Back up amp

hotpickups

So far I am very pleased with my joyo American. Likes my pedals going into it. I wasn't looking for perfection though as this would only be used as a very last resort. Going through my amp will always be my preference

Longtallronnie

Thanks, I might have to take a punt on one.

Problem is deciding between the Marshally one or the Fendery one! I'd normally go for the one closest to my actual amp but mine is a bit of both (Ulbrick Venue 30). 

Think I'll watch some more clips.  

hotpickups

All personal taste really but the American was bought to emulate my fender deluxe clone. Nearly does it too

Jalapeno

Just a thought .....

With a Joyo or Tech21 pedal, DI (+/- speaker sim), dirt pedal to emulate channel switching - that's another small pedal board - can't really see the difference between that and a small spare amp (s/s or otherwise).

hotpickups

That's why I got it as I didn't want to carry another amp with me. If that's what you meant?

ddlooping

Jalapeno said:

Just a thought .....

With a Joyo or Tech21 pedal, DI (+/- speaker sim), dirt pedal to emulate channel switching - that's another small pedal board - can't really see the difference between that and a small spare amp (s/s or otherwise).

I guess it's more of a space saver if you already use pedals for your dirties.

Jalapeno

hotpickups said:

That's why I got it as I didn't want to carry another amp with me. If that's what you meant?

The opposite - extra pedals, psu etc - might just as well take a small amp.

Longtallronnie

For me, my pocket pod fits on my pedal board and runs off my DC Brick so it's pretty convenient. I think one of those joyos would be even better though as I could have it permanently wired in and just bypass it when not needed.

hotpickups

I just plug it into my pedal power supply and its the size of a pedal. An amp is not that small to carry

Jalapeno;76423" said:

hotpickups said:

That's why I got it as I didn't want to carry another amp with me. If that's what you meant?





The opposite - extra pedals, psu etc - might just as well take a small amp.

Jalapeno

Not disputing one pedal - but the way this was going was, extra distrotion pedal, Amp sim, DI box .... Seemed over the top.

I have a Trex Moller on my board to plug into anything (usually clean channel on the spare Marshall MGFX100HD I put in the car as a spare) - (Orange Crush CR120H would also be an alternative).

Ideal backup for me would be a Roland Cube 60/80 head, or a Peavey Bandit head - but it'd cost £200-£300 for a transplant, or old Valvestate, MosFet or JCM S/S head - always on the lookout for s/h bargains instead of the MGFX100, but it sounds ok when called on.
@ICBM will be along to say how unreliable they are in a moment

ThePrettyDamned

Quite like the mg sound, too.

My old one broke.

I wonder how hard it would be to transplant a bandit into a home made head cab? Surely it's just a few bits of ply that you could veneer and stain... Doesn't need to be tolex really for hardiness as it won't be called on much (actually, tolex seems to rip, stain and generally fail anyway).

A couple of pine shelves from b and q, a hacksaw, a tape measure, a few screws and a wudtone kit. It might just work.

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

Quite like the mg sound, too.

My old one broke.

They do that, yes…

Although mostly the MG-DFX series. The earlier ones without the DFX are much more reliable, and I haven't seen a single one of the most recent series, so they seem to be very good. I've lost count of the number of dead MG100DFXs I've repaired though - to the point I won't look at them any more, since they're un-guaranteeable and I don't want to be landed with the re-repair. All the Marshalls with the fan-cooled IC power modules are complete crap. (Although they sound OK when they work.)

ThePrettyDamned said:

I wonder how hard it would be to transplant a bandit into a home made head cab? Surely it's just a few bits of ply that you could veneer and stain... Doesn't need to be tolex really for hardiness as it won't be called on much (actually, tolex seems to rip, stain and generally fail anyway).

The Peavey stuff from the 80s/90s doesn't . (That slightly rough 'pebbled' black type with the white flecks, to be clear - not the more recent leather-look type.) Not only are they good-sounding, reliable and cheap, they're even tougher than other amps ). I'm not quite sure why other tolex is so weak or the Peavey stuff is so much stronger, but it really is. It's rare to see a really tatty old Peavey. Marshall, Laney (especially) and others please take note!

Jalapeno

I'm not too good with woodwork.  Zilla quoted me £240ish for a suitable case.

ICBM

I think I mentioned this before (maybe on the old forum) but there is a factory-made Bandit head - it's called the Supreme - but it's extremely rare. If you could find one I can't see it costing as much as £240 though, and that's including the amp section .

hotpickups

Just bought a very nice Compressor pedal which doubles up as a DI box which is great coupled with my Joyo American. So now I have a great clean sound, sustain and should the awful thing of having an amp die on me during a gig I can use the DI side of the pedal to go into the joyo and get through the gig. Bargain!

Jalapeno

ICBM said:

I think I mentioned this before (maybe on the old forum) but there is a factory-made Bandit head - it's called the Supreme - but it's extremely rare. If you could find one I can't see it costing as much as £240 though, and that's including the amp section .

You did, and nothing has come up on ebay since

ThePrettyDamned

ICBM;76658" said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

Quite like the mg sound, too.



My old one broke.





They do that, yes…

Although mostly the MG-DFX series. The earlier ones without the DFX are much more reliable, and I haven't seen a single one of the most recent series, so they seem to be very good. I've lost count of the number of dead MG100DFXs I've repaired though - to the point I won't look at them any more, since they're un-guaranteeable and I don't want to be landed with the re-repair. All the Marshalls with the fan-cooled IC power modules are complete crap. (Although they sound OK when they work.)

ThePrettyDamned said:I wonder how hard it would be to transplant a bandit into a home made head cab? Surely it's just a few bits of ply that you could veneer and stain... Doesn't need to be tolex really for hardiness as it won't be called on much (actually, tolex seems to rip, stain and generally fail anyway).The Peavey stuff from the 80s/90s doesn't . (That slightly rough 'pebbled' black type with the white flecks, to be clear - not the more recent leather-look type.) Not only are they good-sounding, reliable and cheap, they're even tougher than other amps ). I'm not quite sure why other tolex is so weak or the Peavey stuff is so much stronger, but it really is. It's rare to see a really tatty old Peavey. Marshall, Laney (especially) and others please take note!

Haha! Peavey just got it so right. My Marshall one fell apart if you looked at it! The laney one caught when I took the back plate off, and my mates fender deville is discoloured and a beer glass left a permanent impression in it...

I assumed they'd all be the same!

randomhandclaps

This is a Back-Da-Fuck-Up Amp -

http://www.theburningear.com/media/2010/12/rumble.jpg

 

ICBM

ThePrettyDamned said:

Haha! Peavey just got it so right.

Yes . And yet, if you say Peavey most musicians seem to turn up their noses. I really don't get it!

Even odder, one of their most popular models is the Classic 30, which I think is one of the least good…

ManWithoutSkin

In 2008 my band opened up the main stage in Reading festival.  The Killers were headlining our day and had overrun setting up their production, so we didn't end up getting on stage to set up and line check until just half hour before we was due to play when the gates had opened. We set up and our other guitarist turned on his Engl Powerball and it just wouldn't work,  it just hissed and sputtered and you could get no guitar out of it at all. We had no spare amp with us and just panicked, we were on thirty minutes later and what we though was a once in a lifetime opportunity was ruined.   It turned out that the Amp has a computer that monitors the valves, which had broken.  You could reset the computer by flipping the standby switch and we must have flicked that switch fifty times, somehow got the amp working and we managed to play, but we learnt the lesson of always carrying spare amps to shows from that day on.

The following year we played Pukklepop festival in Belgium and by this time my band had bought an entire new backline including spares. We rolled our back line on stage in changeover and stage left had a power surge. I lost my main Rockerverb, my spare Rockerverb and an AD30 I was using at time for clean and crunch in a second.  I had to borrow our other guitarists Engl to get through that show and that day learnt to always carry spare fuses.