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Post by Surge on Mar 6, 2017 22:54:55 GMT
Hello friends, Have a question for you all, or those interested in helping me out. I mainly play blues, and my current amp is a fender Mustang III V2.0 I've heard good things about the Bugera V5 for blues and have never had a tube amp before. Never have had any effects pedals as well, since the Mustang has quite a bit of effect simulation in it. Any ideas? Mostly thinking bedroom/living room levels of volume which the Mustang has a hard time obeying. (I do not dare go over the "1" on the Master Volume knob..) Pedals? Small amp? Thanks
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Post by MartinB on Mar 6, 2017 23:35:22 GMT
Do you use effects much? Do you think you would use them much?
I would go for a decent EQ pedal or Compressor or combination and something like a Blackstar HT-1
If I ever bother getting a new amp it will be a Palmer Fab 5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2017 6:40:25 GMT
I have the Bugera V5 Inf. and it's a fab blues and cleans amp. But you will need an OD pedal to shape it more because it's a clean amp. I love my NUX Drive Core which is cheap on eBay or Aliexpress.
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Post by MartinB on Mar 7, 2017 12:01:48 GMT
You don't have to use an OD to push the front end of a tube amp, you can do it with EQs, comp, micro amp type pedals and clean boost pedals.
But if you like the sound of a particular OD pedal it's a good choice, they "Colour the tone" for want of a better expression
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Post by Surge on Mar 7, 2017 14:03:01 GMT
I know nothing about pedals, or effects, so yeah... :x
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Post by john on Mar 7, 2017 17:48:32 GMT
I've got the Harley Benton GA5 and to be honest it's a fun little amp that can be cranked to the max and is still home friendly. Probably most 5W tubes would be similar? If I want a bit more from it without setting up the Boss I just run a Jet City Afterburner. Works for me.
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Post by Surge on Mar 7, 2017 20:21:41 GMT
DefJef - I play blues, mostly into the blues where one or two notes can convey a lot of emotion, Albert King being one of my favorites. Have only been playing for about 1,5 years so am not anywhere close to "good" at playing the guitar, but i practice at least an hour a day and have been getting lessons for the past year now. So getting quite a bit of theory and techniques down aside from just playing the blues. (I've heard people using the Mustang III live, it is easily loud enough for some smaller gigs) The Guitars i have right now are 3 humbucker LP (Black Beauty Chibson) HB-35 Plus Lemon HB TE-52 Natural HB Victory plus BK Vintage "Surge Custom Shop" Stratocaster modded up the wazoo Fender MIM Plus Top Deluxe HSS Strat I've had a bit of the old GAS already, i'm getting a good feeling of what i like when it comes to guitars, and why... have not liked any metal guitars that i've played so far and do not prefer fast necks since i do not play fast. Gimme some Fat strings and some great sound, i want a small amp for playing at home that sounds wonderful for just jamming. Would like to get a band together but do not know anyone around, and still getting used to playing in front of others. As far as home recording goes, the Fender MIM Strat has a built-in USB audio interface which i can use for that. Not really up for sharing my noodling with the world anyways... john thanks for the response, just looking for something a bit above the HB quality.
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DefJef
THBC Moderator
Due to musical differences I've decided I can't work with myself any more.
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Post by DefJef on Mar 7, 2017 23:09:01 GMT
I don't doubt the Mustang III could do it live Surge. I played through a borrowed solid state Fender Frontman 212R at one gig and at 100watts was deafeningly loud. With two speakers it also had a bit of width to the sound too but it didn't cook like my 25 watt Champion. Nice thing about the Bugera V5 is that you can attenuate the wattage down to less than 5 watts which is a nice touch as it should help it to dirty up sooner at lower volumes. Don't know how papache got on with that side of things though. Nor whether he has used humbuckers successfully through it and that's worth bearing in mind since you clearly have a few guitars that buck the hum. I gather the Blackstar HT1s can be pretty sweet with humbuckers. And the old HB GA5 has had brilliant reviews as a home amp.
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Post by MartinB on Mar 7, 2017 23:24:05 GMT
I like my HT 1, crap headroom for getting a loud clean tone, but that's not surprising for a 1W.
The controls are simple, I would have liked an EQ but can do that through pedals. You can get it to that just about breaking up point and clean up with the guitar volume or play harder and get a little more break up.
The boost button or whatever it is is hot garbage imo though.
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Post by lockhardt on Mar 8, 2017 0:42:31 GMT
Massively jealous of your guitar collection Surge Do you want tube or are you more open to more? I can only recommend the Boss Katana. I got the Kat100 and it´s an ASS WHOPPING amp. The plethora of styles in this amp is just insane. You obviously have the Roland DNA in it, the clean channel is breathtaking - it does everything, jazz, metal, even acoustic if you so desire. With some fiddling i found a glassy type of amp (think Vox/Fender) aswell. Plus you have 55 boss pedals at your disposal (including a bluesdriver). AND you can run it in 100W, 50W or 0,5W mode. The last one is more than enough for home use. There´s so many good points about it, i´d need to write a threat for it.
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Post by MartinB on Mar 8, 2017 9:52:10 GMT
What HAVE Blackstar got against EQ controls MartinB. I can't understand why they think we don't want them or else have to plug into a computer to get them. Lousy thinking. I quite like an open backed sound that seems to fill the room, especially with a bit of reverb. Does the Blackstar seem quite directional with it's closed back? I can imagine it could do with a bit of bass roll off. I think it's a pure business decision, the more expensive Blackstar amps have EQs but the lower ones in the ranges don't. That true for the HT series anyhow. I loved the reverb on my Blues Jr. but didn't find an acceptable cheap replacement yet, my Line 6 M5 has some nice ones on it but I usually use that for its more esoteric effects. I'm just a simple bedroom player, and my room is pretty small, my taste in EQ is for bass and mids, but not to a point where I lose definition.
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Post by Surge on Mar 8, 2017 10:36:28 GMT
lockhardt Thanks for the idea, i looked at the Katana when i got the Mustang, but decided i liked how easy it was to get sounds i enjoy on the fender. Looking for a small tube amp mostly, i am open to more but saying that, not sure i am Seeing as i already have a 100w amp i do not think i'd buy the Katana anytime soon, unless i try it again sometime and decide i like the difference. DefJef One of the reasons i was looking at the Bugera (other than the praise here) was the ability to tune down to 0.1 or 1 watt. (i like that overdriven clapton sound) Still have no idea about pedals, and not been meddling in effects that much, mostly clean playing and not a lot of gain either. My Black Beauty already growls with the gain on 0, when i plug that in after playing a strat it always startles me how loud it is.
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Post by MartinB on Mar 8, 2017 19:09:34 GMT
There are quite a few tube amps with low power modes. Vox AC4, Laney CUB series, the Palmer FAB5 has an attenuator on the back.
I think that the Bugera is the cheapest though.
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