Comparing Practise Setups | Which is Best for You?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 12 чер 2024
- With so many practise amps available on the market, the choices can be bewildering. Here's a look at some of the main solutions for getting a good tone when practising at home.
Guitar Lessons:
www.michaelbanfieldguitar.com
Fender Pro Reverb:
US: www.sweetwater.com/store/deta...
UK: amzn.to/3Tli608
Attenuator:
US: amzn.to/4coFDpJ
UK: amzn.to/4a5g6jH
Boss Cube LX:
US: amzn.to/3Vp6FqX
UK: amzn.to/43tyeRM
00:00 - Intro
00:39 - Using Your Gigging Tube Amp
01:57 - Attenuators
03:08 - Low Powered Tube Amps
03:38 - Cab Size Considerations
04:27 - Analogue Solid State Amps
06:05 - Digital Modelling Amps
06:34 - Downsides of Digital Modelling
07:04 - Upsides of Digital Modelling
07:52 - Simple Digital Modelling Amps
08:21 - No Amp, Just Software
09:18 - Deciding What You Need
09:55 - Using Multiple Practice Setups
Vox Pathfinder is amazing. It’s the perfect home amp. It also has a great reverb and trem
my go to channel for tone and effect setups
same here🙋🏻♂️
For the bedroom/living room, digital all the way, the feature set and tech just covers all the bases.
If you can find a Vox Pathfinder 15R, buy it.
Fabulous little amp.
One of my better purchases, honestly...they just don't make them like that anymore
I love mine. 👍
No joke my favorite amp. It’s like a solid state version of a fender Princeton
I can’t believe I missed the premier of this video! I usually catch your uploads the day of. Glad to see the pathfinder 15R on this video! That has been my main amp for about two years now. I still love my twin reverb but there’s something special about those Pathfinders. It’s a shame they discontinued the 15 and only make the 10w and bass versions now.
Good to see some love for the old Vox Pathfinder!
I've been recently using mine as my only practice amp for about a year... It was actually my very first amp I bought 20 odd years ago and to be honest, it does everything I need it to!
Great video Michael! You covered all the bases…I currently use a Fender Pro Jr IV with a few pedals and a Tone King Mini II…
🎸🔊🎶🤘✌️❤️🤟
Thanks for the video - an excellent overview, Michael. For home play, I go back & forth between a little Vox DA-5 busking amp, which sounds surprisingly good on the clean 2 setting, and a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe with a Boss GE-7 Eq pedal in the effects loop to keep the volume manageable and to tone down the highs. I agree with you about the rabbit holes you can go down with all the options on those digital modeling amps. I tried one but found I could never really enjoy it because I was always thinking that I could tweak something. There's a great TED talk by Dan Gilbert, "The Surprising Science of Happiness" where he talks about how too many choices can be the enemy of happiness - I highly recommend it.
I use a Fender Super Champ X2 head with the matching closed back 1x12 cab. I swapped out the speaker for a Celestion V-type.
The amp is a hybrid with a digital preamp and a 6v6 tube power section. It's got a whole bunch of amp models and FX built in but I just use the clean channel with my pedalboard. The clean channel voicing is full and warm and it's got the headroom to take a push from gain pedals plus reverb/delay/all the other noises you might want to throw at it without behaving strangely or unnaturally.
It gets easily quiet enough for home practice, but can growl at gigs because of the valves. I can't see myself needing anything else and will probably always keep it.
A Blackstar HTR 1W amp with an NOS tube is excellent and easily tameable.Really cool little valve amp.I know Blackstar get criticised online but that thing is great.
Or a H&K Stompman with pedals.Excellent.
Digitally, I like a GT1000 Core or a Helix.They took longer to get 'the sound' but require very little tweaking now !
The Katana Go is fun too.Trippiest little thing ever
I moved away from the hassle of electric guitar practice at home and took a spanish guitar , beautiful sound, pickup and play, no fiddling with settings, tone, volume, gain, leads, batteries, adaptors, plugs, software etc. Its so refreshing!
I agree with everything that you said. A really honest summary. My favourite setup is fender 68 custom deluxe into UA Ox box. Nothing beats it. I have to ration my usage though; mainly electricity costs.
My second choice is again UA. Dream 65 into Ox Stomp. Best digital sound out there IMO. The Bluetooth connection isn't the greatest but the sounds are excellent.
I went the hybrid route: Friedman IR-X through studio monitors. Nice valve tones at as low of a volume I want. Probably the biggest drawback is that because it uses IRs, it sounds like listening to a mic'd, recorded amp instead of an actual amp in a room
I have a 20-watt Fender Champion, which both myself and my daughter practice on. I'm seriously thinking of the Thomann 15 Tubes combo, which has a 1 watt attenuator.
In the meantime. We use Fender- 65 Delux Reverb setting with a good clean tone.
Then,we have a Fuzz, EQ pedal, Dumble overdrive clone, and Sonicake Digital Reverb.
There is plenty of flexibility.
You have to ignore the constant messages that you need to overdrive a valve amp to be a rock guitarist. Next , a delay of some sort.
Our setup cost 250 pounds. As my daughter says, her band will never play with a backline.
I strongly believe sansamps (and their derivatives) with some form of cab sim are the way to go. Its consistent analog tone and response that can integrate into the amplification/speaker system of your choice more easily than anything I know of.
I prefer the pedal based sansamps. I run a compact pedalboard consisting of two different character series sansamps with a couple boost/overdrive/distortion, wah, and tc Electronic Plethora multifx (with cab sim) with the option of going into a headphone amp pedal, direct out, or line level out into ANY amp I chose.
When practicing I typically go into the auxillary (flat eq) input of a Vox desktop guitar amp. If I am going live I actually go into class d solid state DV Mark head and cabinet (which is fantastic for what I am doing and doesn't restrict me in any way).
Been playing for over 35 years (and am a professionally trained sound engineer to boot) through all kinds of setups and this is by far the easiest and most consistent tone with maximum flexibility at any volume level I have ever played through by far. I actually feel like I was "doing it wrong" with my previous setups. Ive done the digital modeling thing as well as the boutique tube amp thing and I will never do either again.
I have the same tone and response no matter what I am doing (practice, recording, performing) or volume level.
Skip all the other stuff, save tons of money in the long term, and just build a do it all pedalboard with the components of your preference (which you can upgrade/swap as you choose) with the sansamp(s) of your choice at the core and have a high quality solution for any situation you are in.
My advice for beginners - buy a Vox desktop digital modeling amp (which will also give you a sample of what direction you will choose to go with far better performing sansamp analog circuits) to get you by while you build a sansamp centered pedalboard which you can later run into the aux input of the same amp. You will wind up with a rig you will know intimately and that can then be run into anything you choose with minimal stress/drama.
You really make the best gear videos out of anyone on UA-cam at the moment, thank you. So I use the amp I gig with. I have a Henrikson Bud 6. I can turn the volume way down and get a nice clean tone. It takes pedals really well. 120 watts, it can even be a PA for small gigs, especially if you add the extension cab.
The two notes opus is my go to practice amp and then just a pair headphones straight in to the pedal
I really enjoyed hearing your experience with this. Very thoughtful. Watched a few other videos and had to subscribe. Really enjoy the content. It's practical and not to over-the-top. What kind of Gibson Les Paul is that you have in your videos (it looks like a lemon plain top or something)? I love the finish on it. I am not really into flame tops!
I gig with my vox p15r. The direct out sounds pretty good and also you can hook it to a bigger cabinet.
I have two of them and have used them live, in stereo.
For Vox to drop the Pathfinder 15R from production was a massive mistake.
I have a Quilter Superblock UK, 25w with a master volume, but you can also run it at 1w. I push it through a 1x12.
Just bought a Katana Go headphone amp too, it will have it's uses very early and late on.
I use a Boss Katana 100 for gigging and practice. The 0.5W setting might not seem like much, but the 12” speaker and decent sized enclosure give you as much as anyone would need at home. However, since a lot of my playing happens after the kids have gone to bed, I’ve more recently just found myself plugging into Helix Native on the laptop and listening through headphones. It’s a completely different experience, and once you get used to this it works fine
The best option I've found for practice is headphones. I live in a small house with my parents and I like to use octave fuzz quite often, so it can be very annoying for them.
So envious of your Tele Deluxe.
Fender 1983-85 MIJ Sidekick 10 is the best Practice amp i ever had. Orange micro terror comes in second, mooer Radar is 3rd. Nothing beats an analog solid State amp if you are realising that you have some unexpected 10min or so for Practice .
I had the Marshall SV20H and it is almost untamable. The 5watt setting is fine but you lose some of the "feel" that makes the amp. You are correct, you need an attenuator. I'm guessing many guitarists have bought that Marshall and realized it wasn't for home use on it's own. Now you have to spend $300-$1,000 to tame it.
I have a cheap second hand Kustom solid state amp with a cheap (€30) Ammoon American Sound pedal on my board going straight into the amp. Sounds great
Hey. Thanks for the excellent video. I wanted to ask about your Pro Reverb amp. I have the same model, and I noticed yours looks like you have done some mods to it. Have you had an issue with noise? Mine is pretty hissy. I would appreciate it if you share your thoughts and advice on this. Best.
Not really done any big mods to it, just changed the speaker to a vtype and had power valves changed because I was using it a lot and they got worn out. Mine is quiet, no noise. It might be worth checking your valves aren’t worn out but other than that I’m not sure. Sorry I can’t be more help
Every gigging and recording musician who plays electric guitar or bass needs at a minimum four complete practice rigs, and possibly more. There is no one "best" way to practice, because you have to be familiar with how you sound in each context where you need to be heard:
1. Full live stage amp rig
2. Practice amp (can also be a jam session amp)
3. Studio recording headphone rig
4. In-ear monitor/direct to PA rig
Was assuming the Katana Go would be here
That Katana Go does look like the ultimate headphone amp!
It is here! I have the luck to get one last week;-) It is fantastic. Don't need a "big" amp as I don't go on stage. I'm just playing at home. Beside the Katana Go I also have the Tone King Imperial Mark II Plugin from NeuralDsp - which is also fantastic - and an Fender Mustang Micro. That's all I need ;-)
I bought a Boss Katana and it died 6months later. Never using modeling amps again. I’m back to my 35 yr old Peavey SS amp.
Great video!
Promo-SM
Man f*** it and use a full stack for practice