Ever been surpised by an amp?

tbm

Played an odd wee gig last Friday in a kind of bar/gallery space. We were only able to bring our guitars so we asked the promoter to provide amps that we could used, telling him what we used at home which is basically a pair of AC30s.

So I show up and I'm presented with this:



I'll be honest, I had a little panic. Yeah it was a small room, but there were no mics for the amps and I was sure I wouldn't be able to get a useable sound out of it, or that it would be able to keep up with our drummer. Long story short, I was wrong! The above settings with the guitar volume dialled back, gave me a totally useable and surprisingly loud clean tone.  

Dumble me hole....

Anyone else jumped to conclusions and been surprised?

Barney

Yeah I was very surprised by the Roland cube 60...I used it with a pedal and it sounded great set to the blackface model ...

randomhandclaps

I've been surprised by a monitor on the edge of the stage that I didn't quite see in the darkness.

Kebabkid

Roland JC180 (4x10s) that was part of a backline- great clean sound and took pedals really well.

@Barney - I used a Roland Cube 60 for many years on the Blackface setting with a pedalboard and it's still my backup. Great things.

Barney

Kebabkid;30949" said:

Roland JC180 (4x10s) that was part of a backline- great clean sound and took pedals really well.



@Barney - I used a Roland Cube 60 for many years on the Blackface setting with a pedalboard and it's still my backup. Great things.

Yeah same here..I just throw it in the back of the van has a spare and have a pedal in my lead bag....surprisingly very good little amp and would hesitate to use it any where..even has a line out for the PA if needed...built like a tank as well..

fastboy

The one amp that surprised me is my old divided by 13 ftr 37.

Far more bottom end (and very defined) than any other amp I've ever played through including just about everything modern high gain like diezel, peavey etc.

Kebabkid

as @fastboy is here, I should like to add that your Laney Iommi "Rig Of Doom" surprised me and many others. Considering what came out of it, hum-wise, it was as quiet as a mouse

Bucket

I was very surprised by the Kerry King signature version of the Marshall JCM800.

Surprised he could put his name to something that sounds quite as unbelievably shite as that did.

EricTheWeary

A Peavey Bandit felt me up at a bus stop. ~:> Although I also remember an old Traynor at a rehearsal studio that looked incredibly dangerous but sounded just huge and gorgeous.

Van_Hayden

Does the first time I got a 500v DC shock off the HT count?

monquixote

I found an AC30 mugging an old lady for heroin money, they don't call them class A for nothing. 

crunchman

First time I heard a Lazy J (before they were famous).  Stunning.

daveyh

A Fender Twin once jumped out at me one night, round the side of Asda on the way to the bus stop. It was dark, quite disconcerting. It ran away giggling.

EDIT: Replaced 'Blackface' with Twin for the benefit of those with a little racism paranoia.

ESchap

Van_Hayden said:

Does the first time I got a 500v DC shock off the HT count?

Yup, got that smouldering t-shirt!  :-S

ICBM

A lot of amps I play through surprise everyone else in the shop when I play them - everything right down to little solid-state amps like that Fender or even smaller, things with a 4" speaker and just three knobs are my speciality . I can usually make them sound OK at worst. The trick is to start by turning the volume and bass up full, keeping the others low, and use the guitar controls if necessary. You can usually only get one good sound out of them, and at the maximum volume the amp is capable of, but it's usually not a bad sound.

One that really surprised me was a Fender Princeton Chorus - in a similar situation to the OP, it was described to me by the promoter as a 'Fender Twin'. Still, with my Mesa V1 pedal through it, it sounded so good that if there had been one for sale anywhere near me that week I'd have bought it.

I was also very surprised by a Kustom 36 Coupe - when I saw it I assumed it was a cheap Chinese-made amp like most of the modern Kustoms. It sounded stunning, seriously one of the best amps I've ever heard. Later I found out that it was part of the rather expensive US-made range...

ThePrettyDamned

Oh man, the kustom coupe amps. Not many have heard of them, so they sometimes go cheap on ebay. Apparently a lot of country players use them, but I just loved everything about it.

ragingben

Another vote for the Roland Cube - I use the one in our practice space sometimes when I can't be arsed moving my rig, really like it.

Kebabkid

Just something more to add to the Cube comments - it's the Cube 60 that's the good-sounding one (specially ported cab and matched speaker).

I just remembered another amp that wowed me and it's a rare and discontinued one from 2003 - T-Rex Big Tone T25 Combo. Ridiculously expensive (gold relays, high quality cabinet etc) and tried one at Chandler Guitars. What a clean tone and up until then, I only thought these types of sounds came from 6L6s or 6V6s - it was the first time I'd ever sat up and noticed that EL84s can deliver great cleans.

Anyone know anything about the Hohner 25 Reverb? I like this guy's clips on YT and he uses one for demos. It seems to take pedals really well but has a nice clean sound too which can be heard at the beginning - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=784TOQGmA3g

dindude

daveyh said:

A Fender Blackface once jumped out at me one night, round the side of Asda on the way to the bus stop. It was dark, quite disconcerting. It ran away giggling.

Racist.

ESBlonde

I used to have an Orange Tiny Terror, lovely for what it did. My Eldest boy had a 'Cruiser' Chinese practice amp from a starter package years ago. Thin chipboard sides, 4" cone and hardboard/fibreboard back with lightweight transformers and all. In fact everything was cheap and barely adequate. Astonishingly I could make it sound quite like the TT when overdriven and had fun comparing the two side by side. However it was one of those sounds that was tiring on the ears after a while despite being a close match in person. I'm sure it could have been recorded and buried in the mix to sound quite acceptable.

 

daveyh

dindude said:

daveyh said:

A Fender Blackface once jumped out at me one night, round the side of Asda on the way to the bus stop. It was dark, quite disconcerting. It ran away giggling.

Racist.

What?