Good Small Practice Amp for Jazz

[Jim Soloway]

You can pick up an Electro Harmonix headphone amp for about $50 and it's one of the best practice tools I've ever owned. Great cleans. You can run it with pedals (I use my HOF mini reverb with it most of the time). Battery life is incredible and using a pair of headphones or decent buds makes the sound so present that you'll hear every flaw in your playing. My playing always gets better and more precise when I play with this setup for a while and I find it great for learning new things.

[rob taft]

Mark! Glad to see you again. My suggestion would be a Sans Amp Trademark 10. I have this stashed at my Mom's house and not only is it compact, and has spring reverb, it also gets passable rock and jazz tones. Really versatile little amp. I had added the Musicians Friend weblink but this board gave me a "denied" link. So Reverb link is below.


Tech 21 Trademark 10 (USA Made) | Musical Gear Attic | Reverb

[Boston Joe]

I've got the G60. Great amp. Much better than the price would suggest.

[John A.]

It's the battery powered part that intrigues me. Is it loud enough to handle, say, a small outdoor gig?

It depends on how loud and clean you want to be. I play Microcube outdoors a lot (not gigs, just noodling in the park). People definitely hear it, even when I have it turned down quite low. People busk in NYC with them. I did an open mic thing accompanying a singer/acoustic-guitar with it in a small room. It was loud enough for that. I did another thing in my kid's school auditorium where I played my Fender Champion 20 with a guy who was playing a Microcube. Packed auditorium full of screaming kids, neither amp mic'ed, people heard the Microcube. However, if Dennis Chambers is on the gig, you need a Roland Street Cube for that.

John

[fep]

Katana 50 and 100

[Doctor Jeff]

I took a Pignose to a practice session and was disappointed with the lack of clean headroom. Would be OK for American Woman or Spirit in the Sky, I guess.

I would be interested in a small unit 10# or less, preferably with a battery option. Just has to keep up with acoustic bass and piano.

Lunchbox Jr? Cube Street? Cube Acoustic Chorus?

Any thoughts or experience with them?

[sgosnell]

If you already have a small speaker cabinet, a micro head makes a lot of sense. Quilter, TC, GK, et al offer various models. For battery use, I use a Beaudens portable power station, which has been discussed here before.

[John A.]

Any of these is infinitely better than a Pignose:

• Roland Microcube GX -- I have one. Sounds great for the size, batteries last a long time, under 10 lbs, very easy to carry around. I'm on my second one (got about 9 years of frequent use out of my first one before it crapped out).
• The Cube Street is bigger, heavier (12 lbs), and more expensive, but sounds good and allows for multiple inputs (more like a mini PA than a guitar amp).
• MicroCube Rx -- bigger and heavier than the regular than the GX (14 lbs). Sounds really good. There's also a bigger version that's crazy loud.
• Fender Champion 20 is better sounding than any of the battery-powered Rolands, manageable weight (12 lbs), but not battery powered. It's a legit 20 watt amp that can hang with quiet drums, but is very portable (I carry mine to jams all the time, or at least used to ...).
• One of the Yamaha THR 5 watt amps -- I haven't played them but they get rave reviews, and people who've tried both say they're better than a MicroCube GX. Not sure of the weight, but I think around 10 lbs and battery powered (though I don't think you get a lot of life out of the batteries)

I've also tried the Vox 3-ish watt battery powered amp, but didn't like its sound.

John

[WilliamScott]

I really like my Roland AC 33. Will run on batteries. Even has a looper.

[citizenk74]

Mine has pretty good clean headroom, and nice reverb. I suppose it depends on how loud your pianist plays. Setting the amp on a chair improves projection.