Going quiet

ActionArnie

So this is the deal, the church I go to has recently decided to go with an electric drum kit and no bass amp to reduce sound level in general (it is a fairly small venue). As a result, my JCM602 has been given the big thumbs down as they want basically very very low levels on stage, i.e. tending to either very small personal monitors or in-ear stuff/headphones etc.

Now I've been considering going to a smaller amp (like 5W) and sticking it mic'd up in an amp box to try and preserve some tone. A couple of questions then for those in the know:

1) What amp? I've got pedals for drive etc. and when the amp's clean I wouldn't mind having it just below breakup. Suggestions?
2) Amp box, where can I get one/have one made? Ideas on cost?
3) What about a simulator as opposed to a real amp, I'm partial to Tech-21 stuff having had a Sansamp before. Comments on using this live?

Any comments / suggestions would be most appreciated

Gearhead

A good attenuator on a 1W amp is going to give you 99% of what you want (and at that rating you can DIY one at low cost). The only thing a box will give you above the 1W+attenuator is speaker breakup, I think the Lord will forgive you for not having that (no joke intended). A box is hard to get right, hard to lug around and set up and you cannot adjust speaker placement quickly if you're not entirely happy.
The Vox AC4TV comes to mind as a good candidate. If you're into Vox tone (the 'near breakup' zone is quite big), go for it. This cute little amp will even make attenuation unnecessary with its 4W /1W / 0.25W settings.

singemonkey

If you have in-ear monitoring and you only want the amp for clean, why do you need an amp. IMO, you don't. Get a great DI box like the Sansamp blonde. Great control of your tone without any of the fuss of miking up some tiny amp to no purpose:

Manfred-Klose

go digital, with something that can go straight into the desk, like the line 6 pod

then you dont have to sacrifice tone by turning volume down, plus you can make up pretty cool patches, connect it up to stereo and have a crazy ping pong delay.

if you still need monitoring on stage, you send the signal to your amps clean channel, and just turn the volume down a bit

AlanRatcliffe

If the other band members are going DI, it makes sense to do the same. It's an absolute pleasure to play with everyone DI'd, what usually throws a spanner in the works is one person with an amp (or acoustic drums).

The biggest caveat to DIing is that the monitoring is crucial - so you need a decent monitor system run by a decent sound guy or ideally one of the distributed monitoring systems that allow each member to create their own monitor mix.

I've become a big fan of the Character series from Tech 21. All the controls of a real amp, sounds like the amp it's modelled after (but usually with even more range) and responds to your playing and to other pedals the same as the real thing too (or close enough that it doesn't matter in a performance). They are easy to include as part of your pedalboard with your favourite pedals and allow you to place time- and pitch-based and modulation FX after the "amp". The one downside is no channel switching - for that you need a second Character series and an A/B looper.

A multiFX is an option, which will give you programmability and a wider range of FX and tones, but you lack the ability to quickly tweak something on the fly during performance.

ActionArnie

Thanks guys, food for thought. I'm not that keen to go back to digital as I struggled to get the sound I wanted previously, and I've also got a couple of decent pedals that I really want to use.

The reason I'd previously favoured the small amp approach rather than the DI route is that I'm not sure how well a DI box will take pedals. From the sounds of it Alan's experience suggests that (with the Tech-21's anyway) it works well. Channel switching is not something I've found myself using much of with my current setup. Got 2 drives that offer me combinations that give me what I need for now.

ActionArnie

Just another quick question regarding run delays and reverb after a pedal like the Blonde. Can I then go straight from my delay into the PA? Or do I need another DI after that?

Gearhead

You can probably (depending on the output impedance of the delay) get away with a passive DI which will be small and cheaper.

AlanRatcliffe

ActionArnie wrote: Just another quick question regarding run delays and reverb after a pedal like the Blonde. Can I then go straight from my delay into the PA? Or do I need another DI after that?

I do. ? Most delays are already low impedance, so you'll have enough juice to drive a longer cable to a PA. If not, or if you need a balanced XLR for a snake, then you might need a passive DI (or something like the Ebtech Line Level Shifter someone was selling (Zark?).

ActionArnie

Thanks guys, you've been most helpful. Just watched burgerman's demo of the Blonde, guitar -> pedal -> laptop and it sounded really nice.

Jacquesg4j

Yeah the blonde does sound great! Super nice! But don't rule out the line6 stuff. Been using the hd500 for some time, and it's just so much better than their old stuff! I also play in a church so I will try and record some clips of the patches I use!