low watt amp recommendations?

[Talldog]

Hey all. I'm looking for a low watt amp for studio work. I have a Mesa Triple Rectifier that I love but its too loud in some studio situations. What do you think of the Orange Tiny Terror? Any other suggestions? Not interested in the line 6. I had one and alot of the sounds were good but not great. Studio is analog so plug ins wont work. Thanks in advance.

 

[Big Kenny]

That's like asking what amp do you like. For what?
I like an old Princeton, Blues Jr. or Deluxe......
but I like clean to pedals and then mess with it.....

 

[soundchaser59]

No budget limits? No particular style or sound to shoot for?

If you already like Mesa, the 5.25 Express is worth a long look.

Vintage Fenders are really nice (real ones, not the reissue things), but they cost more now than ever before if they are mint. Champ, Super Champ, Princeton is an awesome amp. I will stick my neck out an dsay the new Super Champ XD is awesome sound IF you switch the tubes and the speaker, or plug into a 12 or 15 inch cab. Or for real bang for the buck on Fender clones, check out Frenzel Tube Amps. That guy REALLY knows his stuff, great prices, and superb service, well worth the wait.

Traynor is always a good bet for a part time amp, YCV20WR is a nice little beast, always regret selling mine. They have a hand wired little bugger, I think it's a YGM-3. The Tiny Terror is 15 watts, nothing tiny about the sound. On a budget you can try the Carvin Vintage 16. Some people swear by them and love them, others love them but have occasional repair issues, good service from the company though.

If you are really on a tighter budget than those, then you may be stuck with whatever fluke of luck you can conjure up at your local GC. (Sorry if that's the case, imo GC should be the last place you go to buy something......but not all GC's are created equal, I will admit!) If your budget is looser than that, then you can start looking at THD Univalve or Flexi 50, some small Laneys, used Budda, used Orange, mint used Ampegs are always nice to find, or you could build your own. Modded pedals will make a difference if you go for something more than just great cleans. Let me put it this way.......if they sell it at GC, put it at the bottom of the list and do your research on the other brands first. If you absolutely cant afford the others, then do your home work and test driving at GC several times before you buy.

And don't discount the effect that pickups have on your tone. That's the first place that sound gets translated from the strings to an electric signal, so your final tone can only be as good as what comes out of your pickups.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Hey all. I'm looking for a low watt amp for studio work. I have a Mesa Triple Rectifier that I love but its too loud in some studio situations. What do you think of the Orange Tiny Terror? Any other suggestions? Not interested in the line 6. I had one and alot of the sounds were good but not great. Studio is analog so plug ins wont work. Thanks in advance.

I HATED the Tiny Terror a guitarist I know once brought over. As a fellow Recto owner, I suspect you will too. I guess it does a pretty good job capturing the "Orange" tone, which I guess is brittle, wall-of-nails crunch.

For something that can stack up to a Recto, I'll advocate two things. Either one, one of the lower wattage Mesas - a F-30 or Nomad-45 will probably give you something you can live with at a lower volume.

Second, there'sno reason you couldn't use your current amp coupled with a god attenuator - I own a THD, but I've also heard good things about the Webers. Admittedly, my Rectoverb is a lot lower-wattage than your Triple, but my Hot Plate certainly makes it appartment friendly.

(Likewise, you could always sell or trade the Triple for a Roadster or Road King, so you can cut the wattage down on the amp, but preserve that same tone...)

 

[kojdogg]

Personally I really like the Tiny Terror. I got the Jule Amps mod for mine and it cleaned up the top end nicely and better tubes helped too. It's actually my second-- I bought one last year, got it modded, loved the sound, but thought it wasn't versatile enough so I sold it, tried a number of other amps and then decided I wanted that one sound back so I got another Tiny Terror and had it modded. Great overdrive tone. I haven't found it to be "brittle" whether stock or modded, but I do think it tends to like certain types of pickups better (sounds better with my medium output alnico Fralin PAF's than my very high output ceramic Barden HB's). I like it with V30's, Greenbacks or Alnico's
I also have a Vox AC15 Heritage Handwired Head that I really like.

 

[jmcelroy]

Second, there'sno reason you couldn't use your current amp coupled with a god attenuator - I own a THD, but I've also heard good things about the Webers. Admittedly, my Rectoverb is a lot lower-wattage than your Triple, but my Hot Plate certainly makes it appartment friendly.

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the difference (if any) between using an attenuator and simply turning the amp's master volume down? I guess I'm assuming that the amp has a master volume knob.

 

[thebigcheese]

I like my Blues Jr., but I'll admit I haven't really tried many others. I did try a couple of Mesas, but they just have too many settings for me. You probably wouldn't have that problem, though, since you are used to them. So... just go to GC and play some!

 

[DrewPeterson7]

Pardon my ignorance, but what's the difference (if any) between using an attenuator and simply turning the amp's master volume down? I guess I'm assuming that the amp has a master volume knob.

An attenuator allows you to still drive the poweramp of your amplifier for poweramp saturation/compression, without (in the OP's case) killing everything within a 300 foot radius. Turning the volume down loses that saturation.

The Express series probably won't cut it for the OP, if he owns a Recto - they're not bad for blues and blues/rock if you're playing something with singlecoils, but it really isn't a high gain amp. I was psyched when I saw the product info, and was all fired up to try one. I REALLY wanted to like it because I loved the idea of a Mesa with a 5-watt power section, but I just couldn't.

kojdogg - sorry to knock on an amp you dig like that, I should have been a little more tactful and clearer, I guess. It's really a "different strokes for different folks" thing, it'd bea great rock amp and I could have a lot of fun playing AC/DC sort of sleazy rock and roll on it, but it really just didn't produce the kind of sound I want out of an amp. Since the OP is also a Mesa player, I'm guessing he'll feel the same as I did when he plays one.

 

[Talldog]

Thanks for all the opinions. I'm looking for a metal/punk tone. Guess I should have said that first. I'd LOVE it if there was a power soak sort of thing that I could use with the triple rectumfrier. As far as pick ups, I have a bunch of different guitars(87 usa strat, 92 les pauls studio, jackson scott ian model, mij tele) but I'd probably be using the lp or jackson with this amp. I'd go up to $1,500 as far as price.

 

[kojdogg]

kojdogg - sorry to knock on an amp you dig like that, I should have been a little more tactful and clearer, I guess. It's really a "different strokes for different folks" thing, it'd bea great rock amp and I could have a lot of fun playing AC/DC sort of sleazy rock and roll on it, but it really just didn't produce the kind of sound I want out of an amp. Since the OP is also a Mesa player, I'm guessing he'll feel the same as I did when he plays one.

All good dude . It does really sleaze it up
It's funny-- I love to listen to music with Mesa-type and other high gain tones, but when I play or record I almost always prefer something "sleazy", Voxy or on the lower gain Marshall/higher gain Fender end.

I'd also +1 the attenuator idea...

 

[Flangerhans]

There's a huge variety of small amplifiers made in the 60s that are inexpensive, unique and just the right size for recording as well. Supro/Valco/Gretsch etc. is highly regarded and priced, but Selmer and Gregory are not. Dutiful research and trusting your ears can result in some incredibly good and cheap setups.

 

[darrin_h2000]

Finding that Supro might be harder than you think...I have one...and a Crate VC5...I bought the VC5 for $10...good value

 

[Outlaws]

So the guy has a Triple Rec, and wants a less volume studio amp, and we get suggestions of old classic low wattage amps that are polar opposites of the tone he is probably after. Typical.

To the OP:
Get a THD Hotplate. It is a resistor based attenuator and I do not recall ever hearing about them not being suitable for a 150(?) watt triple rec. But it is cheaper than almost any amp you will find, and will provide you with a better representation of the tone you have than any compromise amp ever will.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

So the guy has a Triple Rec, and wants a less volume studio amp, and we get suggestions of old classic low wattage amps that are polar opposites of the tone he is probably after. Typical.

To the OP:
Get a THD Hotplate. It is a resistor based attenuator and I do not recall ever hearing about them not being suitable for a 150(?) watt triple rec. But it is cheaper than almost any amp you will find, and will provide you with a better representation of the tone you have than any compromise amp ever will.

Hey, I've been pushing a Hot Plate or another smaller Mesa since the beginning of this thread!

8-Ohm Hot Plate, at that. It's purple and ribbed, which means you can also, in addition to having awesome tone, make a lot of gay jokes about your rig.

Though, don't expect it to be a night-and-day improvement - it'll knock a lot of volume off your rig, but you still can't expect to record with the amp wide open at a volume you can talk over, at least not without seriously squashing the tone. I think it's still useable at -16db with bright and deep engaged; some guys prefer not to go over -8.

 

[soundchaser59]

.......don't expect it to be a night-and-day improvement - it'll knock a lot of volume off your rig, but you still can't expect to record with the amp wide open at a volume you can talk over, at least not without seriously squashing the tone.

This is exactly how I would describe the results with the Weber Mass units I had. But I've also heard that the THD units do a much better job than many others.

 

[DrewPeterson7]

This is exactly how I would describe the results with the Weber Mass units I had. But I've also heard that the THD units do a much better job than many others.

Probably not - the feedback I've heard (I've never used a Weber, just a THD) is that Webers may actually be a little better, given that they have a variable load that responds more like a speaker. But, either way, the Webers and the THD's seem to be widely accepted as the two best attenuators on the market.