Pa amplifiers
Hello to all, i am loking at amps for street/home and rather that go valve was wondering if a PA with various pedals can sound good.So my interest is if the DUAL CUBE BASS LX would get that crunch being made for bass guitar.
If not what would be a good choice, i only looked at speaker size bigger being better i thought...volume isnt my main concern.
There are so many options but all are for guitar first and foremost.
Of course i can eventually go and try some but has anyone narrowed it down or am i missing the harp/tone/chicago point here thanks in advance Brian
Thanks mate, im not planning on busking with a tube amp thats for sure,i just want a battery amp and wondered if a bass one would be better.The roland cube seems good enough, i have a little katana that is ok in my room. I wont sing i just want a nice crunchy sound from PA and a pedal. So much to learn....thanks for taking time to help out.
In that case, one of the little Roland/Boss battery amps made for instruments or vocal (not necessarily bass) should work just fine, especially if it has circuits to emulate a vintage amp, plus either reverb or delay.
Enjoy!
Brian:
I don't know whether or not a battery-powered solid-state designed for bass is really the way you want to go. This particular Boss (formerly Roland) amp has a lot of bells and whistles that you might not get all that much use out of for harp.
1: If you're talking "street" as in busking somewhere where you won't have access to electrical power, you've got to go with an amp that can use batteries. That means solid state, as a battery-powered tube amp would be a rare thing. And possibly need a battery the size of a pickup truck. On the other hand, if you're going to be busking somewhere where a nice store owner will let you run an electical cord out front (like the traditional Maxwell Street musicians in Chicago), you can go with a nice tube amp.
2: Are you going to sing and play? If so, there are some great portable 2-channel Roland/Boss amps out there. Check out the Roland Cube Street EX. For a couple of cabaret shows where the pit was challenged for both space and access to power, our bass player brought one. He played bass through one channel, and I kept swapping cables into the other channel and adjusting on the fly, mic'ing ukulele and banjo with a 545SD, and then swapping in one of my harp mics for the tunes where I played harp. In an 80-seat theatre that little amp put out plenty of sound. We just had to remember to pack extra batteries.
3: If you're only going to play harp, i.e., no vocal mic, and you need battery power, have you thought about looking for an old Mouse? That's how Adam Gussow got started, and last I heard, he still owned one of his from the 1980s. Here's one that might work: https://www.ebay.com/itm/175797714623?hash=item28ee5c3ebf:g:lskAAOSwHitk...
4: Will you be playing harp only, and only in places where you can run an extension cord for power (even if it's 100' long), why not pick up one of the small tube amps that David has reviewed on this site? There're some nice ones out there.
Let us all know what you end up with!