Amp selection help...

[beggar_guitar]

This isn't for me rather but 2 friends of mine.

Friend one has been playing for about 2 or 3 years now. He is pretty good and is looking to get a new amp. He doesn't need a lot, but he does need something capable of doing small gigs. Mainly stuff for our Praise & Worship band. 85% of the time mic's are available for us, but sometime we might do an event in which it may have to stand alone. I have heard a lot of good things about the Peavey Classic 30 1x12. Any thoughts on this amp? He is pretty much sold on it, but I told him I would try and do some research on it. What do you think about this amp? How well does it do? Does it take pedals well? Etc...

The other friend has not been playing long at all. Not even a year. My advice to him was Wait. I told him keep playing on what he has, if he needs something to hear himself better he can borrow one of mine, and once he starts playing in the praise band I can get him a spare amp to cover him. The main reason I told him to wait is he is still at a place where he may not stick with it. I told him wait and figure out what you like playing. Once he gets a bit better to invest in an amp he can grow with. Not something that is cheap and he will want to replace, but not necesarily a Pro setup. Something that will suffice that in case he wants to gig it can handle it, but won't be overkill in the bedroom jamming.

What do you think about the amp for the first friend, and what of my advice for the other? Pretty sane?

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Amp selection help...

for the first friend - yeah classic 30's are pretty good, i'm not really a fan of el84's but a lot of people like them, and the stock speaker is crap but for what they cost they're a great value

one thing though - i don't go to church & i'm not gonna act like i know what kind of tones a praise/worship band uses, but in my mind i'm imagining mostly clean/light overdrive stuff. And for that, in the same price range & category, i think he'd better be suited with a hot rod deluxe. The cleans on em totally kill the ones on the peavey. They're better for light OD too if you know how to use em right, and take pedals better. The only thing the peavey is no doubt better than the hot rod at - is in-amp distortion


friend 2 - on one hand i do think he should wait, on the other i think a nice rig would encourage him to play more & stick with it, but you know him better than i do

 

[beggar_guitar]

Re: Amp selection help...

Thanks for the tips man.

The first friend Mainly plays teh church stuff, but we were in a band together at one time and we played modern rock. Radio stuff really... in the style of Audioslave, Foo Fighters, AlterBridge... So I know he enjoys that stuff as well. I am not sure if he will get into many more bands but I want to lead him towards something pretty versatile. I actually reccomended he try out a Hot Rod Deluxe or Deville. (In fact I am looking at one myself)

The other guy.. I know what ya mean when having new stuff can motivate you to play more, but he has yet to play for a year. So there is a good chance of him not going on. I'd hate to reccomend an amp to him and him buy it and then give up. He doesn't have a lot of $$, but he is one of those guys that when he wants something he works til he gets it. I'm hopefully going to buy a new amp before too long. I'd rather him borrow my old one, which is worlds better than his current (but still not Great), and get used to some more styles. I know I can't control what he does or does not do by any means. I just wanna help him look out for his pocket book. lol

Of course I could talk him into buying some NICE gear, and the discourage him from playing, and buy it off him at a discounted price... hmm? haha..

I'm asking all this cause I don't know a lot myself, but these guys are younger and they bring their gear questions to me, and I gotta keep looking like I know what I am talking about. ha

But seriously.. thanks for the feedback.

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Amp selection help...

ha no problem

just remember when it comes to distortion, less is usually more, that's where the bassist comes in, yanno?

either way (peavey or fender) i'd have him switch out the speaker, and preamp tubes if he can afford it - they're not much unless you get em from groove tubes, a 12ax7/12at7 from say electro harmonix can be had for about $8

 

[beggar_guitar]

Re: Amp selection help...

Cool... Hadn't heard that with the peavey but I had a lot of people tell me when I was looking at the HR that I would probably want to do that. Of course I really liked the tone I got out of it with the stock tubes/speakers for what I got to mess with it.

I have never had a tube amp before so it was really surprising to get some real time to mess with one and really see how differently they react than SS or Hybrid amps.

The one looking at the Peavey has never been much for pedals. He's a lot like me and wants it simple staight outta the box without a bunch of extras. Of course now I have gotten bored and I am starting to price some pedals just to play around with...

Anyways.... I got off topic, but thanks for the advice.

The HR and Peavey Classic both are All tube correct?

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Amp selection help...

correct

and stock you can get great tones out of both, you just gotta understand that everyone here takes their tone very very very very very very seriously, we all wanna squeeze the best possible sound out of our amps

they're actually making hrdx's with jensens & v30's, both sound good. The stock hot rod speaker would be fine if it didn't flub out, it's rated at 50 watts & though the hot rod is rated at 40, it goes far above that, as all tube amps do, but the jensen & v30 are both higher wattage. I've never had the opportunity to mic my amp though, i've always just hadda crank & go, so even if you get one without a jensen or celestion it'll be fine with micing & maybe even just turning up & going - if you don't play all that loudly.

You'll find when you switch to tube, you won't get all that many extras. For instance - the marshall avt150 has so many effects it's ridiculous, but people still prefer jcm's because they sound better, and clean/od/distortion sounds should be your #1 concern when looking at an amp, assuming it's loud enough for your situation.

as far as pedals - a good tube screamer would work well with the hot rod, you won't need any more distortion than that, but once again those things have a HUGE volume boost to them, so you're gonna need a speaker that won't flub out. The pedal won't make the amp louder than it is when it's dimed, just distort it more, and a boost like that with the small ammount of extra gain that a TS does would be your best bet for really a great distortion sound at high volume. They break up around 5-6 with humbuckers & when an amp starts breaking up, something like a ds-1 with the gain up can sound pretty horrid

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Amp selection help...

+1 to the Hod Rod Deluxe idea . .. . i'm heading down to several guitar stores today to see if there's anything else i like with a better clean sound. So far I havn't found anything.

 

[neosadist]

Re: Amp selection help...

This isn't for me rather but 2 friends of mine. Friend one has been playing for about 2 or 3 years now. He is pretty good and is looking to get a new amp. He doesn't need a lot, but he does need something capable of doing small gigs. Mainly stuff for our Praise & Worship band. 85% of the time mic's are available for us, but sometime we might do an event in which it may have to stand alone. I have heard a lot of good things about the Peavey Classic 30 1x12. Any thoughts on this amp? He is pretty much sold on it, but I told him I would try and do some research on it. What do you think about this amp? How well does it do? Does it take pedals well? Etc... The other friend has not been playing long at all. Not even a year. My advice to him was Wait. I told him keep playing on what he has, if he needs something to hear himself better he can borrow one of mine, and once he starts playing in the praise band I can get him a spare amp to cover him. The main reason I told him to wait is he is still at a place where he may not stick with it. I told him wait and figure out what you like playing. Once he gets a bit better to invest in an amp he can grow with. Not something that is cheap and he will want to replace, but not necesarily a Pro setup. Something that will suffice that in case he wants to gig it can handle it, but won't be overkill in the bedroom jamming. What do you think about the amp for the first friend, and what of my advice for the other? Pretty sane?

Hmm. What is his price range? The Peavy Classic 30 is nice, and I think that's not really a bad amp to get. But if you think he's buying beyond his playing abilities, all you can really do is give him your opinion on it, nicely, and only once. If he's going to buy it, he's going to buy it. I have a friend who is around my playing level yet owns like 5 signature guitars and like two half-stacks, and a Boss GT-8. I think it's overkill, yet honestly there's nothing I can say because it's his money.