low wattage tube combo

D

Decay

New member
I'm looking for a low wattage tube combo for recording purposes mainly. I need ok cleans, but I will be needing good sounding and fairly high gain metal distortion. Now, the problem seems to be that most of the smaller tube combos are more clean/mid-gain oriented.

Does anyone know of an amp suitable for my needs?

Also, would buying a mid-gain amp like, say, a Bad Cat Minicat and a OD/distortion pedal yield a viable alternative?

Suggestions please...

Thanks in advance
 
how "low" of wattage are you looking for?

i have a 30 watt mesa boogie dc3 that could work, but it still gets pretty loud.
 
I almost NEVER say mesa, but I'm saying it this time. I was goinna suggest trying a Mesa Nomad for what youre trying to do.

H2H
 
Decay said:
Bad Cat Minicat and a OD/distortion
Click to expand...


Oh man. Okay. I don't even know where to start.


For that kind of money just buy a used full size Mesa Dual or Triple Rec half stack and use the rest of the money to soundproof your room. And since there will still probably be money left over, feed the 3rd world while you are at it.
 
But seriously.....mid level distortion amp + and OD pedal doesn't = great distortion. At least not great metal distortion. You might get a nice creamy sound, but not metal. And a mid level distortion amp + a distortion pedal (at the same time) = shit.



Attenuators like the THD HotPlate can sometimes be said to 'suck tone'. Well, I have one and it doesn't suck tone as much as trying to work around the truth. And the truth is that this modern metal sound is a Mesa Triple rec, not anything else. -well maybe a PRS, but that is a seperate issue.
 
I have a 20 watt Mesa Subway Rocket Combo, they don't make them anymore but they're still pretty cheap, even cheaper than a nomad, which as far as I know is the most affordable mesa currently. 2 el34, 4 12ax7, 10 inch speaker. It's definitely recording orientated, with speaker mute (which comes in handy when using the headphones, because if you just plug the headphones in the speaker still works normally, a line-out direct recording thing with speaker emulation, I've never used it and obviously I dont know much about that. But in terms of a metal distortion, its insane. for clean I'm not going to say its incredible or anything like that, but it gets the job done.

However if you were really looking for something around the price of a bad cat amp, then like outlaws says you could buy a couple triple rectifiers for that much. The subway rocket is in a completely different price range, I got mine for 400-something canadian, and its not that beat up looking. However my recommendation is definitely a mesa combo, maybe a reverb-rocket, they have the usual high gain mesa sound but with reverb obviously.

My point is that for less than half the price of your proposed set up you could get something that would cover the kind of sound you described much better.
 
Can you do DIY

Do you have any experience with DIY electronics or are willing to learn? There's this place called AX84 that has a high gain amp (Hi-octane) and low power consumption (5-7 watts). I'm not sure if you're willing to do something like that, but from my experience, Hi-gain stuff is usually REALLY loud...so the only way you're going to be able to get the sound and sound level you want is to make it yourself (or use a pod...bleh).

http://www.ax84.com/dp.php?pg=projects&project=hioctane
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top