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Topic: Battery powered practice amp |
Fred Einspruch
From:
Alaska
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Posted 7 Aug 2005 8:20 am |
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Does anybody have a suggestions for a battery powered solid state amp? I live off a solar powered electric system. Low wattage is the goal. I saw a musician in the subway once ising a battery powered amp.
Any body ever see somthing like that?
Thanks,Fred (at the edge of civilization) |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 7 Aug 2005 10:00 am
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| Fred, do you mean for regular guitar, lap steel, or pedal steel, with or without a volume pedal? For practicing in your bedroom, or playing a gig? All the battery amps I have seen are for regular guitar. Their tone and limited volume might be okay for regular guitar or lap steel without a volume pedal. But for pedal steel with a volume pedal, they have shrill tone and not enough clean headroom. Most of them wouldn't even do for home practice. |
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Jeff Watson
From:
Anza, CA. USA
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Posted 7 Aug 2005 5:10 pm
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| Roland Micro Cube |
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 7 Aug 2005 6:43 pm
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For a rechargeable, portable amp, I like the Crate Taxi. It's pretty loud, recharges on AC power, and lasts several hours on a charge. When I set up with a dealer friend for guitar shows without power, we use one to allow people to test guitars out.
The traditional battery-powered amp is the Pignose - lots of blues guitar/harp players use them, and they're great for that, but IMO, they're not very clean-sounding. I thought the MicroCube sounded good, but the one I tried was nowhere near as loud and clean as the Taxi. |
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John Bechtel
From:
Nashville, Tennessee, R.I.P.
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Posted 7 Aug 2005 9:40 pm
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I have a Sound~Flex Headphone Practice/Tune-up 9-Volt that I got from SGN. True, it is kinda limited for clean~sound using PSG w/V-Pedal. I also use a Kleen~Kick (Izzy+ type) gizmo. Another 9-volter, w/buffered pre-amp. I guess all that’s missing is EQ! But, what the hey, it's only for tune-up or practice; w/o the quest for illusive tone!
------------------
“Big John” Bechtel
’04 SD–10 Black Derby w/3 & 5 & Pad
’65 Re-Issue Fender Twin–Reverb Custom™ 15” Eminence
web site
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Ron Whitfield
From:
Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA
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Dave Mudgett
From:
Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee
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Posted 8 Aug 2005 7:05 am
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| Ron, can you tell us a little more about this amp? How loud can it get? Is it really clean-sounding? How's the tone? It sounds very interesting, and reasonably priced. |
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John Sluszny
From:
Brussels, Belgium
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Posted 8 Aug 2005 11:09 am
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| Yes Ron,same questions.Thanks. |
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Ron Whitfield
From:
Kaaawa, Hawaii, USA
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Posted 10 Aug 2005 10:35 pm
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Guy's, I just put the info out there hoping to help out, and maybe get a user's review, or such.
I've enjoyed the Crate 'Taxi' and then the Micro Cube, so I'm curious about this one too, but it'd have to be insanely good to match up with the MC at twice the $! |
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Denny Turner
From:
Oahu, Hawaii USA
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Posted 10 Aug 2005 11:59 pm
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In answering Fred's question per the info he provided:
I suppose being off the grid suggests home use, unless the local bar is off the grid too! So let's suppose battery power is the main concern (although the wall-wart power supply works too):
I can highly recommend the Roland Microcube. ~~~ No recharging NECESSARY (as some of the other amps suggested here require); Just drop in 6 AA batteries for 20 hours of the greatest sound I've ever heard / played from such a small unit (and better than allot of larger amps). Rechargeability is as simple as obtaining rechargeable AA batteries of the type desired and a charger to charge them; Put a freshly charged set in the amp and put the ones from the amp in the charger for an "endless" cycle of batteries. ~~~ High tech modeling circuitry delivers what the amp is intended / advertised to do; Great sounds in all of it's featured operating modes. ~~~ Check out all the details provided in the link above; Where else can you find such ammenities? And for well under $100 from a number of ebay merchants; Commonly $100-$125 in music stores. ~~~ And this little sucker is LOUD for it's size, ALTHOUGH some of it's upper "volume" comes from apparant volume (tricks upon the human ear) in higher gains that would not be so useable for clean / high-headroom sounds WITH SOME of the emulated features / effects, ...but probably around 80% of it's apparant volume is still there at lower GAIN with rather clean headroom on all of the feature selections, with MAYBE the exception of 1 or 2 head-banger amp modeling selections + effects combinations. Since the amp emulator selections use limiters in their modeling, there are 3 emulated amps that are designed to produce higher apparant volume at lower preamp gain modeling (cleaner character with more headroom) ...that should do what the amp is designed to do over the full range of each feature. ~~~ I don't think many pedal Steelers would want to overload one of the head-banger selections with 12 strings of power chords, but would simply select a cleaner features choice ....although I don't think even 12 note pedal Steel power chords would be any more threat to the design and advertisement (and reputation) that is designed to accept a Player's string of guitar effects' highly dynamic preamped signal. ~~~ I've "Joe Walshed", "Johnny Wintered" and "Billy Gibbonsed" the h_ll out of my MC with a number of lap Steels including a Rick B6 (a freight train of signal), at scalded banshee gain / effects settings ....and I didn't notice the MC falling short of it's job of producing what I selected at all (thanks to the amps circuits keeping all that noise in darn good order & balance).
.......IMO 
Aloha,
DT~
[This message was edited by Denny Turner on 11 August 2005 at 01:14 AM.] |
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