Amp advice needed - come on the good people of The Fretboard

Placidcasual79

Hello - I am hoping for some help.....I want to upgrade my amp - currently playing through a Fender Champion 100 and have between £400 -£700 to spend.

I need my amp to do two things.....

Firstly I'll be using it live in an 8 piece Ska band (horns, keys, bass, drums + vocals) we play a couple of times a month everything from small pubs and clubs to private functions and out door festivals. We have a PA so the amp can be mic'd. This gig requires a good, bright clean tone and some nice reverb - I use pedals for volume boost, a little crunch when needed, chorus, delay and modulation 

Secondly I need the amp for home recording and this is the difficult part - the stuff I do at home is more psychedelic, i rarely, if ever use a distorted or overdriven sound - I do like some crunch for some of the more garagey stuff and I use a lot of other effects (often on my DAW)

The difficulty is I normally record at night when the wife and kids are in bed and I can get in the right 'ahem' mood! These means I can't mic the amp - too loud. I need to go straight into my audio interface. This seems to rule out a lot of the amps I'd like - Fender twins, Laney Ac30 etc.....

Any help appreciated - the fender champion is too big and too 'digital' sounding (its for sale for £!00 btw!)

Richardj

Something like a Fender Mustang IV? I had a III and it sounded rather good.

Placidcasual79

Thanks Richardj - do you know if it has an audio out so I an plug it into my audio interface?

Winny_Pooh

Get a decent valve amp like a deluxe reverb and a load box with a simulated out. Trying to mic any amp late at night is futile.

Placidcasual79

Winny -  i am with you on the late night micing - total waste! 

You could be about to help me with a major break through here - a decent valve amp is what I want - but they don't (to my knowledge) typically have audio out - so what is a load box with a simulated out?

rpr

Placidcasual79 said:

Thanks Richardj - do you know if it has an audio out so I an plug it into my audio interface?

The Mustang has USB for recording as well as a speaker simulated headphone socket- however it will probably share the same DSP as your Champion, so will still have that digital-ness, you dislike.

I was going to suggest checking out the new Fender Bass Breakers- they have simulated line outs and-at least on the 15 watt ,pos others- a mute switch for silent recording. Not sure when they're hitting the shops.

The Hughes and Kettner Tubemeister has a built in red box for recording. Also one of the Jet City speaker cabs 1x12 has some some kind of recording output.

Placidcasual79

Hey rpr- appreciate you sharing your knowledge. What is a simulated line out and a red box? 

Mkjackary

I would say just get an interface and plug your guitar into a laptop, and then into something like guitar rig or a *ahem* free copy of something similar :P . That is your midnight practicing and recording sorted, 

Only reason is if you want a great sounding amp, sadly most amps don't have emulated outs or usb outs etc, so you are heavily restricting your choice of amps. I'd say buy a nice fender Princeton or deluxe reverb (second hand), then you have a brilliant gigging amp and they wil sound great at low volumes too. But for your super quiet-silent stuff you can plug into the laptop.

that's what i'd do atleast

Placidcasual79

Thanks for the reply Mkjackary - your saying spend the coin on a quality gigging amp and just use software for recording? 

This is defiantly a possibility - its what I do now! There are some great sounding software amp models. I was just wondering whether it would be possible to have a  quality amp to gig and record in silence.....

again - cheers for the reply sir

Placidcasual79

btw - what amp modelling software do you use out of interest?

ecc83

I would get the gigging amp sorted (and I noted the "bright" requirement* so that puts "you know who" out of the picture!)

For recording get an Audio Interface. The cheapest decent one is the Alesis i02. Had one for a time, very good for under £70. Better is the Steinberg UR22 and best of all at around £150 is the Native Instruments K6. I consider the Focusrite bottom of range AIs poor value and have technical issues.

The guitar goes straight into the high Z AI input and you rely on software for your tones. Yes, miccing a smoking amp IS hard to beat but when the chavvy Devil drives???

*You might however like to download Blackstars Insider software.

Dave.

EricTheWeary

Mkjackary said:

I would say just get an interface and plug your guitar into a laptop, and then into something like guitar rig or a *ahem* free copy of something similar :P . That is your midnight practicing and recording sorted, 

Only reason is if you want a great sounding amp, sadly most amps don't have emulated outs or usb outs etc, so you are heavily restricting your choice of amps. I'd say buy a nice fender Princeton or deluxe reverb (second hand), then you have a brilliant gigging amp and they wil sound great at low volumes too. But for your super quiet-silent stuff you can plug into the laptop.

that's what i'd do atleast

The Tubemeisters came to mind. If you are always going through a PA then the redbox will do that and save you needing to mic your amp. The 18 head doesn't have reverb but the combos do.  - just having a look at the 18 twelve and some pretty low prices around at the moment.

stratman3142

Placidcasual79 said:

btw - what amp modelling software do you use out of interest?

My favourite is S-Gear 2 for an 'in the box' ampsim.

For 'out of the box' silent recording, instead of micing an amp, I can highly recommend a Joyo American. They're currently going for £29.99 on Amazon, which is insane considering the quality of the sound.  I've even got a spare. I keep worrying there's going to be a run on these and there'll be a world shortage. Check out Shane's Fender Deluxe Reverb vs Joyo American on Youtube.

If you need fairly low cost reverb 'out of the box' for recording then a HOF mini pedal is a good option.

Placidcasual79

Some really good and much appreciated advice here thanks.

I have a small home studio set up (logic pro x, audio interface, midi controller) - I love my vintage synths. 

In up grading my amp I guess I was hoping to improve my gigging tone (not hard when playing through a champion 100) but also something I could use to record silently at home. That doesn't look possible as decent amps don't have audio out it seems. 

My solutions are -

1 - buy a good gigging amp (I think the fender 68 reissues possibly) and use software for my amp modelling when recording

2 - the Roland JC40 - nice clean sound and can go straight into my audio interface 

rpr

Placidcasual79 said:

Hey rpr- appreciate you sharing your knowledge. What is a simulated line out and a red box? 

Its just an emulation of the amp miked up that can be sent to a PA or interface etc. Red Box is H+K version / variation of the idea, available separately or built into some of their amps.

Have you tried connecting your amp from the headphone socket? I've had pretty good results doing this on my Mustang esp clean sounds-It means that you could use your pedals and of course mutes the amp. Worth a try.

paulmapp8306

Curve ball - as it was marketed as a high gain monster (which it can do), but a Fender Machete?  It can be abnything BUT a high gain amp if you want it to be.

The Clean channel is really quite nice and can do bright clean very well - and with a switchable boost, would probably do everything you need right there.  The drive channel while marketed as high gain, can do a good low gain tone too with the pre low down.

50W all valve amp, so plently of clean volume, and it has a direct out with cab emulation, and a mute switch for silent recording - so would cover that recording need perfectly.

There are not many about, a used price could be anything really - and I have to admit I have though of selling mine (as my AFX rig just seems to get all the play time), which is probably why it came to mind (havent actually done anything active to initiate a sale, and am just as happy to keep it).  I would be within your budget though should I decide to sell mine - or if you can find one elsewhere. 

Its an amp you would need to try I guess though, but Id be up for that if were anywhere near close.

Decent demo - just ignore the gainy stuff.

Placidcasual79

rpr said:

Placidcasual79 said:

Hey rpr- appreciate you sharing your knowledge. What is a simulated line out and a red box? 

Its just an emulation of the amp miked up that can be sent to a PA or interface etc. Red Box is H+K version / variation of the idea, available separately or built into some of their amps.

Have you tried connecting your amp from the headphone socket? I've had pretty good results doing this on my Mustang esp clean sounds-It means that you could use your pedals and of course mutes the amp. Worth a try.

Thanks rpr -  I'll have to find out more about this emulation line out. I've literally never heard of it before - this could be a solution. Does it effect the quality of the signal - i.e. would I still get a true representation of the amps tonal quality going into my interface?

Yes - being as I do a lot of night time recording I've used the headphone out as a signal path on various different devices (drum machines, synths etc) but never an amp - this could work - I wonder how that would effect the quality of the signal going into the audio interface. 

Anyway - again - thanks for your interesting reply 

Placidcasual79

paulmapp8306 said:

Curve ball - as it was marketed as a high gain monster (which it can do), but a Fender Machete?  It can be abnything BUT a high gain amp if you want it to be.

The Clean channel is really quite nice and can do bright clean very well - and with a switchable boost, would probably do everything you need right there.  The drive channel while marketed as high gain, can do a good low gain tone too with the pre low down.

50W all valve amp, so plently of clean volume, and it has a direct out with cab emulation, and a mute switch for silent recording - so would cover that recording need perfectly.

There are not many about, a used price could be anything really - and I have to admit I have though of selling mine (as my AFX rig just seems to get all the play time), which is probably why it came to mind (havent actually done anything active to initiate a sale, and am just as happy to keep it).  I would be within your budget though should I decide to sell mine - or if you can find one elsewhere. 

Its an amp you would need to try I guess though, but Id be up for that if were anywhere near close.

Decent demo - just ignore the gainy stuff.

Hey Paulmapp 8306

Appreciate you taking the time to make a suggestion mate, you've obviously considered my requirements too! 

I haven't heard of the machete - I am going to check out a few reviews. As you suggest the high gain end is really of no interest to me -but surely being a Fender amp it must have good clean tones..... if the connectivity is right we could have a winner.

You'd consider selling yours?

thermionic

What about the amp models in Logic? I've used a lot of them recently and they sound just as good as hardware modellers I've used. Better in some cases, plus it's fun to mix amps and cabs.

monquixote

I'd buy an HRD or a Twin (if I was feeling strong). Having owned both a Mustang and a Blackstar ID both would be a massive step down in terms of live tone. 

For recording either buy a load box like a Jet City Jettenuator and use some cab plugins (Two Notes for example) or just don't bother recording through an amp at all and use Scuffham S-Gear which to my ears beats anything else I've tried including Axe FX. 

Placidcasual79

thermionic said:

What about the amp models in Logic? I've used a lot of them recently and they sound just as good as hardware modellers I've used. Better in some cases, plus it's fun to mix amps and cabs.

I have to confess I've never used hardware amp modellers and only have a limited knowledge of what they can do. 

But yes I have used software amp modelling lots - have no issue with this and may revert to it if I can't find a quality gigging amp that can go into an audio interface.....

Do you use Logic? Or modelling software? What would you recommend?