Big amps - Why?

  • Thread starter Thread starter noisedude
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mixmkr said:
I will tell you why the big amps. It is because of the sound and the air that the speakers move. No..it doesn't have to be 120dB, but a 4x12 cabinet at 105dB sounds to ME much better than a little combo. And I say 105dB is just fine.
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Absolutely. I've always played with combos. I've played with people who used combos and people who had stacks and the stacks ALWAYS sounded better.
My Ibanez Tube Screamer plugged into a 100W Marshall Stack is probably the best sound I've ever played with. I've also plugged it into small Marshall combos and it just isn't the same. The stacks just seem to have more resonance and punch.
 
mixmkr said:
I will tell you why the big amps. It is because of the sound and the air that the speakers move. No..it doesn't have to be 120dB, but a 4x12 cabinet at 105dB sounds to ME much better than a little combo. And I say 105dB is just fine.

I used to play in a band that played a lot of 500 seat clubs, high school proms, stuff like that. We NEVER mic'd anything and had a heavy hitting drummer. A half stack, much less a full stack was just fine in those places. It wasn't about ego, etc. But try to fill up a gymnasium with a Roland 60 cube and you see what I mean.

At smaller clubs, we just always turned our amps around or just took half stacks.

Playing Led Zep covers with a Peavey Classic 30 just doesn't cut it.

I also believe that a 50 watt amp is about min with a LOUD drummer.


NOW>>
if you have a GREAT engineer, a GREAT monitor mix, I will CONSIDER a small amp.
At my church, I run three amps...all about 30 watts each, except for a 130 Peavey that handles the guitar synth. I turn the amps off to the side, and where I stand, the mix and sound and volume level is PERFECT for me. Unfortunately, church soundmen usually aren't the best, and I know the FOH suffers for it. However, I only play for God in that instance, and leave the FOH sound ENTIRELY up to the soundcrew to do what they think is best for the congregation. I definately do what is best for the praise team as a whole and am eager to work with my sound for whatever is needed.
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I'll go along with this in general. Sometimes it just seems to help to fit the size of the rig to the room. I've had my 2-12 combo come off responding feeling really small on an outdoor stage for example. On the other hand, a too large rig doesn't always scale down very well either. It depends of the tone style too I suppose.
Wayne
 
Because sometimes you want to be louder than God and don't want output tube distortion.

A 4x12 cab just moves a lot more air as well.
 
in the 80s i had a jcm 800 marshall half stack and was envious of people with full stacks and i never played in front of more than 300 people. why did i have this setup? because i didnt know better. i saw all my heroes with stacks and thats what i thought i needed.

now, after 20 years my biggest amp is a 30 watt AC30CC 2x12 and i feel thats overkill for most situations. i prefer the deluxe reverb RI for most situations.

i look back at those times in the 80s and can totally relate to all the "kids" these days.
 
Im not talking about ear bleed volumes but there is just something great about being able to "FEEL" what your playing. You just can't get that with a little ankle biter amp. Of course it all depends on what your needs are and what setup is best suited for you.
 
Wireneck said:
Im not talking about ear bleed volumes but there is just something great about being able to "FEEL" what your playing. You just can't get that with a little ankle biter amp. Of course it all depends on what your needs are and what setup is best suited for you.
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and that is why in our church, we can crank it up... it's all about feel!! seriously, you hold back, can't "feel" the air...you play less inspired. Tell a drummer to "hold back" and play a little quieter, pleezzze.. He sounds like dog doo (or she...!) ya gotta rip... and about 112dB is where I draw the line.

the comment about the Deluxe Reverb. I had one of those in the 60's .. Fantastic little amp. However, I could never get it to hold up to a full band and a drummer. A twin kinda bordered on tooo much, as it was clean all the way to 11. Ah...but a bassman and a pair of 2x12 cabinets moved air, sounded good, and saved the ears.

I'll hold firmly that 20 watts isn't enough, unless you're a jazzer or whatever. For "modern" music, gimme a little bit more.
 
Four reasons:
1) Some people don't like speaker/amplifier distortion.

2) As mentioned before, small venues have sucky sound control. Not to mention if you're hosting your own shows (which seems to happen rare to never now-a-days) you might have to just set up the PA at the beginning of the show and go with it without anybody controlling it throughout. This is a lot easier if you minimize what's going through the PA.

3) Most all small bass amps suck and a lot of small to mid-sized PA's don't reproduce decent bass sounds at all.

4) That real garage-rock sound just doesn't come from small amps.
 
I think fairly sophisticated PA systems are much more common in venues over here. I know I've been to see bands in rooms that held 200 or less that had PA set ups complete with desk, mics (and not just for vocals), racks and monitors. So... if you gig in the UK it would seem you're less likely to need a humungously powerful amp to cut through the mix.
 
This is what I'm saying. The bands playing last night were entertaining about 50 people, yet the drums were fully mic'd, there was vocal reverb, there were two monitor mixes and so on. My 100W amp sounded fine ... but the volume controls were only set to '3'. Next up came an electro-folk band, the bassist had a 4x12 (or may 10?) Ashdown combo, and the guitarist had a 4x12 Marshall half. I couldn't hear the vocalist at any point, and I couldn't hear the bass or guitar through the mains. Gah!
 
If you play big you gotta have big amps and you have to have balance with the PA. They have to work together so you need yourself a SE to work with you throughout your show.
 
This is the thing - I'm an engineer now as much as I am a musician, and that's WHY I appreciate people not turning up with huge amps.
 
Well, I run a TSL100 and a Triple rect as my rig. While I have 200W total through 2 half stacks, it doesn't mean that is where I run them.

My car will do 160 but I rarely run it over 80. So by the thoughts presented here, I should get a car that I can only do 80 with. Why is this a bad idea! Because I would be using it at it's top capacity and therefore will not have anymore when I need it, and I will be beating it by driving it as hard as I can.

The same thing applies with amps, PAs and everything else. If you drive things as hard as you can, they wear faster and you have nothing left when it is required. With tube amps, you also change the sound greatly, depending on how hard you drive them. Even with solid state, the louder you drive them the more distortion you pick up. If you don't belive it, just take a look at any distortion graph for any amp. As power increases, so does the distortion.

I would venture to say that most guitarists run small amps for only two reasons: 1 - They don't want to carry anything bigger or 2 - They can't afford anything bigger. So set a 100W Marshall tube beside a 20W solid state Fender and I will always pick the Marshall.
 
Put a 20W all-tube Rivera or Fender or Vox or Orange against that 100W Marshall, and tell me what you would choose then. At least make it a fair comparison - the best from each world.

Plus, all amps sound better higher up in their volume range. If I get an all-tube Fender or Carlsboro and run it at 80%, it will sound better than a Marshall stack running on 10 or 20%. IMVHO, at least. Fact is, I don't know, which is why I'm asking.
 
I'm not sure what side of that argument I'm on, because I play through a 50 watt half stack and a 100 watt half stack together and The 50 watter has to be turned all the way up before it sounds like an amp..... So I don't seem to be for headroom or small size... :D

a few points:

1. This is totally dependant on what kind of music you're playing. You absolutely can not play metal through a "ankle biter :D " amp unless you want to look like a pussy and have people throw things at you, no matter how good the sound dude/system is.

2. Small combos don't generally have the balls for BIG hard rock either, maybe for some lighter rock or for a big mix of music where a variety of sound is more important than melting faces.

3. Rock music is suppposed to be loud.

4. Guitar godliness is totally dependant on intimidating everyone with your massive.........stack

5. It has to be bigger than the bass rig.

6. The controls on the amp have to be up where I don't have to lean over to get to them, and no an amp stand doesn't count! :D

7. I have to be able to drown out everybody else if I want to, regardless of what the sound guy does!

8. Rock music is supposed to be loud.

9. 8-12's = huge tone......1-12 = honky, honky........j/k :D

10. Rock music is supposed to be loud.

11. This still doesn't work without the stacks.....(see below)
 
noisedude said:
Put a 20W all-tube Rivera or Fender or Vox or Orange against that 100W Marshall, and tell me what you would choose then. At least make it a fair comparison - the best from each world.

Plus, all amps sound better higher up in their volume range. If I get an all-tube Fender or Carlsboro and run it at 80%, it will sound better than a Marshall stack running on 10 or 20%. IMVHO, at least. Fact is, I don't know, which is why I'm asking.
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I guess i have made a huge change in my thinking in the last month. I used to play through a full solid state stack in the 120 watt range. It sounded really good, and was loud enough of course, but.......

recentely, i purchased a 20 watt hughs and kettner all tube 1x12 combo. it is very close to being just as loud as the full stack with 8, 12 inch speakers. weird eh, plus it is much crisper and clearer than anything i have ever used. As a result, i dont have to play as loud because that amp is so clean sounding, and doesnt have to be as loud volume wise to be heard in my area of the stage, plus if I do need a little boost, i can make up the difference in the monitors. I might add that i used this live in as big a club as your going to play in my area which will hold close to 1000 people and has a professional size stage and sound system.

The only thing that is different for my band now(getting back to the original post question), is that the other players on the other side of the stage have said they cant hear me as well now, so that means they have to bring me through their monitors to hear me, so that means now their monitors are cluttered with their guitar, their vocals, my guitar, and the lead vocals. which isnt a big deal, but still is a lot to put through just one monitor and be able to hear it all clearly. so we kinda have to use the lead vocalist monitors to make up the difference if that makes any sense.

so i guess in my experience, the only reason i can think of why you need a full stack would be so you have enough speakers pushing your volume for the other guys to hear you well enough on the other side of a large stage without cluttering up the monitor mix??

even then, thats a big maybe. Id still take the 20 watt tube amp over anything right now.
 
The 50 watter has to be turned all the way up before it sounds like an amp.
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Is this a tube amp your talking about? I have a 45 watt mesa boogie nomad Head and it smokes my 100w Marshall head even at the lowest of volumes. It obviously sounds alot better cranked but you get my point.
 
I agree that a big amp is pretty much required to play any type of metal. But I have to disagree with the people who said you need a big amp for rock or a little combo doesn't have enough "balls."

I've got a 30-watt Budda Superdrive 2x12 combo and it freaking rocks! It's very loud and definitely has "balls." I can get Audioslave style "ballsy" out of this amp by using humbuckers and cranking the gain. But it won't do Slayer type of "ballsy" without the help of a distortion pedal.

Granted, my Budda is an open-back combo, so it doesn't have that tight, compressed sound you get from a sealed 4x12 cabinet. But, I've also got a 2x12 closed-back extension cabinet so I kind of get the best of both worlds. Plus, this helps with the stage-volume issue someone else mentioned because I run the extension cabinet to the other side of the stage so our bass player can hear me.

But the ankle-biter comment was hilarious!
 
Wireneck said:
Is this a tube amp your talking about? I have a 45 watt mesa boogie nomad Head and it smokes my 100w Marshall head even at the lowest of volumes. It obviously sounds alot better cranked but you get my point.
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yeah 50 watt tube marshall, I also run a 100 watt old marshall valvestate head and the 50 watter smokes it too!
 
Scottgman said:
I agree that a big amp is pretty much required to play any type of metal. But I have to disagree with the people who said you need a big amp for rock or a little combo doesn't have enough "balls."
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sorry man....I was just demonstrating my common pigheadedness from being a metal player.... because by "balls" I meant galactic jumbo whore chokers......like mine....:D. I have heard some righteous combos after all that do have enough balls for typical duty :D !
 
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