Victory Amps Launching tomorrow!!

spacecadet

@Drew_fx, like I said before, it works for you. What I am saying is that you can gig with 10 watts and more importantly, you could do a metal gig with 10watts. Or less. Devin Townsend uses an Axe FX. Direct. Like the acoustic argument, much less than 10 watts! Everything he hears comes through a wedge. Thats how I work. I can't hear my amp on stage for good reason. I want the front of house sound to be as clean as possible. Any spill from the stage messes up the mix. If you have done or ever do a gig with an engineer, you will no doubt be told to turn down. This is for the mix.

I also understand about the feature set. The JVM works for you. It's what you need. My needs are different to yours. I need a clean amp that takes pedals well because all my dirt comes from carefully selected pedals that work for me. You may think they suck. I like em. The people that need a huge feature set will buy an amp with a huge feature set. I, and many others don't need that. Yes you can get a Laney with the same features for half the money or less. It may sound different. It may not be as well made. The support may not be as good. These are all factors that make a difference to the price. We all know this. What is baffling me is that people are saying 10 watts is not giggable. Stick a mic in front of it and put it through the PA. It will be alot louder than any amp that is currently on the market. I would happily get up and jam with you using a smokie amp. Your amp versus a fag packet with a speaker in miced up through the PA. I bet you a years salary I will be louder.

digitalscream

spacecadet said: What is baffling me is that people are saying 10 watts is not giggable. Stick a mic in front of it and put it through the PA. It will be alot louder than any amp that is currently on the market. I would happily get up and jam with you using a smokie amp. Your amp versus a fag packet with a speaker in miced up through the PA. I bet you a years salary I will be louder.
As I've already said - 10W is not giggable in the vast majority of cases.

I could quite happily drown you out with my 50W Jet City if, for example, your 10W amp was going through the shitty 100W HH PA we were presented with at a gig last year. Not sure what you'd do about monitoring either, given that there weren't any...

Drew_TNBD

spacecadet said:

@Drew_fx, like I said before, it works for you. What I am saying is that you can gig with 10 watts and more importantly, you could do a metal gig with 10watts. Or less. Devin Townsend uses an Axe FX. Direct. Like the acoustic argument, much less than 10 watts! Everything he hears comes through a wedge. Thats how I work. I can't hear my amp on stage for good reason. I want the front of house sound to be as clean as possible. Any spill from the stage messes up the mix. If you have done or ever do a gig with an engineer, you will no doubt be told to turn down. This is for the mix.

Not like I've ever done a gig in my life, so these things you're talking about... I just have no clue about it!!

That might be sarcasm

I've tried doing the whole "everything I hear is through a wedge" solution and I absolutely hate it. It sounds thin and tinny, and ruins the on stage experience. And suffice to say... it is all about that for me, given that our audiences are usually disinterested bar one or two people, or really small to begin with.

spacecadet

The point has been made. 10 watts probably won't get you a super clean sound over a drummer. If you have a PA, and monitors you will be fine. You can gig it. THATS THE POINT. Not once have I said 10 watts is loud enough on it's own.

As far as educating people, yes it's patronising but I am seeing people that bloody well deserve it. The ignorance is astounding! "I have to have a million watts so I can hear myself or get over the drummer/ bass player/ screaming girls". Bollocks. If you don't have a PA or monitors, 10w aint cutting it. If you do it's fine. It's more than enough. I'll bet there are some of you that get to a gig and dial in your sound that you think sounds great too. It almost certainly does. BUT, what happens when everyone else kicks in. You get lost an no one can hear that incredible solo you just did. Oh, unless of course you have a million watts turned up full and thats all anyone can hear.

monquixote

I think 10W being giggable is kind of moot as 10W amps really aren't created equal. 

Unmiked the 20W Blackstar HT I had could not keep up with an acoustic drum kit being given some welly and retain some clean tone.

The 22w Supersonic I had could easily be gigged unmiked at medium venues and still have a clean tone.

The 25W class A Puretone I have is (as we discovered at Gear Fest East) is ball crushingly insanely loud 

Danny1969

digitalscream said:

Danny1969 said:

I gig with a 5 watt Blackstar, I'm in 3 covers bands and a Thin Lizzy tribute. I do a lot of gigs, basically since I decided to skint myself by building a recording studio I now have to rely on gigs for a wage. I did 11 gigs last month on the HT5 playing everything from Sultans of Swing to Stockholm Syndrome ... no probs at all  and that's with some hard hitting drummers.  

Aye, but from what I recall...you have a pretty damn serious PA rig and (maybe) in-ear monitoring?

Yep I'm always mic'ed up but to be honest any PA will cope with mic'ed guitars as the guitars frequency range is similar to the human voice. 

Monitoring wise I use ears in the bands I have to sing in but for the Lizzy stuff it's old school, no ears no wedge just the little Blackstar belting out  out behind me. 

digitalscream

spacecadet said:

As far as educating people, yes it's patronising but I am seeing people that bloody well deserve it. 

I suggest you moderate your tone. Just about everybody in this thread has 10+ years of gigging experience; you acting superior (and sounding like a stuck record without actually responding to any of the points that anybody's made in any meaningful way) just makes you look like a bit of a dick.

hotpickups

This is all getting very boring guys. Can we just move on and talk about kit and not carrying on our disputes and prejudices

spacecadet

I'm not trying to be a sarcastic, know it all that can anything with anything. It just makes me laugh when people make idle comments about shit they clearly haven't thought through or tried.

@digitalscream, we obviously have a different view on gigging. We do a lot of gigs all over the place. A lot of venues have installed house PA's. Guess what, we still take ours in case we get there and it's 100w HH dinosaur, or it don't work, or the desk doesn't have what we need. Think of it like this. You have your backline. Would you turn up to a gig without it because backline is provided? No. PA is part of the band sound. Like mics. A vocalist should choose a mic based on their voice. Your PA should cover your needs. If it doesn't, you need to charge more and rent one in. We quite possibly do very different gigs. My needs will be different to others needs.

Drew_TNBD

spacecadet;48522" said:

The point has been made. 10 watts probably won't get you a super clean sound over a drummer. If you have a PA, and monitors you will be fine. You can gig it. THATS THE POINT. Not once have I said 10 watts is loud enough on it's own.



As far as educating people, yes it's patronising but I am seeing people that bloody well deserve it. The ignorance is astounding! "I have to have a million watts so I can hear myself or get over the drummer/ bass player/ screaming girls". Bollocks. If you don't have a PA or monitors, 10w aint cutting it. If you do it's fine. It's more than enough. I'll bet there are some of you that get to a gig and dial in your sound that you think sounds great too. It almost certainly does. BUT, what happens when everyone else kicks in. You get lost an no one can hear that incredible solo you just did. Oh, unless of course you have a million watts turned up full and thats all anyone can hear.

It almost sounds like you've never been in a real band before.

I mean no disrespect, but have you ever played a tiny little basement to 50 people, all of them chugging on a bottle of warm Heineken because that was all the promoter/basement hirer could get from their mums fridge?

Or have you ever played a venue where the PA is barely powerful enough to handle kick drum and vocals at the same time, let alone guitars and bass as well?

If you're playing giant stages to thousands of people, you HAVE to be mic'd up. In small clubs, it isn't necessary. We have watts for a reason - to get volume. Put the cabs on the stage, face them slightly away from the audience. Dial in your sound to fit the environment, don't just go "I usually use 11" .... that is as stupid as insisting that a 1x12 10watt combo is going to cut it in a metal band, it just isn't. The whole culture of guitar backs this up; if we didn't need 4x12s and 100 watt amps, we wouldn't want them, and if we didn't want them, they wouldn't make them

Yes. Your point has been made. But it's also been firmly blown to smithereens.

If you were a promoter and you forced me to use a small 10watt combo rather than my amp head and cab, I would not play your show. I wouldn't even put trousers on in order to call you up and say we're not playing. I'd sit on my couch in my birthday suit, telling you how unreasonable and intractable you're being, and how it's all based on the faulty premise that "well, it's good enough for me! So anyone should be able to do this, and if they can't then THEY are the idiot!! Not me!!!"

Boggles the mind.

Drew_TNBD

spacecadet said:

Your PA should cover your needs

Aye, and it does! It's just in the form of a box that has 4 speakers in it and my amp sits on top of it!

steamabacus

Back in the day .....


17 watts was stupendously loud



"Never, since the arrival of rock music, has so much hearing loss been suffered by so many, caused by so few."  - Jeff Beck

spacecadet

digitalscream said:

I suggest you moderate your tone. Just about everybody in this thread has 10+ years of gigging experience; you acting superior (and sounding like a stuck record without actually responding to any of the points that anybody's made in any meaningful way) just makes you look like a bit of a dick.

And how many years experience have I had? I started playing live when I was 15. I am now 36. I have done gigs virtually every week since in many different styles with many different rigs ranging from a school hall to a basement bar to restaurants to clubs to festivals to stadiums. Ok, only ever one stadium but still. My experience is vast. I am comfortable with being a dick. I will lose no sleep over it. I have argued my point and will happily challenge anyone to prove me wrong. It wouldn't happen. In the right scenario 10 watts is enough. In the wrong scenario it's not. Thats what I have said. A feature set is what it is. It works for some and not for others. I have responded to points made with valid arguments and I have also read others valid arguments. All it comes down to is preference and choice. I choose one thing, you choose another. Simples.

hotpickups

Ok that's it! I'm unsubscribing from this thread. This would have never happened over at musicradar.com. Before I go a word of advice guys and that is just let things go. Sometimes it just isn't worth the battle

spacecadet

Also my dads bigger than your dad! I love you all.

guitarfishbay

Aha, the wattage debate again.

10 watts is no use to me in my current situation.

Though I'm actively gigging as a percussionist I am not actively gigging as a guitarist at this moment in time.  I am however rehearsing at least once per week as a guitarist in a band, and also doing amateur recording on the side as and when I can.

A 50/100 watt amp is the only thing that makes sense in my situation, otherwise I just don't hear myself properly when we practice at proper volumes - i.e. those set by a rock/metal drummer with a well maintained pro standard kit.  There is a PA in the room and it is only powerful enough for vocals and that is it.  Better PA is on a long list of needed things, one thing at a time.  For now what we have works.

An Axe FX/Kemper is designed specifically to emulate the model you choose - so if you're telling it to emulate a 100 watt half stack a comparable sound should come out from the unit, the fact the unit isn't 100 watts itself makes no difference in that instance as the PA in theory receives a signal that is similar to the real thing.

Micing a real amp for recording, the wattage does make a difference.  A 15 watt amp does not have the girth of a 100 watt amp and it is obvious under a mic in a recording.  I have a strong interest in recording and in the genres I am most interested in (rock and metal) people mostly either use 100 watt half stacks, or emulations of them.  I don't know of anyone recording material seriously on low wattage amps, most things are still 5150 or Dual Rec or Marshall as they have been for a long time.

That doesn't mean low wattage amps don't sound good, they have their uses and are sometimes a better choice for a lot of genres.  But if I want a wall of sound high gain tone and I want to use a real amp not a modeller I'm going straight to a 50/100 watt amp and a 4x12.  If I used the modeller I'd use the emulation of said setup.

If I owned a 10 watt amp I could use it for practicing, or recording (but the tone wouldn't be what I wanted).  It would be no use in my rehearsal room, and as has been mentioned some live music venues at the low end of the circuit have dire PAs.  I don't see a point in owning anything low wattage when a high wattage amp can be used at any volume needed and produces the tone I want for recording.

jpfamps

I provided backline for a show recently at a decent sized venue (realistically around 500 capacity).

The guitarist specified a channel switching Marshall + 4x12 and we provide an 80s 50W JCM800. 

This was loud enough that the FOH engineer had none going through the PA.

The problem was of course that the singer couldn't hear any vocals through the wedges as all you could hear on stage was the guitar. 

Incredulously the guitarist wanted guitar through his wedge monitor as well!

If the guitar was quieter on stage then the vocal monitoring issue would not have occured (IEM would also have worked but the band specified wedges).

Mind you the guitarist might not have enoyed his gig as much........

guitarfishbay

hotpickups said:

Ok that's it! I'm unsubscribing from this thread. This would have never happened over at musicradar.com. Before I go a word of advice guys and that is just let things go. Sometimes it just isn't worth the battle

In fairness the wattage debate happened at least monthly on the MR forum.

Some people don't need higher wattage because of either volume, features, or tone.  Usually these are people who don't play in loud bands (at the low end of the circuit) or they are people with access to good PAs at the middle and above ends of the circuit.

Some people do need high wattage because of tone, features, or volume (i.e. rehearsal with poor PA, some gigs with poor provided PA).  This probably applies to most members playing the rock/metal originals circuit, as as has been discussed there are a lot of really poor venues.  Not to mention if you rehearse in a regular sized rehearsal room with a drummer hitting at full pelt 10 watts just won't cut it with no PA support.  We can get in to practicing theory and volumes but the fact is that at some point you need to do dry runs at high volume and if you can't hear yourself you can't practice properly.

rockmonster

hotpickups said:

This is all getting very boring guys. Can we just move on and talk about kit and not carrying on our disputes and prejudices

agreed!

daveyh

guitarfishbay said:

- i.e. those set by a rock/metal drummer with a well maintained pro standard kit.  

Small point - is the drummer pro standard to match the kit? Playing with a drummer who can actually vary their volume by the way they play and set up their kit is a revelation and a lot of this argument becomes moot.