People overdo that "tubes are much louder, even at lower wattages" stuff. Tube amps are arbitrarily rated for power at a level where they have some arbitrarily low percentage of total harmonic distortion (from 3-10%, it's not standardized either), and guitarists often crank them all the way up to get a lot more distortion which makes them seem louder, but doubling an amp's power only makes it 3 dB louder, which is less than 1 notch on your volume knob, a difference you'd barely hear.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
I did read some people saying the Fender Super Champ XD's speaker was weak. But at 10 inches and the supposed quality of the amp all around(I haven't seen any negative reviews overall,) it has to be better than what I have. Also considering that I've never played on a real gig quality amp. I probably will have no problem with the speaker. Just to be safe, I'm of course going to try to find one to try it out before I buy it.
And to Ricochet, that's good to know.
10" speakers can sound nice too. It's the 6's I really hate and 8's can be thin depending. I have a couple of amps with 10's and they sound just fine. The cabinet is a factor as well. The Epiphone Valve Junior has an 8" speaker I believe but it is a closed back cabinet and that adds thump to the sound.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
My Epi Valve Junior combo has an 8" speaker in an open backed cabinet. Loud.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
My Epi Valve Junior combo has an 8" speaker in an open backed cabinet. Loud.
My 10-incher is plenty loud. More than I can ever use right now. It's just a touch thin, if that's the correct word or phrase? That's one of the reasons I love my Blues Deluxe. It can sound full and powerful at very, very low volumes. Alas, it's heavy and two doctors would bash the other ear in if they heard I was bending over to tote it around.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
My Epi Valve Junior combo has an 8" speaker in an open backed cabinet. Loud.
Thats right I stand corrected (I sold mine a while ago, have the head with 1 x 12 cab now) It's my little Hughes & Kettner practice amp that has the closed/ported back. My bad. The EVJ does have thump though.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
Hey folks, I finally got a Fender Super Champ XD. $325 on ebay. I only just got it yesterday, but I seriously love this thing. I was playing all night tonight, and I found this beautiful hazy reverb soaked surf tone. This led to me learning the UK Surf mix of Wave of Mutilation by the Pixies. This in turn led to me find out that barre chords up and down the fretboard really are not that big a deal. 2 days of having a good amp and I feel like it's enhanced my learning on top of sounding really badass.
So I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who helped me out in that decision.
See you around the forum...
Congrats on your find. It can do quite a bit.
I was playing all night tonight, and I found this beautiful hazy reverb soaked surf tone. What voicing and other settings were you using?
I ended up putting an EQ pedal on that rig. It got rid of that thin tone I was talking about. Like it way much.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
Hi,
I saw Seasick Steve a few nights ago, raw blues at its best. He had a live drummer on stage and Steve played a variety of weird and wonderful guitars. And best of all, he played them through a Roland Cube 30X SS amp, and the drummer also had one on the side to listen to Steve's guitar. Steve's amp was mic'ed up, but it sounded raw and wonderful. Steve constantly adjusted the settings on the amp, it has a few amp models and effects built in. Great amp for the price.
The support guy was an Australian musician who's been around for many many years, and he played what must have been a 60s or 70s strat through a very small Fender G-Dec amp, again SS. The amp was mic'ed up as well, and he had a very bluesy sound. At the end of the show, the took the guitar, disconnected the amp and slung it over his shoulder (had a strap attached) and walked off. Now that's a mobile setup.
As good as tube amps are and as wonderful as they sound, it's not necessary for everybody to have one, some of the cheap SS amps are pretty good value too.
What voicing and other settings were you using?
It was on 15, the jazz sounding one. With Reverb+Dly on the F/X side turned to 10. Treble was 10, and Bass was 8. From there I just messed with my guitar's pickup switch and tone knob to get it to my liking. The warmth of voice 15 has kind of a soft glow under the thick reverb, and the delay helps it sound like there's a swell to it. A little brush of the tremolo and you've got something. While we're on the subject, rparker, do you have any favorite tones/settings/voices on this thing?
As for it being possibly thin, I don't notice it. If it ever gets to the point where I need to gig or jam or whatever, I'll definitely look into an EQ pedal to remedy it, so thanks for that.
Thanks cid410, I'll give that a spin.
I play mostly from the clean channel. My favorite non-clean setting is 4, which is pretty much like the clean until I put the gain at 6 and volume at 3 or 4. Gives my Squire Tele a really neat bark. When I have messed with harder tones, I've been pleased with channels 8, 9 and 10.
Right now I have the on-board treb and bass set at 5 and let the pedal do the EQ.
I probably notice it (tinny) more because I have a Blues Deluxe with a 12-inch speaker in one room, which is way overkill, and a Multi-effects board sitting atop a fender SS. Most of the patches (collection of effects settings) drive it hard. Regardless, both those options have mids. I normally tweak the mids up a bit as I'm not hearing low frequencies all that well, and highs are too much for me right now. There's another thread close by where I laid out what I did.
This SCXD is more than plenty of amp. The only time I cranked a guitar up to 8-9 and the amp up to 4 was out back on the deck where the sound gets lost in the outdoors a bit.
I found this lurking around on a Fender forum recently, but have not tried it out yet. Maybe something in there you like.
Some that I have come up with on my strat:
Jimi Hendrix – Hey Joe
Ch.1 T-5 B-6 Rev.1/5 N-M P/U
Deep Purple
G-6 V-8 T-5 B-8 Rev.1/6 B-M P/U
Cream – Sunshine Of Your Love
G-8 V-2 T-4 B-4 Rev.2/4 N-M P/U
Judas Priest
G-5 V-9 T-4 B-6 Rev.3/1.5 B-M P/U
Scorpions
G-5 V-9 T-4 B-6 Cho.+Rev./2 B-M P/U
The Cars
G-5 V-8 T-7 B-4 Rev.3/1.5 B-M P/U
and
G-9 V-2 T-9 B-3 Rev.3/2 B-M P/U
Def Leppard
G-5 V-13 T-7 B-4 Rev.3/2.5 B-M P/U
and
G-5 V-9 T-5 B-5 Rev.3/2 B-M P/U
The Kinks – You Really Got Me
G-5 V-3 T-7 B-2 No FX B-M P/U
Van Halen – You Really Got Me
G-7 V-13 T-5 B-3 Rev.3/1.5 B-M P/U
Alice Cooper – School's Out
G-6 V-8 T-9 B-3 No FX B-M P/U
The Guess Who – American Woman
G-5 V-6 T-7 B-5 No FX B-M P/U
The Police – Roxanne
Ch.1 T-5 B-5 Rev.3/2 B-M P/U
Lynyrd Skynyrd
G-4 V-8 T-7 B-6 Rev.3/2 B-M P/U
Black Sabbath
G-7 V-9 T-5 B-6 Rev.3/2 N-M P/U
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
As good as tube amps are and as wonderful as they sound, it's not necessary for everybody to have one, some of the cheap SS amps are pretty good value too.
I agree with you. I still technically own one of those Cube 30X amps. (lent to friend) It kicks some serious butt, but I play music that mostly doesn't. The Fender clean tone is what I like the best.
I saw a two man accoustic dual at a restaraunt last week down at the shore. They played thorugh a P.A. system which I kind of expected, but one of the guys ran a Boss GT-6 between the guitar and the P.A.. He did most of the "lead" work using a basic chorus and delay setting from a patch. It, and his playing of course, sounded really nice.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
