This is essentially the amp I have for my band (I use the previous generation of it, called the Revv 7/40 Mk2)
3 channels, midi controllable, built in reactive load, IRs. This one does everthing, from pop to classic rock, hard rock and metal. This is why I picked it for my live amp - incredible range of tones, and works nicely with a multi FX board for presets and effects
I used my Soldano SLO30 to cover Gary Moore before, for example the Still Got The Blues solo cover I posted on YouTube. This is a smaller version, with those modern features you ask for:
I had this one briefly, also an incredible 3-channel amp. Only 15W, which can be a good or bad thing. It was NOT loud enough for me, but sounded great for home use and studio recordings:
Small lunchbox version of the Revv tones. Fewer tonal options, but still built-in Torpedo load:
Tried it briefly, not sure I would recommend this one over the other options (including the Engl), but itās probably the cheapest. And still sounds decent!
What youāre asking for is generally speaking a bit expensive! But depending on where you are in the world prices might differ, or you can find some of them on the used market.
Itās a solid amp. I have one with a Cannabis Rex speaker (which tames some highs). As I mentioned up-thread, I like the amp better when I put it through a bigger cabinet, though. It opens it up.
Oh, I see. I probably misunderstood. Yeah, the tube Deluxe Reverb lacks those features (although itās a problem that can be solved with more money ā something like the Torpedo CaptorX adds attenuation and XLR and IR cab simulation to any tube amp).
Iāve played that amp. Itās a good amp, very old school in some ways (e.g., single channel, more of a 60s Marshall vibe), but with some modern touches. I think it would be a solid choice.
Thereās nothing wrong with a bit of GAS. I understand your want/need for a new amp. Experimenting with different gear is how we eventually learn what we like best.
Iāve been playing guitar for 30+ years and have owned lots of different amps. Solid state, tube/valve, digital modelling etcā¦ They can all be great. It just depends what you like and what works best for you.
In my opinion, the best sounding and āfeelingā amps are valve. I particularly like vintage style, single channel amps by Fender, Marshall and Vox. Most of my favourite guitarists use/used them. I currently own some high end hand-wired valve amps by Fender and Two-Rock. They sound great for live use with a loud band but are too loud for practice or recording at home. I wouldnāt suggest buying a Deluxe Reverb RI. I think that would be far too loud for you. I used to own a Fender Blues Junior. Thatās a good little valve amp with a master volume.
I also own a Fender Tone Master Deluxe Reverb. It is by far the best sounding and āfeelingā digital modelling amp I have ever played. Although I own several nice valve amps, I tend to use the TMDR most of the time. It just seems to work in every situation. I use it for practice and recording at home and for gigs at any volume. Iāve even done silent-stage gigs with it using the XLR out and muting the speaker.
Please note that the TMDR doesnāt really do overdrive. Itās not designed for that. Most guitarists who use blackface Fender amps run them clean or only slightly overdriven. You can turn the volume up to make the amp distort but itās not a particularly āniceā sound. If you want full-on rock overdrive (for that Gary Moore sound), you would need to use an overdrive pedal. Thatās what I do and what most professional guitarists do these days.
I, probably mistakenly, focused on this aspect as, from your post, I thought that open-mic usage was a lot of what was driving your potential purchase.
And I stand by that. A tube amp isnāt going to be useful at an Open Mic. But, having thought some more about it, itās likely that no amp will be useful for Open Mics. In my experience, thereās two main types of Open Mic (Iām ignoring online Open Mics here):
The most common open mic events which are mostly for solo acoustic players, although I have seen duets and use of electric guitars, but there are all mostly unaccompanied. Iāve also seen people bring in loopers and drum machines but, beyond that, backing tracks arenāt the vibe here and would probably be frowned on.
The band style open mics where a full band is available for singers and other musicians to join in with (usually taking over from one of the bandsās players). These are less common.
In both of these, itās usual for the event to supply most, or even all of the gear.
In the āsolo acousticā type, itās common for performers to bring their guitar and any additional stuff like loopers, but any amplification (usually a PA) is provided by the event.
In the ābandā type, the event normally provides all of the equipment including the instruments. Iāve seen some players bring their own guitars, but even that is discouraged a bit as it messes with the whole operation.
In both cases, bringing your own amp (tube or otherwise) would normally be a no-no.
Even a modelling pedal would be frowned on unless it was needed for essential fx other than amp simulation.
Open Mics have a lot of turn-over and, usually, each performer only does a couple of songs. Us sound techs donāt want to spend 20 mins between each 10 min performance messing around cabling up and sound-checking someone elseās gear just because they are precious about āma toneā.
Now this is for Open Mic events which are normally very different from other types of performance.
If you were, for example, looking to start a band or even have a solo act where you were booked in (for instance to a bar or pub) to perform at least one set of songs, then you would be expected to bring most of your own gear, including any amps. The venue may provide a PA and a sound tech (or they may not).
If you are looking at doing this type of performance in the future then, yes, you may decide a tube amps is the right thing for you. I would still suggest you consider the practicalities of that vs a modeller though as approximately 100% of the audience wonāt care.
But if you want to get a tube amp because you want to explore it, then Iām not going to be the one to tell you not to at all. I have 2 amps with tubes in them.
Well, yes, exactly. I was making it clear itās (normally) a separate purchase.
Also to note:an amp with master volume is not the same as an attenuator/load-box. Yes you can turn down the volume on an amp with master volume, but you will also be turning down the ability for the power amp, transformer, speaker, and cabinet to generate tone: you will get some tube tones from the pre-amp tubes, but will lack the tones from the rest of the chain. Frankly, you may as well get a āhybridā tube amp which combines a tube-preamp with a solid-state power amp.
If you really want to chase tones, you should look at an attenuator/load-box which allows you to drive the power amp and transformer hard to get the tones from those. Note that you can get cheap ones but they tend to be rubbish. Good āreactive loadsā are more expensive.
Also, even with these, you will probably be using software emulation to get the speaker and cabinet response.
My point here is that, yes you need a line-out but that doesnāt have to be XLR unless you are on large stages with long cable runs. A TS style unbalanced line-out is fine for smaller gigs and home use most of the time.
Probably me reading your post on a small screen after a few beers, and getting the wrong end of the stick. Sorry about that.
As I pointed out, you almost certainly will NOT use it on an Open Mic (at least not an in-person one).
If you branch out into performances beyond Open Mics, then you might.
Data storage is really cheap. On most modellers, the constraint is CPU/DSP power which limits how many models (amps or FX) you can use at once.
Appreciate the details on gear expectations for an open mic versus play a couple songs at a bar solo or with a band. I guess I had both kinds in mind. I need something to do in my (not too distant) retirement!
Hi! Iām relatively new here - should probably post an introduction at some point - but I was recently in a similar situation so thought Iād share my experiences.
Iām less experienced than you - wouldnāt put myself in the āintermediateā category yet - and definitely new to electric guitars. I was looking for a better amp than the tiny combo deal practice amp I was using, and was trying to choose between a modelling amp or a cheap tube amp. For me, the main decision to go for the tube amp was 1) not having to overthink whether any artifacts in the sound stem from the modelling or my playing (although obviously my playing is going to be the weakest link in any chain at the moment), and 2) having fewer dials to fiddle with so I donāt get stuck chasing the ārightā parameters instead of actually practicing.
My criteria were 1) price, 2) fx loop, and 3) attenuation since Iāll mostly be using this at household volume levels.
I ended up springing for a $250-ish deal on a Bugera G5 Infinium head, hoping I could pick up a cheap speaker cabinet secondhand. I was lucky and found a 1x12-inch Laney IRT cab for around $70. The G5 has switchable attenuation between 0.1W/1W/5W, so you can get nice distortion even at low volume levels. Even 5W packs a surprising amount of punch with a tube amp (although I suspect the Laney speaker is also quite easy to drive).
It has headphone out (with cabinet emulation switchable between 1x12 and 4x12 speaker setups), but no XLR out. The Blackstar HT-5R (of which the Bugera is basically a clone) does have XLR out (looks like even USB-C digital output in the latest version). Both the Bugera and the Blackstar also come in 20W versions if you need more power - these are obviously more expensive but should still be well below the $1k mark. They also come in combo versions. You can find lots of reviews/demos of these on Youtube to get an idea of the sound. Word of warning, I have seen people complaining about QC / reliability issues with both brands, for me the price was low enough that I was willing to take the chance.
No regrets about my decision at least - I could probably have picked up a decent used modelling amp second-hand for around 1/2 the price, but then I still would have had to compromise on other things (like the fx loop).
Hey Ashu!
Disclaimer - I am a relatively new to electric guitar, late stage beginner who loves guitars & their associated gear.
Based on what youāve said, I would recommend at least checking out Harmonyās amps. I have an H605 (5 watt) but Harmony also has the H620 (20 watt)& the H650(50 watt). The H650 is the most expensive one at 1K. They all have effects loops, built in attenuators, reverb, master volume, line out, presence knob and come with 2 foot switches. The H620 & H650 have built in tremelo. I really like the H605 for at home use.
What initially interested me in the Harmony brand was a guy playing through one at a coffee shopā¦ scruffy beat-up gear, the guy looked like someone youād cross the street to avoid, ya know? Turns out he was a really nice, soft spoken man with a talent & his guitar tone was magical! The amp was a little 5w Harmony that was older than the 6-Series line that theyāre selling now.
Check one out - I think they are at Guitar Center now.
Good luck!
Beat me to it, in my case a 1x8 Orange cab for bedroom and a 2x12 Celestion loaded s/h Harley Benton cab for other use. Itās a great simple tube amp that looks nice but delivers way above its cost, itās an ideal amp to test the water to see if Tube amps float your boat with and running at 5W into a 2x12 would be loud enough for an open mic.
I have not tried this particular one, but be warned that most (all?) attenuators will alter the tone pretty significantly. In my experience itāll appear dark and more hollowed out. The more you attenuate, the worse this effect gets.
I get that no-one wants to pay more than whatās needed for any particular thing, and on the surface some tools that appears to do the exact same thing can carry a wildly different price tag. But here is some terminology and tech differences.
As you probably know, a real speaker cabinet will - depending on wiring and speaker config - offer a certain load for the amp that plugs into it. For example 8ohm or 16ohm. A tube amp must āseeā such a resistance at all times, or it runs a very high risk of being physically damaged. So never turn on a tube head without a cabinet - or a ādummy loadā.
Most of these devices does two things - they act as a speaker load, and they offer some sort of cabinet simulation. To briefly talk about each;
Load: the thing with a real speaker cabinet is that it does not actually offer a constant amount of resistance. The actual resistance varies, depending on volume of the amp and how hard/soft you pick.
A cheap loadbox (like linked here) is a āresistive loadā. Itās a quite simple circuit, and offers a constant amount of resistance. So cheap, but not accurate. Might be hard to believe, but it makes a big difference.
On the other hand, something like the Torpedo Captor or Suhr Reactive Load offers whatās called - well, a āreactive loadā. It emulates this varying amount of resistance, so the box appears to the amp as very, very close to an actual speaker cab. It emulates the āimpedance curveā of the cab.
Cabinet simulation: These cheap devices, as well as many older amps, offers speaker simulation as an analogue circuit. These vary wildly in quality, but at the end of the day I think they offer something pretty close to a constant EQ curveā¦ that ākind ofā mimics the sound of some cabinet.
The expensive devices uses a much newer technique called IRs. This is a digital technique, so these devices have much more complex electronics that requires storage space, a DSP chip etc. In laymanās terms, an IR (impulse response) is a kind of function that maps one sound curve (raw output from the amp) to another sound curve, in a non-linear fashion. In other words, the sound transformation depends on the input sounds, itās not a simple EQ. This sounds much, much more accurate and close to an actual micāed up speaker in a recording studio.
So these are two reasons why youāll find very cheap devices, and very expensive ones. Only you guys can decide which one is for you. For me, the cheap ones are like a piezo system on an acoustic, where a reactive load + IR is like micāin up the guitar with an actual good condenser mic. Night and dayā¦
As for recommendations:
The Torpedo Captor is great, but it comes with a small fan inside it that can be a bit loud and annoying. But otherwise the device is great, and āmid pricedā.
The Suhr Reactive Load somehow manages to be a passive reactive load and is pretty much dead silent. The āIRā version obviously requires power.
Many of the amps Iāve talked about earlier in this thread comes with āTorpedoā hardware inside, so it looks like that is becomming some sort of standard.
Had anyone tried this amp? Iāve seen positive comments about the Peavey Bandit Red Stripe (I think thatās the name), but couldnāt find anything about the Classic 20.
I donāt know about the classic 20, I never played one.
But I do have a red stripe bandit.
Very tasty all in all. I play mine near daily. Itās my go to when I may play for 5 min. and then leave and turn it off again. Multi times a day sometimes.
Go check out some youtubes about it. Thereās plenty out there. I Iāll agree with all of them. As there really aināt anything particularly bad to say about a red stripe bandit. Really, any of the transtube bandits.
Iāve got a silver stripe one too. It was my original amp I bought.
While I really like it, when I started to understand about transtube bandits that I got hip to the red stripe version. imho, it is better sounding than the silver stripe. Theyāre both good, just slightly different flavors.
I do get away playing them at low volume.
Like maybe 1 on the vol. pot.
I play the clean channel so it only has vol, BMT.
I may have to turn the guitar down a shade too. Sometimes.
2 or three on the clean channel is starting to get loud, it also starts acting tube amp like at 3 and above.
Anything above 3 is just plain loud.
It will make your ears bleed if ya really turn it up. Peel paint off the walls, rattle windows, ya know. Gig worthy I believe.
Anyway, the tone on them is real good. They do act real similar to a tube amp.
fwiw, the red stripe bandit is mfg in China or USA. There are ways to tell the difference if ya get that far.
I highly recommend a red stripe bandit. Great amp.
Oh, lastly, theyāre heavy. Just shy of 50lbs. kinda big cab too. At least semi obnoxious to carry. I leave mine where it sits.
This! I had always wondered what was the causality behind people feeling that tube amps respond to their picking style and how they ādig inā. But this sounds like a characteristic of the cabinet not the amp, so modelers could provide the same behavior?
This is a function of the speaker change in reactance as the cone is driven. Very little in the cabinet, but it does impact the speaker a tiny bit. Small changes in the cone position (low volume) wonāt change the load on the amp much. Loud volumes will present a lot of change to the load of the speaker. Think of how an open back cabinet will be a little different than closed or ported. Not only is the sound directed differently in each case, but the air resistance changes how much the speaker needs to push against the air and how far, and then how far into the coneās suspension (foam stuff around the perimeter), and other things like that.
This is one of the interesting things of a tube circuit. Tubes have a high drive impedance, but high voltage, so we use a transformer to get down to the impedance levels needed to move a speaker. Changes in the speaker alter the tube response because the change transfers back across the transformer.
Thank you for our comprehensive explanation its so nice to be able to ask these questions and get a
great response that not only just mentions what I had asked but explained it so well .
Thanks
I havenāt tried the Classic 20 but iām very familiar with the Classic 30. Peavey used to make the Classic series of amps, including the Classic 30. Then they stopped making them for some reason. I think the new Classic 20 is pretty similar the old Classic 30.
I used to teach at a music college that had several Classic 30s. The gain channel has a master volume (post knob), so they could be used for classroom teaching and live band performances.
I liked the Classic 30. It was simple to use and sounded good. There wasnāt enough gain available for really heavy metal tones but they were great for clean, blues and rock. I presume the Classic 20 is very similar.
