Need small amp with great tone for recording

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pennylink

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I'm looking for a small, affordable amp with great tone for recording clean to slightly overdriven bluesy-jazzy rock guitar. I can't crank anything too loud where I live and the desktop units I've tried have left me disappointed (J-Station, Tonelab).

I prefer tube sound over modelling amps or plugins. I'm in the UK.

Any suggestions?
 
Fender Blues Jr is well thought of fopr a small amp, I think many folks mod it (lots of web pages for that, check that out). For bigger options in the same vien, the hot rod deluxe, and blues deluxe (I have one of these, it gets very loud, great clean tone, overdrive channel is good, but if you want really heavy distortion, a pedal in the cahin will do the trick nicely). The Jr will run <$200-350 or so (guessing here, but ebay searches etc will help). The others will be used $300-500, the blues deluxe reissue new is closer to $600.

Daav.
 
Check out Tech21 amps...you won't need to crank them because they are not tube. They are analog, but they are also not an amp modeler...they're a beast all their own and they have several actual recording demos on their site.
http://www.tech21nyc.com

The only thing that I'm not sure about is the distribution to the UK.
 
Check out the Amps built by Thatupstateguy. If you need a recommendation PM Treeline he bought one. They are low wattage (and I hope I get this right) class A point to point hand wired tube amps. I think he sets you up with two sets of tubes, for various tones. I don't know much about amps, I'm not a guitarist yet, but these little beauties have started quite a buzz.
 
VTgreen81 said:
daav,


Where in VT are you?
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Hey there, I am in the Burlington area, work in Williston, live near lovely Lake Champlain in Colchester.

Daav
 
pennylink said:
I'm looking for a small, affordable amp with great tone for recording clean to slightly overdriven bluesy-jazzy rock guitar. I can't crank anything too loud where I live and the desktop units I've tried have left me disappointed (J-Station, Tonelab).
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While I'm not going to get into a pointless amp tone discussion (and they almost always are, dealing entirely with the subjective), I would just ask in passing if you used the J-Station in the J-Edit mode, MIDI-linked to your computer. This is the only way to get practical access to the deep-edit functions of the unit, which are essential to get any meaningful use out of it. If you have a good command of J-Edit (and this requires a lot of time for developing some serious expertise in a complex program), you can get pretty amazing stuff out of a J-Station...and you won't wake the neighbors.

Getting any decent sound out of a tube amp is going to require volume levels that are just prohibitive, even with something like a Blues Junior.

You might want to rig up an isolation chamber for the amp, even if this is only a very well-damped closet. There's only so far this can go toward containing low frequencies, however.

Good luck!
 
daav said:
Fender Blues Jr is well thought of for a small amp, I think many folks mod it (lots of web pages for that, check that out).
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I have a Blues Jr and it indeed is a great little amp, except that it doesn't do clean as well as my Deluxe. It gets a great overdrive tone, though a little short on the low end compared to, say, a Marshall 50w, but the Marshall needs to be LOUD.
 
bongolation said:
While I'm not going to get into a pointless amp tone discussion (and they almost always are, dealing entirely with the subjective), I would just ask in passing if you used the J-Station in the J-Edit mode, MIDI-linked to your computer. This is the only way to get practical access to the deep-edit functions of the unit, which are essential to get any meaningful use out of it. If you have a good command of J-Edit (and this requires a lot of time for developing some serious expertise in a complex program), you can get pretty amazing stuff out of a J-Station...and you won't wake the neighbors.

Good luck!
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Yes, I used the J-Station with the J-Edit software. To be honest, I found its clean sounds as good or better than other modelers out there... I just can't handle the digital "quality" of the sound and the way modelers in general seem to have a problem responding to playing dynamics the way a good amp does.

I've heard good things about the Vox Pathfinder 15, which I know is not tube... any opinions on that amp for recording specifically?
 
ggunn said:
I have a Blues Jr and it indeed is a great little amp, except that it doesn't do clean as well as my Deluxe. It gets a great overdrive tone, though a little short on the low end compared to, say, a Marshall 50w, but the Marshall needs to be LOUD.
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I haven't played through the Blues Jr, so that is helpful. I can second that the blue deluxe sounds great clean. I am in the process of building an isolation box for that and my bass speaker cab so I can crank those things and mic them now. Apartment living is a hassle.

Daav
 
I really enjoyed my Peavey Classic 30, but don't really have a use for now that I have a Twin Reverb. Problem with it was there was no master volume, so if you needed more distortion you had to crank the volume.
 
pennylink said:
I've heard good things about the Vox Pathfinder 15, which I know is not tube... any opinions on that amp for recording specifically?
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I'm probably not the guy to ask.

I got a new one a few weeks ago and it was junk right out of the box. Went back the next day. Horrible hiss and the tremolo depth adjustment barely worked. I don't know what else was wrong with it. Someone else here had a similar experience with a terribly noisy Pathfinder 15R.

These Vox amps are like Behringer or any number of other low-end production amps coming out of Asia. They are very inconsistent in terms of noise, performance, initial defects and service longevity. You might get a bad one, you might get a good one...or a good one that goes bad in a month or a year.

This is also why I passed on getting a AD30VT that I had heard was a great low-volume recording amp. I just didn't want to take another chance on a Vox digital/tube circuit that was much more complex than the very simple Pathfinder 15R's. I'd hear too many stories of breakdowns of all sorts with the AD**VTs.
 
No one has mentioned the Fender Champ? Pickup a used silverface Champ on egay for $250, throw in a new speaker and voila: big sound in a tiny package. Most of "Layla" and other countless rock albums were recorded with these little gems.
 
i prefer a princeton reverb over the champ. it'll cost you around 400 but i think its a better all around amp.

the princeton is 12watts with a 10 inch speaker. so it'll get better low end than the champ(8 inch).

i love my princeton reverb. it has a vibrato circuit on it too.
 
Another vote for the Pignose G40V. $220, plus $80 for an Eminence 10" Patriot Series Ragin' Cajun speaker and a good 12AU7 to replace the middle preamp tube, and you've got a killer all-tube amp that reeks tone for $3C. I love mine. The only drawback is a lack of reverb, but, hey! you're a recording engineer. Figure it out and deal with it.
 
Blues Jr amps are LOUD. If you can't play loud you will never crank it. Its a waste of $400.


My friend has a Vox AD30 thing that is great for recording and playing at low volumes with good tone.


Tube amps are overrated by way too many people. if you have a HOUSE (and cool neighbors) then you are okay with a Blues Jr. If you don't, then stay away. I have owned the Blues Jr, the Pro Junior, and the Deluxe. None of them give great tube tones at reasonable volumes. Yes it is reasonable compared to a 412 100 watt Marshall setup.
 
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