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Are the big amps history?

#702
beans-on-toast said:
California will be requiring solar panels on all new single family homes or solar farms in new neighborhoods.

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Can banning energy inefficient musical instrument amplifiers be far behind?
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There's another reason to leave Cali. :) They could start taxing people for absorbing sunlight, it's wasteful, with discounts if you use highly effective SUN BLOCK. :) How is it okay that everyone has a pool? Those are next. :) One day the free thinkers there will realize that they bought a Nanny state. It will be Hunger Games but it will be too late. While they were avoiding A Handmaids Tale, they didn't see it coming. :) Surf Music with blackface Fenders will be grandfathered in though.
 
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#703
At some point I do want to get a light amp just for smaller practices and gigs and more impromptu stuff. Actually was tempted by a Shuttle 3-8 yesterday at GC, but I'm about to lay down an obscene amount of money on a new laptop so I had to pass. Some member of the shuttle series is definitely on the list of candidates though.
 
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#704
Michael Schreiber said:
Why just "ok"? :D

As for "what the audience hears is more important" - well, that is why some players take the effort to haul a bigger rig because they feel that very sound suits their playing and their music best.

So, what's the point in worrying about other people playing through bigger rigs?

Some may be able to play through but a DI - and maybe some crowd might even like that. Matter of taste, I'd say.
Yet, as a musician you know your crowd, or more precisely, the crowd you aim at.

Sure, the audience might not notice whether the guitar in a Hendrix cover band is played through an actual Celestion speaker or not - yet, if it's played through let's say an actual Celestion G12H(55), for example, the audience might notice how cool "that sizzling effect in the guitar" was; "sounded so vintage, didn't expect to hear that on a small gig, so cool" - something like that. And even if not: Then, the band at least can have a good conscience, knowing they gave it all :D
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+1

I make this analogy. The average person may like art, but unless they are an art critic, artist themselves, or they are just very intellectually curious, they probably are not going to be overly concerned with the type of paint the artist used. However, they are still enjoying the end result of the artist's paint choice and there's a good chance the artist used that specific paint for that specific piece. While the brush technique, perspective, artistic meaning, etc. are all important, they, along with the paint used, form a gestalt. Music is the same. The average person may not consciously care about the amp being used, but they certainly enjoy the experience as a whole. Part of that is the gear selection and how it's used.

Whenever we have these discussions on here and the "Whatever is good enough, the audience doesn't care, so let's do the LCD" crowd comes along, I always remind myself that a large portion of people here place premium importance on whether they can hear an amp's cooling fan when it's idling in their living room; accordingly, I take things with a grain of salt.
 
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#705
Omega Monkey said:
At some point I do want to get a light amp just for smaller practices and gigs and more impromptu stuff. Actually was tempted by a Shuttle 3-8 yesterday at GC, but I'm about to lay down an obscene amount of money on a new laptop so I had to pass. Some member of the shuttle series is definitely on the list of candidates though.
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Linux your old laptop, then go back and get it :D
 
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#706
Trust me, I'm not one of those consumerist drones. If the current laptop was serviceable, I would try to do that, but what it needs in parts would cost almost what it was new 3.5 years ago. The next one is intended to last about 5+ years so I need to get something that's really good now so it can keep up with the future. It's not my first rodeo. Also, I kind of like being able to buy for instance, recording interfaces without having to worry if I'll have to write my own drivers. Aint nobody got time for that. I'd much rather spend my time being a musician than a software engineer.
 
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#707
I don't think there are many devices that won't work with about any modern Linux distribution, but I certainly understand the ease of use thing.

Of course, you can always Linux up the old one after you get all your data off it, then let it chew up all your spare time :D
 
#708
It's more that the reason is it's already outdated and was never a high spec computer to begin with, plus add to that minor issues from a few years of wear and tear. I will probably keep it to use as a media player and for basic web surfing and I may still end up putting in more ram, but for what I want it to do, it goes way beyond just changing to a leaner OS and saving a GB of memory and 20% of the CPU.
 
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#709
agedhorse said:
At the higher level (and obviously larger) shows, this is not often true... the PA will dominate and the bass amp serves as a reference, as a tool to generate the basic tone that is then translated to what you are trying to achieve with your on-stage sound out in the audience. Your rig sounds completely different a couple hundred feet from the stage, it's the sound guy's job to make the transition from near field to far field as uniform and close to the original (as listened to in near field) as possible. This is how it's done in the pro, large venue world by mature adults.
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Agreed most heartily @agedhorse . My biggest complaint has always been that most soundmen I've dealt with truly did't have the ear for the sound I like and sometimes for the whole band out front. I guess that's why the good ones (like you) are always working! In my career we ran through a lot of soundmen and I think one of the issues was that very few were actually musicians. I think it helps if you get a musician turned soundman. Along with having a good ear, the soundman needs to understand the gear so it doesn't all turn out sounding like a big muffled cassette player. There's an art to tri-amping, eq'ing, and compression, not to mention subtle effects. I mastered little of that, now I've had to learn a lot to do the mixing for our informal GOF 80's rocker band we're forming for the summer.

BassmanPaul said:
If a low output heavy tube amp gets you where you want to be good luck to you! ;)

I'll just stick with my tube pre-amp and honking great 2KW Class D power amp. :D

Edit: That said I do get pleasure from my B15N practice amplifier. :roflmao:
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@BassmanPaul bro do the lights dim when you kick on your 2kw Class D???? :hyper:

I've hit the GOF stage of life, and while my amps were slowly diminishing in the size, an odd anomaly occurred. I started yearning for bigger amps and cabs! Also, I had been avoiding Ampeg, passive basses, and especially split pickups. Now I own a small Ampeg practice amp with an Ibanez P-style-bass!

It may sound small to you, but it's a radical departure from my narrow neck active Ibanez basses and GK mini stacks. I'm just wanting that big, fat, round sound that Ampeg delivers. I'm not going to sell my GK stuff, though, because I love the sound I get from those amps. But man, the bigger the Ampeg, the thumpier the sound! I'm thinking about 2x Ampeg PF112's and maybe an Ampeg PF500. I have a trip coming up for a conference in Seattle and I'm going to also give the Mesa and Aguilar heads a good tryout. I've heard the best things about them..

Story to be continued elsewhere on TB....
 
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#715
Amps used to be big, because they needed to be. These days, we have incredible power coming from small amps under 10 pounds, and lightweight speaker cabinets. The old amps have personality and tone that is unique, particularly with tube amps. However, the weight is not usually worth it at all.

Having a full SVT stack behind you is impressive, and sounds like nothing else. But there is no way in hockey sticks that I'm going to lug one around anymore.
 
#716
Jeff Scott said:
Forgetting about the big cabs for a moment, if manufacturers were to actually do away with tubes and SS amps, what would be left for us to use for amplification? ;)
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THIS!

chodehammer.jpg


:cool:
 
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