Recommend an amp

ciaranmac

I have a Line 6 Spider IV 15w and I was thinking of getting a more powerful amp for gigging - which I hope to be doing in a month or two as part of a band. The type of music would be a mix of classic rock, metal, punk, grunge, indie etc. What would youse recommend in the 100w range?

hidinginthebush

Unless you need a lot of headroom for cleans at high volumes (which you probably don't with the type of music you listed) 100W would probably be too much, most bigger places you might gig would have a PA. What sort of budget do you have?

stephenshields2

ciaranmac wrote: »

I have a Line 6 Spider IV 15w and I was thinking of getting a more powerful amp for gigging - which I hope to be doing in a month or two as part of a band. The type of music would be a mix of classic rock, metal, punk, grunge, indie etc. What would youse recommend in the 100w range?

Are we talkin 100w tranny or all 100w all valve?

Big difference!

ciaranmac

The budget is whatever I can scrape together really, to put a number on it probably €250-300 max. I saw an ad for a Marshall VS100R hybrid for €160 but it was sold the day before I found it. I take the point about not needing 100w - I'm a bit new to this so any advice is helpful.

MilanPan!c

ciaranmac wrote: »

The budget is whatever I can scrape together really, to put a number on it probably €250-300 max. I saw an ad for a Marshall VS100R hybrid for €160 but it was sold the day before I found it. I take the point about not needing 100w - I'm a bit new to this so any advice is helpful.

I have a 30 watt Orange head that's extremely loud.

Jimmy Page used the same one for the Zep reunion.

Yep 30 watts.

100 watts is pretty crazy.

Choose based on sound and reliability, not wattage or brandname.

For what it's worth, 350 is pretty low for a decent amp. In my opinion.

Demeyes

You need to decide on what you want, a head/cab or a combo. I would think you'd need a bit more money to get a decent setup, but it's worth investing a little extra now and not have to upgrade in a few months when you want something better sounding.
If you go solid state you could get something like a peavey bandit or a Marshall MG or AVT, but to be honest those amps are glorified practice amps and they aren't great for gigs.
If you go used you could probably pick up a used peavey valveking or windsor, Laney GH50, or something like the Orange tiny terror or jet city JCA20H. All great options and very gigable despite the low wattage because they are tube amps. You'd need a cab to pair these off with. On a budget you can't go wrong with the Harley Benton 2x12 with the V30 speakers. It's only €200 new from thomann, I have one and it sounds grand and it's fine for practices and gigs.

Yakult

For €350 (£299) you can get a Laney LC30. Ex Demo. Great deal there.
http://www.guitarampkeyboard.com/en/75481

zafo

I love my LC30 although mine is the older model.

quicklickpaddy

If you stretch to €400-€450 you'll probably find a Fender Deluxe Hot Rod on adverts. Brilliant amp. Haven't met anyone that doesn't love it before. It's 40 Watt but if you're miced up you won't need any more.

Paolo_M

stephenshields2 wrote: »

Are we talkin 100w tranny or all 100w all valve?

Big difference!

There sure is

Yakult

MY EYES!!!!!

Sandvich

R_H_C_P wrote: »

MY EYES!!!!!

Yeah, the artifacts on that photo are pretty bad. Whoever took it needs to take a photography/photoshop course.

quicklickpaddy wrote: »

If you stretch to €400-€450 you'll probably find a Fender Deluxe Hot Rod on adverts. Brilliant amp. Haven't met anyone that doesn't love it before. It's 40 Watt but if you're miced up you won't need any more.

Not really. Lots of people complain about the drive channel on those, and they are "Loud" amps, as in they need to be turned up loud to get a really good tone, and fatigue the ear pretty easy at that volume(in my experience anyway - sister's wedding band used one). The drive channel is good for a certain kind of tone, playing Santana type stuff and certain kinds of blues/classic rock. I can't imagine the drive on it being useful for grunge, and definitely not metal.

There's no point stretching the budget just for the sake of getting a "proper" tube amp that isn't very versatile anyway. There's lots of great budget stuff.

I would disagree that headroom isn't an issue. Plenty of metal songs have lots of cleans in them(and often "clean cleans" rather than bluesy breakup), think of Metallica's "One", a load of Opeth stuff, etc. though some of these bands run two amps, an SS like a Jazz Chorus and a high gain tube amp. Metaller amps these days are generally designed to give you good cleans to avoid this.

Also, high gain amps have lots of wattage for a reason too, unlike with other amps you generally want to try and avoid too much power tube saturation(though for that big boomy sound to be dead on, you generally need a little). Depends what sound you're going for of course.

Honestly, for a good workhorse amp in that range that will cover those genres, get a Peavey Bandit, and some kind of a Big Muff type yoke for the grunge(or any cheap fuzz pedal really). Plenty of clean headroom, good vintage rock tones, better high gain than a lot of tube amps twice it's price. You can get one for under 200 used. Make sure to get one of the newer ones though, with the red stripe or grey face. The older ones aren't bad amps but the new ones are actually pretty dead on for "tube" like tone.

For modelers you might want to check out the new Fender Mustang II, the Super Champ XD(tube power section, can score it for under €250 easy enough), the new Valvetronix+ coming out later in the year. The Peavey Vypyrs are meant to be good too, mostly for metal, but have some reliability issues(may have been fixed). The bigger ones also model pedals, so you can get your Boss DS-1 or Fuzz going before the amp for your grunge. The VT+s have pedals too.

Some of the Marshall Valvestate stuff actually isn't all that bad either. Importantly it's cheap and fairly widely available. The older ones are meant to sound really good, though lack some of the features of the newer ones.

You're not really going to get a good, giggable tube amp for that price unless you get lucky. There are some options if you keep checking adverts though. You could probably get a fairly decent 15 Watt tube amp easy enough, but that might not give you the headroom you want if you want actual "cleans" in a band setting - most of these amps are designed to give you a dirty tube tone at relatively low volumes, and are often only single channel. Also depends largely on the amp/speaker sensitivity, but a more sensitive speaker also means you have to turn it up even louder to get the tubes running warm. If you're going to get a tube amp you may want to consider keeping the Spider for jamming around the house.