascading preamp stages can get a fantastic tone at lower volumes. The gist of the argument for high wattage amps is that they possess features that the vintage style low wattage amps lack. The low wattage amps are great for blues but for hard rock a high wattage amp at the same db level tone wise will eat the low watter alive.
 
Moonrider said:
Wait till ya have to haul that crap up 4 flights of fire escape cause the venue doesn't want to have equipment hauled in past the customers.

Wait 'til ya you have the hernia operation 'cause that 100 pound combo slipped when you were hoisting it into a trunk.

You just haven't endured sufficient pain yet.
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AAAYMAN to that Brother!:eek:
 
rejectionninja said:
i agree. This should be written in stone. Er, wait, ok so there's one thing that's written in stone, and that's that nothing is written in stone, except this, and you don't have to do anything one particular way. Wait, that's two things right there. Ok so there's two things written in stone, which is there's nothing written in stone except for this and the next thing, and the next thing is that you don't have to do anything one particular way. But you could, if you wanted to. You just don't have to.
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r o t f l m a o :d
 
That's probably true, but hopefully the new wave of low-wattage amps means that they'll start putting better options on them. Frankly, I don't see why I would ever need anything bigger than a Fender Twin, though. My Blues Jr. has all the options I could ever need.
 
I do sound for a few different bands in small to medium venues. Unless you're trying to be another KISS and play in huge rooms, big amps are more trouble than they're worth. Plus you end up with massive stage volume - which means the band is going to sound like garbage to everyone other than the lead guitarist. Small amps can have gobs of tone, keep the stage volume controllable, and I run everything through the PA where the horsepower belongs - people will hear what there is to hear. When I see someone rolling in with a behemoth, my first instinct is to get them to send it back home and use one of mine instead.
 
Treeline said:
I do sound for a few different bands in small to medium venues. Unless you're trying to be another KISS and play in huge rooms, big amps are more trouble than they're worth. Plus you end up with massive stage volume - which means the band is going to sound like garbage to everyone other than the lead guitarist. Small amps can have gobs of tone, keep the stage volume controllable, and I run everything through the PA where the horsepower belongs - people will hear what there is to hear. When I see someone rolling in with a behemoth, my first instinct is to get them to send it back home and use one of mine instead.
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part of the problem with this whole argument is the guys who want to use big over powered amps are the guitarists and the ones who are saying use the smaller amp is sound engineers.

haven't you figured it out by now guitards know more than sound engineers?:p
 
Treeline said:
big amps are more trouble than they're worth. Plus you end up with massive stage volume
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I've also done my share of sound gigs. Big amps come with this round knob thingey called a volume control that makes it louder or softer. My Carvin Legacy which is known to be a very loud amp when cranked, also sounds fantastic at low level. So the myth that all high wattage amps "must" be ungodly loud before they sound good is utter bullshit.
 
So the myth that all high wattage amps "must" be ungodly loud before they sound good is utter bullshit.
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I don't think its bullshit. Remember that power tube breakup is what we're after as tube amp players. Preamp tube breakup is lots more grainy and harsh than power tube breakup. I don't think you'll find much opposition to this argument amongst all of us who have played through a few tube amps.

In order to get power tubes to break up, you have to push them pretty hard. Doing that on a 100W amp generates a lot more volume than it would on a 5W amp. Again, not much to argue against here.

If you have an amp whose preamp gain you like, then fine. But its far from bullshit that pushing the power section of a tube amp generates superior distortion to simply getting distortion from the preamp only.
 
Tadpui said:
I don't think its bullshit. Remember that power tube breakup is what we're after as tube amp players.
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I play tube amps because they have superior tone and react to playing dynamics. Power tube distortion is not required for all types of music.

Tadpui said:
Preamp tube breakup is lots more grainy and harsh than power tube breakup.
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The preamp design, the tube type and brand, along with how it's dialed in determines how grainy or harsh preamp distortion is.

Tadpui said:
But its far from bullshit that pushing the power section of a tube amp generates superior distortion to simply getting distortion from the preamp only.
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Here again the amp's design and the type of music dictates whether it will sound superior when cranked. There are no absolute parameters when it comes to tone. It's all personal preference.
 
Exactly, personal preference. So you can't really call bullshit on something that's personal preference. However, I'd bet that the vast majority of tube amps follow suit with my argument. I have yet to hear a tube amp whose preamp distortion is worth anything more than to suppliment the power amp's breakup. If you have a clip, I'm all ears.
 
ocnor said:
I've also done my share of sound gigs. Big amps come with this round knob thingey called a volume control that makes it louder or softer. My Carvin Legacy which is known to be a very loud amp when cranked, also sounds fantastic at low level. So the myth that all high wattage amps "must" be ungodly loud before they sound good is utter bullshit.
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+1000 and if it's to loud, you're too f'n old!:mad::D

:mad:Get off my lawn!:mad::D
 
Roguetitan said:
there are always exceptions to the rules however most all class A amps and SS for that matter have clean and dirty channels and you can always throw a 7 band equalizer in the signal chain.
so there are ways to get what you need and still go small.

the thing about the whole thing is there is really nothing written in stone that you have to do something one particular way.
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Forgetting solid state amps (which honestly the vast majority I've played I wouldn't bother with - for better or for worse I'm a "tube snob," through in through. You can argue this, but until you find me a solid state amp with the same touch-sensitivity as a lightly driven Mesa I'm not intrested), the VAST majority of small tube amps are single channel. The Black Heart 5 watter has 3 band EQ, but a simple volume control, no channel, and no loop. The Krank Revolution Jr DOES have two channels, but with a shared midrange control and no loop (and besides, for what I do the Revolution sound just doesn't really work). The Epi Valve Jr. has a single "volume" knob, nothing else. The Egnater Rebel is actually the closest to what I'm looking for (although at 20 watts, it's not THAT low wattage), but again is only a single channel.

So, if I'm looking for an amp with, at a bare minimum, footswitchable channels and an FX loop, and on top of that would like all of the features I'm used to on the amps I've been using for the past, oh, 6 years - multiple modes per channel, a switchable clean boost, swtichable reverb, etc - then there's currently nothing on the market that can even come close to what I'm looking for with a low-wattage power section, especially when we start talking about the tone of the amp (again, the Egnater sounds interesting, but I've been a Mesa player for the better part of a decade, ignoring a brief Marshall flirtation in the middle there, and Mesa does a particular sort of lead sound that no one else seems to).

If I'm used to a Mesa Rectoverb combo, then there's no way I'm going to be able to trade the thing in for a Epiphone Vale Junior and a ton of pedals, and be happy with either the tone I'm getting or the tap dance routine I'd have to do to switch from a clean sound to a distorted sound, switch to a new EQ pedal, and add delay. :confused:
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Forgetting solid state amps (which honestly the vast majority I've played I wouldn't bother with - for better or for worse I'm a "tube snob," through in through. You can argue this, but until you find me a solid state amp with the same touch-sensitivity as a lightly driven Mesa I'm not intrested), the VAST majority of small tube amps are single channel. The Black Heart 5 watter has 3 band EQ, but a simple volume control, no channel, and no loop. The Krank Revolution Jr DOES have two channels, but with a shared midrange control and no loop (and besides, for what I do the Revolution sound just doesn't really work). The Epi Valve Jr. has a single "volume" knob, nothing else. The Egnater Rebel is actually the closest to what I'm looking for (although at 20 watts, it's not THAT low wattage), but again is only a single channel.

So, if I'm looking for an amp with, at a bare minimum, footswitchable channels and an FX loop, and on top of that would like all of the features I'm used to on the amps I've been using for the past, oh, 6 years - multiple modes per channel, a switchable clean boost, swtichable reverb, etc - then there's currently nothing on the market that can even come close to what I'm looking for with a low-wattage power section, especially when we start talking about the tone of the amp (again, the Egnater sounds interesting, but I've been a Mesa player for the better part of a decade, ignoring a brief Marshall flirtation in the middle there, and Mesa does a particular sort of lead sound that no one else seems to).

If I'm used to a Mesa Rectoverb combo, then there's no way I'm going to be able to trade the thing in for a Epiphone Vale Junior and a ton of pedals, and be happy with either the tone I'm getting or the tap dance routine I'd have to do to switch from a clean sound to a distorted sound, switch to a new EQ pedal, and add delay. :confused:
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I'm with you. Peavey Classic seems to be the only thing I can find decently close to that (and it's still 30 watts) it has about all of the features except for independent eqs, and I'm sacrificing some really high gain distortion but hoping to overcome it with pedals (it takes pedals pretty good).
 
You guys who want to crank a 100w head on stage for a pub gig are nuts. My ears already ring any time I'm in a quiet room, and I can't get to sleep without background noise to distract me. It is nowhere near worth it for some monstrously loud cock-rock riffs.
 
noisedude said:
You guys who want to crank a 100w head on stage for a pub gig are nuts. My ears already ring any time I'm in a quiet room, and I can't get to sleep without background noise to distract me. It is nowhere near worth it for some monstrously loud cock-rock riffs.
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lawl, and ur name is noisedude!!! just kiddin.
 
noisedude said:
You guys who want to crank a 100w head on stage for a pub gig are nuts. My ears already ring any time I'm in a quiet room, and I can't get to sleep without background noise to distract me. It is nowhere near worth it for some monstrously loud cock-rock riffs.
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lol gud one noisedud but serusly i like it loud lol



:eek:
:D
 
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