Question Small amp for practice

[Stratty316]

Quite an investment for a practice amp!

Look at Best Buy, believe it or not. I walked in one day just to check things out and they were clearing them out for $499! Don't know if it was a pricing error or what, but I wasn't going to argue with the manager when he said it was correct. I was planning to spend a little less than that on a solid state amp and I couldn't pass up a deal.

mine is the 65 reissue, btw... not a vintage one.

 

[Spudmurphy]

Quite an emotive subject.

So a practice amp for a small room?

I've been working on a Steely Dan number at home and I use a 1 watt smokey amp into an old (1950's) extension TV speaker. I disturb no one and I get a nice overdriven sound.
OK, prolly too small when you start working with other musicians, so lets move up.
I've borrowed and used a Blackstar 5w combo in the house - I own and have used an old 5W WEM in the house and in a rehearsal room. Both performed very well but take them out of the room, crank up the PA, unleash the hounds (the drummer) and they are lost!!
I've got a 15 watt Fender Blues junior and although not a high gain amp has a tone to die for. Stick an overdrive pedal in front of it and voila. These amps sound great and you can use them in the largest of venues when miked up. It sounds great turned down too. The blues junior is prolly out of scope of your price range but I bet you could pick up a second hand one for your budget.
I've also experienced the Vox Valvetronix amps and they are great bang for the bucks.
Interestingly enough I bought my Blues Junior when I helped out on the Strings n Things stand at Birmingham last year. One of the demonstrators (Bushman Brother) was really taken with the tone as were a lot of people.

So in conclusion I would vote for a BJ everytime .

 

[Slingy]

I thought he meant for band practice. But yeah 1x12 combo is not real small. I'm not a fan of smaller speakers than 12 though.

 

[Roddie]

Take a look at the MESA BOOGIE TA 15. I picked on up about two weeks ago and it is incredible. Great cleans awsome gain and booth cali and british gain.

Roddie

 

[Spudmurphy]

Take a look at the MESA BOOGIE TA 15. I picked on up about two weeks ago and it is incredible. Great cleans awsome gain and booth cali and british gain.

Roddie

Great amp but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over his budget? ($300)

 

[jzeijen]

+1 for the Blackstar HT-5 combo.

Maybe use a booster for the overdrive channel, so you can get your heavy guitar tones. Good luck with the search!

 

[jakedawgwhite88]

Great amp but waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over his budget? ($300)

Yea after our gig with foghat and ccr and seeing ccr's player play a reflex through that transatlantic in a 4x12 yea .... believe me its on the list but its not really for our type of music.

I really like the idea of having a nice chimey overdriven amp with the od in the front. I really appreciate the help guys I will definately be checking out all these amps this weekend (hopefully I have enough time)

I still am curious though has anyone tried the cool cat danelectro metal pedal? I have heard good things about the others in the series.... I just don't want to buy a buzz saw type distortion box

 

[Ricman]

The Laney CUB range looks interesting. There is a 12w version with reverb, an effects loop and also 2 inputs - one for the full 12w and one attenuated down to 1w.

 

[jamminjim]

Get an old Champ off of ebay then get a Weber 8" speaker for it. Heavenly sound and at around $300, plus you'll always get your money back out of it if they pry it from your cold dead fingers. You can also get an rca to 1/4 phono adapter and run it into a separate speaker cab. I play mine into a 2x12 and I love it.

Champs are just fantastic little amps. If you get one and want it checked out and recapped and bias checked. Send it to me and I'll do it for cost of components only, labor free. Need one fixed, I can do that as well.

~Jim

 

[cjl5150]

Another nod for the Fender Super Champ XD. I love mine.

 

[nobozos]

Which amp you choose is going to depend greatly on the style of music you play. The good news is that there is a growing line of low-wattage tube amps out there. There is Jet City Amps, Blackstar, Egnater, and even Ibanez is getting in on the act with a low wattage tube amp with a built in Tube Screamer. The down side to most of these amps is that they are usually single channel, and they don't do heavier metal tones without the help of a distortion or overdrive pedal. The best of the above mentioned amps for heavy rock tones is the Egnater Rebel 20. It has some pretty good overdrive gain, and cleans up relatively well when you roll back the volume on the guitar, but it is a one channel amp.

If you want a practice amp to lower the overall volume of your rig during practice, I would recommend getting a Solid State amp. They tend to have a more consistent sound at lower volumes. As far as good tone on solid state amps, I don't think you can do much better than a Tech 21. IMO, it's the most tube-like sound I've heard from a solid state amp. The Peavey Vyper line is a good sounding, affordable solid state amp that would be ideal for practice.

If you want a tube practice amp for the purposes of ease of transport, and not because you are concerned about sound levels, that's a different story. I read that you may want to use the amp you get as a backup to your normal rig. In this case, I would have two recommendations for you. If you don't need a lot of versitility on the fly, and you want some great heavy tones, the Egnater Rebel 20 is the way to go. If you want channel switching, and you need great clean, and good overdriven tones, I would suggest the Peavey Classic 30. Either amp will need an overdrive pedal in front of it to achieve metal type tones.

When I was gigging in the rock band, I used a 5150 combo, and a Classic 30. I had them going through a Rapco A/B box, which allowed me to switch between amps, or select both amps at once. I could use the Classic 30 for nice clean tones, and use channel two on the Classic 30 for classic rock and bluesy stuff like Pat Travers and ZZ Top. For the heavier stuff, I would use the crunch channel on my 5150 Combo. When it came time to play leads, instead of altering my volume, or switching to the lead channel of the 5150 combo, I would just kick on both amps. This increased the level of the guitar, and threw out a really kick ass tone.

If I had it to do all over again, I would have the exact same rig, except I would replace the 5150 Combo with an Egnater Rebel 20. The Rebel 20 allows you to go from 5 watts to 20 watts using a knob rather than a switch. This gives you greater flexibility to choose your desired output. It also allows you to mix between EL84 and 6V6 tubes, which gives you a pretty good variety of tones.

I gave up on half stacks a long time ago. I found that I could usually only turn my master up to about 4 on my 100 watt amps. Even my 60 watt 5150 Combo never found it's way past 5 on the master. I decided then that all you really need is 30 watts to gig. You're going to mic your speaker anyway, so the amp only needs to serve as a stage monitor for your guitar sound. All the amp really needs to do is be loud enough to be heard over the stage sound.

Good luck on the hunt.

 

[beej]

So lots of solutions to this problem.

Personally I've got one of the modded Jet City 20W'ers for a low wattage practice/jamming amp and am very happy with it.

Stock the amp is ok. But I've got a Dave Friedman modded version (look him up if you haven't heard the same) that is phenomenal. It's a great hot-rodded style Marshall in a small, light head. Smokes even at low volumes and there is tons of gain on tap. So there's another option for you.

 

[jakedawgwhite88]

Guys thanks alot I think my new problem is finding all these amps to play through them so I can make a good decision

I don't know much about jet city what kind of tones would you compare them to ?

 

[Roubster]

The Blackstar HT5 really has a good amount of distortion on tap, and you can boost it with an OD pedal, and the cool thing about it is that it has the second channel. I think its a decent clean channel, and you can use another distortion box to have to gain stages. I'm waiting for mine to hook it up to a Mesa 1x12 3/4 back cab...should sound huge especially with a BB Preamp and few other pedals in the loop. The Egnater Rebel 20 is definitely a good choice too, but its just one channel.

 

[Tung]

Stock the amp is ok. But I've got a Dave Friedman modded version (look him up if you haven't heard the same) that is phenomenal. It's a great hot-rodded style Marshall in a small, light head. Smokes even at low volumes and there is tons of gain on tap. So there's another option for you.

How did you get the DF mod? Did you have to send the amp to LA? that could prove quite costly.
I used to run a Randall Brahma module that was modded by Dave, it was a great Plexi Marshall type thing.

 

[odur]

Try to get your hands on Peavey Bravo 30w amp. Two channel, all tube and great practice amp...and cheap

 

[beej]

How did you get the DF mod? Did you have to send the amp to LA? that could prove quite costly.
I used to run a Randall Brahma module that was modded by Dave, it was a great Plexi Marshall type thing.

He certainly does great work. I arranged it ahead of time. Bought the amp from GC over the phone and had it shipped directly to Dave. He modded it and shipped it up here. So only one shipping charge.

Since then, he's struck a deal with Jet City so they're less expensive. It's available on the JC site, one of their "Jet Packs", or direct from Dave at the Tone Merchants site.

This is heads and tails above the stock amp ... it's a little fire breather, very surprising for a 20W amp. Also ... you've got to get rid of the stock faceplate for extra coolness. I took the one off the back and moved it to the front (the grill look) and just left the back open. Looks meaner that way

 

[nobozos]

Oh yeah, I was just reading Roubster's post, and I was thinking that I agreed with what he was saying about the HT-5, but that it may have a hard time being loud enough at gigs. Then I remembered, Blackstar just came out with a HT Venue Series. They now have a 20-watt that would be as loud as you would need. Should have a very similar tone to the HT-5 with more volume.

I really like the tone of the Egnater over the HT, but not by much. Both amps sound great, and the HT would have more versitility. If I were limited to one amp, I'd probably get the HT-20.

 

[fogman]

great info beej, thanx.

 

[fsmith]

Beej,
How are the cleans on your modded Jet City 20? Did you add the loop and saturation mod too?

fred