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15 watt guitar amp for the studio?


Pilutiful

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Thurogood uses a Fender Princeton Reverb as a stage monitor - 15 watts in a guitar amp can be a lot, particularly in the studio...

Get me drunk some time and I will tell the tale of the guy who insisted he needed his Mesa-Boogie Triple Rec-tum-fier and 2x4-12 cabinets in the studio to "get his tone..." 

Only time I have ever played through an (Honest to gosh, all tube '72) SVT in a session...Not for "My tone" but because I couldn't hear myself otherwise... Years later I was introduced into the miracle of Amp rooms...

Amps and guitars are something I would want to audition, rather than just buy on-line.  Make sure it produces a tone that you find appealing, and hopefully has a line out and effects loop as well.

Edited by StudioNSFW
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29 minutes ago, StudioNSFW said:

Get me drunk some time and I will tell the tale of the guy who insisted he needed his Mesa-Boogie Triple Rec-tum-fier and 2x4-12 cabinets in the studio to "get his tone..." 

That would be a big "Nope!" from me too! 😁

Loved this thing.  Direct recording too.

image.thumb.png.425bcc8e56989045279b11725f7fd82b.png

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1 hour ago, craigb said:

That would be a big "Nope!" from me too! 😁

Loved this thing.  Direct recording too.

image.thumb.png.425bcc8e56989045279b11725f7fd82b.png

Even that makes my eye twitch 🤨. I can't look at that "Rec-tum-fier" script logo without PTSD. Probably a great piece of gear tho. 

When I was wheeling in the SVT (rather than the standard and awesome old Bassman 10 that suited every other session perfectly and never got complaints) he looked over and saw that SVT and said "YES! THAT is the sound I want!"

I looked down at the amp for a second, thought about it, and replied..."So, you don't need me to plug it in?"

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+1 to the above, I have a 100W Carvin set to 25% power output that is rarely used above 2 on the volume setting... guitars do not put out full frequency spectrum, so 15 W concentrated on just what a guitar is outputting is rather loud. If you have the chance to try one a a store, you will understand.

Another side question is are you planning to mic the amp for recording or just jam on it at home? The speaker size (going from a 12" speaker to 8" speaker) will affect tonal quality at volume, but lowers cost dramatically. If not planning to mic the output, they often come in varieties up to 20W, which are fine for jamming, and you can record ITB as mentioned above. Oddly enough, most pawn shops around me have more quality amps than guitars by far.

A few years ago this video for a "Dual Duty Talkbox" caught my eye, so I ended up nabbing a megaphone on clearance while walking out of a department store one day for like $6. Tubing was $10, and a 20W practice amp was $40 (closed-back Rogue, so not high quality). That amp is not the greatest standalone, but I had zero qualms putting holes in it and wiring it up similar to the video.

Another side comment... ITB can also be a cheaper solution with jamming in most cases, since amp sims have a larger arsenal of FX at your disposal with no intermediate noise/signal loss. I have a 200W PA system connected to my audio interface, so actually jam more through the PA than the amp these days. It is also the same setup for recording, so is nothing more than arming/recording the track you are already on rather than dealing with mic'ing a cabinet.

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Wow many replies, thank you very much! The music shops are closed bc of Corona, so this is very helpful. For clarification it's mainly for recording. It's a bedroom studio, but I would like to get fairly pro-sound. From I understand even a 5 watt could be enough?

Edited by pilu
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4 hours ago, pilu said:

Wow many replies, thank you very much! The music shops are closed bc of Corona, so this is very helpful. For clarification it's mainly for recording. It's a bedroom studio, but I would like to get fairly pro-sound. From I understand even a 5 watt could be enough?

What I mean is if you lose anything when you choose lower watts instead of higher watts. Is there a trade-off?

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Less volume generally speaking but moreover the amp will "break up" (distort) at lower volume levels (generally speaking).  There is more to it than that, like what sort of Amp it is (class A etc) and what sort of transformer was used in the amp. My beloved Bassman 10 has one of those ultra-linear late seventies transformers and refuses to distort - which has frustrated a few guitar players who have borrowed it - but it is awesome for *my* bass tone which is pretty clean and piano-esqe.

There is also a whole thing about "Tube watts" vs "Solid state watts".  Despite an arsenal of olde tube amps here, hearing tube amp aficionados argue about the merits of tube amps makes me want to either drive an icepick through my eye or set my hair on fire to distract myself from the conversation.  My two cents is that for Bass I do want a Tube preamp stage for the tone, don't really care about a Tube power amp stage because I personally am trying to avoid distortion....well, except for Social Distortion.

Edited by StudioNSFW
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1 hour ago, StudioNSFW said:

My two cents is that for Bass I do want a Tube preamp stage for the tone, don't really care about a Tube power amp stage because I personally am trying to avoid distortion....well, except for Social Distortion.

I use my Alembic F-2B dual channel preamp to get that tone. Coupled with either my Rick 4003 or my Alembic Series I, I can get some pretty good 'DI' tones. Of course any of my mono basses can get great tones from it too.

Edited by Bapu
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MMMMMmmmm....Alembic.  Damnit! I forgot about the F-2B.  

/me shields eyes while muttering "idontneeditidontneeditidontneedit"

Somewhere around here is my old DI- a one off thing a friend whipped up (He was the guitar tech at Bartolini and built a few offboard boxes of his own design) that is really sweet, Basically a Bartolini single channel version of the F-2B....with three parallel output so you can drive a stage monitor, go to the PA, and have a tuner all in parallel with super low noise floor.  

Edited by StudioNSFW
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6 minutes ago, StudioNSFW said:

Somewhere around here is my old DI- a one off thing a friend whipped up (He was the guitar tech at Bartolini and built a few offboard boxes of his own design) that is really sweet, Basically a Bartolini single channel version of the F-2B....with three parallel output so you can drive a stage monitor, go to the PA, and have a tuner all in parallel with super low noise floor.  

Naiz

 

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