Low Wattage VS High Wattage

From experience [30 years playing time]I have found that unless your playing at a stadium, or outdoors, low wattage amps are the way to go, Im talking about basement, garage, or small venue, which the majority of people playing are usually in this type of situation, not in front of 80,000 people. With the smaller wattage amps you can turn it wide open and get the tubes sizzeling to full saturation, and if needed you can mike through the pa.system. I have a 50 watt marshall, a 100 watt marshall, and a marshall studio 15 watt, I finally got the sound I have looked for, for small venue gigs without having to use attenuators to screw the tone to hell and back, the smaller wattage amp.well now I have stated my opinion, so let me hear what your input on this issue is, Im sure theres plenty out there.
[ ROCK ON ] Guitarmanxxxx

Yeah, running a good small amp through a P.A system i have heard is good but how much is that going to cost to set up and is it easy to move around? Surely the smaller amps cant compare to a nice half stack or stack amp... i mean why not just buy a half stack and run that through a P.A system ?
Ok i'm just asking questions here cuz i dont know much about this stuff i'm not critisizing you for your ideas !

Death 55, Im not saying a half stack or full stack is bad, I have two 4x12 cabinets and the high power amps myself, but in a small venue playing situation, I can't get the tone Im wanting because I cant turn up the amps high enough to get the tubes cookin without blowing eardrums and causing stuff to fall off the walls. If I play outdoors, hell yeah break out the big guns. I have had no luck using attenuators, or keeping the master volume knob turned down, its just not the same. for the record I read where jethrol tull recorded three albums in the studio with the studio 15 and most recording is done with lower wattage amps in the studio's. If you have a place to practice big enough to turn a 100 watt amp on 8 or 9 your very fortunate, and should crank the hell out of it.I dont play out anymore, I get together with the guys in a large basement and jam, and I will assure you the drummer can't drown me out.Have a good one and [ROCK ON] Guitarmanxxxx

I think I made my position clear back in 2001.

I think it's more of a personal prefence than anything else, and there's some other stuff that has to be taken into consideration, like details. For example, you can take a decent 15w practice amp from fender or gibson or ibenhad and I can guarantee a decent stack is going to rip its balls off and skin them. On the other hand, you take a bad cat 15w or a carr 12w and PA it you're probably going to have way better tone than if you just blast the place with marshalls. A 15w hot cat model from bad cat might even have way more/better gain than some marshall stacks (can't say I've ever owned either).

My view is similar to guitarman's except I haven't had the pleasure of playing guitar (or being alive) that long.

Well help me out here guitarmanxxxxx, because right now Im a bedroom guitarist and I have a full marshall stack! Ive tried every size of marshall and the stack has been the best, perhaps the 100 watt AVT marshall combo thru a marshall cab was close but its still not my stack.
I really dont get what people are talking about. Its all theory to some of you guys.

Tell me how to get a better tone as a bedroom guitarist!

Originally posted by guitarmanxxxx
I can't get the tone Im wanting because I cant turn up the amps high enough to get the tubes cookin without blowing eardrums and causing stuff to fall off the walls.

I see what you mean. Maybe your amps are not good enough. I have heard some high wattage amps can give you a really good tone at a low volume as well as when you have it at a high volume. E.g the 5150 II. Thats why i'm thinking of getting one because i will hopefully be able to have it at a lower volume and still get the nice tone. I know my friend was saying about getting a lower wattage amp and running it though a P.A system. I have read in a previous post about really famous bands running lower wattage amps through a P.A. I guess its a personal opinion. Some high wattage amps you will never get that great tone at low volume.

In live sound, you will always want to try and get the backline to be as quiet as possible. Low wattage amps are perfect for that because they hit that "sweet spot" at lower volume levels than big amps do.(ps: with the 5150, there's not much of a sweet spot to hit below 120dB...)
If you have a full blown stack, and you're running it below its potential/capacity, then what's the use in dragging that monster around to every gig or even owning it? Sure, two 4X12 cabinets look cool and all, but you're only going to end up mic'ing one of those drivers!

The only reason anyone should ever really need a stack is if you're playing gigs where there is no PA system available...

Perhaps your're just looking in the wrong place.

A few of Carvin's amps can get a great sound at low or high volumes (different numbers of tubes achieve this, I think).

Originally posted by sambob
Perhaps your're just looking in the wrong place.

I KNOW there are big amps that have a good tone at low levels, but to me they are a waste of money and space in my car, plus an avoidable source of back pain...

I know a lot of guys love their big amps, but the thing is that most of them simply don't need them. A nice 1X12 combo(or even a 2X12 if you're running stereo effects) is all you need.

They may not NEED them, but they often want them, and prefer them.

Hell, I don't NEED to play guitar at all, but I do.

And I was talking about some of Carvins smaller amps, combo amps.



I do prefer smaller amps though. My Roland Jazz Chorus (even the smaller 90 watt version of the 120), can be quite loud (since they of cousre have two amps in them).

axl rose,
If your playing through a solid state amp,[AVT] and not a tube amp, it really dont matter if you have the volume on 1 or 10, your going to get the same tone. With the tube amp, you need the volume turned up to get the tubes fully saturated, to where you almost hear the amp breathing. If you get some extra money put back, buy you a low wattage tube amp,with a 1x12 or hook up a 2x12 cab to it and experiment with it, you wont be sorry you did. But if for some reason you dont like it, hey, there's plenty of guitarists out there that will buy it from you, and you will be out no money. Now as far as the theory part, wrong [its fact] Ive played and owned many ,many amps, including solid states, until I played on my first tube amp, and have'nt looked back since, you will just have to experiment and learn, just like I did, I hope you figure it out a lot faster and cheaper than it took me. Good Luck with your journey, and the main thing - have fun doing it.
Guitarmanxxxx

Yea but am happy with my tone!! and the depth and clarity from massive speakers!

I suppose as long as your happy with your tone from a big amp thats fine. Oh well, if i do get a big amp and need to have it at a certain volume before i can get the best tone from the tubes so be it. I dont really like my neighbours anyway and i'm sure my parents will get use to the noise :)

Axl rose,
If your happy with your tone that is all that matters. Have you ever played on a good tube amp? If so,
do you like the sound of a solid state better than a tube
amp? Im just curious. Enjoy your stack ! ! [ROCK ON]
Guitarmanxxxx

Originally posted by Death55
Oh well, if i do get a big amp and need to have it at a certain volume before i can get the best tone from the tubes so be it. I dont really like my neighbours anyway and i'm sure my parents will get use to the noise :)

Who cares about parents and neighbours? If it's so loud that they start complaining, just imagine what that noise is doing to your ears...

Good point there.

Also, the volume you listen to music effects your ear for tone. At different volumes you learn to listen to different things, such as subtle harmonics you would normally miss at low volume, whereas on the other hand if you're playing too loud you won't get any detail at all, you'll just hear noise. That's one reason to wear earplugs to concerts, not so much to protect your hearing so much as to hear what's being played more clearly.

Originally posted by Lordathestrings 09-04-2001
Gigging bands are moving away from the 'wall of amplifiers' approach. A small (5-15 Watts) all-tube amp with a DI port, and/or a mic in front of the speaker, has been a common studio rig since forever, but this setup is making its way onto more and more club stages.

You can lug this rig around from gig to gig without bustin' yer arse, or praying for the day you can afford a roadie!

You can get the same sound on stage that you worked so hard on in practice. You can drive the power stage of the amp into the 'sweet spot' without melting the first four rows of your audience. :eek: :eek:

Your sound man can finally balance the FOH monitors with the house sound so that :D everybody :D can hear clearly.

And with a lot of clubs crowding the maximum number of tables into the room by reducing the stage area, you just can't strut your stuff in front of a half-dozen 4x12 cabs anymore! (as if!)

If you're playing the Dome, or Wembley, you're in a position to rent enough gear for the occasion to fill several trucks. The rest of us have smaller-scale scenes to make.

I have an Ampeg VT-22 2x12 combo that weighs 100 pounds before I stuff all kinds of cords, stompboxes and such into the cab. The sound stays clean right up to the point where I need a 20 foot jack-cord to keep from hurting myself!

It makes for gorgeous, ballsy, distortion in the studio, but its just stupid loud in a club. I usually settle for 'front-end' distortion generated by my Peavey Rock Master preamp.

I'm in the planning stages of designing a single-tube Class A power amp combo. Would you believe 2x8? Output will be about 5 or 6 Watts. (For Blues, I expect to spend more time enjoying the 'sweet spot' than playing clean'n'dry). It will have a small equipment rack for my preamp, and whatever.

Check some of the articles posted at: http://www.amptone.com/
and take some time to think clearly about it. I'm fired-up about this topic, so I'll be posting again, for sure. If you have questions, please ask.

I don't use the Peavey preamp with my VT-22 anymore. If I want loud, and clean, that's my rig. I built the WeeBeastie amp in a breadboard kinda way, and it worked out really nice, but then I never got around to doing it up in a proper chassis. That's because I rebuilt a salvaged 1977 master volume VT-40 into a 1x15" combo with a WeberVST Ceramic California speaker. The speaker does not break up at all, even when I drive it from the VT-22. Any growl comes from the amp. With adjustable input sensitivity and master volume to control the drive into the power stage, I can get pretty much any sound I want, over a wide range of volume levels. That reduced the need for the WeeBeastie. If I ever put another band together, I'm going to insist on the 'lil amp' approach..... and get a jazz drummer who understands how to play without trying to smash the drum heads. :)

:( Stop it all of you! OK OK OK! My solid state marshall combo had a marginally better tone! But that was down also the on board effects which Ive never been able to match with rackmount equipment!
Ive tried so many pedals and racks insearch of the perfect reverband never found it! Right now I have a Yamamha SPX90 like slash himself and I still cant get it right!
The Marshall AVT100 combo, when linked up to a 4 by 12 was awesome! Am thinking of getting the AVT150 head and trying it instead of my tube head!

Axl,
The avt you have is not a true tube amp, you have a pre amp tube [ 12xa7 ] to get even close to the slash tone you would have to have 4 pre amp tubes and 4 power amp tubes, but even then you wont be able to turn it on 10 wide open like he does unless your outdoors or in a stadium, do what you gotta man, I was just trying to help. good luck in your quest for your sound, if you have not been to the amptone site lordofthestrings was talking about, you ought to check it out. I have been to the site many times and I can tell you anything you want to know is there for the learning, amps, tone, speakers, guitars, recording, and on and on.
Have fun jammin Axl, talk at ya later,[ROCK ON]GUITARMANXXXX