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G G G G Guitarrrr (amps)

garyi

garyi

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My son is super into his guitar and has taken a shine to Stevie Ray Vaughn and blues in general. He is saving for a fender himself but I have procured a couple of pedals that he is after.

He has a little boss katana amp which is great for what it is, but he really wants that proper blues sound. I am guessing (but dont know) that a valve amp might be better.

Anyone with experience any insight, I don't have a tonne to spend, but equally he ain't gigging so it does not need to be big. perhaps 300 quid for a second hand one.

Apparently SRV was mostly marshall and fender, which seems to be the main players anyhow, so there are so many models its hard to know whats what.
 
It is a really tough one at that budget. You’ll be lucky to find a valve amp that isn’t currently on fire or has been recently extinguished for £300, even a used Fender Blues Jr (not the world’s most reliable amp) will cost about £450 or so these days.

One tip I would give is to checkout every Crack Converters or similar shop in your local area as whilst they tend to check values on guitars they can be pretty clueless on amps. You’ll not find anything especially good, but there may be a half-decent ‘80s solid-state Peavey, Laney, Fender or Yamaha that may give the Katana a run on a clean tone (use pedals for the rest).

Sadly the correct answer is something like a Fender Princeton, but it is just not doable for even three times that without exceptional luck.
 
"That photo was taken on a night when we (Stray Cats) were opening for Stevie Ray on a summer tour. I was watching the show from the side of the stage...he was brilliant as usual! I was standing there, when he suddenly called me up to play. Funny thing was that I didn't have my glasses or contact lenses in so, I really couldn't see that well. (laughing) He actually had to grab my hand and pull me up on stage with him. I remember thinking, this is great, I'm finally going to be able to hear what this amazing guitar sounds like! He had amps all over the place! He hands me his Strat and just kind of stood there watching me. I think we did The House Is Rockin. The weirdest thing was that it sounded just like my guitar! It was so strange. When I played his Strat through all those amps, it sounded just like me, playing my Gretsch through a Fender Bassman, same volume, everything. So it just kind of proved a point to me, if I play Stevie Ray's Strat through his wall of amps and he makes it sound so different....it's in your hands, the sound comes from you! That's what really got me, it was his gear and it sounded nothing like him.
Stevie Ray was a great guy. He would get barbecue or his favorite foods flown if and he'd invite me back to have a meal with him. He was battling some demons at the time, like we all do, but he was a brilliant guitar player and I love listening to him."
 
Is that your story Central? If so thats awesome!

Tony, yeah, in my heart I know lol. I did look in a crack convertors today, they seem to have a lot of amps, but nothing stood out, mostly I guess because i dont know what I am looking at.
 
Oh lol. Well I get that, but a boss katana is digital and fantastic for what it is, but it does not have that warm sound on any setting.
 
A little over budget but the Harley Benton 2x12 with Celestions comes highly recommended
www.thomann.de

🎸 Harley Benton G212 Celestion V30

Cabinet for Electric Guitar Equipped with: 2x 12" Celestion Vintage 30 speakers, Power rating: 120 W at 8 Ohm or 2 x 60 W at 16 Ohm, Inputs: 2 x 6.3 mm jack, Mono / stereo switchable, Housing made of 16 mm poplar plywood, Grille with decorative...
www.thomann.de www.thomann.de

And a 15W valve head
www.thomann.de

Harley Benton TUBE15 Head

Tube Amplifier for Electric Guitar Class AB, 1 Channel, Power: 15 Watts, Preamp tubes: 3 x ECC83 (12AX7), Power amp tubes: 2x EL84, Controls: Gain, Volume, Tone, Bass, Middle, Treble, Reverb, Switch: Power Attenuator 15 W / 1 W, Reverb effect,...
www.thomann.de www.thomann.de

All in for £400, but the cabinet will be good for a much more expensive head unit..

 
A mate of mine that plays in a moderately well known heavy metal band swears by 70’s HH combos.

A Quick Look on E bay throws up a couple of 100 watters for £200 or so.
 
Trying to get that slightly overdriven sound from a valve amp,that blues guitarists want usually means turning the amp up way past acceptable domestic noise levels, think of the neighbours man.So a lot of guitarists use patches they can download or pedals to simulate the sound of their favourite guitarists.If you're a gigging musician and rehearse a lot then you can go for a bigger amp wise and crank things up
 
Yes there is almost certainly an SRV patch for the Katana already. Probably called Texas Flood or something.

The “correct” way to get that sound is a Fender amp, very loud but still clean and then a Tube Screamer pedal with the gain really low but the volume dimed to hit the front of the amp as a sort of clean boost. Ends up with a mid pushed pedal into a mid scooped amp to end up with a sound that is both compressed and sustained but still with loads of dynamics from the fingers and or guitar volume. Overall loudness and Volume plays a big part in this which is why it doesn’t “feel” as good even if the sound you could record would sound bang on.

The Universal Audio Dream 65 pedal has all this built in with a special SRV style boost to get pretty much that sound. Although they are expensive pedals and it only does one amp (albeit 6 variations of that amp).

all of which is to say you can make that sound very realistically without actual tube Amos but volume is a thing so as well as the software some way of making it loud is required for the full experience.

Fwiw I have a 5w tube which I love and sounds amazing. But 5w is still loud even in a detached house and I mostly play with amp sim pedals and/or software into studio monitors or headphones.

Video of a John Natah Cordy making the point about plugins and how much better value and more practical they are fir home guitarists. Although he also has videos on why he uses real amps if you the opposite view.

 
matthewr said:
Yes there is almost certainly an SRV patch for the Katana already. Probably called Texas Flood or something.

The “correct” way to get that sound is a Fender amp, very loud but still clean and then a Tube Screamer pedal with the gain really low but the volume dimed to hit the front of the amp as a sort of clean boost. Ends up with a mid pushed pedal into a mid scooped amp to end up with a sound that is both compressed and sustained but still with loads of dynamics from the fingers and or guitar volume. Overall loudness and Volume plays a big part in this which is why it doesn’t “feel” as good even if the sound you could record would sound bang on.

The Universal Audio Dream 65 pedal has all this built in with a special SRV style boost to get pretty much that sound. Although they are expensive pedals and it only does one amp (albeit 6 variations of that amp).

all of which is to say you can make that sound very realistically without actual tube Amos but volume is a thing so as well as the software some way of making it loud is required for the full experience.

Fwiw I have a 5w tube which I love and sounds amazing. But 5w is still loud even in a detached house and I mostly play with amp sim pedals and/or software into studio monitors or headphones.

Video of a John Natah Cordy making the point about plugins and how much better value and more practical they are fir home guitarists. Although he also has videos on why he uses real amps if you the opposite view.

Click to expand...

Hi Matthew. Yes I have got a screamer peddle, as this was one of SRV most used apparently. My concern with the katana, perhaps misplaced is having peddles into effects might get a bit messy. I was thinking a clean and simple amp with the peddles doing the heavy lifting.

The boy is playing Skuttle Buttin, so he is ready :)
 
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I was thinking that you might get a combo with a 12" celestion speaker and for a bit less money but that mini stack would do the job of waking the whole street well enough. I'll resurrect a 10 year old Andertons video :eek:

 
I had an old Armstrong stereo amp/ mono tuner single triode pentode design that I gave to a mate of my daughter's to use as a home valve amp. He is quite happy with it and even over driven it's not too loud. Lots on ebay for about £100-150
 
gavreid said:
I was thinking that you might get a combo with a 12" celestion speaker and for a bit less money but that mini stack would do the job of waking the whole street well enough. I'll resurrect a 10 year old Andertons video :eek:

Click to expand...

Well the little katana he has now is 12inch, Dclass so also pretty load and uncomfortable in close quarters, they seem to be very common at this size.
 
Gary, I have a little valve amp head (a Firefly - a project from the now defunct AX84 site, and "only" 1.5W) I built a while ago that isn't doing anything.... I'll need to fire it up and make sure it's all working right, but that might do the trick..... I also have a 12" guitar speaker driver doing nothing - it's an Eminence version of either a Vintage 30 or a Greenback - can't recall which.... so if you fancied a little DIY project you could build a cab with it as the basis...
 
I have been around the block a few times playing this game. The sound we seek from a valve amp comes from the overdriven pre amp section, the overdriven power section, the interaction of the power section with the speaker all of this ‘filtered’ by the 12” speaker trying to reproduce sounds that it isn’t designed to! In short in my experience ‘valve amps‘ don’t do their sound thing unless they are pushed hard, by which point they are too loud for most to use at home.

i have tried cheaper modellers and from what I hear the latest ones are really good. I have settled for a Line 6, Helix plus powered monitors which is very flexible for home use. Plus The Helix comes in lots of lower cost cut down versions.

As a starting point I would seek out one of the smaller Katana combos.
 
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