1969 was a year giants rocked the earth, and they wanted big amps.
February 6, 2015 10:44 AM   Subscribe

The biggest, loudest, nastiest, heaviest amps the world had ever seen. How The Rolling Stones accidentally ended up using Ampeg amplifiers for their 1969 US tour, creating a sound preserved on their Get Yer Ya Ya's Out album.
posted by colie (87 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Heaven is a baritone guitar through a late 60s/early 70s V4. If you like a fuzzy afterlife.
posted by Metafilter Username at 10:49 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


That all sounds awesome, until you remember that both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have had tinnitus for years. #FiftyYearOldFilter
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:05 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


I'm sorry, *cups ear* what?
posted by Floydd at 11:07 AM on February 6, 2015 [4 favorites]


To fully grasp the monstrosity of their creation: the SVT's 300-watt output stomped the deafening 200-watt Marshall Major by a full 100-watts!

That is a lot of watts!
posted by Iridic at 11:08 AM on February 6, 2015


This one goes up to 300.
posted by msalt at 11:10 AM on February 6, 2015


That all sounds awesome, until you remember that both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have had tinnitus for years.

Townshend has placed the blame squarely on over-use of headphones at high volume.
posted by stinkfoot at 11:11 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


But I realize that's just, like, his opinion, man.
posted by stinkfoot at 11:13 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


Townshend has placed the blame squarely on over-use of headphones at high volume.

Well, I wasn't a professional musician, but I did over-use headphones at high volume, despite the (probably not stern enough) warnings of my mother, and I also have had tinnitus for years. I am nowhere near as old as Townshend, either. I am worried that the damage is bad enough that eventually I will just go deaf.
posted by Steely-eyed Missile Man at 11:15 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


That is a lot of watts!

301, actually--they had one on the stage, too.
posted by yoink at 11:16 AM on February 6, 2015 [31 favorites]


That is a lot of watts!

I think one Watts is plenty enough.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:17 AM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]


lol denied
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:17 AM on February 6, 2015 [8 favorites]


Wattage isn't the be-all, end-all of volume. Presuming a 100% efficiency in converting the power of the signal to the speaker(s) into the power of moving the air, if you double the power -- due to the logarithmic decibel scale, you only increase the volume by 3dB.

A 100-watt amp driving 4 speakers is more likely to have a higher loudness than a 100-watt amp driving a single speaker, because the former is applying its power to more air.
posted by chimaera at 11:17 AM on February 6, 2015 [4 favorites]


Interesting post, thank you!

*insert obligatory Spinal Tap goes-to-eleven reference*
posted by marxchivist at 11:21 AM on February 6, 2015


With the right circuit and transducer, you can produce a noise that will cause permanent hearing damage with less than a watt of power.

In order to accurately reproduce an input, or even just sound nice, you need more wattage to produce the same absolute amplitude. Keeping things in their linear response sweet spot reduces their effective range drastically, which means more stages and more power needed.
posted by idiopath at 11:28 AM on February 6, 2015


Yeah, I don't know much about the numbers, but I can confirm that an older SVT, heated up, through big Ampeg speakers is just unbelievably, dismayingly, organ-failingly loud, and sounds so SO good. Damn, I'd love one, and a concrete bunker full of mattresses to play it in.
posted by dirtdirt at 11:30 AM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]


Townshend has placed the blame squarely on over-use of headphones at high volume.

That's interesting. I thought his hearing lose (and perhaps related his tinnitus) had to do with that one explosion.
posted by alex_skazat at 11:33 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


I remember getting elbowed by my brother at a Zeppelin concert back in the day. He pointed down to the floor. The flared legs on our Levis were shaking from the volume. Ah, those were the days.
posted by Ber at 11:38 AM on February 6, 2015 [20 favorites]


Everything louder than everything else.

Let's discuss the brown note and possible application via one of these.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 11:40 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


If you can't feel your internal organs moving, it's not loud enough.
posted by tommasz at 11:40 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


Cranking up his amps to get that huge, flatulent distortion on stuff like Hey Hey My My is what Neil Young attributes his hearing loss to IIRC from reading Shakey.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:48 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


That version of Sympathy is mindblowing, mind you, I'm a little concerned as I listen to it very loud on my headphones...
posted by Richat at 11:49 AM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


Yeah I recommend that everyone stand in front of a full stack with a few 100 watts of distortion going through it at least once in their life.

It sounds *awesome*

And a literal wind of sound comes at you, you physically feel it pass over you, it's bizarre. Closest thing to a religious experience I ever had was playing a vintage Hi-Watt at full blast.
posted by RustyBrooks at 11:54 AM on February 6, 2015 [4 favorites]


I caught this tour at Moody Coliseum in Dallas. The Stones were late so Chuck Berry, replete in white shoes, tangerine slacks and a red Gibson, had to do over an hour long opening set. Since we were in the cheap seats behind the stage we didn't get the full effect of the sound rig when the Stones finally showed with Mick in his Uncle Sam hat and American flag scarf. Good concert...
posted by jim in austin at 11:55 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


Howzabout a 600 watt head with a 16x12 cab?

Too bad it's a Crate.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:56 AM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


The Stones were late so Chuck Berry, replete in white shoes, tangerine slacks and a red Gibson, had to do over an hour long opening set.

This sounds like a good problem to have.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:57 AM on February 6, 2015 [9 favorites]


Sadly, there's probably no brown note.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:05 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've had tinnitus since my early 20s, and the only exposure to loud sounds I've had was at concerts, so screw you, Ampeg.
posted by Huck500 at 12:06 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


In all seriousness, though, one of the things that drove the need for high-wattage amps with big 4x12 cabs was that PAs back in the day kind of sucked.

As a result, you needed a back line of Marshall stacks or what have you to get the volume you needed in a stadium.

Nowadays, PAs are good enough that you can play gigantic venues with a little boutique 5 watt tube amp, and it's going to sound great through the right mics and PA.

Any sound men or women out there can feel free to correct me if that's not really true, but some aging bemulleted rock god in a bar once explained it to me that way, so I've been telling people that for years.

Seems plausible - look at footage from Isle of Wight, and it seems they were using a patchwork of PAs and mics that were gaffer-taped together.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:14 PM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]


Yeah I recommend that everyone stand in front of a full stack with a few 100 watts of distortion going through it at least once in their life.

I can also recommend standing in front of a 150 year old full pipe organ when a Bach fugue is being played. Nothing quite like having the fluids in your body moving about in a Baroque fashion. I actually teared up...
posted by jim in austin at 12:16 PM on February 6, 2015 [10 favorites]


the trend now in guitar circles is definitely for boutique, hand-wired, relatively low-watt tube amps
posted by thelonius at 12:19 PM on February 6, 2015


the trend now in guitar circles is definitely for boutique, hand-wired, relatively low-watt tube amps

And I for one am pretty happy about it. I have 2 5 watt amps at home and I made my own 1/2 watt amp. It sounds great, and plenty loud.

You have to increase wattage by a factor of about 8 to get an apparent doubling in loudness. A trumpet at full blast is about like a 15 watt guitar amp. So even like a 2 watt amp is pretty loud.
posted by RustyBrooks at 12:24 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


My grandpa had a shed in his backyard with all sorts of odds-and-ends, and one of these was a tube amp from an old intercom or PA system enclosed in a wire cage. I was bored one day and hooked up a loose 10" speaker to it, and rigged up a wire for my guitar. Man, I sure am dumb for not hanging on to it.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 12:25 PM on February 6, 2015


the trend now in guitar circles is definitely for boutique, hand-wired, relatively low-watt tube amps

Yeah, and even the big manufacturers (big amp?) have gotten onboard with new low-wattage combos and heads, or have reissued old models, like Fender did with the '57 Champ (which is only 5 watts).
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:27 PM on February 6, 2015


The thing I can't get over is the little Class D bass amps. Mine weighs 3 pounds! It sounds really great too.
posted by thelonius at 12:30 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


the little Class D bass amps

Jeepers. We truly live in an age of wonders.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:35 PM on February 6, 2015


One of several tragedies with the slow death of small-time live music is that gear like class D amps and the low-wattage tube guitar amps means that your average bar band can sound very good with lighter, cheaper gear than ever. And there's fewer and fewer places to hear it.
posted by Metafilter Username at 12:57 PM on February 6, 2015 [4 favorites]


Yeah I recommend that everyone stand in front of a full stack with a few 100 watts of distortion going through it at least once in their life.

I'm mostly deaf in one ear - basically everything above 750Hz is severely attenuated. The mechanics of the ear work; it's just that my brain's perception is messed up. However, that ear has (had?) perfect pitch - I could tell when someone was playing out tune from 440hz concert pitch.

My buddies had a metal band in the early 90s. For sound check, they'd have me plug up my good ear and listen to the backwall with my bad ear. Oddly enough it was pretty effective - I could make sure all the instruments were properly leveled against each other.

I think I loosened some fillings along the way though. God, that feeling...
posted by notsnot at 12:58 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


well, you haven't heard nothing until you've stood in front of the cannons when they play the 1812 overture

a catcher's mitt is strongly recommended
posted by pyramid termite at 1:15 PM on February 6, 2015


You call that a PA? Now this is a PA!
posted by TedW at 1:36 PM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]


For those who have suffered hearing loss, take a look at this brief article I saw today on a possible cure.
posted by JimInLoganSquare at 1:41 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


For those who have suffered hearing loss, take a look at this brief article I saw today on a possible cure.

"Procedure: a surgeon peels back the inner ear and drills a tiny hole in a bone called the stapes, then injects a ... virus carrying a gene."

What's a portmanteau that combines "hope" with "nnnnnnooooooope!"
posted by zippy at 1:46 PM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]


As someone who briefly played in band with more equipment than talent and a reputation for being loud, the sound on stage in front of your own stack and monitors is often much quieter than the sound out in the venue in front of the PA stacks on either side of the stage (facing away from us, mercifully). Townsend’s assertion of his tinnitus resulting from loud headphones in the studio always struck me as pretty plausible.
posted by jalexei at 2:00 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


not if you're Jucifer!!!
posted by alex_skazat at 2:30 PM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


Marshall amps can make your flaired Levis flutter, but a good pair of headphones can drive your eardrums to the center of your head--the sweet spot is when they meet, and you get double the resonance. Tinnitus is the memento, you know, like the ticket stub, and is to be cherished.

My tinnitus causes the neighbor's dogs to howl.
posted by mule98J at 2:34 PM on February 6, 2015 [7 favorites]


I lost a good deal of hearing in 1989 while working a UFO show in Texas. During sound-check, Pete Way and Phil were having a bit of fun with the roadies and they did turn it up to eleven. It was so loud I became physically ill and had the leave the venue. Pete was using Marshalls I think.
posted by shockingbluamp at 2:55 PM on February 6, 2015


I saw that Stones show at the Forum in LA (the infamous early morning one). I feel a bit lucky that my seats were on the side, but it was loud enough.
posted by Danf at 3:16 PM on February 6, 2015


Loudest bands I've seen are Boris and My Bloody Valentine.

But as someone who took live sound in school and has done a few live sound jobs (years ago) I've always been under the impression that smaller amps are easier to do sound for than big ones, and typically end up sounding better for the audience.

That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it when Boris w/ Michio Kurihara played Farewell with huge amps loud as fuck at the Brickhouse in Phoenix, AZ.
posted by gucci mane at 3:17 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


Watching the venue staff pouring out of the ballroom doors during MBV's soundcheck at ATP was one of the sweetest moments of my life.
posted by anazgnos at 3:48 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


LOL my sister had a Bill Wyman Framus bass and a Vox amp. I had a Pete Townsend Les Paul Deluxe and a Marshall 50 with a B Cabinet. I won.

the trend now in guitar circles is definitely for boutique, hand-wired, relatively low-watt tube amps

You can pry my 5 watt 1976 Fender Champ from my cold, dead hands.
posted by charlie don't surf at 4:15 PM on February 6, 2015 [3 favorites]


So unhip, but I have to say this was a little glib for my tastes: While the Stones rocked, and the audience grooved, and the Hell's Angels kicked the living crap out of everybody within a pool cue's length...
posted by DoubtingThomas at 5:00 PM on February 6, 2015 [5 favorites]


Legend has it that some of the greatest studio album guitar solos by Jimmy Page et al were recorded on overdriven little practice amplifiers...?

(One of my friends bought a rather nice but rather heavy mid-size guitar amp. After I almost dislocated myself helping him lug it, I said: "Man, that's kinda like having a jealous girlfriend.")
posted by ovvl at 5:26 PM on February 6, 2015


I have a Kustom 5-watt practice amp with a Celestion speaker in it and the overdrive on it is amazing for being solid state.
posted by gucci mane at 6:29 PM on February 6, 2015


I had an Ampeg V4B for a couple years in the early 80's but us never seemed loud enough -- it didn't break up well at the low end, which can be a problem with tube amps when you want some distortion on the bass. It was a lot better than the Sunn Concert Bass amp I had replaced with it, but I got lucky in about '86 and bumbled into a 1981 Mesa Boogie D180 for $150.00. (200 watts, yes, the one without the stupid graphic eq) That plus various coming & going rack units was my sole amp for about 20 years. Plenty loud, good creamy distortion when I pushed it, plenty of bottom -- settled on 2 single-15 cabs, a Bag End & a Dietz box, and I could take one or the other, or both, depending on the gig. Was actually in a hard rock band all through the 90's that needed both -- was between guitarists both playing MB Dual-Rectifiers, which were en vogue at the time. Jesus, but it's gotten heavy as the years have worn on, though. 53 pounds out of the rack, & probably 75 lbs in the rack. It mostly sits in my garage these days.

When we put together the Yes tribute project a few years back, the Boogie just wasn't doing the Chris Squire thing, so our singer, actually an accomplished guitarist & a bit of a vintage gear nut, brought over his '68 Marshall 100-watt guitar amp, which is pretty much exactly what Squire was playing through. Still had the farty low-end though because it was a guitar head, & I missed the bottom of the Boogie. The other guitarist decided he wanted a bass amp just to have in his practice space, so on the recommendation of a repair tech friend, he bought a TC Electronics RH450. I tell you what, for the price, and for the fact that it weighed 7 pounds, we were all pretty blown away.

Still, the TC is transistor after all, so we went back to the Marshall for a rehearsal or two, then I went & bought me a 1 in 2 out footswitch, with a "both" button on it. I think we have hit upon a thing, at last. I split the signal, sending 1 line to the Marshall & a 15 inch Electro-Voice and 1 line to the TC RH 450 & an 18-inch speaker (not mine, I forget the make). The mix of the marshall for grind & the TC for clear, loud low end is really quite the holy grail. It sounds equally amazing with a Fender as it it does with the Rick. We've tried it with a 50-watt Marshall too, & that work well, but it's a little fuzzier than the 100-watt, which goes *BLAT* in just the right way when I really whang hard on a string. It's So. Much. Fun. to play that rig.

I've since bought my own RH450 which is why the Boogie never goes out any more. Very versatile little gigging amp for pretty much any club situation, and at my age, I'll trade that 10% of tone for 90% weight reduction.

I've only played through an SVT once or twice, and while it seems to be the holy grail of bass amps, I've never been too nuts about the idea of owning one. They were too expensive when I was young, and now, there's no need for all that. I've seen some great players using them, for sure. When I saw Bill Bruford do his solo album tour, he had Jeff Berlin on bass, I it was just a Fender Jazz, a 20-foot cord & an SVT. No bullshit - just straight up pickups, tubes, transformers & speakers. I really wish I could keep it that simple, sometimes.

I am kinda keeping my eye out in the used shops for two things -- either an old Fender Bassman or, beleive it or not, a Peavey Rock-Master, which while they've applied the name Rock-Master to a bunch of diferent stuff since, was a 100-watt tube guitar head made in the early 80's that is very much like the Mesa Boogie D-180, except it has a wild built-in compressor and really, really distorts well. The EQ points just happen to be in just the right spot for a bass, by accident. I've used a friends for several recordings, and have absolutely fallen in love with the thing. Really rare, though, as they were not a sucessful item for Peavey at the time.

Hi, my name is Chris and I'm kinda passionate about bass gear.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:32 PM on February 6, 2015 [12 favorites]


That all sounds awesome, until you remember that both Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have had tinnitus for years realize you have to get that monster SVT bass cabinet up a goddamned flight of stairs.


Nowadays, PAs are good enough that you can play gigantic venues with a little boutique 5 watt tube amp, and it's going to sound great through the right mics and PA.

Any sound men or women out there can feel free to correct me if that's not really true, but some aging bemulleted rock god in a bar once explained it to me that way, so I've been telling people that for years.


Yup, totally true.


not if you're Jucifer!!!

I love Jucifer. Not only do they put a hysterically large number of guitar and bass amps and speakers up on stage, but they are two of the nicest people in the world, total sweethearts.
posted by soundguy99 at 6:37 PM on February 6, 2015 [1 favorite]


BTW, Townsend has tinnitus, but not Daltrey, he had vocal cord damage. There is a rather amazing story in The New Yorker about the otolaryngologist that performed surgery on Daltrey's vocal cords. Ironically, I found this article while I was in the waiting room of my otolaryngologist.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:27 PM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]


I've always wanted to get my hands on some old WEM cabinets.

You might recognize them from such films and videos as: This segment of Pink Floyd - Live at Pomeii that almost could be called 'speaker cabinet porn' (referenced, stylistically at least, in the Beastie Boys' Gratitude video)

Both The Who and Pink Floyd were big fans of WEM cabinets, with Floyd often pairing them with HIWATT amps alongside Marshall stacks for a fantastic combination. Here is a rather interesting read (for 60s/70s era sound guys, at least) going through the evolution of Pink Floyd's sound systems. As a side note, as a teenager trying to do live shows and primitive recording, watching Live at Pompeii closely probably taught me more about proper mic placement for both live and studio recording than just about anything else I was reading at the time.

Sadly, as far as I know, WEM no longer manufactures cabinets and amps, but if you have ~£1500 to spend, there is an officially licensed 50th anniversary WEM Dominator, though it is only 17 watts, but one can do a lot with 17 watts.

Alas, the closest I ever got to playing through a WEM cabinet was when my high school physics teacher brought in his rig (it's always the physics/chemistry science teachers that still rock out, isn't it?) with a HIWATT amp playing through a WEM cabinet that had had its original speakers replaced (after 'something bad' happened at a show that he refused to speak of) with some (actually rather good) late 70s-era Cerwin-Vega speakers. Still, it sounded sweet nonetheless.

Nothing wrong with Ampeg, though. Damn fine speakers if you find ones from the right era.
posted by chambers at 10:19 PM on February 6, 2015 [2 favorites]


these days:
get a low power amp that distorts easily->turn it all the way up->plug it into the pa

The walls of Marshall cabs have been fake for years, of course, so it's pretty interesting to contemplate an era in which there was genuinely not enough amplification power to rock out to specification.
posted by atoxyl at 3:11 AM on February 7, 2015


Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine also has tinnitus that he says comes from headphone abuse. So another reminder to keep that shit under control everybody.
posted by colie at 4:18 AM on February 7, 2015


That see-through bass Wyman is playing in the photo came from Ampeg too. Richards had a six string one at some stage. Interesting guitars. With formica pickguards, yet.
posted by El Brendano at 5:56 AM on February 7, 2015


MBV. Yeah, sat through the holocaust and sure enough, it was loud. But the loudest gig I've ever been to in terms of being pinned to the wall by sheer waves of physical sound was Death in Vegas in a small club in Brixton, shortly after they'd ditched the electronica and become a shoegaze outfit (again). I think my teeth are still rattling from that experience.
posted by Sonny Jim at 6:55 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


I've always wanted to get my hands on some old WEM cabinets.

The very first live footage of Led Zeppelin I ever saw (was born too late to see them live) was this performance of Dazed and Confused, where WEM cabinets feature prominently.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:10 AM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


wow, the acrylic Dan Armstrong guitars are in reissue, it says
Greg Ginn played these, iirc?
posted by thelonius at 7:30 AM on February 7, 2015


The walls of Marshall cabs have been fake for years, of course, so it's pretty interesting to contemplate an era in which there was genuinely not enough amplification power to rock out to specification.

Huh? What do you mean? My mid-70s Marshall B Cab seemed pretty damn solid, so what quality about that is faked? It appears that this 1960B Cab is the current issue of the product and it looks just as heavy and indestructible as the one I owned. Remember this is touring gear and it has removable casters and big handles that can be lashed down. I hear plenty of guitarists using modern versions of the 100W Marshall Stack, they don't sound any different to me than they did back in the 70s. But that Pete Townsend link is interesting, first he used a Marshall 45w (bumped up to a 50). Then the first Marshall 100w units. Then 200w amps. Then custom double size Marshall cabinets with 8 speakers instead of 4. And frequently they used several stacks.

Your amps to all the way up to eleven? Pete's go up to twenty!
posted by charlie don't surf at 8:32 AM on February 7, 2015


I attribute my mild left-ear tinnitus to the North Florida Metal Fest back in the late 1990's. I regret nothing.
posted by Cookiebastard at 8:39 AM on February 7, 2015


so what quality about that is faked?

I think they mean stuff like this.
posted by drezdn at 9:13 AM on February 7, 2015 [6 favorites]


Uhhh, I think atoxyl means that these days if you see a band play with a giant wall of amplifiers & speaker cabinets behind them, chances are really high that there's maybe only one half-stack actually plugged in & functioning, and the cabinets might actually be totally unloaded.

Or, on preview, what drezdn sez.
posted by soundguy99 at 9:15 AM on February 7, 2015


it's pretty interesting to contemplate an era in which there was genuinely not enough amplification power to rock out to specification.

Not forgetting the awesome looks of the Vox 'Super Beatle'.
posted by colie at 9:29 AM on February 7, 2015


As a total ignoramus about guitar equipment (only vaguely aware that what I call an "amp" is actually a combination of two things that serious types acquire separately), why the interest in lightweight amps? Isn't it useless without a speaker that weighs ten times as much? Or can you count on any venue having a compatible cabinet? (But in that case, wouldn't some kind of little preamp do the job?)

OK, I'll go google "guitar amps for dummies" now. Sorry for the digression....
posted by bfields at 10:59 AM on February 7, 2015


I think they mean stuff like this.

LOL that is hilarious, I never heard of such a thing. But even back in the 70s, this shit was LOUD. I remember taking my Marshall 50 out to a barn in the country, plugging in my Strat, and letting the feedback wail, I felt like Jimi Fucking Hendrix. A few days later, one of the neighbors asked if I had heard this really strange, loud sound, like aliens were landing or something. They were almost 2 miles away.

I had constant troubles with my Marshall 50, I lived in an apartment so I wrapped it in pillows and blankets and I could still never turn it as high as one. You want an amp that goes up to 11? I wanted an amp that only goes up to .01. And I wasn't the only one. So Marshall came out with the Master Volume feature, they had two knobs, Volume and Master Volume. You could crank up the volume (I forget which one) and it would sound like you were pushing the amps to overdrive at max volume, but then you could turn down the output volume so you could get the sound of a Marshall 50 on 10, when your output volume was only set to 2.

I know this was really popular with live musicians, as it would have been with me. The guy I sold my Marshal 50 set to, he told me he had to sell it because whenever he played in clubs, they complained he was too loud, and his bandmates were getting drowned out. Might have been the B Cab though, it doesn't have the angled break so the sound goes up, it is like a sonic cannon.
posted by charlie don't surf at 11:29 AM on February 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


why the interest in lightweight amps? Isn't it useless without a speaker that weighs ten times as much?

well, for bass amplification, they also have made great progress in making little cabinets that sound big.
There does come a point where you need a big-ass refigerator cabinet, if you are playing in loud bands with drums and guitars. But you can do coffee house sort of folky or jazz gigs with a 2x10 cabinet that you can carry with one hand.
posted by thelonius at 12:55 PM on February 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine also has tinnitus that he says comes from headphone abuse. So another reminder to keep that shit under control everybody.

So does FKA twigs.
She developed the condition after listening to too many X-Ray Spex albums on shitty earphones. “It was so bad this morning. I was like, ‘Oh, hey. Look at you, just hanging out in my head.’ When I first got it I cried. I was like, ‘I’m never gonna hear silence ever again.’ You never hear silence at all. I find that 
I have to really concentrate on certain elements of my music to be able to make sure they’re coming through.'
I saw Led Zeppelin in 1972, sitting in a spot where I was kind of canted to the left. My ears rang for two days, and my left ear has never been as acute as the right. I'm religious now about ear protection at live shows, even though sound is so much better now...
posted by jokeefe at 1:25 PM on February 7, 2015


why the interest in lightweight amps? Isn't it useless without a speaker that weighs ten times as much?

To add to thelonius's comment, smaller wattage amps are more about creating a particular sound style than blasting the volume. Most of the time you can get a line-out signal that gives you the sound you want - that warm, analog tube goodness, for example - and can hand it over to a 'dumb' amp and cabinet that ideally does very little to the sound other than make it louder and accounts for the abilities of the speakers in a separate cabinet. In instances with no line-out, you can often just mic the amp. The benefit of these smaller amps is that what you're paying for with those little custom amps is the sound and not the volume, which helps reduce the price somewhat since it won't have features that you may not need.

Even if you're playing at bars/clubs, as long as the place has a reasonably decent PA and a sound guy that is somewhat competent, the PA can be used to supplement the amps and cabinets, so one can get the job done reasonably well with smaller wattage amps.

However, it is never wise to put your hopes on someone else's PA. More often than not, you'll find one of two things - either a cheap, underpowered system the guy at Guitar Center told the bar owner 'this is all you really need' and is essentially just two stage monitors and a crappy 4-channel mixer, or they have what looks like a PA system, but is actually just big black boxes containing a jumble of partially blown speakers, shorted wiring, and bad crossovers from the last dozen years or more, stage snakes whose jacks are gunked-up with layers of dried beer and god knows what else, and a mixing board from the 70s that should have been put to pasture when the Berlin wall fell, encased between simulated wood side panels with gaffer tape over most of the parts that will electrocute you.

(It's OK, Peavey XR-1200, you may have tried multiple times to kill me, but there were times that you did amazing things.)
posted by chambers at 2:29 PM on February 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


bfields: Totally valid questions. There are many sizes and wattages of "combos" - these are guitar amps that have the "head" (the part containing both the preamp and power amp) in the same box as the speaker(s). The head can be separate from the speaker cabinet (e.g., a "Marshall stack").

The question of weight is relative. If you've got roadies to lug your gear around for you, you can have whatever. Carrying it isn't your problem. But if you have to load and unload from a gig yourself, much less get yourself to and from it on the bus or subway, weight becomes a really big deal. Solid-state equipment is generally lighter, since tube amps require bigger, heavier transformers. So even if you're talking about a 30 watt amp, say, all other things being equal, it's going to be heavier if it's tube instead of solid state.

There's also digital equipment that "models" the sound of certain cabinets that can be run directly into a PA. It all boils down to preference around tone, the amount of amplification you need for the gig, and as chambers pointed out, whether you want to be at the mercy of a potentially sketchy PA vs. knowing you have enough amp/cabinet with you to compensate for it. If the PA turns out to be completely inadequate for letting you be heard by the audience (and yourself) over drums and everything else, you might need to lug heavier equipment with you.

Also, the desire for smaller, lower wattage tube amps is that you can overdrive the power amp (i.e., push it to its upper limit to create distortion) without damaging your hearing or having the neighbours call the cops. Plus, easier to carry around.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 3:27 PM on February 7, 2015 [2 favorites]


I think they mean stuff like this.

Yeah I meant that some arena rock/metal bands like to put up stacks and stacks of dummy cabinets just for show. As you well know charlie, even one real one goes a long way, and at a big venue everything's really plugged into the FOH system anyway.
posted by atoxyl at 5:12 PM on February 7, 2015


It bears mentioning that, while these were bass amps, the Stones used them for both bass and guitar. it also bears mentioning that, within a year or two, you could get essentially the same circuit in a lower-wattage package.

So if you were a guitarist in the 1970s and didn't need 300 watts of power, you could pick up a V4 head and 4x12 cabinet, which was good for 120 watts, or a V2 head, which was good for 60 watts. You could also get versions of these amps with the speakers built in: the VT-22 and the VT-40.

These amps are incredibly cool because they feature an active 3 band EQ and a 3-way switch to control the central frequency of the "mids" knob. Why is that so important? The short version is that, as a consequence of evolution and the capabilities of human vocalization, the human ear is much more sensitive to mid frequencies than very high or very low frequencies. Therefore, how a musician controls mid frequencies in his or her output will have a profound effect on the instrument's audible tone. As an example, Fender amps are known for producing a sound with dramatically reduced mid frequencies, while the more aggressive-sounding Marshall amps are known for emphasizing mid frequencies. The active EQ on the Ampeg lets the player go either way.


Many of the guitar tracks from "Exile on Main St." were recorded on these (slightly) smaller Ampegs. The guitar tone on that album was a big reason why I picked up a 1976 VT-40, which, at 60 watts, is still louder than god. I love it.
posted by DeWalt_Russ at 5:31 PM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


This also happened with the Fender Bassman.

It's easy to forget in the embarrassment of riches that is today's gear market that options were relatively limited back in the late 60s/early 70s.

All of which just goes to show that some of the best rock and blues albums of all time were recorded on what was available, and wasn't the result of carefully considered A/B-ing of different amps to get THE tone. Some of these choices turned out to be the optimal tool for the job, and became iconic guitar or bass tones. It's telling that a good chunk of the better (or at least popular, YMMV) mass-produced amps are reissues of a '57, '69, model etc.

Part of that is marketing (You too can sound like your guitar idol! Just buy this product! Stevie Ray Vaughan used on of these!), but also the fact that a lot of players just prefer the simplicity of a tube amp turned up to 8, 9 or 10 because it just works, and the make and model they choose just suits their tonal palate. The Marshall vs. Fender mid differences that DeWalt_Russ is talking about are a good example of that taste difference. And in his case, his 1976 VT-40 not only tastes great to him, it lets him kick ass and take names. Tasty and loud enough for his purposes.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:22 PM on February 7, 2015


There's also digital equipment that "models" the sound of certain cabinets that can be run directly into a PA.

Yeah, I particularly love Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5. They even released a free version. It has models of all the classic amps and stacks, here's a list. I just wish I could get a MIDI pedal to control it, apparently it also models the Cry Baby wah wah pedal. I have a vintage Cry Baby but it's busted. It works fine but the pedal won't stay in place when I take my foot off, it just drops to zero. Anyone know how to fix an original Cry Baby pedal?

Nowadays you can do a lot of this amp modeling with an iPhone or iPad, or even an iPod Mini. Damn, I was just thinking, I have a beat up old Boss Play Bus sitting in my junk drawer, here's a pic (yeah really dusty). I used to strap this to my belt, plug in my Les Paul, and use cheap headphones while listening to records through my regular stereo.

But now, I just crank up iTunes and Guitar Rig and I can blow out what little hearing I have left.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:22 PM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


Too bad it's a Crate.
posted by mandolin conspiracy


Doesn't matter, still part of St. Louis music. Speaking of which, Rich Fortus, who plays for Guns n Roses now is the progeny of St. Louis music's previous owners.
posted by readyfreddy at 8:39 PM on February 7, 2015


In the late 80's/early 90's you could pick up those V4 & V2 guitar amps used for dirt cheap, and I bet a bunch got thrown out or abandoned in crappy apartments & practice spaces, because they used an 'oddball' power tube (the 7027), which wasn't really being made at the time. And there wasn't really much of an internet to provide a source for NOS (New Old Stock) tubes or to clue people in to the fact that the 7027 is just a supposedly heftier version of the common 6L6 that has a couple of extra internal connections that are completely irrelevant to the socket wiring in the V4. So you can just use 6L6's, give or take some minor parts tweaking to set the bias. But only a handful of tube amp techs knew that at the time, so a lot of people figured once the tubes were gone, the amps were junk. Damn shame, really.


And a few years ago one of my co-workers actually garbage-picked an old V9 cabinet, which, yes, has nine 10-inch speakers. It was built to match the V9 head, the 300 watt guitar version of the SVT bass head. About half the speakers were destroyed, and finding the appropriate recone kits has been more trouble and/or expense than he's really been willing to invest - especially for a guitar cabinet that's actually larger and heavier than an SVT 8x10 bass cabinet; IOW a guitar cab that's thoroughly impractical.

So for now it sits in the corner of one of our offices.
posted by soundguy99 at 11:36 PM on February 7, 2015 [1 favorite]


The amp designer in Logic Pro X is also not too bad, although I think the conventional wisdom is that Guitar Rig is better.

Digital modeling is getting good enough now that you are starting to see players who have been lifelong tube amp freaks using it, but I don't see the real thing ever disappearing. It's too much fun.
posted by thelonius at 1:17 AM on February 8, 2015


I'm thinking of getting a small tube amp but I live in an apartment and it's basically headphones or the tiniest volume... so I was thinking about an 'attenuator' - seems to be a good option but I'm finding it pretty confusing; a whole world of 'boutique' type products. Anybody got any tips on that?
posted by colie at 4:46 AM on February 8, 2015


Well, just to add to the confusion, if it's just for apartment practice/recording (not so much gigging with a drummer), there are a bunch of tiny 5 watt or less tube amps being made these days, some of which have built-in attenuators to drop the output even further, and/or headphone or line out jacks. Here's a round-up from Guitar Player from a couple of years ago, for example. The Vox AC4 mentioned there has gotten rave reviews all over the place.


But I did a bunch of researching attenuators over the past year (as a fellow apartment-dweller), and at the end I thought the Weber MASS products looked like the best bang for the buck. (The late Ted Weber was a guitar speaker & tube amp guru, and from all accounts his company has continued his legacy of high-quality products and great customer service.) I didn't wind up buying one (yet), because I came up with a couple of different solutions, most of which involve headphones, but I have lately been playing my little 15-watt Peavey Classic 20 with the master volume at like 2, and (knock on wood) no complaints yet.
posted by soundguy99 at 7:40 AM on February 8, 2015 [2 favorites]


Thanks soundguy - I think my only realistic option is a tube combo with a headphone socket, which I never saw before but there do seem to be a few around now. Even 1W of tube volume is too much for where I live - my neighbours have even complained when I played Beatles Rock Band on Nintendo. Although come to think of it that was more accurately several very drunk men shouting in front of Beatles Rock Band on Nintendo.
posted by colie at 9:31 AM on February 8, 2015


a tube combo with a headphone socket, which I never saw before but there do seem to be a few around now

I once had it explained to me that these were relatively rare owing to impedance issues. Headphone jacks on solid state combo amps are pretty common, almost to the point of being universal, whereas the opposite is true for tube combos.

There's a bit of a discussion about that here.

I ended up going the digital route with a POD HD300 and a good set of Sennheiser headphones to deal with my living situation. I love it, even though I don't think there's any replacement for a good tube amp.

There's also the Traynor Quarter Horse, which I looked at when I was shopping around for a headphone-friendly alternative, but again, not tube.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 12:44 PM on February 8, 2015 [1 favorite]


Yeah, the output transformers used in a tube amp need to "see" a load, which is why you should never try to run a tube amp without speakers connected. Headphones are usually the wrong impedance, and an improper load can kill tubes and/or the transformer. Apparently for some lower powered amps it doesn't matter so much - my Peavey has a headphone out that's just a tap off the output transformer - and I think for some of the small tube amps with headphone outs they're taking a signal before it gets to the power tubes.
posted by soundguy99 at 1:30 PM on February 8, 2015


Dammit now I'm bidding on guitar equipment on eBay.
posted by charlie don't surf at 1:38 PM on February 8, 2015


Colie, I would also suggest getting a Line6 POD. My VT-40 lives in our sound-insulated practice space. In my apartment, I play through a POD 2.0 that I got on craigslist a few years ago for $100. These days you could probably pick one up for $50.
posted by DeWalt_Russ at 3:16 PM on February 8, 2015


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