Tube Amp Archive

Although, I do have many other, more suitable amps to gig... I would like to know if it is possible to gig small club (20-100 people) with a 10W combo, usually mic-ed up. Would I have any clean sounds to work with? I am also wondered whether in a band setting the 2x10 speaker configuration sits well in the mix (to me, it sounds too bright, with compressed lows...)? I love the touch sensitivity of this amp, is it gig(able)? Thanks.

I used to gig with a 15watt 1x12 tube combo amp. I used pedals in front for dirt. Depending on venue they'd either stick a mic in front, or I'd offer the soundman the option to grab a line-level signal to the board from a Hughes & Kettner Redbox I installed. Worked fine, especially for festival events where you have to get on-and-off stage quickly. If the sound-reinforcement system is good, running a smaller amp for stage volume, and miking the amp for FOH is a great way to go.

IME, a 10W amp is not gigable with a drummer. I could never get enough clean headroom from an amp that size. I could get barely enough dirty volume...barely. I tried it and have found that 30W is the bare minimum for clean headroom for me. 50W is much better IMO. YMMV. I would never bother with it again.

30 seems to be my minimum too. AC30 is the smallest amp that competes with a rock drummer but even there it's between chunky or blistering. End of the line for headroom.

The problem with a 10w amp might even be that the snare bleeds more than the signal. lol

Caveat (to my post above):

At that time I played with a folk/rock group with no drummer (only hand percussion through mics).

Thus observations posted regarding competing with a drummer are spot on.

Nick played in a hippy death folk band. Got it.



hee

Reeltarded wrote:Nick played in a hippy death folk band. Got it.



hee

Change "hippy" to Native, and "death" to American and you got it! It was a Native-American folk-rock band. Howie supplied the folk, and I supplied the rock. Though, after six years, it felt like "hippy death folk". Wait, now that I think about it .......... there was that time we played a native wedding outdoors, on planks in a sea of mud with a leaky tarp overhead, running off a generator ....... during a fierce lightning storm ...... oh, and I almost forgot playing at Ft. Ticonderoga during another fierce lightning storm ....... yeah, maybe "death" is the appropriate term after all.


http://howielyons.com/music/


<Slightly Off-topic thread bump>

18w through 212 cab is the lowest I've gigged with not mic'd.