Joined a band!

Congrats Arjen!

I know of one store who used to sell Blues Cubes. They ran around 450 Euro, about $500. Thats a bit over my budget I guess. Never seen reverend amps, or heared anyone else talk about them.

Slothrob: I thought about such a cart. For about thirty seconds. It's a bit like spending your last money on a wallet: if I buy such a cart (no idea where I'd park it, but that something else) I'd have no money for an amp to transport in the cart. Kinda self-defeating that way. And besides, I don't think I really need a huge amp to be heared over a sax, right?

For those unfamiliar with the Vox and Roland amps: check this soundclip versus this one. Ofcourse online clips are just to give an indication.

"Shaken, not stirred."

Arjen

Actually, saxophones are amazingly loud. I used to help run an open mic about 5 years ago. This elderly man came in one night with a saxophone. We didn't mic him whatsoever. He was louder than the drums and our electric guitars easily.

Arjen, you need to get you a 30-50 watt amp now. You are in a band. It's called headroom. Yeah, a 15 watt amp might make it, but you are pushing the amp. It is especially important to have headroom if you want a clean sound. Get the amp and leave it at the practice hall. Get another small amp to practice at home.

When you have gigs, one of the older musicians will have transportation to carry your amp.

Even jazz bands are pretty loud. So get a good amp.

Thanks Wes. But while you are absolutely right, there is a prob. Practice rooms here are typically rented for a few hours, not for months. So when I'm done some other group comes in. If I leave my amp there it will be stolen within 10 minutes. Moving it when some event is planned won't be a problem, but I don't want to be picked up every time we have a practice session. Finally, being a full-time student without a job it's allready quite a challenge to save up a bit for one amp without starving the following month and buying two amps is really out of the question. I can ofcourse keep using the V-amp for home practice, but I still don't have a place where I can permanently store the other amp.

About wattage, you're absolutely correct ofcourse. I'll still try them but I have little illusions that a 15W 8"SS practice amp is going to sound crystal clear at proper volume. But I stil hope 30W/10" should be enough...

Arjen

If the group has a PA, you really don't need an amp at all. Just run out of your V-Amp into the PA. Lots of people are doing just that nowadays.

Nope, the singer has his own amp, but I don't think it's enough to push the guitar through as well. Besides, my V-amp sounds amazingly thin and lifeless through a PA. And the better the PA the more obvious the flaws of the V-amp are.

But I've been thinking. I constantly see those Cube15s around for very little. How about setting the V-amp amp/cabs to bypass, just use the reverb and connect the stereo outs to two cube15s. Could be very interesting, or not? Now idea if it is easy to carry around or not, no idea if it sounds good, just some thoughts.

A blues playing friend of mine, Billy Crawford, plays simultaneously through two 15W Fender Blues Juniors. Sounds awesome, and in a mid-size club it's plenty loud with the volume knobs on 3.

If your amp's not getting over the drummer, the drummer needs to tone it down a little. You don't always bang as hard as you can on your guitar, and he shouldn't on his drums, either.

Yes, that will work. I do that with my GFX-1. I will turn off any distortion, EQ, or cab so I can use my amps EQ and drive channels. Then I'll just use the pedal to add whatever effect like chorus or phase, delay etc.....

But you should also be able to tweak many of the V-Amps patches to get great tones. You find when you use a multi-effects pedal live that there is too much effect or gain on many patches. What sounds good through headphones or low bedroom volume sounds terrible at gig volumes at times. But just tweak gain or effect level down and you will get great usable effects.

Arjen

Here is another option. See if you can find an old, cheap, low-power PA head and cabinets. It could be 75-80 watts. These types of PA's are old and outdated now and can be picked up real cheap. Then run your V-Amp into that.

I noticed you say you were considering adding the MG30DFX. Do not even think about it. I have one and am not really happy with it, its ok but you'd be better off with the cube or the ad30vt.

The initial amp on my list was a roland cube 30 but I got the marshall cause I was desperate to get playin on electric but I should have waited. I'm gonna try and sell my marshall and try out the cube and vox if I get a chance soon.

You have a MG30DFX too? I don't know, I kind of like mine... the only things i'm not satisfied with at the moment are the guitar I'm using (Epi Les Paul, a little on the heavy / boxy side, I'm heavily considering saving my cash and trading it in towards a USA-made Fender Strat) and my lack of effects pedals.

(I'm like Jekyll and Hyde - half of me wants a nice distortion pedal so I can rock out to some 80's metal and do it some justice, the other half wants a solid overdrive pedal so i can get bad with my inner bluesman)

I guess that dealing with the amp situation should be the next thing on my list, after pedals and a new axe. :)

And Arjen - Congrats! You're gonna do great, anybody who could put together a comprehensive lesson like you did (and with only 6 more months of playing experience than me) will be fine. And the old pros will definitely give you some great pointers!

wes: I looked around but whatever used PA there were offered for sale here aren't exactly of the portable type. I wasn't talking about effect settings of my V-amp, but simply of the bare amp models. When pumped through the poweramp/cabinet of a normal guitar amp it sounds real nice at any volume, but straight into a mixerboard it doesn't. The EQ seems to have a smaller range then that of a normal amp, and it really creates a mid-range, thin and nasal sound. No bass or real highs. Set it to rectifier and I hear a distorted amp but I don't feel it. It's really wildly different.

Dan: Yeah, I know. Everytime I hear one I instantly dislike them. Then after a few days I begin to think it must be me, since those amps are quite expensive and don't have that much features, so whatever it does has to be done properly by those amps. What a dissapointment. Same goes for those Fender practice amps.

Rodya: well, as you say, you want a pedal for blues sounds, a pedal for rock sounds and IMHO the clean of the amp ain't brilliant either. That doesn't leave much the amp itself does properly. :D Oh, your post reminds me that I really need to contact Paul about that profile beneath my articles. I don't live in Apeldoorn, didn't start last summer and do have a teacher. The only thing in it that's still correct is my name. ;)

Well I have a USA standard strat and to be honest, the MG30dfx makes the cleans of the strat sound dull and boring imo. Distorted is pretty much a joke (but im a noob to electric amp settings) until I tweak the hell out of it and even then im not happy.

Since I got my new acoustic (seagull s6+ cedar) I can't be bothered with the strat cause of the lame cleans :-). Once I try a new amp I'll maybe play both the acoustic and electric equally.

Was tryin out your lesson Arjen, pretty good. I never really played about with string skipping before so I was pretty bad at that to begin with. Gettin better tho :-) I'm currently attempting the Driver 8 guitar noise lesson and doing ok through the first 4 exercises but its getting harder.

If you get to try out the cube and the vox let me know which one you think sounds better cause I probably wont get a side by side tryout of them here.