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I'm looking for an amp that sounds decent and can play over drums/other instrumentalists in a small combo setting. However, most importantly, it needs to be SMALL. I'm talking something that can be carried easily from dorm to practice room to rehearsal room, etc. I was thinking a ZT lunchbox or some variety of Roland Cube, but I'd appreciate some recommendations.
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08-29-2013 12:29 PM
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Are you in europe? Then check out mambo amps! A search for mambo in this forum also will offer lots of opinions on them.
Best,
Helgo
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Mambo 8.
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Go for the MamboAmps!!
I have the 10'' that weights 8 kg.
Yesterday I was rehearsing with a really loud drummer and I could handle the situation really nice.
It really worths every pound!
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Unfortunately I'm not in Europe, and though the Mambo amps look lovely, they are way, way, way out of my price range, which I should have mentioned. I'd like to stay under $200. It doesn't have to sound absolutely incredible; I'd be happy if it just coaxed something workable out of a floating mini-humbucker archtop.
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Fender Mustang II or III? (Don't get the first version). Super cheap and light and sounds good.
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Under $200? I would look at used amps in your area (don't know where that is). You're looking for a small, clean amp. Lots of amp can have a jazz tone teased out of them. Perhaps a Roland Cube, just because there are plenty of them about and they are indestructible.
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I was ZT fan in the beginning, but fallen out of love with them. I would say for your price range and requirement a used Cube is probably going to be your best bet. Also the old Peavey Bandit amps can be found cheap, built like tanks and good general purpose amp.
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+1 for the cube
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Can't go wrong with a Cube at the low end or Quilter/Mambo/JazzAmp/AI at the high end.
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If you have an archtop, I highly recommend the Henriksen Jazzamp. Small, loud, light, and sounds fantastic. A bit pricey though.
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You could look into a loudbox mini. If you like a more acoustic tone out of your archtop, maybe a used one would be in your budget.
K
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Cube 40 or if you can find one, a Cube 60. I own both along with a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe, but find that for most of my playing the Cube does the trick and does it well.
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I agree that the Cubes have a great sound and are generally pretty easy to lug around. As the recent owner of a Cube 80XL (post-trade-in for my original Cube 30—my former "small amp" which was recently replaced by my Yamaha THR), I've been having a ball with it. Definitely gig and recording quality-worthy, IMO, very, very nice and pretty much all I've bothered to plug into lately.
Originally Posted by RoKr93
However, if you're after something to be "carried easily from...", I'd therefore recommend the smaller Cubes (since, for instance, my old Cube 30 is at least ten pounds lighter). The Cube 80's not too much bigger in actual size, but it is noticeably heavier. IMO.
Of course, YMMV based on yer own strength, endurance, along with the amassing number of feet leading from said dorm to practice space!
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For light and cheap in the used market at that budget, I'd say look at a Fender Super Champ xd/x2, Mustang II, or Cube 30/40. Super Champ might not have quite enough power but the best tone of the 3 in my opinion.
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Agreed on all counts. All are decent light-weight amps, each imminently lug-able. However, I just checked the specs... the Fender Super Champ is only a 15 watt amp and for $60 less (Fender's list price) you can get a Mustang III (look for the newest v.2 model!) with 100 watts and certainly a lot more clean headroom. Just something to think about..... Originally Posted by hallpass
I bought a Mustang II when they first came out (nice amp) but gave it to my son (who's learning guitar) when I upgraded to the III. Love it—although I do tend to use it more for rock/fusion stuff. For the $100 difference in price, man, the upgrade is most sincerely a no-brainer, IMO. (And coincidentally, the Mustang III and Cube 80XL are the same 'borderline' 36 lb. weight IMO—just a bit more than I'd personally care to, say, lug across campus. But then again, I'm certainly not college age any more, either!)
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The Fender SCXD weighs 24#. It has great voicings and effects and is plenty loud enough for small combos, in fact I played it with one last night at an outdoor party. You could also plug it into a larger cabinet if you needed more oomph.
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Mustang III, V2. With a little luck you can get one new for $300 or less. Weight is manageable even for an old dude like me. It will do clean, dirty and everything in between. I still prefer my DRRI or TRRI for tone, but the Mustang gets pretty close to both in a lighter package with plenty of effects to mess with if you are so inclined. On board tuner is nice too.
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Reverend Hellhound
Nice 1 x 12 lightweight, 2 channel tube combo...about 35 lbs...definitely toward light-ish side...great warm tube tones will even make a solid-body sound great for jazz sounds.
2 channel does everything from Fender-y cleans to Marshall-y dirt on 2nd channel...to Vox-ish AC-30's to dirty little Supro sounds....built under supervision of Dennis Kager. One nice feature is that it doesn't require bias adjustment when tubes go out.
Guitar Player Editor's Pick a few years ago...but like the other fine Reverend products...not able to sustain the marketing marathon because of guitarists with conservative tastes...so they are no longer made but they are around used for about $300 or so...too bad another U.S.-based company can't make it in today's marketplace
To me...tube amps have a warmth and dynamic, touch-sensitive response that is just not there with any solid state amp I've ever tried...I mean I like my Roland Jazz Chorus too, but it, like a Polytone or any other solid state amp just lacks a little something....dynamically...mostly
When I play my Aria Pro II, lawsuit 175 with the custom Pete Biltoft humbucker-sized P90 in the front pickup it is warm...but has that single-coil "sparkle" that to me defines the sound of jazz guitar...to me humbuckers sound shrill and mid-rangey and compressed--like a wet blanket on top of the instrument...Pete's P90 is louder, just as QUIET...much more touch-sensitive and has better, more musical highs and lows than any humbucker I've ever heard....the "Quest for Tone" can be really an... expensive time-waster...but I will say that I love the Jim Hall-ish 50's vibe of that combo...it sounds so good you don't have to overplay with a million notes...so in that sense I think good tone can be helpful, ultimately, to developing musicianship...and taste
Oh, one last thing on what is turning into a mini-rant...I prefer the sound of a laminate guitar to the sound of a solid-wood top archtop...and I have a Benedetto type spruce top archtop...but the laminate nails the sound I love on records....
big archtops with solid wood tops are nice to play for a while..but they're kind of like eating the Friendly's Jim Dandy sundae....too many flavors...too many overtones...TOO much tonal richness...after about 20 minutes I've had enough and I pick up the Aria 175, plug it into the Hellhound and drift away....
Oh yes, I've A-B'ed this instrument against some Gibson 175's with P90's in them....frankly some of them were awful...."lawyer-wood" instruments.....mid rangey and harsh and NOISY....not to say that there aren't a lot of great 175's out there...after all they did invent the iconic sound that is copied....what I'm really saying is judge each instrument on its own merits...I've had a couple of good Gibsons...a couple of ordinary Gibsons....a Japanese 335 "Orville" that looked superb but sounded...dead...same thing with Fender guitars
I bet if a lot of the people on this site tried one of Pete's humbucker-sized P90's and dropped it into their 175 or L5 or whatever else they have that is humbucker equipped, they would never go back to humbucker-land....or maybe we should just stipulate that "big jazz box with humbuckers" is the only ACCEPTABLE jazz tone and outlaw anyone else who uses anything else...BTW, please send me all your jazz guitar records from pre-1957 when the humbucker was invented----they can't possibly be worth listening to...but I'll happy to take that sonic drek off your hands.
PS---have no affiliation with Pete Biltoft...just a very, very happy customer of his...have a set of his tele pu's in a thin-finish partscaster I put together....and again that is a super, superb instrument.
I plead guilty to dropping in from rant-ville....as always my aim is to provoke thought, and reflection....as far as I know the NSA is not yet monitoring jazz guitar forums so I guess I'm safe....at least for a little while.
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Great little amp. I actually had #0064 until about five months ago. (Sold it locally on consignment to finance another archtop.) Mint condition, cowboy tolex and all, bought new when they came out (c.2001). Nice little amp that I was somehow never able to quite bond with (even over several years), and I'd always end up moving on to one of my other amps. Yeah, it did have a great tone, but still... I just never ended up playing it. Weird, I know. I guess that just shows how personal things can get with gear. Having said that, there are simply RAVE reviews online (which you could find on Harmony Central before it went belly-up, format-wise. Miss the olde dayz back at HC. Sniff). And, IIRC, GP wasn't the only publication to give the Hellhound it's highest reviews either. So please... if anyone here ever comes across a Hellhound, definitely do yourself a favor and at least try it out because it just might be your sound—even if it wasn't mine. Originally Posted by goldenwave77
By the way, it wasn't quite a 2-channel amp. It has a 'Schizo' switch on the front panel (not foot-switchable) that changes the amp's overall character from a Fender-like USA clean to more of a UK thicker, more mid-range tonality just as goldenwave mentions. So it's actually more like a 1-channel amp with very cool tweaking possibilities.
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roland cube fore sure
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