Shredder
146 posts
Feb 10, 2010
7:33 PM
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I see lots of reviews about tube amps with tube break up and distortion. If I wanted just a clean pure tone from a harp played thru an amp. what is the best setup. I'm looking for pure clean sound and tone.
Mike
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jonsparrow
2222 posts
Feb 10, 2010
7:35 PM
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a solid state amp? a mouse maybe?
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Violin Cat
119 posts
Feb 10, 2010
7:40 PM
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A key board amp with a ribbon mic ie: Lee Oskar,
http://www.hunterharp.com/loskar1.html#gear
I have a lot of the same goals as Lee with tone and philosophy of tone here, except I'm still in love with tube amps.
Last Edited by on Feb 10, 2010 7:42 PM
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rbeetsme
192 posts
Feb 10, 2010
7:45 PM
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Tube amps can give you both, keep in mind that most solid state amps sound cold in comparison. If you are playing through a stick mic on a stand, a PA might be good.
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Shredder
147 posts
Feb 10, 2010
7:51 PM
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I was thinking a key board amp also. I was unsure of what brand is preferred for harp.
@Viollin Cat, thanks for the link now I know where to start.
Mike
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ZackPomerleau
720 posts
Feb 10, 2010
7:57 PM
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Twin Reverb...good luck cranking that thing!
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jonsparrow
2223 posts
Feb 10, 2010
8:04 PM
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ya twin reverbs are pretty nice. my friend just got rid of his for $700
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ZackPomerleau
721 posts
Feb 10, 2010
8:10 PM
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They are huge, heavy, and loud. What more could you ask for!?
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jonsparrow
2224 posts
Feb 10, 2010
8:18 PM
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there not THAT big. its like two small amps next to each other.
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Last Edited by on Feb 10, 2010 8:20 PM
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Jambo
1 post
Feb 10, 2010
9:21 PM
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i have a fender stage 112 se reverb and a couple of home made mics. I find its quite easy to get both crunch and clean with my set up.. Cheap but effective
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scottb
102 posts
Feb 10, 2010
9:41 PM
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The Fender Deluxe Reverb is a pretty clean amp as well. A little more portable than the Twin. I had one not too long ago that had a Jensen Neo speaker and it wouldn't break up for anything. Too clean for my taste.
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Buddha
1387 posts
Feb 10, 2010
10:10 PM
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Roland Jazz Chorus 120 is great.
I'm into heavy duty bass rig with a few hundred watts of power. Like the Eden Wt-800
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"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell
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Greg Heumann
284 posts
Feb 10, 2010
10:12 PM
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Then there's "THE PA" - a nice, clean, loud amp that's ALREADY THERE AND PAID FOR.
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/Greg
BlowsMeAway Productions
BlueState - my band
Bluestate on iTunes
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Jambo
2 posts
Feb 10, 2010
10:53 PM
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No "PA" at home to practice on unless you want to pay for it...... one needs a good practice amp. A kalamazoo is the way to go..
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Jambo
3 posts
Feb 10, 2010
10:58 PM
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has anyone tried pignose amps?
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toddlgreene
771 posts
Feb 11, 2010
5:04 AM
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Pignose might work for you, just turn the 'oink' or whatever they call the distortion knob off-but it's a pretty one-dimensional sound...a keyboard amp with an onboard EQ is a good bet, too. Full-spectrum sound since most have horns or tweeters as well as woofers. I'm considering one to use with the HarpAttack pedal for stand-alone gigs where there isn't a PA at all, or at least not a decent one.
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Todd L. Greene, V.P.
Last Edited by on Feb 11, 2010 6:17 AM
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MrVerylongusername
892 posts
Feb 11, 2010
5:38 AM
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Roland are good for this sort of thing, AC, KC or Cube series would fit the requirement (as well as the Jazz Chorus that Buddha mentioned)
Last Edited by on Feb 11, 2010 5:40 AM
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Shredder
148 posts
Feb 11, 2010
7:00 AM
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FYI, I have a PigNose7-100 Great little amp. but it has a definate tube break up sound. Thats great if your looking for a good blues tone at$89 "Tweed version" I really like it.
The Roland Jazz Chorus 120 has come up several times in my search for a pure clean sounding amp.
Yeah the PA is an option but I need a monitor on stage and thats what I use the amp. for and send a line out to the board. Oh yeah, I will be using just a slight amount of delay
Keep the suggestions coming.
Mike
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Rick Davis
193 posts
Feb 11, 2010
7:32 AM
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Roland Cube 60. It is compact, powerful, and has all the amp models if you want to get crazy. The JC Clean amp model is the one you want.
It's powerful enough to be a stage monitor with a loud band, and it has a line out. I owned one for a while and liked it a lot.
You can find them on eBay for not much money.
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-Rick Davis
Blues Harp Amps Blog
Roadhouse Joe Blues Band
Last Edited by on Feb 11, 2010 7:34 AM
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MJ
78 posts
Feb 11, 2010
7:55 AM
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A Crate Powerblock is a good amp that is clean and can have some dirt dialed in with the gain knob, or keep it clean. It is either stereo or mono. 150 watts mono or 75 watts stereo. There are also two Line In Right/Left /Mono/Effects Loops jacks. You can send a signal into the amp for processing or you can connect an external effects device using a 1/4" TRS Y-cord (stereo to dual mono adapter) inserted into the Effects Loop Snd/Rtn jack. The front panel contains controls for gain, highs, mids, lows and volume. In addition, on the left there is a 1/4" input jack for your instrument and a stereo head phone jack on the right. Plus it has a really cool blue power light. It's very compact to say the least, 4.6 lbs and is only 3.2” by 10” by 5.6”. Just plug it in to your favorite speaker. I plug mine into my Yamaha BR12 . I origionaly picked it up to use as a monitor amp, and now use it for a regular amp at times. I bought mine used for under $100. They are discontinued, but can be found on CL or Ebay. My choice for a clean amp.
Last Edited by on Feb 11, 2010 7:57 AM
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ZackPomerleau
722 posts
Feb 11, 2010
8:09 AM
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Jon, my guitarist had one...it was huge in weight.
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jonsparrow
2226 posts
Feb 11, 2010
9:50 AM
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never said it wasnt heavy. just said its not that big.
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boris_plotnikov
23 posts
Feb 12, 2010
12:13 AM
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I love the way miced guitar speakers change the harmonica tone clean and especially overdriven, playing to PA (especially overdriven) is often sounds too roughfor me. But I often dislike how guitar preamps and amps alter clean harmonica tone (they are ok for dirty tone). I really want clean amp with 2x10 guitar speakers more and more.
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http://myspace.com/harmonicaboris
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rharley5652
56 posts
Feb 12, 2010
12:20 AM
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Jambo ,.
Your right as rice ,..a Kalamazoo 2 is clean ,.light to carry ,.good for home & small Pubs/Bars,..get one off Ebay for cheap,..make sure it's a model 2,.
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Simply Unique Kustom Mic's By Rharley
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hvyj
136 posts
Feb 12, 2010
1:34 AM
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I use an SWR Baby Baby Blue acoustic bass amp for gigging. Solid state power stage, tube preamp, sophisticated semi parametric EQ for almost total control over tone shaping. 120 Watts w/one 10 and a piezo tweeter which can be turned off. Nice dark, thick basically clean sound. I think the current model is called the Spellbinder Blue.
Btw, my Princeton Reverb Reissue can stay pretty clean if you use the right mic. Nice little harp amp.
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boris_plotnikov
417 posts
Jan 20, 2011
7:40 AM
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I slowly starting to wish great clean amp for
1) acoustic harp playing, as I always hardly hear my acoustic harp from PA
2) Digitech RP200.
3) I love Lonewolf HarpAttack tone more to solid state amps than my tube amp itself.
I recently tried cool Phil Jones CUB AG100, VOX AGA150.
I like them, but the worst thing but I have no ability to try them live, are they really good and enough loud?
Richard Hunter also recommended Peavey KB-2.
There is also Ibanez Troubadour, MARSHALL AS50D-E, Kustom Sienna, LANEY LA30C, FENDER ACOUSTASONIC, AER etc...
Richard Hunter
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Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
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5F6H
481 posts
Jan 20, 2011
8:15 AM
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@ Shredder: "FYI, I have a PigNose7-100 Great little amp. but it has a definate tube break up sound." No it doesn't, it may break up & you might well like it, but it's not "tube" break up.
Whatever you play & try to keep clean, you have to do some work yourself to aim for that clean sound. If you are cupping tight & driving the mic, nothing that you plug into will be clean if it's not receiving a clean signal...I know guys who develop a thick, heavy sound just when playing acoustically, they sound more driven through a PA than most do through a combo amp.
If there is a PA you can use, why not just buy yourself a monitor? Seems the obvious thing.
Whatever you go for, the bigger you go, the better, as drag racers say "you can't beat cubes". A big keyboard amp is a good suggestion as these are designed to take a signal from the keyboard's preamp & just reproduce it louder (guitar amps are usually designed to see a smaller input signal). Really, how clean you need to be is relevant to how loud your environment (I can get a clean tone out of my half watt amp, set for 0.125W if I'm just playing in my living room)...if you need to turn up, then you are either going to start driving things (bad idea with SS amps/PA) or hit feedback ceiling.
Low gain tube amps can be made to run quite clean (there are plenty of tube hi-fi's out there), again stage set up would be good to know.
I warn you, I'm a bit pedantic about what "clean tone" means, I have heard a lot of guys ask for & refer to it ...but struggle to deal with it in reality. To me "clean" means free of artefacts like drive, distortion, break up, envelope, sag, additional harmonics...basically anything that is added on to the source sound. If you have a real pretty tone, then all will be fine, otherwise you can feel quite "naked".
A lot of guys refer to a "mid-scooped" sound as a "clean sound", even though there are artefacts present (a bit of sag, a bit of richness from harmonics) they can enhance & flatter the final sound in a pleasing way, so I'd recommend laying off the mid control on an amp, if you have one.
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earlounge
266 posts
Jan 20, 2011
8:41 AM
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I've never tried a harp mic through it, but the cleanest and loudest amp I've ever heard was a Fender Twin.
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chromaticblues
498 posts
Jan 20, 2011
9:16 AM
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No such thing.
I would look at amps with 2 6L6 power tubes that have solid state rectifiers. There are a buch of new fenders that fall into this catagory. It should be guite easy to find one. Go to any music store! Most new tube amps are just what you are looking for.
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boris_plotnikov
418 posts
Jan 20, 2011
10:56 AM
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Fender Twin is 2x12, and it's pretty muddy for my taste, clean anyway.
BTW, buying monitor is a good idea, but it have to be enough loud to be heard over drums, it have to be feedback resistant. I also want the ability to attenuate hi-frequency speaker.
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Excuse my bad English. Click on my photo or my username for my music.
Last Edited by on Jan 20, 2011 10:58 AM
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Bart Leczycki
12 posts
Jan 20, 2011
11:42 AM
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Hi, I played many gigs on Roland AC-60, It has 2 channels, many "INs" and "OUTs", phantom, reverb+delay+chorus and... antifeedback also.
2x30Watts in small box! It's enough for small clubs. Fishmann and AER makes great amps too.
Let me know how loud it should be.
All the best
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www.myspace.com/bleczycki
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