Volume, Valve and Nice Pedals

Toms_Dad

At home I have both a Blackstar HT1R (1W) combo and a Vox Lil Night Train head (2W) with the 10” speaker cab. Both both can be driven enough to get decent cleans. The Blackstar can also be driven enough to get decent overdrive, probably as much due to the small speaker as the low wattage.  By comparison the Vox sounds pretty loud when cranked for power tube saturation and I use a tube screamer or a klone or sometimes both to get good overdrive. The 2 pedals together worth more than the amp of course! There is the problem with small speakers of decent bass response, but both sound OK to me and I find putting them on a chair really helps. A bigger speaker whilst perhaps giving better tone would almost certainly be too loud as well. Neither of these is probably giggable or probably enough for a band setting, but they are both very satisfying at home.

chrisj1602

The new HT-5 Mkii has a 0.5 watt option.

57Deluxe

Always get the biggest/loudest amp and a couple of well chosen pedals than a do-it-all 'bedroom' amp... You learn to dig the tone out from your playing as a consequence rather than aimlessly bashing away thinking you sound like you are entertaining a 10,000 seater...

munckee

I bought a princeton for home use and ended up jamming more so decided to sell the princeton rather than take an expensive amp to jams.  I have just taken a Blues Jr in trade and bought a 74 6 watt champ to play at home with pedals.  Both are easier to play at home volume than the princeton it turns out and the champ has better clean tones than the princeton and the Blues Jr.  I can drive both (due to the MV with the BJr) but I use pedals, not expensive ones - a marshall compressor, TS clone etc, sounds much better than the THR5 modeller.

If I play late at night/before everyone gets up would still use the THR as it is whisper quiet if needed.

slacker

I have a zvex nano and an ac4 but I use my big amps at home with pedals. I also use the spare bedroom as a band rehearsal room. For that the other guitarist uses my matchless lightning with a klon. I'll use a bad cat bc 30 my klon if he's brought his or a king of tone. He will use a model h sometimes which is awesome. 

For more gain I'll use a friedman be or a fuzz factory.

The lower gain ts pedals work better as a dirty boost at really low volumes. For more gain you need a pedal that provides its own gain. 

monquixote

So I've just bought a Marshall Origin.

Be interesting to see if I prefer it to the Katana with pedals.

noisepolluter

p90fool said:

[...]

There's nothing wrong with the Katana as a home amp at all, but I wouldn't say it renders a half decent valve amp pointless. 

I’m getting myself a Katana 50 for an imminent birthday.

Currently I use my DRRI at home with pedals - I’m perfectly happy with the sound I get (just turn the amp/pedal treble controls up a bit compared to playing out). I live in a terraced house, so have to be mindful of volume.

I’m not expecting the Katana to replace the Fender - its purpose will be for those occasions when I just don’t want to lump 60lbs combined weight of amp and board down to the car if a 25lb amp will sound good and even save me from needing to use the car if I’m playing locally. 

I’m still expecting the DRRI to be the ‘gold standard’ especially at higher volumes, but then I can really appreciate it when I do make the effort to take the big rig out. 

We shall see. It will be interesting to find out which I prefer at home volumes, or maybe I’ll swap between them to keep things fresh, and even use pedals through the Katana for more variety.

fretmeister

noisepolluter said:

p90fool said:

[...]

There's nothing wrong with the Katana as a home amp at all, but I wouldn't say it renders a half decent valve amp pointless. 

I’m getting myself a Katana 50 for an imminent birthday.

Currently I use my DRRI at home with pedals - I’m perfectly happy with the sound I get (just turn the amp/pedal treble controls up a bit compared to playing out). I live in a terraced house, so have to be mindful of volume.

I’m not expecting the Katana to replace the Fender - its purpose will be for those occasions when I just don’t want to lump 60lbs combined weight of amp and board down to the car if a 25lb amp will sound good and even save me from needing to use the car if I’m playing locally. 

I’m still expecting the DRRI to be the ‘gold standard’ especially at higher volumes, but then I can really appreciate it when I do make the effort to take the big rig out. 

We shall see. It will be interesting to find out which I prefer at home volumes, or maybe I’ll swap between them to keep things fresh, and even use pedals through the Katana for more variety.

Stereo rig!

noisepolluter

fretmeister said:

noisepolluter said:

p90fool said:

[...]

There's nothing wrong with the Katana as a home amp at all, but I wouldn't say it renders a half decent valve amp pointless. 

I’m getting myself a Katana 50 for an imminent birthday.

Currently I use my DRRI at home with pedals - I’m perfectly happy with the sound I get (just turn the amp/pedal treble controls up a bit compared to playing out). I live in a terraced house, so have to be mindful of volume.

I’m not expecting the Katana to replace the Fender - its purpose will be for those occasions when I just don’t want to lump 60lbs combined weight of amp and board down to the car if a 25lb amp will sound good and even save me from needing to use the car if I’m playing locally. 

I’m still expecting the DRRI to be the ‘gold standard’ especially at higher volumes, but then I can really appreciate it when I do make the effort to take the big rig out. 

We shall see. It will be interesting to find out which I prefer at home volumes, or maybe I’ll swap between them to keep things fresh, and even use pedals through the Katana for more variety.

Stereo rig!

See now, I hadn’t even thought of that...

PolarityMan

If you're at home I'd prob get a helix and/or a bunch of plugins. There no point having a big tube amp (mine doesnt even get plugged in between rehearsals)

gringopig

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p90fool

gringopig said:

Here's a question:
Why all the obsession about 'cranking' an amp?

The louder it gets the worse it sounds. The ears can only take so many decibels before it starts sounded crap and there is absolutely no advantage in 'cranking the power 'tubes'' as for any amp above 1 watt it will be unbearably loud 

There are 3,500 people stood in front of me who might disagree with that...

http://i58.tinypic.com/4smgba.jpg

gringopig

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p90fool

I'm on record many times on here for criticising over-loud pub bands and I'm convinced our sensible volume is one of the reasons for our many repeat bookings, but saying that pushing power tubes hard always sounds crap and that anything over 1 watt is unbearable is based entirely on your experience in a flat with a toy amp.  

gringopig

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gringopig

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stephen.wood125

I have an HRD at home, with the device ICBM linked to and a Jet City attenuator in it I can play with the volume sensible and not even be heard by the neighbours, but still get a reasonable sound. I'm considering a Kemper or a Helix, trouble is, I'm really not good enough for the outlay. Some of the best acts I've seen lately are using digital and I tend to watch between 2 and 5 acts a week, there are still people turning up to  a small live bar with a Deville. 

TTBZ

You don't have to crank it up all the way. Just enough to get it pushing some air and the speakers moving a bit. Although modern pedals are good they're still no match for a proper valve amp at optimum volume. But yeah that's still too loud for home use. At which stage I still think a modeller is better, nothing worse than hearing your strings over the amp.

Greatape

monquixote said:

darthed1981 said:

thecolourbox said:

I'd disagree that a HRD is too loud for home, it sounded much better and quieter than the Princeton I foolishly replaced it with. They have a volume control

This is a key point to the discussion as I think there are different definitions of "home volume" (not saying you are wrong btw, just opening up the discussion).

I've been told off by the wife for playing my Epi Dot unplugged before - I shit ye not!

Have you considered upgrading the wife?

Preferably a masterbuilt one.

darthed1981

gringopig said:

You are lucky actually as long as you ditch the 'crank the amp' ethos. There are loads of top quality amplifiers to indulge your desire to splurge. I tried a Katana in GuitarGuitar and it was just awful. Could not for the life of me get a decent tone out of it....

I've played the Katana in all kinds of situations and always found it decent, but, it isn't for everyone, it's the best amp you can buy for the money to a ludicrous degree though, so for a beginner, or a solely bedroom player, it's a must-audition.

Anyhow, I personally don't have a "crank the amp" ethos, it's just I've never found a proper valve amp that sounds good at MY definition of home volumes, which is literally "only just loud enough that you can't hear the strings", literally can go no louder than that without causing potential issues.

I'm still not terribly convinced this would be more true with an HRD than with an HT5, mainly because home volumes is a very flexible definition, which in some cases means a reasonable volume.  Guitar amps are loud and the tone is designed to cut-through, which makes them one of the worst things going for noise... especially with my playing