Lunch on Wednesday

Todays lunch was eaten at our local fresh food market - I had a ham, cheese and tomato croissant and a coffee. We do all of our shopping at the market now and it feels great. On the odd occasion when we do go to a large chain supermarket we find it depressing, and we're amazed by how much space is taken up by packaging for the products you buy. I'm starting to sound like a hippy now...

Amps
I picked this up this morning - a 30W Kustom Double Barrel. 212, solid state combo. Cost $100 and is in great shape.

I first played one of these SS Kustoms at a recent gig in the outback where the supplied back-line amps were a 100W Kustom on a 412 cab, and a 15W Ibanez with an 8" speaker. Talk about inequality. I won the toss and got the Kustom. I was stunned at how good the thing sounded and when this came up I jumped on it. The inbuilt effects are woeful, but the clean and even the dirty sounds are pleasing.
Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by a low end amp? Do you own one?

Aliens
What do you think - are they out there?

Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by a low end amp? Do you own one?

I bought a guitar on Ebay a few months ago that came with a lower end Line 6 amp. Some of the settings on the amp were surprisingly good! I resold it.

Aliens
What do you think - are they out there?

Space aliens or illegal aliens? I think there is a strong possibility that space aliens exist. I'm 100% sure that illegal aliens exist. They work in this area picking apples, tobacco and the Triumph Pork processing plant is full of them.

Sprinter 92

Last edited by Sprinter 92 on Thu Oct 25, 2012 4:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by a low end amp? Do you own one?

I bought a guitar on Ebay a few months ago that came with a lower end Line 6 amp. Some of the settings on the amp were surprisingly good! I resold it.

Aliens
What do you think - are they out there?

Space aliens or illegal aliens? I think there is a strong possibility that space aliens exist. I'm 100% sure the illegal aliens exist. They work in this area picking apples, tobacco and the Triumph Pork processing plant is full of them.

Sprinter 92

Lets try and stick to space aliens

Thanks for stepping in and up, Blarg:

Low-end amp: Until very recently, I had an early 80's Peavey Bandit 75 that had a surprisingly nice clean channel with lots of headroom.

Aliens: If you accept that we are here, then they exist and we are among them. - ed

Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by a low end amp? Do you own one?

Hi Jamie,

I've got a Roland Cube 30 which is 5-6 years old, and some of the clean emulations are quite okay. Especially the Jazz Chorus, Fender Twin, Fender Bassman and Marshall. Lightly driven sounds are alright, but it soon sinks into a digital fuzz-fest after that. The effects are pretty average too. On the positive side it makes an excellent keyboard amp. I played a little Laney 15 watt tube amp with a 10" Celestion speaker that absolutely knocked my socks off. I think it was the VC-15. It was only $300. Shoulda bought it.

From Tuesday, as for guitar stands, I use the basic fold-up tubular stands; but I also have one of the rack jobs, by Warwick I think, that holds seven guitars. If I have space, I like to use that for gigs. I usually set it on a rug, the guitars can slip and hit the floor if one is not careful.

My solid state guilty pleasure is my old SUNN Solos II 212 combo, with rev., trem, dist., solo boost, and treble boost. Sounds a lot more Marshall then Fender. Rated 120 watts, loud and clean; warmer and sweeter than a JC-120 Roland.

I owned an Acoustic 156 rig years ago in '75, and a SS Gibson 410 in '73. I've played on Peavey Renowns, Specials, and Bandits; vintage tuck and roll Kustoms, and many others. On the right gig, a SS amp can serve you well, but I like my Mesas the best.

Aliens? Oh yes...but I think WE are the aliens.

You want proof?

Dennis Rodman?

RuPaul?

Lady Gaga?

Richard Simmons?

DUH!!!!! Oh, HELL YEAH!!!

Bill

i played some of my students cheap kustom amps and was very surprised at how good they sounded. i have an epiphone epitar valve 30 amp that is pretty cheap and sound incredible.

the likelihood of aliens existing is pretty close to 100%. them having been here in actual physical presence in the tiny amount of time we have been around to be able to recognize it, is very small.

Phil - Those 15W Laneys are fantastic amps. I wish I had one instead of the LC30 that's sitting here.

Bill - You might be right about about us being aliens. Richard Simmons is certainly from a different planet! I wonder if he is a cult leader nowadays?

Louis - Those Epi amps come up for sale for next to nothing all the time around here, there's always at least one in the pawn shop down the road. I'll check one out some time soon. Glad you like these cheapo Kustoms too - this one stands up far too well against the really expensive amp I use most the time At practice levels anyway... The real test for an amp is at stage volume, and IME this is the where a lot of SS amps fall short. Whereas a valve amp (in general) comes more alive with volume, an SS amp can feel painfully cold and dead.

Phil - Those 15W Laneys are fantastic amps. I wish I had one instead of the LC30 that's sitting here.

Bill - You might be right about about us being aliens. Richard Simmons is certainly from a different planet! I wonder if he is a cult leader nowadays?

Louis - Those Epi amps come up for sale for next to nothing all the time around here, there's always at least one in the pawn shop down the road. I'll check one out some time soon. Glad you like these cheapo Kustoms too - this one stands up far too well against the really expensive amp I use most the time At practice levels anyway... The real test for an amp is at stage volume, and IME this is the where a lot of SS amps fall short. Whereas a valve amp (in general) comes more alive with volume, an SS amp can feel painfully cold and dead.

those epis are 2 el84's with 2 channels, but mine has a celestion speaker in it, but a very warm and fat sounding amp. the drive channel is ok, but the clean channel is awesome.

That lunch sounds good. Sounds? Can you say "sounds" to something read? Oh, well...

Cheap amps? I have a Crate Acoustic with a Carvin 1x12 cab w/ tweeter(it's a Carvin Acoustic, but I don't use the amp. The Crate is better believe it or not.) for acoustic. It is incredible! The combo of the two sized speakers and tweeters mixed with the on-board controls of the Crate is tops, baby! Both are the same color green in tolex too. Sure, I'm plugging in great instruments, but this set-up really works. In it's off-time, I use it as a chair:



Aliens? Ummmm....


Cheers,

Will

Holy smokes Jamie, this came up way after my bed time!

I have never turned up my nose at solid state amps. There are some great sounding Kustoms and Steve, our lead player, used a Peavey Bandit for many years. I think that solid state amps can give a super clean. They are deficient for distortion as they cannot breakup and sag on overload like tubes. If you are a clean player and want a reliable rig, you cannot beat a good solid state amp. Even if you want distortion, pedals do the job. All my recent bass amps are solid state as I want headroom and no breakup. My Cyber Twin SE is a solid state with a tube in the preamp and it has tons of effects, some great and some terrible. There is even a broken amp setting which pops and has static.

Aliens?, haven't seen any.

Thanks for jumping in Jamie. -- Darwin