F-30 enough for practice?

[Antti Loponen]

Hi, I'm a new user here.

I'm looking for a tube combo in under 1000 euros and I could get a pretty good discount on a Mesa F-30 (from 1500 to 1000). I tried the amp at the shop with my guitar and effects and it sounds just like it should.

I'm a bit concerned about if it's loud enough for our band practice. Our drummer plays loud. The other guitarist plays a Laney 50-watt tube combo and he's loud enough. I know that watts don't make that much difference, but amps can be different. We play some sort of emo-influenced alternative/pop rock.

On the gigs the amp volume doesn't matter because we always mic the amps so the soundman can control the overall sound and give me my own guitar in the monitors if necessary, but on the practice space, we don't have a PA.

Any experiences from playing with the amp with bands? Or other opinions from the amp? Thanks.

 

[ctoddrun]

I bought the F-30 to have a small tube amp that I could "max out" and really push the tubes hard, in an effort to get a great sound.

I found that it couldnt handle the band situation I am in for practice, but we play rock and are quite loud.

I was also unable to control it from feeding back too (unmusically) with the gain/treble set where I liked the tone best.

It went back and was replaced with a Mark IV.

 

[strumminsix]

Antti Loponen -
That screen-name looks familiar - do you have any Line6 gear by chance?

 

[Hollowbody Heaven]

The F-30 will work live but you will probably need an extension cab.

Great sounding little amp.

HH 8)

 

[Antti Loponen]

I found that it couldnt handle the band situation I am in for practice, but we play rock and are quite loud.

I was also unable to control it from feeding back too (unmusically) with the gain/treble set where I liked the tone best.

Interesting. The feeding back won't be a problem. It's more about gain amount than volume, and switching to a bigger amp wouldn't solve it anyway. I don't use much gain. When I tested the F-30 the gain knob was at most on 9'o'clock.

Antti Loponen -
That screen-name looks familiar - do you have any Line6 gear by chance?

Yes, I post regularly there. BTW it's my real name 8)

The F-30 will work live but you will probably need an extension cab.

I said a combo will work on gigs but probably not in band practice. And I'm not going to get an extension cabinet for a combo. I already have a 2x12 cab that I'm selling. If a combo isn't enough, I'll keep the cab and get a small head. In fact, if it was up to me, I'd get a head-cab setup, but it's not ideal for our band. We don't have a van and we do a lot of gigs.

 

[strumminsix]

Antti Loponen -
That screen-name looks familiar - do you have any Line6 gear by chance?

Yes, I post regularly there. BTW it's my real name 8)

The F-30 will work live but you will probably need an extension cab.

Nice to see you here. I go by NickB there but strumminsix everywhere else.

 

[Antti Loponen]

Nice to see you here. I go by NickB there but strumminsix everywhere else.

OK. I'm finally giving up modelers for tubes 8)

 

[strumminsix]

I know. Depending on who I am playing with I go between au naturale and XTL.

These days I've got about 2 or 3 things in the hopper so it's nice just to grab the XTL and plug into anything that is at the rehearsal spot but I love my Mesa Lonestar.

Have you, by chance, reviewed the Lonestar?

Great amp with tons of clean headroom, 100/50 watt switching by channel, a 2 way second chanel that goes from clean repeat> light drive> hard rock, 2 types of reverb, normal or tweed power, can switch out from 6L6s to 84s with a switch and no bias.

It blew me away!

 

[Antti Loponen]

I've never even seen one with my own eyes. The local stores don't carry that much stuff.

 

[Antti Loponen]

Any other F-30 users here?

 

[Surfcaster]

Antti Loponen,

You might check out the F-Series Lounge over at Harmony-Central...here's the link:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=885856&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

There's a lot of good info there and I believe there are at least a few F30 users who are active...it's at least worth asking. I've got an F50, which I find way loud, and when I tried and F30 I thought it was just about as loud. I'm thinking ctoddrun is probably gonna lose his hearing if his band is so loud his F30 can't cut through! Certainly if you mic your amps, you'll have no problems. We always mic'd when I was gigging and I couldn't ever turn it up enough to really get the power tubes working. I usually had the master set at about 9:30 or 10:00 o clock.

 

[Antti Loponen]

I just had the first practice with my F-30. I gotta say I was amazed. before this I had played through a Marshall JCM 600 60 watt 2x12 combo and turned the master volume up to 2 or 3 o'clock. Now, with my Mesa, I had the gain and master knobs both on about 9 o'clock. And it's half the power and half the amount of speakers. I'm amazed. Great tone also. Definitely worth all the money., 8)