Amp Recommendations?

english_bob

Hi all,

Just discovered this place after a bit of a break from the forums- used to post on Musicradar under the same username.

Anyway, I'm considering a change of amp and wanted to pick the forum's collective brains.

I play guitar with a singer-songwriter (elizabethcornish.com if anyone's interested) as part of a four-piece band- me, acoustic guitar, bass and drums plus lead and backing vocals, and currently use a reasonably simple set up:

PRS Starla X -> TC polytune mini -> BYOC comp (not often used) -> Foxrox ZIM (B9 and VT) -> Vox Delaylab -> Cornell Romany Plus ('04 or '05 I think, so only 10w and 2.5w modes)

The Cornell does what it does (Fender blackface cleans with a little dirt when wound up and/or played hard) beautifully, and is loud enough for my purposes (small rehearsal rooms and mic'd gigs, both with a drummer who knows how to keep some in reserve for the loud bits), but there are a few things it can't do that I'd like to be able to:

1. A little more dirt. I don't need high gain sounds, but I do need a little more sustain and "oomph" than the Cornell seems to be able to give me, without too much more of the distortion-y stuff- I don't want "grind" or "sizzle" or any of that, just a bigger, warmer, sustainier sound. That's why I tried out the compressor on the board- after all, what I want is basically compression- but it's not quite getting me there- I tend to play quite dynamically, so the comp was making the quiet stuff too loud. The ZIM, even at low gain, adds mids and "dirty dirt" as opposed to the sort of "clean dirt" I want. I'm not convinced that I don't sound like a total mentalist. Is all of this even possible, or am I asking for an amp that does two opposite things?

2. A good lead tone. By which I mean much the same as above, but more of the same. I guess I'm shooting for the sort of "expensive" sounding, smooth, sustaining sort of sounds- think Gilmour, Robben Ford etc.

3. More control over EQ. The Cornell's EQ is subtle, and really only good for tweaking the one basic sound to tune out bass mud or treble sharpness. I'd like to be able to tweak a little more than that.

I'm aware that to get all the other stuff I want I'll probably end up with an amp that can't do what the Cornell does quite as well as the Cornell can do it, but I'm happy to trade off a little of the very specific wonderfulness of the amp I have now for a little more versatility if I need to.

To cap it all off and make it really difficult for youse all, I don't have a ton of money to spend beyond what I'll get for the Cornell (£500-550ish?), and I'd like to be able to maintain my ability to "load-in" to a venue in one trip- at the moment I can just about get a guitar case and a pedalboard in one hand and an amp in the other and walk a short distance without dropping anything! I'm still holding on to the belief that I'm relatively young and fit, so I reckon I could manage something a little bigger and heavier than the Cornell and still do that, but I think I'd prefer to stick to a fairly small 1x12" combo unless someone can convince me that I really need more speakers and/or a lot more watts to get the sound in my head.

I'm wondering if the smaller, lower wattage Mesa amps might be an option- Studio .22s, DC series, Subways, F series and occasional Express and Nomad series amps seem to crop up on eBay at that sort of price. Any opinions on whether these amps will get me where I'm looking to go? if not, what will? Anything?

stickyfiddle

Welcome back (sort of!) - good to see you!

Have you ruled out a different pedal? A Klon-type thing would probably get you close to what you describe - warmer and fuller and "more" of the same sound.

FWIW I just got rid of a Mesa Express 5:25. It was excellent at what it does well, which is very-clean or Mesa-style heavy, but I couldn't get the nice warm chimy not-quite clean you can from a Vox or Cornell, so I swapped for a Laney Lionheart. I got the 5W one, but the 20W would be a good bet for the kind of sound you mention, I think.

not_the_dj

Welcome back @english_bob ;

english_bob

Nice to see you too! Sticky, did I read somewhere that you're in the middle east now? How did that happen?

The Klon idea might be worth a try. I'm not convinced that this isn't at least partly a "grass is greener" thing, and that I won't end up regretting it if I sell the Cornell. 

stickyfiddle

english_bob said:

Nice to see you too! Sticky, did I read somewhere that you're in the middle east now? How did that happen?

Yup, sitting here typing from deepest darkest Abu Dhabi. It was my wife's idea but the weather's nice and Thomann don't charge VAT here...

english_bob

Wow. I spent a couple of years in Kuwait as a kid (dad was in the forces) and you're not wrong about the weather. Watch out for muslamic ray guns though. Everybody's packing.

ThePrettyDamned

stickyfiddle;409932" said:

english_bob said:

Nice to see you too! Sticky, did I read somewhere that you're in the middle east now? How did that happen?





Thomann don't charge VAT here...

At least you've thought of all the most important things

exocet

Try a Zen Drive or Clone - It delivers the Robben Ford type sound.

Alternatively a Joyo Sweet Baby is also very good - less Bass / Lower Mids than the Zen drive but still a lovely "clean" sounding overdrive.

english_bob

What sort of a guitar forum is this? I ask how best to spend £500 on an amp and I get recommendations of pedals I could bang together on perfboard for maybe £30? Aren't I supposed to get £1k amp suggestions? :-?

I think I might have to bust out the soldering iron and try out a few of these nice ODs.

Still kinda liking the idea of being able to clear my board of dirt pedals though...

stickyfiddle

In my case it's very much that the Romany Plus is one of my favourite ever amps and if I had one I wouldn't want to sell it!!

english_bob

Fair comment.

It's not a genuine complaint(!), I appreciate sensible suggestions that might help me avoid making silly decisions that I might regret much more than I'd appreciate the TGP crap like "don't do that, somehow miraculously have twice as much money to spend and buy a Mad Mojo Amps Unobtanium Rocket, but make sure you send it to Franck Overcharge to do the Boner Mod first".

RaymondLin

A secondhand Mesa Transatlantic 15?

Seen a few sold here around £500.  It has a lot of sounds, no Fx loop though.

Beexter

If you are basically happy with the clean sound of the amp, I'd be equally inclined to suggest a couple of pedals instead of changing the amp. Mr Gilmour effectively plays his hi-watts clean and gets his sublime lead tones from pedals.....I'd suggest an Xotic SP comp - it has a fair amount of boost so you can hit the front of the amp harder to give you a bit more of what you already have, plus, it has a blend control allowing you to dial in just the right amount of compression, giving you lots of sustain without killing your note attack. A basic Boss GE-7 will give you more EQ options and can also boost volume as well if needed. Finally, a RAT will cover a lot of lead tone territory from mild break-up to singing sustaining leads including a good Gilmour approximation with some delay behind it.

Maybe not the answer you were looking for but pedals can offer a lot of versatility if you're happy with the basic clean tones you're getting.

english_bob

RaymondLin;410323" said:

A secondhand Mesa Transatlantic 15?Seen a few sold here around £500.  It has a lot of sounds, no Fx loop though.

Hmm. Am I right in thinking that they only make these as heads? I like the idea of all those sounds in one place (no Fender flavours beyond "Tweed" though, which I assume is likely to mean "very early Marshall" in context), but if the used head is £500 and I still need to shout for a cab it's going to stretch the budget and blow my "one trip load in" capacity. Not a deal breaker on its own...

RaymondLin

They do make the combo but it's almost £2k new...the head is £1k new. It's much cheaper to buy the head and then a cheaper cab.

english_bob

Beexter;410346" said:

you are basically happy with the clean sound of the amp...

Well that's the thing. I do love that amp, but the clean sound is just *too* clean, which means using a pedal just to get to where I want to start from, then more pedals on top of that to get the other sounds I want.

Beexter;410346" said:

I'd suggest an Xotic SP comp - it has a fair amount of boost so you can hit the front of the amp harder to give you a bit more of what you already have, plus, it has a blend control allowing you to dial in just the right amount of compression, giving you lots of sustain without killing your note attack.

It's not the attack that I didn't like- my BYOC 5 knob compressor has a similar blend feature- it was the way the comp affected my playing dynamics.

Beexter;410346" said:

A basic Boss GE-7 will give you more EQ options and can also boost volume as well if needed. Finally, a RAT will cover a lot of lead tone territory from mild break-up to singing sustaining leads including a good Gilmour approximation with some delay behind it.

This is a perfectly valid way of getting your sound, but I'm wondering if there's a simpler way to get there than having a whole bunch of pedals just to get the basic sounds I need.

newi123

I`m a +1 on keep the amp and try a different pedal - and interestingly both the lead tones you refer to (gilmour and ford) are typically pedal based off a clean platform (yes, I know Mr Ford is a famous D user, but I assume your not in that kind of ballpark cost wise, and when he flys he`s typically blackface clean and zen drive).

I don`t think you need multiple pedals either - I used to cover a huge amount of sonic range with a Carr amp (again blacface sound) and an xotic BB preamp - the pedal cleaned up beautifully with the volume control to give everything from cleanish to Gilmour. I found this much easier than trying to `stack` pedals.

Currently doing the same thing with a wampler ecstacy.

Good luck!

Bellycaster

I'd keep that lovely amp and go with the majority view of seeking out a versatile OD Pedal. I might be getting the wrong end of the stick with what you are aiming at with the Compressor Pedal, but I tend to use Comp for the complete opposite of adding dynamics and sustain. I use it when I want to squash the tone for Funk picking or Strumming.

Having said that, my Comp does add a certain something when it's on with an OD, but might not be what you are after.

It's an expensive recommendation I have, but the Bogner Ecstasy Blue Pedal covers a ton of ground and has neat Volume and Gain Boost features, maybe check out some demos on YT.

meltedbuzzbox

another pedal recommendation from me too. 

Nobels ODR 

Its totally transparent so you get all of your amps character and sound just with overdrive on the top. It can do light flavouring to pretty full on (not metal territory). I highly recommend one. 

english_bob

newi123 said:

I don`t think you need multiple pedals either - I used to cover a huge amount of sonic range with a Carr amp (again blacface sound) and an xotic BB preamp - the pedal cleaned up beautifully with the volume control to give everything from cleanish to Gilmour. I found this much easier than trying to `stack` pedals.

 

So you got all those sounds by setting the BB to the highest gain setting you'd need and backing the volume off for the lower gains? Did the overall volume stay fairly consistent?

If I could at least cut the pedalboard down to a single dirtbox and free up space for some more interesting effects it would be a step in the right direction.

I definitely think an evening trawling tagboardeffects is in order.

ICBM

To throw another can of worms into the mix , I see from online pics that the Romany has a Jensen speaker, probably from the 'Mod' series from the code number on it (even though it says 'Special Design'). While these are not bad speakers at all, it's probably not what you want for the sounds you're describing.

Try replacing it with a Celestion of some sort, that will give you a richer, warmer and smoother sound… almost irrespective of which Celestion! If you're also looking for a fairly clear sound which responds to the amp's EQ well - and not *too* much of a change away from the Fendery tone - I'd suggest a G12H-30 as the first stop… probably the Heritage version if you can afford it. These are seriously great speakers.