Small recording amps for in-house...

[d. gauss]

epiphone valve junior- 5 watts of class A bliss @ 100 bucks
ampeg jet reissue -15 watts of goodness
fender pro junior - 15 watts of no frills goodness


-d. gauss

[King Oliver]

hey, for something small that does sounds very nice, see if you can pick up a used mesa studio 22 (+?)... these have great tone and come with 1 1x12...


i would also reccomend a fender blues jr. (although i dont know how close those are to the princeton you have) and if you have a cabinet i highly reccomend the orange tiny terror!

i'm sure that you can find a great little combo amp that will blow away many peoples "tone monsters"

[Alexi]

i can second the epi valve junior combo....santa brought me one for christmas....it is a great deal...


i was also thinking about an orange crush 15 or a vox pathfinder 15.....



good luck with your search



alex

[AlexLakis]

The Epiphone Valve Junior and the Orange Tiny Terror sound like they'd compliment each other pretty well. Both have gotten good reviews here from fellow Gearslutz. I'll have to get out there and try them out!

Any recommendations for cabs for these? Any more combo recommendations? Thanks again!

[Jonboy79]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

The Epiphone Valve Junior and the Orange Tiny Terror sound like they'd compliment each other pretty well. Both have gotten good reviews here from fellow Gearslutz. I'll have to get out there and try them out!

Any recommendations for cabs for these? Any more combo recommendations? Thanks again!

A good low wattage single 12" is good for the VJ if you want some of the amps natural overdrive. I find it more difficult to overdrive a 4x12 with it. No idea about the tiny terror though I'm sure it's the next amp on my list.

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by Jonboy79

A good low wattage single 12" is good for the VJ if you want some of the amps natural overdrive. I find it more difficult to overdrive a 4x12 with it. No idea about the tiny terror though I'm sure it's the next amp on my list.

Thanks, Jon! Yeah, I'm probably looking for a 1x12 for these. I guess I'll try out the Orange 1x12. I've always been impressed by the Orange combos...

[Methlab]

The Fender Blues Jr. was my choice. I love the hell out of it. It was under 500.

[d. gauss]

Originally Posted by Methlab

The Fender Blues Jr. was my choice. I love the hell out of it. It was under 500.

as someone who owns both, personally, i like the pro junior better than the blues junior for recording. much simpler signal path, warmer sound. just hook it up to a bigger speaker. blues junior is good for gigging though.

[D K]

You will have to look hard but a used Peavy Classic 20 will do you good

Not a lot of clean headroom but breaks up nicely - takes pedals really well and sounds great - has a master volume but no reverb. 1 channel. I retubed mine with JJ's and dropped a Weber Cali 10 - Gooood stuff

[ozraves]

The stock current issue AC15 by Vox seems to be a pretty decent amp to me. I've played with one and loved it. Later, if you wanted, then you could upgrade the Wharfedale speaker to a Weber alnico.

The Gibson Les Paul Jr. is decent as well. If you hunt around then you might find one used for under $350.

I have not liked any of the lower priced Fenders. Their cheaper stuff blows to me. I know supposedly the Fender Pro Jr. is the thing. I bought one. Tried it for about five minutes and did not need any longer than that to unplug it and put it back in the box.

Old Ampegs can be decent. The good ones seem to be getting harder to find than old Fender tweeds even though the prices aren't totally nuts on them yet (but they have gone up a lot in the last five years).

One of my favorite sounding amps are the old Traynors. They got a nice break up that lends itself to a lot of different styles.

[manu258]

fender pro junior was a great suggestion. I haven't heard anything sound so nice and warm for 300 bones...

[WidgetNinja]

I dunno about cheap, but maybe you ought to come to my place in Reston where you can fiddle around with many amps (and play the MiniMOAK, if you're drum inclined). I know another guy in the area that has about twenty amps too.

If I had to pick one of my amps as an "only" for a studio, it would be the ENGL Savage. It does alot more than "Savage", and with a mixed speaker cab you get double the options. The medium bluesy tone as well as the old school crunch with a slightly modern twist are both very, very good. The clean is good... and metal? Sheeeet. I bought it for metal madness, but was surprised to find out it did a lot more, with just as much class.

[Methlab]

Originally Posted by d. gauss

as someone who owns both, personally, i like the pro junior better than the blues junior for recording. much simpler signal path, warmer sound. just hook it up to a bigger speaker. blues junior is good for gigging though.

I went with the Blues JR. because I do not believe the Pro Jr. has reverb. I really wanted the Fender reverb sound. Also, it took me a quite a while to dial up a warm sound on the Blues Jr., but here is a nice warm setting for a tele:

Fat mode on

Treble at 4, Bass at 6, Mids at 4. I boost 800hz 2db on my Meek EQ going in also.

[AlexLakis]

Thanks for sharing, fellas!

Just basically trying to cover my bases here. Guess I'd want to get it to the point where, if I needed to, I could do good clean, good "Pete Townshendy" dirty, and modern hi gain distorted all in-house.

Should I own onna those small Marshall combos just on general principle? (I personally don't really care for the Marshall distortion "sound," but that's just me.)

I should probably take you up on that offer, WidgetNinja.

[winbender]

I second the Orange Tiny Terror. Great amp from clean to distortion.

[Sharp11]

Originally Posted by d. gauss

as someone who owns both, personally, i like the pro junior better than the blues junior for recording. much simpler signal path, warmer sound. just hook it up to a bigger speaker. blues junior is good for gigging though.

It's a great amp, but mine's noisy as hell with hiss and a loud hum.

Love the circuit, though - it's exactly what we want, turn it up and it just soaks in a very pleasing way.

Ed

[Jonboy79]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

Thanks for sharing, fellas!

Just basically trying to cover my bases here. Guess I'd want to get it to the point where, if I needed to, I could do good clean, good "Pete Townshendy" dirty, and modern hi gain distorted all in-house.

Should I own onna those small Marshall combos just on general principle? (I personally don't really care for the Marshall distortion "sound," but that's just me.)

I should probably take you up on that offer, WidgetNinja.

No, you should get one of those low wattage randall combos with the modules. Great amps.

[Stefan Luan]

a md421 front of the speaker of a pignose save me a lot of electric guitar sessions.I mix it later whith pedals on insert to get the right tone for the song.

[bogeyeater]

the terror is awesome stike

[Jam]

Another Fender Pro Junior user.

Jam

[Red2112]

I second the ENGL stuff, but then its in another price range.

I havent heard the Ibanez Valbee, see if you could try one.

Good luck!

I just orderd a VOX Pathfinder PF10, should be in by next week... I´ll let you know how it sounds ASAP Alex. I use a Boss GS-10 and a ENGL Screamer 50 combo for recordings, but for the price of the PF10 (a petrol tank worth) I cant wait to mic this thing up :-)

If I whent out this weekend with my car, I would spend about 77€ that cost a petrol tank and maybe get lost..lol. So for the price of the PF10, I got nothing to loss, and not get lost in the woods...haha!

BTW, I might even get a Orange Micro Crush next month! For the price these things cost, why not have a arsenal of small amps to mic-up! If I remember right, someone way back (dont remember which guitarist) recorded with a saturated Pignose. Even some Zep albums have been recorded saturating small amps... and they still sound wonderful today!

[PatBlair]

I just posted this in another thread, but... I love the Traynor YCV stuff. The Wine Red's overdriven channel has a sound that's not quite Marshall, but IMHO quite a bit better - warmer.

[SpiderM69]

I'd hold off for the Peavey JSX Mini Collosal, should be out any day now.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but I don't know why so many here seem to like the Epi 5 watter. I played it at GC and didn't like it at all. I'd get a Vox AD15T before I'd get that amp (and only the 15 watter in that series sounds good, IMHO). The Gibson 5 watter is nice, however.

My favorite low watt amp is the SuperBaby from Emery Sounds. It's awesome, and can use a wide range of tubes with it. It's almost like a modeling amp, but due to the tubes you're using, not DSP. It's quite a bit more expensive, especially if you get the cab with it, but worth saving up for IMO. I've had mine about a year, rarely play my other amps anymore.

[foldback]

I would look for a used Mesa Boogie Studio 22+. I have two that I bought on ebay, one was $325 and the other was $460. They have a pair of EL84 output tubes. One of mine came with a Vintage 30 installed by the previous owner.

The 22+ can sound like a sweet vintage Fender Deluxe or it can do balls-to-the-wall grind or it can do awesome Chicago blues tones.

I have seven Boogie amps including three dual-Rectifiers, several Fender amps, a THD Univalve and a Marshall JCM2000 TSL.

The Studio 22+ would be the last thing I sell before they toss dirt on my coffin.

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by foldback

The Studio 22+ would be the last thing I sell before they toss dirt on my coffin.

That's cool, can you get the same thing out of it as a Dual Rec or similar?

Thanks for all the responses, guys!

I'm working alongside a non-commercial sister studio now, and have access to this; Should keep me busy for a while:

[2012]

Originally Posted by AlexLakis

Just basically trying to cover my bases here. Guess I'd want to get it to the point where, if I needed to, I could do good clean, good "Pete Townshendy" dirty, and modern hi gain distorted all in-house.

Should I own onna those small Marshall combos just on general principle? (I personally don't really care for the Marshall distortion "sound," but that's just me.)

It sounds like you want the Randall RM20. The MTS series.

1x12 / 20 watts / covers a lot of bases

[2012]

Originally Posted by foldback

I would look for a used Mesa Boogie Studio 22+.

The 22+ can sound like a sweet vintage Fender Deluxe or it can do balls-to-the-wall grind or it can do awesome Chicago blues tones.

The Studio 22+ would be the last thing I sell before they toss dirt on my coffin.

Dammit, that sounds intriguing, even though I have enough amps, Mesa included. I'm gonna have to find one to test out.

[Musiclab]

Originally Posted by 2012

It sounds like you want the Randall RM20. The MTS series.

1x12 / 20 watts / covers a lot of bases

I would recommend, the Randall also, just add modules as you need

[AlexLakis]

The Randall looks really cool. Also, the samples on the website are nice, they have samples for many combinations of modules and guitars! Kind of expensive, but very versitile.