lockbody
Well-known member
My current band calls for a clean tone 90% of the time (We do early to mid-sixties rock and soul) . My preference is for an edge of breakup, "hot clean", with a good bit of my playing being on the neck pickup of either my Strat or Jazzmaster. I like that quintessential Fender woody and spanky tone when using the neck pickups and I like for the bridge tone to cut your head off. We also play at fairly low volumes, as with this band, the singer is the star. Without fail, if the band starts to get too loud we start hearing it.
I've got a fantastic amp that gets me the tone I love at low volumes, a SamAmp. If you don't know, SamAmps have an innovative system using appliance light bulbs to reduce current and voltage to the power amp tubes. My amp allows you to select from 45/30/15/5 watt settings. For my rhythm playing, the 15w setting is the stuff, and at a few gigs I've even gone down to 5w.
And here's my problem - at 5w or 15w there is absolutely no headroom to step above the band for solos. 15w isn't as bad as the 5w setting, but it's still not enough, IMO. I could, or course, use either the 30 or 45 watt settings, but then I have to lower the volume of the clean channel and my rhythm tone starts to get a bit "plinky" for my tastes (the clean channel is non-MV).
So I started think about Mesa again and how a good number of the amps these days allow for different wattage per channel, whereas with my SamAmp it's only globally.
I guess my choices are:
Lonestar Classic
Lonestar Special - How is the low-end on these? I always seem to end up with 6L6-based amps for that bottom. I'm guessing like any Mesa, the 30w setting will hang with just about anything?
Mk V - Overkill for this band, but the 10w setting sure makes it usable. Lockbody still likes to rawk sometimes, too.
Mk V 25 - Man, this amp looks like the stuff, but I wonder how the clean channel would hang if the volume went up for an outdoor show, or for any reason for that matter.
Also, is there any noticeable lag when changing channel and going between wattage settings? My Roadster was bad regarding this, but it was the only Mesa I've owned where this was an issue.
Thanks in advance!
I've got a fantastic amp that gets me the tone I love at low volumes, a SamAmp. If you don't know, SamAmps have an innovative system using appliance light bulbs to reduce current and voltage to the power amp tubes. My amp allows you to select from 45/30/15/5 watt settings. For my rhythm playing, the 15w setting is the stuff, and at a few gigs I've even gone down to 5w.
And here's my problem - at 5w or 15w there is absolutely no headroom to step above the band for solos. 15w isn't as bad as the 5w setting, but it's still not enough, IMO. I could, or course, use either the 30 or 45 watt settings, but then I have to lower the volume of the clean channel and my rhythm tone starts to get a bit "plinky" for my tastes (the clean channel is non-MV).
So I started think about Mesa again and how a good number of the amps these days allow for different wattage per channel, whereas with my SamAmp it's only globally.
I guess my choices are:
Lonestar Classic
Lonestar Special - How is the low-end on these? I always seem to end up with 6L6-based amps for that bottom. I'm guessing like any Mesa, the 30w setting will hang with just about anything?
Mk V - Overkill for this band, but the 10w setting sure makes it usable. Lockbody still likes to rawk sometimes, too.
Mk V 25 - Man, this amp looks like the stuff, but I wonder how the clean channel would hang if the volume went up for an outdoor show, or for any reason for that matter.
Also, is there any noticeable lag when changing channel and going between wattage settings? My Roadster was bad regarding this, but it was the only Mesa I've owned where this was an issue.
Thanks in advance!