I'm a bit of an equipment hoarder. I've picked up so much music gear over the years and tend not to sell any of it. Amps? I started with a solid-state (meaning no valves) Peavey practice amp, sold it. Then a loud-enough-to-gig Marshall Valvestate (had a single valve buried somewhere in the preamp/poweramp stage), sold that. Then, I stopped selling things...
Just like most of the world's working guitarists, I got the all-valve Fender Blues Deluxe. Best amp in the world? Not at all! But relatively cheap, masses of volume, ultra reliable, great clean sound, takes pedals very well, heavy-ish but manageable, and fits in any car.
Stage amps don't sound good at low volume so I got a fancy practice amp, the Yamaha THR10C. A modelling amp, basically a computer pretending to be an amp. In this case, 5 different amps with built-in basic effects. Wow! Great clear sound at low, low volume. Wonderful.
Cos I got a job, I got an upgrade. Enter the Spark by Positive Grid. Like the THR10 series, it has built-in effects but now it's all of them! Fully controllable from an app. Also, it links to YouTube and teaches you any song you select. And, most impressively, it can generate a band where you tell it the style, play some chords and it joins in with you. Having no friends was never so much fun. Absolutely stunning. But, obviously the Yamaha and Spark are for home use only.
Duly impressed by these new-fangled technological developments, I wanted the stage version of a modeler. I went with the Boss Katana Artist. All solid-state but stage loud, with all the effects built-in. Amazing. The perfect cover-band amp, capable of replicating any sound.
But then, I saw the Revv D20. You may need to sit down. It's a full valve amp head. Plug it into a speaker and away you go, just like it's the 70s all over again.
I can't remember any of the 70s so that means I was there. It's also switchable from 20 watts down to 4 watts. As I said, stage amps don't sound good at low volume. But, at home or in the studio, setting it to 4W means it now behaves and sounds like a stage amp on full roar at low volume. Wow.
But there's more! It has a headphone output with a reactive load, meaning you can run this amp without a speaker attached (normally this leads to voltage spikes that would damage your valve amp). So, perfect all-valve sound in your ears with no unhappy spouse/neighbours while you rawk!
But, wait! There's more! It has an output to go direct to a PA, so you can have your stage volume be appropriate while sending an independent signal to front-of-house. This is normally achieved by a microphone in front of your cabinet, signal going to the PA. How is it possible direct? You guessed it, there's more!
The direct-out uses a built-in Two Notes Torpedo! At home, your amp sends a beautiful signal to your computer where you add any speaker cabinet and microphone combination that you like, playing around with it for days if you like, even though it sounds ace straight away. You can edit the software and store 6 cabinets on your amp, meaning you can gig without a PC, plugging straight into whatever speaker cabinet you have with you as normal, but with the option to send your choice of virtual cabinet direct through the PA. Wow. Not as a gimmick, but at a pro-recording studio level of fidelity for both live and studio use.
Just like most of the world's working guitarists, I got the all-valve Fender Blues Deluxe. Best amp in the world? Not at all! But relatively cheap, masses of volume, ultra reliable, great clean sound, takes pedals very well, heavy-ish but manageable, and fits in any car.
Stage amps don't sound good at low volume so I got a fancy practice amp, the Yamaha THR10C. A modelling amp, basically a computer pretending to be an amp. In this case, 5 different amps with built-in basic effects. Wow! Great clear sound at low, low volume. Wonderful.
Cos I got a job, I got an upgrade. Enter the Spark by Positive Grid. Like the THR10 series, it has built-in effects but now it's all of them! Fully controllable from an app. Also, it links to YouTube and teaches you any song you select. And, most impressively, it can generate a band where you tell it the style, play some chords and it joins in with you. Having no friends was never so much fun. Absolutely stunning. But, obviously the Yamaha and Spark are for home use only.
Duly impressed by these new-fangled technological developments, I wanted the stage version of a modeler. I went with the Boss Katana Artist. All solid-state but stage loud, with all the effects built-in. Amazing. The perfect cover-band amp, capable of replicating any sound.
But then, I saw the Revv D20. You may need to sit down. It's a full valve amp head. Plug it into a speaker and away you go, just like it's the 70s all over again.
I can't remember any of the 70s so that means I was there. It's also switchable from 20 watts down to 4 watts. As I said, stage amps don't sound good at low volume. But, at home or in the studio, setting it to 4W means it now behaves and sounds like a stage amp on full roar at low volume. Wow.
But there's more! It has a headphone output with a reactive load, meaning you can run this amp without a speaker attached (normally this leads to voltage spikes that would damage your valve amp). So, perfect all-valve sound in your ears with no unhappy spouse/neighbours while you rawk!
But, wait! There's more! It has an output to go direct to a PA, so you can have your stage volume be appropriate while sending an independent signal to front-of-house. This is normally achieved by a microphone in front of your cabinet, signal going to the PA. How is it possible direct? You guessed it, there's more!
The direct-out uses a built-in Two Notes Torpedo! At home, your amp sends a beautiful signal to your computer where you add any speaker cabinet and microphone combination that you like, playing around with it for days if you like, even though it sounds ace straight away. You can edit the software and store 6 cabinets on your amp, meaning you can gig without a PC, plugging straight into whatever speaker cabinet you have with you as normal, but with the option to send your choice of virtual cabinet direct through the PA. Wow. Not as a gimmick, but at a pro-recording studio level of fidelity for both live and studio use.
Is my amp journey over? Probably, now that I've found the perfect amp...we'll see...