1) What is the recommend wattage an amp should have for live gigs, in, say, places about the size of your average pub.
2) Who do you guys think are the best makers of budget amplifiers.
Monday nights I go listen to The Billy Crawford Band play live blues in such a place. Billy uses two Fender Blues Juniors that he switches between. Both have the volume set on 3. Plenty loud!
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
You might want to browse the Amps & EFX section:
https://www.guitarnoise.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=24
Lots of discussions pertaining to your question there.
-G
-=tension & release=-
1) The best wattage is 120 for a gig
2) The best amp makers r either Crate or a fender amp
dont get a marshall its sounds like shit
1) The best wattage is 120 for a gig
2) The best amp makers r either Crate or a fender amp
dont get a marshall its sounds like poop
You cant really generalise like that. Marshalls have far better distortion for metal, whereas Fender's distortion is **** for anything even slightly heavy to say the least.
1) The best wattage is 120 for a gig
2) The best amp makers r either Crate or a fender amp
dont get a marshall its sounds like poop
A 30W tube amp will give you more than enough volume for pub work. 120W is only useable for solid state amps, where the tone is the same when the volume is set at 1 as it is at 10. For 99.99999999999999999999999999% of pubs you'll set a 120W amp at about 3.
What about Behringer, Hughes & Kettner, Vox, Mesa Boogie, Traynor, Ashdown, Cornford, Miles Platting, Laney,........................................etc., etc.? (No particular preference, just a selection that come to mind).
To generalise that Marshall sounds like poop, reinforces the theory that you've been using a 120W amp set at 10 in pubs for too long - you've lost your hearing.
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It has to be said, you can't generalise all marshalls as bad, however, I don't recomend marshalls to anyone, because they have one tone and one tone only. Their distortion is great, and has that smooth feel to it, however, their clean channels are mostly rather shoddy.
Personally I feel that the clean channel is the most important. You can get a good and unique distortion tone from a pedal, however, there's no way to emulate a good clean channel, with any pedal.
As for power rating, you will never need as much as you think you need. For a small venue, a 15 watt tube would be absolutely fine, so long as your drummer is not insane, and for a large venue it's best to mic up the amp anyway, so it doesn't matter how powerful it is.
I have a 100 watt fender, which I adore, howevr, I've never needed to turn the volume much past 2, and I play in a metal band with a drummer who hates playing quietly. (coincedentally, I don't think marshalls are very good for metal, their distortion sounds more classic rock than metal to me, I prefer a bit more cut and grunt to my distortion, and I think the fender does that very well. Persoanl taste though)
Hope that helps
Peter
AMEN GREYBEARD, AMEN!!
What type of music do you play man? That will help us make better suggestions.
I can't imagine you needing more than 60W's for most gigs in a tube amp.
Overall people tend to focus on wattage numbers far too much. People think that a 100 watt amp will be twice as loud as a 50 when that's just not the case. I've read that you have to multiply the wattage by TEN to just double the volume output once. So, a 400 watt setup would only be twice as loud as a little Hot Rod Deluxe.
-Metaellihead
Interesting statistic.
to adress the gerneral question, i recently purchaseed a carte blue voodoo tube head with a 4x12, and that thing hurts my ears at volum 4, so that should give you an idea.
The meaning of life? I've never heard a simpler question! Music.
I look a it as who I'm having to play that night with. I know with a 12 watt Gibson with an attenuator, a couple M57s, and the right bunch of musicians I'll give the audience what they came for. On the other hand if I'm playing with a mega watt bass and drummer that puts dents in the skins of his drums, then I'd better bring something with more punch.
If you take a small watt amp and run it at its saturation point and run a line out from the attenuator and a few mic's you should sound great. Also providing your soundman is paying attention to what he's doing and not trying to impress every girl that walks by, and is forgetting to boost you during certain parts of the songs.
I'll have to agree with everyone that anything over 40 watts would be over kill for a small pub. Lately I've been running Mesa boogie's on their low 15 watt reduction side and it walks right though the mix just fine. Which allows me the option of 50 watts at the flick of a switch. Sure the 50 watt side sounds great too, but its over powering and just dosen't make the band sound as a unit.
joe
Ok, thanks for the help about the wattage thing. I like classic rock so ideally i would use a marshall, for pretty much no other reason other than my two favourite guitarists, page and slash used them, and i like their tone, both clean and distorted. You always here things like "this amp has a marshall-like sound at a lower price" so that's what I meant when I said budget amplifiers, in the same way as there are epiphone and squire guitars for those who can't afford gibson and fender. I don't know all that much about amps. However I just went to the marshall site and realised that not all of marshall's amps cost at least close to a thousand quid, so you can probably ignore that second question.
Well, the problem is that (in my humble opinion, ofcourse!) the budget marshalls (MG/AVT Series) don't sound like Marshall at all. Whats worse, they don't even sound good on their own. As said above, wattage really depends on where you play, whether you use tube or transistor, if there is a PA availlable etc. For most people starting, a transistor amp is the easiest and cheapest way to get a consistent sound at whatever volume level required.
Amps you could check (some of these amps would be way down on my list o choises, but since many others like them I'll include them all, ordered by what I would consider best bang for the buck):
Vox AD60VT
Behringer GMX212
Line6 Flextone III
Fender FM 212
Roland Cube 60
Peavey Bandit 112
Randall RG100
Line6 Spider II
Hughes & Kettner edition 60
As you can see I myself am a great supporter of digital modeling. Others just want a basic, no-nonsense amp like a Peavey or Fender, and a third group really digs those tube-amps. There is basically no point in saying 'go buy this, it rocks!', since we all need different things. The best you could do is bring your guitar with you, and try ALL amps in the local stores. Spend enough time on each one to get a proper idea how they sound, and you'll find one or two amps you'll really like. Good luck!
Marshalls have far better distortion for metal,
ya thats true i was a at a guitar clinic with "metal" mike Chlasciak (of Painmusuem) and he was using a marshall stack that sounded f**king nice but the guy never said nething bout playing metal
hmmm......seems i do like it well w/e
:? Just speaking for myself, I have a Marshall MG100DFX, used it for over a year now and sounds fine, have had no problems with it. I play a Gibson Les Paul classic with it, I only play at home so I'm not sure how it would hold on Gigs, but has been great for in the house also has a fdd switch to emulate a tube amp sound may not sound just like a tube amp but for me it sounds very clear and good tone, also has some built in effects like delay, chorus, Flange, Reverb, they all work good, I picked up a Dunlop CryBaby Wah Wah pedal and plugged that in and it sounds great with it, Again I use a Gibson Les Paul classic which also gives it a nice fat sound.
