amp recommendations

[elinfoot]

Hi all,

I've recently joined my first band and my amp isn't really up for the job . I need something which is small (and portable) loud!! ( the drummer and bassist do like to turn it up) while still sounding good. The amps I've been thinking about so far are the ZT club and the peavey classic 30. Does any one have any experience with these amps and/or other recommendations?

[Tom Karol]

Well, you'll find threads all over this board touching on this subject if you do a little digging. I think either one will do the job, and you may be able to find a used Classic 30 at a good price. But I'll add this: I have a Club that I use for rock with a Tele and (usually) a Carl Martin Quattro processor. It sounds good - maybe not great - but at 22 lbs with a 12" speaker, it's pound-for-pound potentially the loudest little gigging amp I've ever encountered.

[elinfoot]

Cheers Tom,

I've been looking at a lot of reviews for both.I like the idea of portability although the tube snob in me isn't sure about going back to solid state the zt club is supposed to sound good turned up. I'm planning to use whichever amp with my line6 pod hd300 in front of it. At the moment I have a blackstar ht-5 which is a great little amp. What I'd really like to do is to somehow turn it into a higher wattage louder amp but without changing it's size. The HT venue series amps are way too big. The band I've joined wants to do fusion and play louder than your average jazz band.

[Tom Karol]

Funny thing about the Club: In my living room, it doesn't please me that much. But turn it up a bit at a gig, and it really shines. Looks like a space heater though! And, yes, I too used (heavy) tube amps for many years.

[elinfoot]

I've just got the newsletter of a jazz guitar society that I attend. It has a for sale section and theres a zt club for sale for £225. I think I may have to take a look..

[Doctor Jeff]

I had a Classic 30 a few years ago. Nice amp, extremely loud, not great for living room use, so I traded it in. It is also very heavy, about 45#, which for me was a problem. I never gigged with it though.

I did like the sound--very Tweedy, bluesy but with a nice warm clean tone for jazz.

[ESCC]

elinfoot

I too own an HT-5 and am a huge fan of the amp, would love to have an excuse to buy the HT-40 or 60. The HT-40 is about the same size as a Peavey 30(?) which you're considering.

[elinfoot]

In the end I bought the zt club. It was going for £220 which was over half the price of the peavy. I only got it Yesterday while at the Huddersfield Jazz Guitar Society ( If any of you live near huddersfield ,we meet on the 1st tuesday of the month at the Head of Steam pub) . It sounded pretty groovy ,seemed quite loud (it was probably only turned up 1/3 of the way) and didn't way too much although it is still too heavy to lug from the trainstation to my house without swapping hands every few minutes.

I'm looking forward to trying it with my line 6 this evening

[newsense]

Originally Posted by elinfoot

If any of you live near huddersfield ,we meet on the 1st tuesday of the month at the Head of Steam pub

Is that the one on the station ? What time does it start ?

[elinfoot]

That's the one! It starts about 8pm

[elinfoot]

I tried the line6 pod hd last night and it does sound pretty sweet,which is nice because some of the overdriven clips on youtube sounded pretty bad. Now the last thing is how does it sound turned up with a band?I'll be finding out soon.

[BluePete]

Hi there elinfoot. I regularly use a POD XT3 modelling a Fender Tweed Bassman in my live gigs, generally straight into the house PA. When I can be bothered, I take along a 150 w PA monitor and plug one of the POD's output into that as well, for my own listening comfort. Since I do quite a bit of unison guitar soloing/voice scatting, I also use the POD's mic input for Tone 2, so that I have my own mixing control for mike volume. Enjoy. Pete