OK, gig report.
I played 7:30pm to 11:30pm (3 long sets) with "my" funk cover band (vocals/bass/drums/guitar/keys/horns). This is my second gig with them, it's a fun group - nice guys, good musicians, great repertoire (Prince, James Brown, Rick James, Gap Band, Motown, Parliament, EWF, etc), plus extras like Kendrick Lamar and Zappa quotes, La Bamba and Living on a Prayer. Smallish bar with no stage, packed house with people dancing all night. The PA carried vocals and horns only.
As you would expect with a band like this, the bass needs to be fat and prominent in the mix, but without getting in the way of all the other instruments (4 horns last night). There is a tendency for the band to get excited and play too loud, but we kept it reasonably under control and it sounded good.
I played my Sadowsky PJ5 w/Nordstrands and East pre, into the Cali76 and then the Noble to give it some subtle polish. My cabinet was my trusty Audiokinesis 212. Being a cautious guy, I set up the SA200 and then my Mesa WD800 on top of that as a backup.
We "sound-checked" (in front of the full house unfortunately) with Chic's Good Times. I used the SA200 with the fat switch on, cutting 80Hz to about 10:00 and boosting 800Hz and 3k to about 2:00. At home, this gives me a nice mid-present and defined sound with a good amount of low end without boom. We played a couple of minutes, had a few seconds to confer and tweak, and played a couple more minutes. The SA200 was able to get a good volume with the master at noon, gain at 9:00 and volume at 3:00. It was very fat and supportive, but I wasn't getting as much clean definition as I wanted. The drummer commented that I was a bit too loud (probably true), but I was having some trouble hearing my notes clearly.
After soundcheck, I made an executive decision and switched to the WD800 with slight bass cut and low mid bump. This worked well as it always does, so that's how I played the rest of the gig.
Even at home, I noticed an inherent thickness in the sound of the SA200, which is beautiful but may be hard to deal with in some venues. I didn't have the chance to really tweak the low end eq to balance fatness vs intelligibility. Also, although it was loud enough, I felt like at that volume it might have been compressing a bit and thus losing some clarity. I used the fat setting because it gives some punch and extra mids, and also it rolls off some of the extreme lows. I would have to play with that. The WD800 does not have the same beautiful tube thing (the SA200 is inspiring to play through!), but it easily slots into the mix and I can always hear every note clearly without being too loud. Also it has the power and headroom so I can play super softly and get a smooth sound while accenting notes when needed, and it feels easy and natural.
Lessons learned? I'm not sure. The beauty of the all-tube amp is somewhat lost in the sonic chaos of a bar gig. Coupled with a lack of headroom, I feel safer with the smaller, louder, and more versatile modern amp. I'll continue to learn the SA200's eq and features and try it with different cabinets, but for now, given the unpredictible nature of rooms and PA setups, I'll probably do most gigs with the safer bet of the Mesa.
