I’d recommend you spend the lion’s share of your budget on a good amplifier and use what’s left over for some replacement pickups and/or components for one of the guitars you already have or a pedal or two.
I mentally divide amplifiers into 3 groups: concert, club, and practice. A concert amp is greater than 50 watts. Club amps run from about 25 to 50. And practice amps are 5 to 25. It sounds to me like you want something in the 25-35 watt range. And if it were me, I’d want something I can get clean and distorted from at low and high volumes. I’d insist on built in reverb too.
Hmm, I’m not sure I agree with your low-end assessment. I’ve got a Blues Jr 15 watt and an Egnater 15 watt for playing at home, and those amps blow doors, esp if you push them with a boost. 25-30 would be manageable, but I wouldn’t see it as the bottom wattage by any means. Obviously YMMV.
A friend of mine that plays professionally (and knows a lot about amps, tube technology, etc) informed me that the 5 watt Blackstar amp I’ve been pining over is going to be plenty loud enough for what I will be using it for. He explained to me that generally speaking tube amp wattages are often underrated and that they will play much louder than their wattage output would seem to indicate, and are also generally much louder than much higher wattage rated solid state amps.
Nope - that’s about correct. Tube amps are typically rated based on their clean headroom, which we all know means only dialed up to about 5 ;).
A 5 watter may not be quite enough to get over drums, but will be plenty loud for fun playing on your own.
If you never read my overview of tube amps and how they differ from solid state in terms of responsiveness, it might be helpful. I would have to dig it out…
Thanks! Since I’ve never owned a tube amp (or even a good amp) before, I want to learn as much as I can about the subject. It’s going to be an “ongoing guitar” project.
Scour craigslist or your local Guitar Center and get the color and setup that you want for 200-250. I personally like the Standard version. The Ultra and the other weight relieved models just don’t seem to cut it for the tone I expect from an LP. 4X4 with strings. Spend the 30$ to get the guitar dialed in by someone local that knows what they are doing. If you want to upgrade at some point in the future its as simple as new tuners or picking up a set of Seth Lovers or 59s. Do not resale for less than 275. See, already made a profit!
If you are a TOOL fan then you can grab a round blindspot car mirror and stick it to the headstock. Instant Adam Jones tone.
Amplifi 150 Line 6 amp. 499.
I love Blackstar. I bought my HT Stage 100 head from Musicians Friend a couple years back on a return deal for 500$. The thing is incredible. I have it hooked up to my Marchall 1960a cabinet and it sings. The ht-5th only has the 2 10 inch speakers. I’m thinking that the tone you are going to get from it at almost any volume is going to underwhelm you. You just won’t get the full range of tones that you will be looking for. If you are set on getting the Blackstar then I would suggest the ht 40 or ht 60.
The beauty of the amplifi is that you will have access to a ton of tones right out of the box. You can configure it from your phone, tablet, or PC and it doubles as a bluetooth player. Do not fall into the pedal trap. Well, not yet anyway.
This concerns me quite a bit. I only have so much to spend and I’ve settled on a guitar that’s quite a good deal and I’ve even extended my budget into about the $900 range to accomodate for the extra cost of the guitar, which is going to be around $440. I don’t think I can afford an HT-40 and I know I can’t afford an HT-60. Maybe If I can find an HT-40 for $500 or slightly less used then I can swing it but otherwise I cannot.
And that doesn’t even account for the “playability at home without waking the children” factor of a much more powerful amp.
If I blow my entire wad on an amp like that I won’t be able to afford any effects for awhile, which I feel I will want sooner rather than later.
When you find an amp you like, you might want to try Reverb.com to find a deal on a new or used one. I bought a Bass guitar there and am very pleased. The site only deals in music gear, so I find it very useful.
I don’t think I linked to one where someone was actually playing it, it was from the manufacturer’s website, but here’s one that actually makes me feel a little better about it (love the way it sounds with the Les Paul): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrMLISsNnb8
Credible demo - seems well recorded and the guy puts the amp through its paces
Seems like a solid amp - I know nothing of Blackstar’s rep for quality/reliability - if those check out, seems like a worthy option for what you want.
Overall - look, you want a good value amp that can help you get solid clean and crunchy tones. This really seems to do that - and I love the fact that as a 5 watt amp, it has an effects loop - that can be a great thing if you are trying to get time-delay effects into your sound, or want to use something like a clean boost, where you want to maintain your tone, but bump up the volume - an effects loop comes after the pre-amp circuit, but before the power amp tube, so you are taking the same basic signal and giving it a loudness boost.
I hear ya. My only caution to you would be that a smaller tube amp might not be what you are actually looking for. With a DSP plus amp you would be set right out of the box. You would not have the need to immediatelly buy pedals and effects. I personally do not like to practice with a tube amp. I’ve had a VOX AC15 and hated it and it hated my pedals. Tube amps really require you to hit that sweet spot for tone at volume or with a combination of settings. With a DSP system you will be able to dial in what you want and have that exactly replicated at any volume high or low. Once you adjust the volume on that tube amp I find that I’m adjusting tone settings to get back to where I wanted which further wastes my practice time.
That said… I really love my Blackstar. If you have a shot at any of the ht amps then jump at it. The drive channels on the Blackstars are perfect. Mine has 2 overdrive channels and I only use one distortion/overdrive Tube Screamer pedal on my entire pedalboard in order to put a little dirt on the clean. Although, I still want a King of Tone pedal.
I have been looking at the Amplifi 150 myself as a practice amp. I have a beautiful pedal board now but I hate hauling it back and forth from our practice area. I have owned a POD 2.0 in the past and liked it for practicing at home with headphones. I think that I have just talked myself into getting the Amplifi 150. Damnit.
I like a bit of a deeper tone and it just sounds a little bit tinny to me. I’m used to the ht 100 through a 4 celestion speaker cab though so I may be a bit biased.
This brings me to an interesting question…I read through your 2009 post about tubes v solid state and it was…er, solid. But in one of your posts you expressed to someone the desire to figure out how to work out the “problem” of using pedals with a tube amp. In the post of yours I’m quoting now you’ve seemed to figure it out…an effects loop.
I hate to keep quoting my musician friend, but he told me essentially that a hard and fast rule of thumb for tube amps was to only have certain effects “in front of the preamp”, those being drive, compression and wah, and everything else goes into the effects loop.
That being said, he’s a serious guitar player that actually makes money doing what he does, uses a pair of Boogie DC-10’s onstage and he insists that all modulation effects have to go into the loop. He elaborates to say that his Boogie amps have a specific tube that will automatically buffer even digital effects into the loop back into the signal chain.
I want to understand this shit!
I want to get a multi-effects pedal/device. I looked at the Fender Mustang Floor demo and that seems really cool…but it’s digital. Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QW1ntWKuy-o
Then I think “well, my friend says go all analog so what do I look for?” and I find stuff like the Electro-Harmonix Tone Tattoo and I think “well, it’s all analog…okay?”
Maybe I’m getting too caught up in this, but I’m going to need some effects. The Mustang format appeals as it’s inexpensive, has footswitches and a multitude of effects. But it’s digital! If I get that, where do I even hook it up, if anywhere without “fouling” my “pristine” tube sound? Can that be put into the effects loop as a device? What about the Electro-Harmonix? Is that better?
I am trying to save money and not spending a fortune on this venture. Stomp boxes add up. Serious fractal effects (like what my friend uses) are out of the stratosphere expensive.
In other words, can a digital processor like the Fender Mustang Floor be used properly with a tube amp or not? Is the Electro-Harmonix a safer bet due to it being analog?
You won’t have any problems using a multi-effects board directly into a clean amp channel.
A general rule for pedal order is to have tone producing pedals/effects before tone shaping pedal/effects. You will have a better control over your overall sound. So, overdrives/wah/compressors go before reverb/delay/modulation effects. guitar->tuner->wah->compressor->distortion/overdrive->chorus->tremelo->delay->amp. You get the idea.
So, this is all fine and good when you have your pedal board going into a the clean amp channel. Now, if your amp has its own built in overdrive channel… you can see where you run into problems. You are distorting/overdriving the modulating effects which can result in really muddy tones. What you do then is guitar->tuner->wah->compressor->distortion/overdrive->amp in->amp effects out->chorus->tremelo->delay->amp effects in.
From my understanding newer amps with the effects chain buffer option actually actively adjust the incoming signal levels on the effect loop in to match the outgoing level. I could be completely wrong about that.
FG, are you trying to decide between DSP usage instead of a tube amp? If you want to go that way, that’s fine, but I thought you’d already trod that road a bit?
Personally I have POD 2.0, which I love and still own, but I’ve never looked back once I had a tube amp. That said, I don’t really use many effects, I just want a driven tone, sometimes some reverb, but I can get that from at least one of my two amps.
