Amplifier Mistake (Blackstar)

ICBM

thomasross20 said:

Egnater Rebel 20 any good?ICBM, I see you aren't a fan of the Hayden Mofo's?

No! Horrible.

I've heard bad things about the reliability of the Egnaters too, although not seen one personally yet.

vasselmeyer

thomasross20 said:

Egnater Rebel 20 any good?

@thomasross20 In my opinion the Egnater Rebels are fantastic amps. I use a Rebel 30 combo (2x12, just for the spread) but they are so loud that a 20 would easily cope with any pub/club gig. There's a cool feature where you can blend the mix of output valves between EL84s and 6V6s depending on what flavour of amp you're looking for.

I think @welshboyo still has a head + 1x12 cab up for sale here:

http://thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/26783/fs-egnater-rebel-20-head-and-matching-1x12-cab-offers-invited

When my 2x12 becomes too heavy for me, I'm picking one up.

impmann

The other guitar player in my band gigs a Hayden Mofo 15 through an old Marshall 2x12 cab - it sounds fantastic and is as loud as hell. He (mis)treats it with little respect and it has been 100% reliable in two years' gigging - normally two or three gigs a month. Its never gone wrong and in fact sounds consistently great.

I'd have one, myself, but tbh I always try to buy something different to the other members of the band so that we have different sounds.

hubobulous

vasselmeyer said:

When my 2x12 becomes too heavy for me, I'm picking one up.

Huh? ;-)

Jalapeno

thomasross20 said:

Not sure about Marshall, sort of fell out of love with them years ago. That was a while back.. maybe worth trying them again. 

It's not about Tone, it's about having something to continue to make noise with.

Still think that Chapper's chopped Cube80 "Head" is the perfect backup amp.

RaymondLin

How about a Mesa TA-15, can get them aroudn £500 secondhand.  5/15/25 watts.  2 channels.

not_the_dj

ICBM said:

thomasross20 said:

Egnater Rebel 20 any good?ICBM, I see you aren't a fan of the Hayden Mofo's?

No! Horrible.

I've heard bad things about the reliability of the Egnaters too, although not seen one personally yet.

I gigged with a Hayden Mofo for a few years. Never had a problem with it, and I liked the sound.

I also gigged with an Egnater Tweaker 40 for a whle....but the output transformer blew, and it was a bit of a pain getting the replacement (support from Egnater was non exsistance and in the end GuitarGuitar had to take one out of an unsold combo version for me).

ICBM

I hated the Mofos I've played, both the full-size and the mini one - nasty grating tone, and some of the only valve amps I've ever played that sounded worse cranked up than at low volume. I also thought they were poorly-made, although that doesn't *always* make things unreliable.

On the other hand I hate a lot of amps that other people seem to like.

I liked the sound of the Egnater Tweaker I tried, but the reliability reports about the Rebel really put me off ever owning one.

meltedbuzzbox

Voxman said:

p90fool;449092" said:

Voxman said:

The problem with a single channel amp is lack of clean headroom as you raise the gain. For home use, rehearsals and small club gigs its fine, and bigger gigs are OK if you mike up. But if you need to go backline at volume you need two channels.





What on earth does number of channels have to do with clean headroom?

Because a single channel amp (eg Laney Cub) will typically have volume and gain controls. On my cub you can max out the volume but if the gain goes above 3 it starts to distort. If you up the gain you get more volume but more distortion. So its clean headroom volume is limited and a lot less than its capable distorted volume.

With a two channel amp eg my Laney VC30 where one is the clean channel you've got way more scope to keep it clean at higher volumes. If you crank the clean channel it will move into some degree of distortion as the power valves are pushed of course, but you have much more scope for keeping it clean at higher volume because as its the clean channel its not being driven into overdrive by the preamp stage.

A cub is a really low wattage amp. It will break up when pushed. 

The clean channel on a VC30 breaks up quickly as well. I would even debate saying it has a clean channel.

When playing some gigs last year I found it hard to distinguish between the channels at times when playing at volume. 

Then back to the whole single channel thing. A hiwatt or a twin will make your head explode in terms of volume and they wont break up. If you could break up a Fender Twin I wouldn't want to be in the same room or building 

vasselmeyer

I'm not sure you were playing the same kind of VC30 I was. Mine stayed clean until it was so loud it was unusable in a big pub gig.

midlifecrisis

yes, above, even the drive channel was quite clean and needed a pedal.

thomasross20

I'd hate to have an amp that broke up too much. I'm big into loud clean jangly sounds!

meltedbuzzbox

vasselmeyer said:

I'm not sure you were playing the same kind of VC30 I was. Mine stayed clean until it was so loud it was unusable in a big pub gig.

I guess we might have a different opinion on clean. 

At the time I was a Fender twin player. That was a clean sound to me. The Laney was dirty/gritty in comparison 

It was built like a tank though, I will give it that

Jalapeno

Why are we talking about AC30s and Twins ?  He wants a LIGHTER amp !!!!!!!!

meltedbuzzbox

Jalapeno said:

Why are we talking about AC30s and Twins ?  He wants a LIGHTER amp !!!!!!!!

errrrrrrr

Man up?

ThePrettyDamned

Jalapeno;450450" said:

Why are we talking about AC30s and Twins ?  He wants a LIGHTER amp !!!!!!!!

Yeah, true.

Although I don't think he can really get a big clean sounding valve amp that's small and light. The Laney lh50 kind of does, it has an excellent clean channel, decent headroom and is fairly portable.

But other than that, I reckon the winner is the id head and a cab.

thomasross20

I do think I'm coming back to the ID head & cab, to be honest (must check the weight of this vs the ID60). I do love the Blackstar sounds... I might just have to suck it up and put the boost in the FX loop for distorted solo boosts. 

thomasross20

ID100 head: 12.8kg

ID60 combo: 22kg (err, might be 18kg!)

Blackstar HT-112 cab: 10.8kg

thomasross20

Prior to the gig tomorrow I'm going to activate the FX loop on the Blackstar and get it set up so I have the boost in the FX loop.

Just dug out the pedalboard and it's going to be a pain. My boost, delay & chorus lie at the end of the BCB60 board... right at the edge of the case and the angled (90 degree) lead I have is a little too big to fit in properly. Man, totally haven't got time to faff with this before a gig!!

EDIT - was just playing the amp in prep for tomorrow's gig and what a sound. Really does sound fantastic. Am I going to do a U-turn and keep it? I don't know. Still bloody heavy. I set up the 4th channel as lead boost as don't have the time to mess about with putting my boost pedal in the FX loop. One thing I was trying was just rolling the volume off on the guitar a little and that works well. In fact it emulates the back-off you get on valve amps really well... On the crunch channel I could go from a light Bryan Adams crunch to an all out ACDC crunch just by rolling the pot... might just try that throughout the gig... keep the pit at 6/7 and roll up for solo sections. So many options!

Jalapeno

thomasross20 said:

I do think I'm coming back to the ID head & cab, to be honest (must check the weight of this vs the ID60). I do love the Blackstar sounds... I might just have to suck it up and put the boost in the FX loop for distorted solo boosts. 

Wisdom at last !

Don't bother with a boost in the FX loop - best used for modulation effects.  ( I set up now with 2 boards, one before the amp, one for the FX loop - much easier, and they don't have to be whoppers - pedal train nano might be enough)