micing up a 15W amp

[cstockdale]

I just found a great little tube amp, a Vox Pathfinder 15W Tremolo. It is a fantastic sounding amp, esp. with my P90 pickups in an Epiphone Wildkat. For recording, it is all I need for output.

But for live use, 15W can be pretty limiting. How well do little amps do when you mic them up into a PA system?

What are the downsides?

Obviously a bigger output amp would be the real solution, but we are talking limited budget here. I have a Fender Frontman 25R amp that I currently use, but I really don't like its sound. It has proven almost loud enough for live use. But I can trade one straight across for the other, so I would no longer have the 25W amp in play.

In reality, I do very little live playing, and if I do it is in coffee shops and the occasional bar. I think, but wanted other perspectives, that a 15W amp mic'd up would sound just fine on stage.

 

[cstockdale]

dang, I just discovered the guitar store i was at had the amp mislabelled... it isn't a Pathfinder 15, it is a Cambridge 15.
These guys never know what they are talking about (for one they have the amp mislabelled), they mostly carry crap gear, and they know nothing about music other than their favourite pieces of gear. I asked them about tube pres (stand alone), and they told me they don't exist (uh huh), I have a J-station, and he kept trying to tell me that J-stations are not modellers, that they are just effect units (uh huh). I also asked about how well a 15W amp would do hooked into another pre-amp to give it more live power...and they said it can't be done, even though there is clearly a external speaker jack on the amp. How do idiots like this stay in business?

Why is that bad news? Because I don't like to do business at that store because they have their heads up their backsides, but every now and again I like to see what they have. So, I prefer to shop from Long and McQuade in Victoria, and I called and they said they had the Pathfinder 15 and would do a straight-up trade for a Fender Frontman 25R, but now I realize I don't want a Pathfinder, and L&M doesn't carry the Cambridge 15..... so if I want the Cambridge 15 I have to deal with the total boneheads at the store I hate giving money to.

What's a guy in love supposed to do?

 

[Outlaws]

Funny side note to all this.......

I find it funny as all hell when I go to look at things like car stereos, home stereos, music equipment (much less of a time though than the others), and the likes and the salesman ALLWAYS happens to own what I am considering buying.

"I was just looking at these insert brand name insert model number 6x9s for the front of my car......"

"Oh those are awsome! I have pair in my insert, overpriced car that $10 an hour plus commission will not get loan for, car"

 

[Outlaws]

Just mic the amp you have. If you still want to do something though, you could purchase your own SM57 or 58 and a decent preamp to you can go to a show and get the best possible sound out of what ever they have for a PA.


You might want to bring a transparent compressor though.........so if anything happens you don't send a signal the size of Mt. Everest into the house PA.

 

[cstockdale]

General question:

if micing a small amp with a sm57 and running into a good pre, and sending that signal to the house board works so well.... why is there this obsession with 100W amps? Or is more so that people can hear their amp on stage rather than having it going into a monitor so they can hear it?

Because for sheer tone, I find I have always preferred the sound coming off of small amps over large ones. But I can imagine that at Wembley Stadium, you might need 100W just to hear yourself on stage? And of all the guitar players out there who insist on big-ass amps, how many of them are ever going to play anywhere where they need more than 25-30W of stage power?

I think it is kind of like the muscle car thing" bigger must be better".

 

[Outlaws]

I think it is kind of like the muscle car thing" bigger must be better".

Why do people ask questions if they are just going to answer it themselves?

 

[Outlaws]

Seriously..........



I don't think 100 watt halfstacks are needed but if you got the money and if you want to haul that much excess crap around then by all means do it. I have a BluesJr. that I love more than any amp out there.......except maybe a DeluxeReverb......but thats beside the point. I also have a SuperReverb that I use when there is no PA and I need the extra bottom end. Volume wise there is a little difference.

Oh ya...my ears can really feel a difference at the end of the night. That Super packs a punch.


So what I am rambling about is that I like low watt tubes amps as many people do. But I also like an amp that can fuck shit up.

 

[jake-owa]

The musclecar "thing" is: "there's no replacement for displacement".

I don't know, bith have their benifits. I like small amps for recording and I don't play live so...
I would just get a Tech 21 Power Engine and hook it up to the speaker out my Trademark 10.

Power Engine 60

In fact Tech 21 has a lot of good ideas about this kind of amp-chaining.
www.tech21nyc.com/PE60Hup2.html
www.tech21nyc.com/Acc.html

 

[Mr. Moon]

The musclecar "thing" is: "there's no replacement for displacement".

I don't know, bith have their benifits. I like small amps for recording and I don't play live so...
I would just get a Tech 21 Power Engine and hook it up to the speaker out my Trademark 10.

Power Engine 60

In fact Tech 21 has a lot of good ideas about this kind of amp-chaining.
www.tech21nyc.com/PE60Hup2.html
www.tech21nyc.com/Acc.html

Hey Jake! I agree with what you said about the Trademark 10 going through the Power Engine 60's ...the only downside is that the Trademark 10 doesn't have any footswitches available to switch between clean and the overdrive channels. (at least my 2 year old Trademark 10 doesn't, do the newer ones?) For stage use, having to free up a hand to switch frm dirty to clean might be a bit tough... I s'pose if I were to play on stage barefoot I could set the amp on the floor and just use my big toe to switch channels...

BTW, thanks for all the feedback on my tune "War13" a while back. All the guitars on the tune were recorded through my little trusty Trademark 10!

-Mr. Moon

War13: www.soundclick.com/bands/9/mrmoonmusic.htm

 

[guitarjesus]

Just get the PEAVEY XXX 120W.


All you need.

 

[Moonrider]

I just found a great little tube amp, a Vox Pathfinder 15W Tremolo. It is a fantastic sounding amp, esp. with my P90 pickups in an Epiphone Wildkat. For recording, it is all I need for output.

But for live use, 15W can be pretty limiting. How well do little amps do when you mic them up into a PA system?

Welp, our bass player got one of the little Vox 25 watt bass amps to practice with, and just started raving about how good it sounded. He brought to practice one day, and we miked that thing up, and it just blew the sound of his 200 watt Fender (solid-state) amp away. Guess which one became his main gig amp? (hint: it wasn't the Fender)

A great sounding little amp, miked, is far better than a mediocre sounding dB monster.

 

[cstockdale]

that is all I am trying to get at: for a 100W amp, at a pricepoint of $500 (CDN) you are going to get junk. And a lot of people still go out and try to find a 100W $500 amp, rather than go for lower wattage at the same price. But for $500, you shop around for a nice tube 15W or 30W amp, the sound quality is going to be so much sweeter, and just throw a mic in front of it to give it some juice, or have more than one 15-30W tube amp that can handle external speakers, and hook them up to a cabinet or a power amp to fire them up.

If I had the bucks, yeah, I would probably be hunting for a great vintage AC30, 100W beast, but it ain't gonna happen, so I am on the hunt for sweet sounding little amps that I can power up. My question really was more about whether anyone has found this to be successful.

Had more to do with articles I have read about Daniel lanois and Mark Knopfler tending to use 15W amps in the studio because they liked the tone more and were more versatile.

 

[NoiseFactory]

Re: Re: micing up a 15W amp

A great sounding little amp, miked, is far better than a mediocre sounding dB monster.

Well said!
I used to play out with a '65 Princeton Reverb (12 watts) driving my 4x10" cabinet.
People would not believe me when I told them how many watts the amp put out. They insisted that it sounded "too loud to be ONLY 12 watts."
(Most people don't know that a 10 watt amp, is only 1/2 the volume of a 100 watt amp, NOT 1/10 of the volume.)

Take care,
Tony

 

[zer0sig]

i am 100% in agreement with the folks who advise that a smaller, great-sounding amp is plenty useful live. if you're playing in a place with a PA, you can certainly mic it. if it doesn't have a PA, and you aren't bringing one, i presume that it is small enough for that 15-watter to cut through. learn a bit about mic placement on amps. close-miking an amp is fairly simple-toward the outer edge of the cone produces more bass, toward the center produces more treble. experiment.

try pumping that little 15-watter through a 2x10, 2x12, or even 4x12 cabinet, and report back to us. many smaller amps produce some seriously big sound through larger speaker setups.

speaking of wattage v. volume, i recall my old peavey rage (i believe it was a 12w amp through an 8" speaker, there have been different versions with different wattage) sounding at least as loud at about 5 as many much larger amps-2x12 combos, halfstacks, 1x12's, etc). sure, the tone is not the best, but the fact is that a small amp can pack some punch. don't be afraid to experiment with a small amp, especially if you dig the sound! it would be better to try and pump out that sound through something bigger than to spend the next several years trying to be happy with something larger that doesn't please your ears so much.