Gigging with a combo? Advice needed please!

[Brow]

Hey guys.

I've been thinking over the last few months about simplifying my rig and ditching alot of my pedals etc and going for a multi channel amp. I have a twin channel JCM800 but it's just too loud for most places I tend to play so have been looking for something of lower wattage too.

I've been looking at a few options and the main 1 that seems to fit what I want it to do (that I can afford atleast) is a MESA Nomad 55 1x12 combo that I can get for (what seems like a good price to me?) £600.

My main problem is that I've never really used combos before and aside from the fact that it'd save me a trip to and from the car (fetching a head and cab etc) I don't really know what the pros/cons of combos are.

Thanks for any info etc.

Craig

[kevinr]

Nothing wrong with combos! the only questions that I would be asking myself are, if you have been using a Marshall and happy with that sound then you may not like the Mesa! and is the Nomads 55 watts controlable down to the volume levels that you require?

[Brow]

Nothing wrong with combos! the only questions that I would be asking myself are, if you have been using a Marshall and happy with that sound then you may not like the Mesa! and is the Nomads 55 watts controlable down to the volume levels that you require?

To be honest with you, my most used amp recently is a Carlsbro 50 Top that I run clean and then use pedals with. I tried the marshall at the 1st practice for my new band as it's 70s/80s rock so thought the Marshall would fit better than the Carlsbro with pedals, but I couldn't get the amp to a decent enough level where the OD sounded good.

I've used the MESA in the past and after alot of tweaking, got a sound I was happy with. I'm not really looking for any tone in particular, I had my specific pedalboard for stuff like that when doing originals, so this is purely for versatility I guess.

[BigB]

Almost always played with combos, so I can't comment much on the differences wrt/ a full or half stack, but anyway: the main "problem" with combos is that you either have a 2x12 and then it weights tons, or a 1x12 and then you don't have much "dispersion". This, and the usual problems with tubes cooking and / or going microphonic. Else, you won't obviously get the same low ends from an open back, but I don't care for too much low ends anyway (hey, that's what a bass is for, isn't it ?).

[Brow]

Almost always played with combos, so I can't comment much on the differences wrt/ a full or half stack, but anyway: the main "problem" with combos is that you either have a 2x12 and then it weights tons, or a 1x12 and then you don't have much "dispersion". This, and the usual problems with tubes cooking and / or going microphonic. Else, you won't obviously get the same low ends from an open back, but I don't care for too much low ends anyway (hey, that's what a bass is for, isn't it ?).

95% of the time I use 1 of my heads with an open backed 1x12 cab, so I'm not too worried about the missing low end from a stack etc  :lol:

The vibrations from the speaker rattling the amp/valves was 1 of the worries I had, how bad is that with most combos generally?

[BigB]

95% of the time I use 1 of my heads with an open backed 1x12 cab, so I'm not too worried about the missing low end from a stack etc  :lol:

Ok, so this shouldn't make a huge difference here

The vibrations from the speaker rattling the amp/valves was 1 of the worries I had, how bad is that with most combos generally?

I don't think you can think "generally" about this - kinda depends on the amp and tubes and how loud do you play. And how often. And whether you treat your amp right (letting the tubes cool down before moving it and all that jazz...). And there are of course other potential source of premature tube death.

The only tube-related problem I had so far would have been exactly the same with a head - bad treatment, bad results, my fault. Now I never toured intensively - my routine is 1 or 2 rehearsals a week (moving my amp from home to rehearsal room and back) and a gig here and then -  so I can't seriously tell. The only amp I cranked up quite often was the blues junior, and tubes are still good after 7 month of abuse. Never had a problem with the JCM 900 4102 in 3 years of _effective_ use, except for the one mentionned aboved (v1 gone micro but definitly not from the speakers rattling - I almost never had a chance to really push it anyway), and the other tubes were still stock (and just fine, as confirmed by a competent amp tech) when I sold it. The HRDx seems to be ok so far but I only got it a couple month ago (3 gigs and about 10 rehearsals) so it's a bit too soon to tell.

So well, combos are "by design" (or at least because of how they are actually designed) potentially more subject to this kind of problems, but as far as I'm concerned, so far, so good (me crossing fingers here).

FWIW, quite a few guitar players have been touring for years with various combos - including the AC30 which is supposed to cook tubes faster than you cook eggs -, so it's probably not THAT bad...

[Denim n Leather]

Don't do it. You will regret it from Day One.

[viking]

Almost always played with combos, so I can't comment much on the differences wrt/ a full or half stack, but anyway: the main "problem" with combos is that you either have a 2x12 and then it weights tons, or a 1x12 and then you don't have much "dispersion". This, and the usual problems with tubes cooking and / or going microphonic. Else, you won't obviously get the same low ends from an open back, but I don't care for too much low ends anyway (hey, that's what a bass is for, isn't it ?).

95% of the time I use 1 of my heads with an open backed 1x12 cab, so I'm not too worried about the missing low end from a stack etc  :lol:

The vibrations from the speaker rattling the amp/valves was 1 of the worries I had, how bad is that with most combos generally?

   I own a Nomad55 212 and it has never been a problem...

[Frank]

Depends very much on the combo you choose and the style of music you play!

I recently did a rehearsal with a borrowed Marshall valve combo instead of the monster rack system and I was amazed. I pretty much just used a single OD sound all night and controlled the sound from the volume knob on the guitar and it sounded great. So much so that I'm seriously reconsidering getting a small combo for the gigs where the full amp setup is unnecessarily overpowered.

[d1dsj]

Depends very much on the combo you choose and the style of music you play!

I recently did a rehearsal with a borrowed Marshall valve combo instead of the monster rack system and I was amazed. I pretty much just used a single OD sound all night and controlled the sound from the volume knob on the guitar and it sounded great. So much so that I'm seriously reconsidering getting a small combo for the gigs where the full amp setup is unnecessarily overpowered.

This is exactly what I did recently. I nornally use a head/ 4 x 12 not because I'm trying to compensate for anything  :lol:  but because as a band we have a big sound even though we don't mike up the back line. The other guitarist has a 2 x 12 combo and a 4 x 12, the bass player has a Trace stack, 4 x 10 and 1 x 15. We don't play at mega volume but we do have a nice full sound. Anyway I got a 1 x 12 combo for smaller venues and had a fight persueding the bass player to use only 1 cab and the other guitarist to use just the combo. It worked out ok, the sound was definately not the same and we did have comments from some of our regular followers, but due to lack of space it just had to be done. Using just a combo with no pedals other than a wah was liberating to say the least. I found I had to think about what I was playing and how I was playing it... and all of a sudden I found out what my volume and tone knobs were really for! If you can find a combo you really like you can always add another cab if you need to.

[Brow]

Thanks for the new posts guys.

Ben - is your comment because it's a combo or because it's that specific amp? Why would I hate it?

[HTH AMPS]

Shouldn't have any trouble with an open backed 1x12 combo - I use the one in my avatar and its punchy and loud enough for gigging in pubs.  Suppose it all depends on your PA rig too, we've got a 6k rig with separate bass bins, mids and horns plus good monitoring too so everything is mic'd up so the FOH sound is full and punchy.

[Brow]

Shouldn't have any trouble with an open backed 1x12 combo - I use the one in my avatar and its punchy and loud enough for gigging in pubs.  Suppose it all depends on your PA rig too, we've got a 6k rig with separate bass bins, mids and horns plus good monitoring too so everything is mic'd up so the FOH sound is full and punchy.

Its a brand new band that I've joined, so PA hasn't really been mentioned to be honest.

I guess if needed I could drag a head and 2x12 along if I really needed the extra volume but seeing as the other guitarist uses a 1x12 Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, I can't see me needing it!  :lol:

[BigB]

Its a brand new band that I've joined, so PA hasn't really been mentioned to be honest.

I guess if needed I could drag a head and 2x12 along if I really needed the extra volume but seeing as the other guitarist uses a 1x12 Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, I can't see me needing it!  :lol:

I don't know how big your average pub is, but from experience a HRDx is way enough to gig pubs without being miked - I'd even say it's already f*** too loud for quite a few places. Our last gig was for a party in the (very large - well, make it "huge") hall of a CS ingeenering school, everyone was miked but me, and with the master volume about 2.5 (out of 12) I was already louder than anyone else.

[HTH AMPS]

The 1x12 combo in my avatar runs cathode biased EL34s, so its around 30w (ish) and I've never had the master above 3 for pub gigs.

If you can't quite hear yourself on stage with a combo, put it on a bar stool to raise it up towards your head a bit - I guarantee you will have no trouble hearing yourself.