is there such a thing as a unsuitable cab?

[georgestrings]

One sign of maturity, both physical and intellectual, is that all of the guitar players I work with now have gone to 1x12 combos. They've done so because geezers can't lift 4x12s, we don't drive vans, and we no longer have any need to impress gear groupies. It sounds a lot better too.

I think it's a sign of being old, period - but whatever works for you, Bill...

I will say this much - in the rock/hard rock bands I play in, and most others in my area that play decent sized venues, the 412 is the standard - and works well, as long as it's user has any sense of volume restraint... Again, it's genre and venue dependant...


- georgestrings

 

[georgestrings]

yeah, but there is the fact that using multiple drivers in a cab sounds better and fuller. so in that respect, even though it's not a perfect design, i can understand wanting to use a 412. but holy mother of pearl, why do they have to use 100w amps and crank them? they ought to just use a valve jr or something similar.

Not only does it sound fuller, but it also makes using controlled feedback much easier...

I can practically hear *some* people here yelling: "Get off my lawn!!!" Buncha geezers, I tell ya...


- georgestrings

 

[billfitzmaurice]

I can practically hear *some* people here yelling: "Get off my lawn!!!" Buncha geezers, I tell ya...


- georgestrings

Geezers like Mick, Sir Paul, Chuck, Eric, and my old friend Stevie Tallarico, better known to you as Steven Tyler. And all older than me, though not by much.

 

[JimmyM]

well i'm not buying into the controlled feedback thing as a reason for wanting a 412. you can do it with any amp, really. even saw devo doing it ampless using monitors. i think liking the sound of a 412 is a legit enough reason on its own, though. they don't have to be driven to such levels.

but i will say that i'll probably sell this super reverb and go 112 myself for guitar gigs. all depends on how good these new ampeg guitar amps turn out

 

[LiquidMidnight]

My guitarist definitely feels he has greater control over his feedback when using more drivers. Also, there's definitely a bigger difference in sound to our ears when he is using more drivers.

Granted, he's not a volume nut and isn't one of those mid-scooping idiots either. A lot of people throw a bunch of drivers on stage, get a smilie EQ, and crank the volume and gain. Uggg!

 

[billfitzmaurice]

but i will say that i'll probably sell this super reverb and go 112 myself for guitar gigs. all depends on how good these new ampeg guitar amps turn out

If they got the tone of a Reverb Rocket without the noise it would be a killer.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

I actually have a friend that runs 3 4x12 cabs with two heads. Not for volume. It is for clean and effected sounds. He isn't very loud at all and sounds great every night.
I have seen guitarists try and play heavy music with a single or dual 12. It rarely works unless they have a very high wattage head and corresponding speakers. Otherwise they end up with a very thin sound. for most rock, pop etc a 2x12 is likely sufficient. Btw it is poor planning to count on foh or monitors. A band should be able to rock on backline alone.

 

[JimmyM]

If they got the tone of a Reverb Rocket without the noise it would be a killer.

from what chrys at ampeg says, and from what the demos i've heard online sound like, i'd say that's pretty close to what they sound like.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

from what chrys at ampeg says, and from what the demos i've heard online sound like, i'd say that's pretty close to what they sound like.

That was always one of my faves, along with Princetons and Deluxes. I didn't care much for Supers or Twins, being much too clean for my tastes. Well, after I stopped playing Surf music, which coincided with Jimi's admonition on that subject.

 

[JimmyM]

I actually have a friend that runs 3 4x12 cabs with two heads. Not for volume. It is for clean and effected sounds. He isn't very loud at all and sounds great every night.
I have seen guitarists try and play heavy music with a single or dual 12. It rarely works unless they have a very high wattage head and corresponding speakers. Otherwise they end up with a very thin sound.

have i heard thin sounds from guitarists trying to play heavy music with a 212 low wattage rig? indeed. i have also heard dudes rock hard with them. in the studio, a lot of heavy guitarists will use combos and/or low wattage heads with small sealed cabs, so it's not unheard of to be able to do it.

 

[JimmyM]

btw, i don't necessarily associate "heavy" with that "klunk" sound you get by playing low double stops with a marshall rig, so ymmv.

 

[IvanMike]

you want to control feedback? Put the 1x12 combo on a stand! The general problem with controlling feedback in a small amp is the GP can't bend over like gumby to get his pickups in front of the speaker.

As for a fuller tone - sure, big closed back box with horizontally mounted drivers all adds up to more low end from the box and from the removal of mids via comb filtering. However, one of the biggest headaches when doing sound or just plain trying to make your band not sound like mud is the guitar has too much low end and ends up putting out frequencies in the bass & drums range. Go listen to almost any recording and the guitar has almost no low end - but you can hear all the instruments!

Finally, the way tube amps work (for guitar), in order to get the "brown sound" where the power tubes are just starting to distort, giving you that "classic" rock tone means you have to turn it up to "4" or so. Do that in a 100 (or even a 50!) watt amp and it's way too loud for most venues. Now add to that volume problem by using four 12" drivers instead of one! The choice the stack wielding GP is faced with is - turn up way too loud to get "the sound", or play at a reasonable volume and never let the amp "work" the way it's supposed to.

1x12 combos are LOUD, and you can get as huge of a tone as you want by running it through the PA - even a smaller one.

 

[MuzikMan]

you want to control feedback? Put the 1x12 combo on a stand! The general problem with controlling feedback in a small amp is the GP can't bend over like gumby to get his pickups in front of the speaker.

As for a fuller tone - sure, big closed back box with horizontally mounted drivers all adds up to more low end from the box and from the removal of mids via comb filtering. However, one of the biggest headaches when doing sound or just plain trying to make your band not sound like mud is the guitar has too much low end and ends up putting out frequencies in the bass & drums range. Go listen to almost any recording and the guitar has almost no low end - but you can hear all the instruments!

Finally, the way tube amps work (for guitar), in order to get the "brown sound" where the power tubes are just starting to distort, giving you that "classic" rock tone means you have to turn it up to "4" or so. Do that in a 100 (or even a 50!) watt amp and it's way too loud for most venues. Now add to that volume problem by using four 12" drivers instead of one! The choice the stack wielding GP is faced with is - turn up way too loud to get "the sound", or play at a reasonable volume and never let the amp "work" the way it's supposed to.

1x12 combos are LOUD, and you can get as huge of a tone as you want by running it through the PA - even a smaller one.

+1

 

[pie_man_25]

you want to control feedback? Put the 1x12 combo on a stand! The general problem with controlling feedback in a small amp is the GP can't bend over like gumby to get his pickups in front of the speaker.

As for a fuller tone - sure, big closed back box with horizontally mounted drivers all adds up to more low end from the box and from the removal of mids via comb filtering. However, one of the biggest headaches when doing sound or just plain trying to make your band not sound like mud is the guitar has too much low end and ends up putting out frequencies in the bass & drums range. Go listen to almost any recording and the guitar has almost no low end - but you can hear all the instruments!

Finally, the way tube amps work (for guitar), in order to get the "brown sound" where the power tubes are just starting to distort, giving you that "classic" rock tone means you have to turn it up to "4" or so. Do that in a 100 (or even a 50!) watt amp and it's way too loud for most venues. Now add to that volume problem by using four 12" drivers instead of one! The choice the stack wielding GP is faced with is - turn up way too loud to get "the sound", or play at a reasonable volume and never let the amp "work" the way it's supposed to.

1x12 combos are LOUD, and you can get as huge of a tone as you want by running it through the PA - even a smaller one.

+1

My band's guitarists both use combos - one of them an all tube 35-watt 212 combo custom made by a guy he knows, and the other one uses a solid state crate 212 amp, and makes it sound just as good. They both know how to EQ, and mic. their amps. I've never even heard of the guitard stereotype (too loud, always soloing etc...) until I've listened to a local metal act - 2 guitarists with half stacks, and a bassist with a 112 combo, and two out of three of them were always shredding. Now, I'm quite used to loud noise, I've went to see Lamb of God play, I've seen a good few metal acts play, these guys were almost (but not quite) as loud as the stadium-sized metal acts, and playing to a crowd of 30 people! I was hanging around the back of the crowd (about 20 feet away), and thought to myself "WOW, these guys are way too loud, my ears are actually in pain listening to them", and immediately the shreddiest guitarist with the Dean Dimebag Darryl tribute model says "Are we loud enough for ya?" and turns his amp UP even more. I couldn't even hear the bass.

 

[staindbass]

my opinion of the original question is no. as long as it does not harm the equipment because of impedance as already mentioned. sometimes people prefer something for reasons others dont understand. lots of guitarists must have a double stack. they do not need all of its capabilities, but they need it to be what they envision themselves as. (like the guy with the porsche who never goes over 65mph) maybe the impedance plot of a 8 ohm 4x12 versus a 8 ohm 1x12 with the same drivers may be different and affecting the amp in ways we are not aware of. i am glad we have lots of speaker choices so everyone can have their own "sound" johnny a.

 

[IvanMike]

my opinion of the original question is no. as long as it does not harm the equipment because of impedance as already mentioned. sometimes people prefer something for reasons others dont understand. lots of guitarists must have a double stack. they do not need all of its capabilities, but they need it to be what they envision themselves as. (like the guy with the porsche who never goes over 65mph) maybe the impedance plot of a 8 ohm 4x12 versus a 8 ohm 1x12 with the same drivers may be different and affecting the amp in ways we are not aware of. i am glad we have lots of speaker choices so everyone can have their own "sound" johnny a.

that's not a bad point, although most marshall gurus will point out the real tone difference comes from 16 ohm or 8 ohm load, not the number of drivers in terms of an impedance plot.

In terms of the analogy of the porche, it only goes so far when talking about tube amps. With a 1000 watt SS amp it holds more water. I use 650 in my standard configuration, but most of the time i'm "driving 55" - the thing is, the amp sounds the same outside of any sonic differences as the cones get pushed.

With a tube amp, "driving 55" just doesn't cut it. Power tubes don't start to "do their thing" until you reach a certain gain/volume level. Most guys I know who use half or full stacks of 4x12 cabs and 50 or 100 watt heads rely on stomp boxes to try to emulate the tone of a cranked tube amp when playing at a more reasonable volume. This totally defeats the purpose of using a tube guitar amp in the first place. Perhaps a better analogy would be that they're using a musclecar with a racing camshaft and not ever hitting the RPMs needed to make that cam work properly. The result is subpar performance. Tube guitar amps are meant to be "drilled". This isn't all theory. I've played with guys where one has a 100 watt half stack and the other has a 15 watt 1x12 combo. Guess who had the better tone at an appropriate volume?

I'd reiterate the point about the "full sound" as I feel it's so important. Having done a lot of sound as a soundman, and having been more or less in charge of a band I played in getting a good mix, it's like pulling teeth to get a GP to agree to cut the lows on their amp. I think at this point most bass players understand that the tone that sounds "awesome" when you play by yourself just doesn't cut it live as all the instruments step on each other sonically. I can't tell you the number of gigs I've played or mixed with a GP unwilling to change their tone settings where the only recourse was to EQ my bass amp to have very little lows and lots of mids in order to fit inside the "smiley face" EQ of the guitar(s), and/or cutting almost all the lows to the guitars in the FOH to and praying that they didn't turn up so loud that they overpowered the sound coming out of the mains.

Last but not least, most of those tube amps are direct descendants of the tom walker RCA circuit "fender tone stack" (even marshalls, wher jim admitted he reverse engineered a bassman's preamp). As such, nominal "flat is 2-10-2 B-M-T. Goosing the bass and treble up to 10 just doesn't help. Once again I implore folk (bass and guitar players) to listen to the individual tracks on their favorite albums and see(hear) just how strange the tone is on each instrument. The net result sounds great, whereas if every instrument sounded "awesome" the whole thing would sound like mud. We're lucky these days as on youtube you can find tons of isolated tracks. They can be real eye/ear openers.

not flaming anybody - heck generally no one's ever told them this stuff. Just pointing out that sometimes you need to think "outside the box" unlearn some old habits, and find out just how your gear works.

 

[Nagrom]

My GP just replaced the 112 in his 22w Deluxe Reverb with a fancy unit that has some sort "crank down the volume" thingy at the magnet so he can overdrive the wee tube amp at a reasonable barroom volume.

We are a happy band.

 

[JimmyM]

With a tube amp, "driving 55" just doesn't cut it. Power tubes don't start to "do their thing" until you reach a certain gain/volume level. Most guys I know who use half or full stacks of 4x12 cabs and 50 or 100 watt heads rely on stomp boxes to try to emulate the tone of a cranked tube amp when playing at a more reasonable volume. This totally defeats the purpose of using a tube guitar amp in the first place.

i consider that a bass player's eye view of tube amps overdrive through cooking tubes isn't the only purpose for a tube amp. some of us actually prefer their clean sounds as well...on guitar as well as bass.

 

[IvanMike]

i consider that a bass player's eye view of tube amps overdrive through cooking tubes isn't the only purpose for a tube amp. some of us actually prefer their clean sounds as well...on guitar as well as bass.

I don't disagree with that one. often a GP needs a tube amp that stays cleaner so they need more watts. I can count the GPs I know who want a clean sound from their stack on one hand.

Of course, the slight breakup of guitar amp power tubes really doesn't sound like "distortion" in modern parlance, many tones guitar players would charactarize as "clean" have plenty of that beginning powertube breakup.

 

[GrowlerBox]

I don't disagree with that one. often a GP needs a tube amp that stays cleaner so they need more watts. I can count the GPs I know who want a clean sound from their stack on one hand.

I'm becoming a little disturbed by the use of "GP" here -- I'm a GP, or what most of you might call a Family Physician. The characteristics you describe in these posts are more commonly attributed to surgeons ....