Small Amp Rant

[Any Name You Wish]

I hate small amps. There, I said it. Little boxy rattling POS's. Deluxe Reverb at 22w is the absolute smallest anyone should use in a band with a drummer, and even that is pushing it. Guitarists show up at a gig or rehearsal with one of those little effing things. Sounds like complete crap trying to keep up, screaming in my right ear all night. Great for studio tricks, suck on stage or anywhere other than a bedroom or church. Seems once everyone discovered how small amps were used on their favorite rock recordings it was a made dash to go out and buy one. "It sounds killer cranked." It sounds like ass cranked is what it sounds like, and that's the only sound you get with that stupid thing. For God's sake, get a 30w-40w 2x10 or 2x12 minimum, put a drive pedal in front of it, and stop giving everyone else a splitting headache. And, when you need clean you have clean. Imagine that, something other than cheap-ass speaker distortion. OK, rant over, I feel so much better. Thank you.

 

[Offshore Angler]

Hmmm, we're not on the same page, that's for sure!

I can rock an outdoor stadium with a Pro Jr. or a Champ. It's easy.

Have it properly mic'ed and a good monitor mix and what else do you need? I love DR's but they are just too damn loud when you put them on the hump so they need to go backstage anyway. When I use a smaller amp I can push it into it's happy place where I'm getting some natural overdrive. I NEVER use a DR onstage without a gobo or shield.

If you're playing a place so small you don't need to mic up than there's no reason whatsoever to have drums that loud. And honestly, how many large gigs are we actually using live amps for anymore? Not many. It's all in the rack now. The stage amps are pretty much for show.

I think maybe you should consider hiring a pro sound crew some night and ask them to give you pointers. I think you may find you're fighting your sound reinforcement and not the amps. A great mix cures a lot of ills!

If your stage volume is that high I assume you're using prox sensors on the vocals to limit the bleed?

You can master the small amps, I know you can! It's really the way to go. FWIW, I played a few shows with a Po Jr. and I had a 2000W powered monitor blowing it at my face. It was righteous! I remember telling the audience "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick butt, and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Chuck

 

[Any Name You Wish]

Mic'd with a good soundman sure, otherwise no. Hate em.

 

[LeonC]

Well, small amps don't always present those kind of problems to guys who aren't playing loud r&r. And my understanding is that plenty of rockers use smallish amps, even for rock n roll, and even on big stages. E.g., Mike Campbell, as I understand it, used mostly Princetons for the last 5 or 10 years with Petty. There are examples of early ZZ shows with BG using a brown Deluxe.

I do get what you're saying...but really...it only applies to you and other like-minded folks. One size don't fit all though...

 

[zacknorton]

I'll volunteer to take the small amps causing you any kind of trouble off your hands.

 

[jb_abides]

It wasn’t very large
There was just enough room to cram the drums
In the corner over by the Dodge
It was a fifty-four
With a mashed up door
And a cheesy little amp
With a sign on the front said
Fender Champ
And a second-hand guitar
It was a Stratocaster with a whammy bar
We could jam in Joe’s garage

TURN THAT DOWN! ... TURN THAT DOWN! ...

 

[jb_abides]

Bonamassa: live performance on a Mashall Class5...

Turn that drummer down!

 

[Any Name You Wish]

"Oh look at me, I'm playing hard rock with a little amp just like the big acts, aren't I cool!" Never mind I'm playing in a bar or at practice in a basement and annoying the hell out of everyone within 100 feet of me. "Oh, and I keep it dimed using just my volume knob on my guitar to go from crunch to clean, aren't I cool!" Never mind that I'm going from farty, rattling distortion to near silent relative to the rest of the band.

JB-abides, with all due respect, I said in a studio little amps can be magical, like on Dominos for instance, yes indeed. And, as Offshore so rightly pointed out, on the big stage with it mic'd correctly with a good soundman they can also work. For the vast majority of us playing local small clubs, bars, corporate parties, wedding or just a basement jam, small amps suck. Quit showing up with these things for hard rock, or I'll fire you.

 

[NickiC]

Bonamassa: live performance on a Mashall Class5...

Turn that drummer down!

On a Marshall Class5•(3).

 

[charliechitlins]

I've reversed my thinking.
For a theater or festival with good PA and monitors, I use a small amp, right next to me and aimed at my head so I can for sure hear it and reach the knobs.
In small clubs, I want to fill the space with fat sound...no beam.
Little room...big amp.
4x10 Bassman.
It's a big, luscious thing.
It sounds so good I can play it considerably louder than a 1x12 before the bartender tells me to turn it down.
I don't know how a 1x10 would be ...never tried one in a small room.
Maybe if I was Jim Campilongo.
But I think he'd sound better with a Bassman, too.

 

[Any Name You Wish]

'59 Bassman RI for everything, that's what I say!

BTW JB, Dominos is not my favorite sound. Playing was great, sound not so much.

 

[jb_abides]

For the vast majority of us playing local small clubs, bars, corporate parties, wedding or just a basement jam, small amps suck. Quit showing up with these things for hard rock, or I'll fire you.

On most hard rocker, small-gigs I now see folks showing up with a modeler direct, or into a controlled, powered FRFR with good MV. I know, heresy! Valves Uber Alles. I did this before FRFR was even a 'thing' using a 60W Tech 21 PowerEdge plus whatever pre-amp, pedal-in-a-box, or modeler I was using for required tones.

For clubs where the band are on repeat gigs, it certainly pays to cultivate a relationship with sound personnel. Also paying dividends: have a band member or friend along who knows what they are doing, design an 'influence' or 'takeover' strategy with the right approach.

Everything I ever used out and about to rock out [Marshall JCM 800, Mesa, THD, Soultone], has had MV or some form of attenuation or power-scaling built-in which made them workable regardless of 'size' -- apart from ye ol' Fender DRRI, which I eventually switched over to another heretical act, the Roland Blues Cube Artist: sold state, baby.

Touring, that's another matter... I am out of that discussion.

 

[Wilko]

Just played my Princeton Reverb with a 12" last night and once again was complimented by a die-hard head/cab guy about how big it sounds.

 

[Wilko]

Quit showing up with these things for hard rock, or I'll fire you.

I can crank my small amps and get actual tube sound at a reasonable volume. (18 watt marshall, Princeton, Deluxe Reverbs, Hiwatt Custom 20, Rickenbacker M-11, Vox Cambridge Reverb, etc) Never got a complaint about my tone.

For the record I've owned many big amps and I still have (Marhsall 2204 with 1960 cab, Super Reverb) They can compete in the mix with bass making the overall muddier than needed.

The magic of guitar's tone is in the mids.

 

[LeonC]

I like a LOT of amps, big, small and in-between. I am currently using my old Vibrolux Reverb with a PS-100 Power Station. I built a custom, collapsible stand to hold both (but it's easy to breakdown and port). The stand was designed to hold anything from my little National Studio 10 (like a champ) to my Pro Reverb or National Professional (4x10). I don't need it for my

I've gigged with my Deluxe Reverb and Epiphone Galaxie recently too...but with the PS-100, there are no volume issues and so I figure I'll go for the gusto and the fuller sounding cab. But I do agree with Wilko--mids are where the guitar lives for most pop, rock, blues, country, r&b music.

I'd gone digital for about 8 years there, but the last amp I used a lot before going digital was a home-made Marshall 2204 and 1936 cab. Still have them and they still sound great but I don't have the back for that cab anymore. And I was playing more 70s kind of rock back then and the rig fit the genre better than what I'm doing now (10-piece horn band and 60s pop-rock with another).

 

[Any Name You Wish]

Too much constant midrange is fatiguing, that's one of the big problems with small amps. With a drive pedal and EQ in front of a 30w-40w mutli-speaker amp you can put as much midrange in there you want, don't need a boxy sounding mid-range-only little fart box amp to do that. Full spectrum is better, mid-boost for solo. JB with all his little amps on stage, he's got a problem. Actually, now he has a hearing problem. I will say I do like my DRRI for country music, but for rock or even blues, I go with the '59 bassman RI. The small amp thing is a disease. It causes brain damage. JB is slowly going mad because of it. Save yourself before it is too late.

 

[GreenBurst]

Hmmm, we're not on the same page, that's for sure!

I can rock an outdoor stadium with a Pro Jr. or a Champ. It's easy.

Have it properly mic'ed and a good monitor mix and what else do you need? I love DR's but they are just too damn loud when you put them on the hump so they need to go backstage anyway. When I use a smaller amp I can push it into it's happy place where I'm getting some natural overdrive. I NEVER use a DR onstage without a gobo or shield.

If you're playing a place so small you don't need to mic up than there's no reason whatsoever to have drums that loud. And honestly, how many large gigs are we actually using live amps for anymore? Not many. It's all in the rack now. The stage amps are pretty much for show.

I think maybe you should consider hiring a pro sound crew some night and ask them to give you pointers. I think you may find you're fighting your sound reinforcement and not the amps. A great mix cures a lot of ills!

If your stage volume is that high I assume you're using prox sensors on the vocals to limit the bleed?

You can master the small amps, I know you can! It's really the way to go. FWIW, I played a few shows with a Po Jr. and I had a 2000W powered monitor blowing it at my face. It was righteous! I remember telling the audience "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick butt, and I'm all out of bubblegum."

Chuck

Indeed, they live.

 

[Offshore Angler]

ANYW, I think you may be also fighting another mistake. Boosting mids on a solo will tend to bury the mix. Never a good practice. You want the highs to be prominent. That's where the cut comes from. I'll try to explain somehow sans mathematics.

Something to think about, the note you play is the LOWEST note in the harmonic series of tones the string creates. The first harmonic is an octave, the second a perfect fifth, etc. These are all there but the human brain has evolved to hear it as a single tone (and explains why some harmonies such as a perfect fifth or a fourth are so pleasing to humans where a tritone is so annoying, and also explains why a perfect or a plagal cadence in a progression works so well ). So depending on the centering of the EQ curve the more you move from a flat EQ the more the fundamental tone might get lost in the mix.

Now, here's the fun part: The lower the frequency the more power the sound wave has, and the farther it will travel. When you remove highs or boost mids, it may sound awesome onstage but out front the lowered highs of the humped mid EQ fall off really quickly, so your sound loses all its punch and sparkle ( aka "silver") and your guitar is dull and buried sounding out front, not what you hear right in front of the amp.

Yes, a thick middle does get used in jazz or some progressive music but almost universally with a ton of delay or reverb or both and this adds back in the highs. You know, that ubiquitous YouTube influencer tone they use in demos. Great for that but not useful for a real-life mix.

I'm so old now that I remember before we called them "Overdrive Pedals" we actually called them "Treble Boosters". They add girth and cut to your sound by accentuating the highs due to what happens when the wave clips.

Think Metal - those are sonic bulldozer mixes and they really bump the guitar treble and prescience to make the guitars cut through.

The other thing to listen for next time you play is are the other musicians leaving you space to play in? This is the biggest problem I hear with amateur bands all the time. They haven't yet got the listening and playing skills to be concentrating on the mix and are more interested in hearing themselves. They are whacking all six strings on every chord in every beat and the keys are using nothing but five-finger chords and everyone is competing for the same piece of sonic real estate resulting in a mushy din.

So in an attempt to be helpful let me suggest this approach for a small band setup with no mic'ed amps.

1) Set the vocal levels where you want them.
2) Really concentrate on the band sound and not just your own
3) Leave space for others and most importantly,
4) If you can't hear the vocals clearly, you must turn down.
4a) If you don't think you can turn down anymore, turn off some effects and play cleaner.

The vocals are the show. They must be clearly front and center.

 

[Offshore Angler]

And as far as the JB reference, last time I saw him he had Dumbles in the backline with shields and his Marshalls were offstage. And he was unbelievably loud. When half your audience is wearing earplugs you need to do some serious self-reflection. And it has caught up to him now and he lost his hearing. Hopefully it was only temporary and he didn't have a major permanent loss.

Chuck

 

[Any Name You Wish]

You know, I don't think small amps do the highs very well. It is a dry high. Doesn't have that beefiness that bigger amps bring. Ghost tones are perhaps what give that thickness with a larger amp.

I like you're pointing out how we are all "competing for the same piece of sonic real estate." I'm going to use that one