Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Matt77 on March 03, 2008, 04:06:05 PM
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Sorry to be boring and start another thread about beroom amps.
I am just a couple of months away from being the proud owner of a new Feline Lion with a set of Mules.
It's time for me to dump a lot of the digital stuff and go organic and get a new valve amp for some excessive blues - hard rock bedroom noodling and the odd small gig.
I thought about the Cornford Carerra but wonder; will it be too loud for bedroom use and too quiet for small gigs?
Alternatively the Suhr Badger looks nice but seems steep as I'd have to buy a reverb pedal of some sort to add in to the effects loop (probably about £1500 all in.)
Any opinions or good alternative suggestions?
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i like my 50W JCM800 combo. They can be had off ebay very cheaply (£400ish) I'm getting great sounds out of it at bedroom volume (with a tubescreamer in front for that extra boost), and everyone knows how a cranked one will sound at a gig. Don't even bother with a power attenuator - sucks loads of tone.
I'm sure loads of others will chime in with more 'sensible' suggestions :P
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there is a good article in the "Guitar" mag which has bedroom sized tube amps on comparison. It rated the Tiny terror as no 2 and the top award went to the cornfold harlequin
amps in test were the
VOX AC15CC1 rated highly
EPIPHONE VALVE junior
LANEY VC15 again rated highly
PEAVEY VALVEKING ROYAL 8
Feender champion 600
Orange Tiny Terror
Cornford Harlequin
I was also looking into the Badger amp. I'd love that driven tube amp sound at bedroom volume but the only one I can find to try is the other side of the country and its £1200 and ive got too much gas for a PRS atm to warrant it.
I hear Fargen are also very good and similar to the Badger.
Some forum guys here rate a high quality/high wattage amp and a decent pedal to drive them as apposed to a low watt amp which you still cannnot really turn up in a house.
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I own 2 valve amps: a 1-3 watt Sheldon TT3-R and a 50/100 watt Mesa Lonestar. The Mesa sounds better at bedroom volumes. The Sheldon can sound fabulous but needs to turned up louder than is acceptable if you're playing at home to get there.
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matamp minimat 2
peavey have a small valve amp out, i saw it on gak... (not the mini collosus either) about 8w i think it was
laney VCs look ok, i was interested before i found im moving house... so no more lil amp needed here :) (more money for pickups :))))))))) )
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I don't know much about the minimat 2, but the first one is HORRIBLE.
On the subject of Laneys though; the Lionhearts are apparently really nice, and the clips I've heard are orgasmic
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I am a bedroom player - there are a few alternatives! It all depends on the tone you are looking for....
I have a carrera and it is brilliant - sounds amazing quiet but has a definite 'sound' ie not really british more compressed but I like it. Loads of gain and sounds nice clean too.
I also have a tiny terror and again its brilliant - no brainer for how cheap it is and the sounds are much more british and utterly different to the carrera...
Now the suhr badger looks amazing - ive never tried one but the clips do sound great. However I bet the tiny terror would get you close for a stack less cash.
One thing to note is that you won't be gigging much with a carrera without miccing up - its loud but not loud enough. The TT is fine.
To be honest any amp with a good master volume will be great - I've tried attenuation in the past but its never really worked.
Cheers
Matt
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The Laney Lionheart amps are great and fit your needs perfectly - support the UK guys!!!
There are also stuff that Conford, Matamp, Cornell and others make that would work equally well, but the Laney is available in most places and very affordable.
fwiw, I did some work on a Vox AC30CC last week and with some mods that is a GREAT amp - maybe try the AC15CC thats out there, that would be a more sensible bedroom amp that is also giggable.
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I don't know much about the minimat 2, but the first one is HORRIBLE.
On the subject of Laneys though; the Lionhearts are apparently really nice, and the clips I've heard are orgasmic
I've tried a Lionheart, and it was a superb thing. It was the 20w, 4x10 combo. Lovely clean tone, great bluesy crunch/Malcolm Young sound, and a very nice, smooth, powerful overdrive. I tried it in a shop's very small demo room, so it wasn't cranked up by any means - slightly more than bedroom volume, but not by much. It has reverb too, which is a nice bonus.
Definitely worth trying one out if you can.
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Thanks All
Loads of suggestions, fortunately the majority of them are available at Sounds Great which is only 5 mins away. (Makes me look v.lazy for not doing so already, but I've got groin surgery later this week. Football and guitars do not mix!)
I think I'll try and run as many of the suggested amps up against the Badger. Anything that's British and on a par will be snapped up. Hopefully I'll get to post how I get on at some point next week.
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Thanks All
Loads of suggestions, fortunately the majority of them are available at Sounds Great which is only 5 mins away. (Makes me look v.lazy for not doing so already, but I've got groin surgery later this week. Football and guitars do not mix!)
I think I'll try and run as many of the suggested amps up against the Badger. Anything that's British and on a par will be snapped up. Hopefully I'll get to post how I get on at some point next week.
:o Good luck with the ol' groin surgery mate!
And yeah I hope you find something yu like at sounds great! The best way is always to go and try em out.
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there is a good article in the "Guitar" mag which has bedroom sized tube amps on comparison. It rated the Tiny terror as no 2 and the top award went to the cornfold harlequin
amps in test were the
VOX AC15CC1 rated highly
EPIPHONE VALVE junior
LANEY VC15 again rated highly
PEAVEY VALVEKING ROYAL 8
Feender champion 600
Orange Tiny Terror
Cornford Harlequin
How did the VK Royal 8 compare with the Valve Junior and Champ 600? All the others are out of my price range (just a first amp, cant even play the guitar yet).
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Loads of suggestions, fortunately the majority of them are available at Sounds Great which is only 5 mins away.
You live a touch closer to the shop than I do, and you've not been in yet?
If I lived any closer I'd have my own bed there.......
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Maybe a Cornell Romany plus wth either a Tonebone Plexitube or a Blackstar pedal in front of it
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Maybe a Cornell Romany plus wth either a Tonebone Plexitube or a Blackstar pedal in front of it
Will probably get one of them soon.
If money was no object the T-Rex Spin Doctor would be on the list
Loads of suggestions, fortunately the majority of them are available at Sounds Great which is only 5 mins away.
You live a touch closer to the shop than I do, and you've not been in yet?
If I lived any closer I'd have my own bed there.......
I used to go all the time but I'd just stumble blindly past the amps to the guitars. It's only now the dream machine is on the way that I've started paying them any attention. It's like the Alladin's Cave of guitar porn in there.
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It gets worse when you know all the guys in there really well and they mention new stuff on the way whenever you go in :roll:
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for the cheapo Crate Blackhearts? What about them?
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I'd recommend the Cornell Romany Plus as well, with a Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Classic pedal.
The Romany is single channel 1x12, very much in the Fender style, but add in the Twin Tube and you end up with a great 3 channel amp. Perfect for blues and rock.
The great thing about the Cornell (other than the tone) is that you can switch it from 10 to 1/4 watt, so it's perfect for home use, but can also hold it's own if you're jamming with other people. Probably not up to serious gigging though.
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Matt - you can try out the Romany (mine an old pre-romany one called "the Stinger") and pedals at mine when you come down for the guitar if you haven't already gotten sorted.
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I don't know much about the minimat 2, but the first one is HORRIBLE.
On the subject of Laneys though; the Lionhearts are apparently really nice, and the clips I've heard are orgasmic
bog off indy, my minimat rocks your house... :P
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I don't know much about the minimat 2, but the first one is HORRIBLE.
I'd have to disagree stongly with you there. I have one with a matamp 1x12 and a G12M heritage and I can get some great sounds out of it. The boost isn't the greatest, but I don't use it, I prefer to use a pedal in front of the amp. Tim was at my house and was playing through it and he commented on how good it sounded.
What are you basing your opinion on? Did you have one and didn't like it? If so, did you try it with different speakers, because it does seem to be very fussy about the speakers you use?
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I'd agree with PhilK.
I'd also recommend a good Mosfet Clean Boost with a Minimat. This really makes the amp sound alive, just like proper tube amps should.
Although I did try the speaker wall throughout the factory and most of the speakers sounded good, but I just prefered the Hot100.
I plug into my Minimat more than into my King Street these days.
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I don't know much about the minimat 2, but the first one is HORRIBLE.
I'd have to disagree stongly with you there. I have one with a matamp 1x12 and a G12M heritage and I can get some great sounds out of it. The boost isn't the greatest, but I don't use it, I prefer to use a pedal in front of the amp. Tim was at my house and was playing through it and he commented on how good it sounded.
What are you basing your opinion on? Did you have one and didn't like it? If so, did you try it with different speakers, because it does seem to be very fussy about the speakers you use?
I have one and I've tried it through a few different speakers. G12H, Vintage 30, G12M-70, Goodmans Audiom 12-P. I just really hate the amp; i can't get a useable sound out of the thing. It sounds so thin and hard no matter what I put it through. I think I'm just not a 6V6 fan at all...or a Matamp fan.
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If it's that bad there may be something wrong with it - wiring error at the factory? I'd get in touch with them and have them take a look at it.
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I don't know much about the minimat 2, but the first one is HORRIBLE.
I'd have to disagree stongly with you there. I have one with a matamp 1x12 and a G12M heritage and I can get some great sounds out of it. The boost isn't the greatest, but I don't use it, I prefer to use a pedal in front of the amp. Tim was at my house and was playing through it and he commented on how good it sounded.
What are you basing your opinion on? Did you have one and didn't like it? If so, did you try it with different speakers, because it does seem to be very fussy about the speakers you use?
I have one and I've tried it through a few different speakers. G12H, Vintage 30, G12M-70, Goodmans Audiom 12-P. I just really hate the amp; i can't get a useable sound out of the thing. It sounds so thin and hard no matter what I put it through. I think I'm just not a 6V6 fan at all...or a Matamp fan.
What are you plugging into it? A broom?
Thats sounds broken, I'll give you £100 for it!
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before he gets blasted too much, i must say i agree with indy. i tried the minimat in a guitar shop once. we tried all sorts of different speakers and so on through it. in the end i decided i prefered the sound of my old marshall, even with the master volume on a half.
shop owner told me that there was a number of different revisions of the minimat, even within the mk1 series. maybe this accounts for it, i dont know, but i was very dissapointed.
perhaps it needs a nice pedal to get the best from it. for the price the minimat is, i think i would prefer to spend my money in another way.
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before he gets blasted too much, i must say i agree with indy. i tried the minimat in a guitar shop once. we tried all sorts of different speakers and so on through it. in the end i decided i prefered the sound of my old marshall, even with the master volume on a half.
shop owner told me that there was a number of different revisions of the minimat, even within the mk1 series. maybe this accounts for it, i dont know, but i was very dissapointed.
perhaps it needs a nice pedal to get the best from it. for the price the minimat is, i think i would prefer to spend my money in another way.
You really need a clean boost into the high channel to get the best out of it. Then you need to crank the volume and adjust master volume to taste. It took me a while to work this out, but now it rocks and is very simple to use. If you like pedals, this amp is a joy as it loves them. I have owned both versions EL84 and 6V6 (still own this one) and they are both fantastic.
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perhaps it needs a nice pedal to get the best from it. for the price the minimat is, i think i would prefer to spend my money in another way.
You really need a clean boost into the high channel to get the best out of it. Then you need to crank the volume and adjust master volume to taste. It took me a while to work this out, but now it rocks and is very simple to use. If you like pedals, this amp is a joy as it loves them. I have owned both versions EL84 and 6V6 (still own this one) and they are both fantastic.
you seem like a nice guy Ted, and if it works for you - then i'm pleased for you :) one thing i did really like on it was the built-in attenuator.
perhaps i just prefer preamp distortion and marshall tonal colouration - but i do see what indy means and agree. i'm happy i didn't blind purchase one, which i almost did.
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Yep, the Mini sounds nothing like a Marshall, but it still rocks.
I can see how loads of people accustomed to modern 2 channel amps with modern gain stages would be confused by it, but I like the simplicity.
I'm glad I stuck with mine cause as you said gwEm it does work for me, but I could see how it won't work for some people. But its not "Horrible".
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Re the Minimat:
If anyone's got a Minimat they're not happy with, pop in to the factory, and I can arrange to carry out the re-voicing mods I have been developing. Of course, I can't make it sound like a JCM800 :wink: but the "new" Minmat sounds significantly brighter, with a less grainy/ragged distortion, a smoother transition, tighter bass when flat out and a bit more power.
I should stress that this is not custom voicing, but a package of mods that alter the core tone of the amp to produce an amp we are now very happy with.
The revoiced Minimat may become the Minimat III or something similar.
Cheers! :)
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Hi,
I am a happy owner of an Apache set on a standart strat and a Laney VC15. They sound superb together. Srongly recommended if you look for nice tones in low volumes, in bedroom etc.
Cheers.
Mutlu
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I have a heavily modded Epi Valve Junior combo. It sounds great for anything other than metal but with my Line 6 Ubermetal I have that pretty much taken care of. The amp has cost me around £200 so far with the tone and gain switches added. It has an L-pad attenuator on it too which works pretty well. You could get two, mod the hell out of them like I did, buy a stereo effects pedal and have change for your Spin Doctor. You could then run them in stereo. That would be a great bedroom setup IMO :)
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Oh and I also second the VC15 suggestion. One of the best amps I've ever played. Beautiful tones at reasonable volumes.
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The Laney Lionheart amps are great and fit your needs perfectly - support the UK guys!!!.
In support of the UK industry, I've just put the deposit down on a powerscaled head and a cab from Martamp.
If it wasn't for the import costs and duties I would have ended up with the Suhr Badger. I tried it and it sounded great; the power scaling worked really well.
Ultimately though, nothing seemed to fit my requirements 100% so it seemed sensible to get something made to measure that did.
I'm looking forwards to giving the Mules a run out when I get my new piece of kit.
PS Thanks for all the suggestions everyone. I've had a lot of fun trying most of them out around music shops in the last few weeks