Amp Tech Interview with Dale Laslie, MegaTone Amps
I hope you find this technical discussion informative, please feel free to ask any follow-up questions you may have. We covered a lot of ground in a short period of time, and easily could have spent the whole hour on any one of those topics!
Hi Hank
If you can be heard with your Double Trouble at jams, that's great. You're lucky. What that means is that the jam is reasonably well volume-controlled. I play at some where the DT would not be heard - even my SJ Cruncher cannot be heard. (Without getting mic'd or line-out to the PA.)
But I don't think the power of an amp has to do with who its aimed at, nor do I suspect Dale and Mike are only targeting pros. None of us in the business can or we'd all be broke. You choose an amp for the situation. Some small, low powered amps (Kalamazoo for example) won't be heard at almost any jam, but they make outstanding recording amps. Mid size amps like yours are louder, heavier and more expensive,, and are great for SOME jams, or playing with your own band where volume is better controlled, or playing professionally in smaller rooms. Then come the big amps - louder, heavier, more expensive still. I have 3 amps - a small amp, a medium sized one and a big one. I use them all, depending on the situation.
Hank, we choose to make our first offering to be an amp capable of playing on a large stage for a couple of reasons. First... that's what Mike (Wezo) Wesolowski wanted me to build for him and the customer is always right! From a marketing standpoint, it also seemed to make sense because there are very few other amps that can compete with what we are offering. The WEZO-45 is not just a loud amp, you could play this at the smallest club gig and still get the full tone. The cost to produce a boutique quality, low powered harp amp would be hard to justify for us because there are too many lower cost, good sounding alternatives already available to harp players.
I realize that our amps are expensive but we are working on a new smaller and lower cost harp amp combo based on the classic Masco ME-18 from the early 1950's. It has the foot print of our compact speaker cabinet with a tweed style amp chassis built into the top, and will have at least 30 watts but only three knobs. All the details will be announced soon on our website http://www.megatoneamps.com
Thanks guys - this is how we learn.
@Greg - so I'm 2/3 of the way with my Kalamazoo (loving it - thanks) and my HG Double Trouble. I'm not intending to play with a band at a regular gig and am happy just with the jams I go to. Not knowing many other situations, I did not know how lucky I was to have the DT work for me. Right now with the new venue we are at, I'm playing through the PA because of the small stage but plan on trying out the DT this Sunday. I have never tried the line out option and maybe that's worth while. It just seems like such a pain to set up for 3 - 5 numbers. We'll see how it goes. By the way"Avenger Live" video is sweet and a lesson on comping. Hard to tell from a video if that's a louder output than at our jams.
@ Dale - Makes absolute sense. I certainly wasn't intending to be critical - just curious. I look forward to the news on the new amp other than it will only serve to make me think, drool, wonder and check the bank account. Maybe I need to go to a jam that requires more oomph.
Thanks for the interview and information Dale. A question I've had since David started using (and promoting) your amps is: Why have you stayed with the more powerful amps and not come out with something in the 5 - 18 watt size. Are you mainly aiming at the pro level harp player? At my "just playing for me and going to the local jam", I'm finding my HG Double Trouble gives me enough ooomph to get through the guitars and yet keeps me at a $ level I can afford/justify. Am I missing out on something?? I know when I played through David's set up at Masterclass, it was impressive (to my ears) but maybe overkill for my needs. Yet I drool............