The official forum for all things Joe Bonamassa, guitars and blues music
You are not logged in. Please login or register.
Joe Bonamassa Forum → Joe's Guitars, Amps and Gear → Quastion for all you amp Gurus
After a recent discussion with a friend I then considered a question I couldn't answer with certainty:
To get the best tone out of an Amp we know they need to be cranked up but we can't always do that. So to get the best at medium volume is it better to set the channel volume high and reduce the overall amps output or does it really matter as the amp isn't really driving hard anyway ?
Nightfly
That all depends on the whole picture. The Amp, Guitar, and the tones you're going for. So, there's no hard and fast rule here.
Generally, I prefer the power tubes to be working hard. But, you can't do that with every amp, in every situation.
Of course, having different amps, with different power ratings, is ideal. i.e. Maybe a 3 to 5 watt "Champ" styled amp for the living room/bedroom, a 15 to 20 watter for band practices and smaller gigs, and maybe a 30 to 50 watter for larger situations. But, not everyone has that luxury.
A couple of other options:
I find that a Timmy pedal allows me to retain some of that "on the edge/slightly breaking up crunchy rhythm tone" that you lose when turning an amp down. Very cool pedal for that use.
Also, an Attenuator. This lets you crank up the amp, yet "soak up" a lot of the power before it hits the speaker. This keeps the volume down, while the amp gets to run free.
So, in my opinion, keeping the Amp's volume higher is preferred. But, there are other ways that people have come up with.
Does this help?
What kind of amp are you using? On my Boogies and Fuchs I tend to run the Master lower and the channel volumes a little higher. I get more saturation that way. Setting the Master high and the channel volumes low will give you more clean headroom. It's all trial and error.
what kind sound are you looking for? That will help guide you, too.
On stage, I've adopted the plexi shield that Joe uses. I can run the amp a little hotter and not kill the people in the front of the stage or get my FOH sound man pissed at me. Instead of the sound going straight out it deflects the sound up and around...really sounds great onstage.
I'm using a Mesa boogie recto-verb 50 combo. Generally I get good very nice crunch tone (which I really like) but I like it to be more thick and creamy for soloing but that doesn't really happen unless I'm running the amp really loud ... and lets face it.. a 50 watt mesa is SOOOOOO loud anyway so generally I'm usually trying to tame it. I have a boss blues driver2 in the chain for making the clean channel break up slightly and to fatten the sound a little more but it has zero effect on the crunch channel cos I suspect its pretty saturated on channel 2 so its lost anyhow. The third setting on the crunch channel is called 'modern' and frankly is so loud it's insane meaning you can't balance it easily with your clean channel.
Unless I find 3 channel amp that delivers what I have now and a little extra thickness on a third channel then I'm happy with the recto verb. The point of the question is to understand if I'm optimising the controls to really push the tones(or to be appearing to it) at pub(bar) sized venues.
DannyG, are you the sole guitarist in your band ? If one guitarst used a plexi shield and the other didn't would you have a problem ballancing the twin guitar sounds ?
Nightfly
Nightfly
No, there's another guitarist who is pretty loud onstage. He's using a Matchless. The fact that he's loud on stage means that half the time...especially indoor venues, he's never in the FOH very much. I have a Fuchs 50watt ODS. I have it to where I can hear it...everything blends well on stage. Bigger stages...depending on the number of monitor mixes, the keyboard player (far left) and the guitarist/vocalist (Center) sometimes put a little of my guitar in the monitors.
My sound is still pretty loud..it's just not projecting outward.
Before the Fuchs I used a Boogie DC5. Boogies are loud. I ran the channels at about 3 (ch 1) and 4 (ch2), The gain on Ch 1 was at 5 and the gain on ch 2 was 8, Over all master was about 2 1/2 or 3. That gave me a nice fat saturated lead sound and a clean ch with just a little grit when pushed.
at home, when crankin up, but not with ease (it's rather loud), try the marshall power break.
its quite helpful at home, or on gigs when you dont need it turned up, but want better tone, not sure if it works with all amps, probably does.
You may have heard of the power breaker, just reminding those out there who have forgotten 'bout one of jims toys
Scagey
DR Z Air Brake, THD Hotplate, and/or the Marshall thang too 
Joe Bonamassa Forum → Joe's Guitars, Amps and Gear → Quastion for all you amp Gurus
Powered by PunBB, supported by Informer Technologies, Inc.
Currently installed 2 official extensions. Copyright © 2003–2009 PunBB.