What is my new amp going to be?

hassleham

I'm using a peavey classic 30 for gigs at the moment and I really like the tone I'm getting. I'm running the amp clean and getting drive from pedals, with channel 2 on the amp set for a solo boost.

Its almost the perfect amp for me for gigging due to being relatively cheap for a decent tone, reasonable headroom and portability. However, two things I HATE about it are the lack of lights on the footswitch so I can't see when channel 2 is engaged and the lack of master volume. 

So im looking for a new amp which has the features that the c30 is missing, is cheap (ish) and does fendery cleans.

Top of my list is a Fender blues deluxe or a fender hotrod but I haven't tried either of them yet and I wondered if anyone knows of anything else which has what I'm looking for.

Thanks and Merry Christmas

siraxeman

DSL40C....or if your feeling flush a Mesa Express 5:50, or perhaps even the 5:25 will even do!

But, you could ditch the channel 2 on you C30 and just stack a 2nd OD pedal on top for a solo boost...treat your amp as a 1 channel amp and do it all from pedals...that's how I generally roll and a lot of other folks the same - a lot of them there HRD and Blues Deluxe userers for instance. Then all you need to do is get a betterer speaker like a creamback...and your already nice sounding amp will be even more good'er. I used to have a C30 and just ran it with a regular Greenback - with no problems as I never really got the amp near max volume anyway and the Greenbacks 25w rating is on the safe side of conservative anyway.

Merry Christmas y'say? Bah - humbucker!

57Deluxe

probably a disappointment...

ICBM

You can fix both problems with a footswitch with battery-powered LEDs, and a volume box in the FX loop.

Sorry to be dull .

Either that or get a Fender Blues Deluxe - it's just a better amp anyway. You do want the Blues and not the Hotrod if you want the second channel as a solo boost rather than a dirt channel - on the Blues it's actually the same channel, on the Hotrod it goes through an extra gain stage.

Flanging_Fred

How about a Kustom Coupe 36? Designed by the same chap that designed the classic 30.  I think the lettering on the footswitch lights up when you hit the switch. Has a master volume on each channel. Usually pretty cheap second hand and they actually sound pretty good.

shaunm

Fender Supersonic 

ICBM

Flanging_Fred said:

How about a Kustom Coupe 36? Designed by the same chap that designed the classic 30.  I think the lettering on the footswitch lights up when you hit the switch. Has a master volume on each channel. Usually pretty cheap second hand and they actually sound pretty good.

They sound fantastic. I didn't know they were designed by the C30 designer!

I played through a borrowed one at an open mic gig a few years ago - when I saw it I guessed it was something fairly cheap made in China (like most Kustoms), but when I heard it I realised it was something much better... although to be fair, most of Kustom's cheap Chinese solid-state amps sound far better than they should at the price, too.

Flanging_Fred

ICBM said:

Flanging_Fred said:

How about a Kustom Coupe 36? Designed by the same chap that designed the classic 30.  I think the lettering on the footswitch lights up when you hit the switch. Has a master volume on each channel. Usually pretty cheap second hand and they actually sound pretty good.

They sound fantastic. I didn't know they were designed by the C30 designer!

I played through a borrowed one at an open mic gig a few years ago - when I saw it I guessed it was something fairly cheap made in China (like most Kustoms), but when I heard it I realised it was something much better... although to be fair, most of Kustom's cheap Chinese solid-state amps sound far better than they should at the price, too.

Yeah, James Brown (cool name). Worked for Peavey on the 5150, JSX, classic series etc. Then went on to Kustom for a bit. Now doing Amptweaker I think.

Clearly knows his onions.

ICBM

It’s a shame the C30 is so badly designed physically. I wonder if that was his doing...

I’ve never seen inside a Kustom Coupe - or ever seen another one - so I don’t know what they’re like inside.

For what it’s worth the Traynor YCV20 also fits the bill on features, and I love the sound of them too, but I would not recommend one based on their build quality.