I just got one in a trade and was wondering if more experienced AG500SC players had settings and or tips and tricks with this amp.
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Aguilar AG500SC
- Thread starter Stan13
- Start date
It's a pretty bog-standard amp (albeit high-quality) without a lot of bells and whistles, so I'm not sure what kind of "tips and tricks" you're expecting to find. It doesn't have the Aggro distortion that the dual-channel version has. Turn it up and enjoy. Personally, I didn't think that the midrange controls' frequencies were right to suit my sound, so it's parked for the moment while I use my Mesa D-800+.
You piqued my curiosity, so I went down to the garage and dug mine out. Hooked it up to a cabinet that I haven't used in ages - a Hartke HS410B. Here's what worked for me: turn off the bright and deep switches. Set the tone controls to straight-up 12:00. Adjust the gain to about 1:00 and turn up the master volume to suit. It sounded damn nice with a passive Fender Precision Special. Thick, chunky tone.
I may have to drag that over to one of my rehearsal spaces and leave it. It's too good just to sit there unused, and it's too ***king heavy to carry around regularly for gigs. The Hartke sounds glorious, but it also weighs nearly 90 lbs and has uncomfortable lift handles.
If you have the Mesa M9, the Aguilar is not going to be ANYWHERE near as loud. The flip side is that the Aguilar is going to be a lot easier to get a usable volume on unless you're running at crazy SPLs. I have the M6, love it...but it's a fine line between "ooh, that sounds nice!" and "OMG TURN IT DOWN NOW!"
I may have to drag that over to one of my rehearsal spaces and leave it. It's too good just to sit there unused, and it's too ***king heavy to carry around regularly for gigs. The Hartke sounds glorious, but it also weighs nearly 90 lbs and has uncomfortable lift handles.
If you have the Mesa M9, the Aguilar is not going to be ANYWHERE near as loud. The flip side is that the Aguilar is going to be a lot easier to get a usable volume on unless you're running at crazy SPLs. I have the M6, love it...but it's a fine line between "ooh, that sounds nice!" and "OMG TURN IT DOWN NOW!"
Cool thanx for the response stillwell...i definitely know what u mean about the mesa...the other day it was just me and the drummer jamming, so i went to turn the master volume down ever so slightly...took me a while to get it to a decent volume. slightest turns of that knob have huge changes in volume. havent had too much time with the aggie..what i did sounded good.
Don't be afraid to dial the tone controls further up or down than you would most amps - I remember having to use what I would have considered extreme settings from time to time. With the tone controls like that and the deep/bright switches, the amp has a lot of useable flexibility. It's a good amp. There is a used one close to home that I look at longingly from time to time.
