Why on earth would I need 100 watts?

Terje Larson · From: Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden

I don't play pedal steel at all. I don't even play guitar. I play elelctric balalajka. I have the same range as a violin. I like the amp tone to be clean and all, and I need a little extra headroom for volume pedal work, I do play with a slide and I often try to emulate steel guitar sounds on my instrument.

But I don't have any low notes to play, so why should I need a 100 watt amp? What could that amp do for me that a 30 watt amp couldn't handle? I also hate to play loud and since I have a job that I enjoy and get my money from I don't have to play if the music's too loud. Nobody wants to have a balalajka in their band anyway, I'm not out there as a hired sideman.

I'm just curious. I'm looking for something better than what I have but maybe something like the Evans AE100 or Nashville 112 are overkill for me. Maybe I should look at the smaller tube amps.

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf

[This message was edited by Terje Larson on 03 June 2005 at 09:27 PM.]

Darrell Owens · From: California, USA

Terge,

I must admit I am curious as what an elelctric balalajka is. That is a new one for a Texas guy like me; however, in response to your question regarding WHY you need 100 watts. . . There is a vast difference between what a man needs and what a man wants! The balance seems to occur somewhere between how much you want versus how much you are willing to carry.

I saw the great Frenchy Burke play recently and he was playing his Cajun fiddle through a Peavey Session 500 and sounded great. I was in the studio recently with a 9 piece string section playing accoustic - and they sounded great.

Amplification is very much a part of a musician's sound and technique, and I think we all eventually find what is most pleasing to our own ears and meets the tolerance level of the listeners.

Thanks for the post - It is an interesting question.

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Darrell Owens
www.darrellowens.com

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Terje, maybe you don't. The context of your playing will dictate what you need.

For low-volume gigs with primarily acoustic players, I use a Pod into a 5-watt Fender Champ or Vibro-Champ for electric guitar, pedal- and lap-steel. If you don't have any real low-end, they can sound great. I've seen serious guitar, lap-steel, and harp playing pros bring a Champ onto a large stage, mic it, and run it through the monitors and front-of-house.

Perhaps a Princeton/Deluxe Reverb is right. That's 20 watts or less, and a properly rigged Deluxe can be deafening.

You will not have extreme clarity at loud volumes, but maybe that's not what you need. IMO, there's no substitute for going out and trying a bunch of different things, and letting one's ears, not eyes or even analytical brain, do the listening.

Michael Holland · From: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Buy the best amp you can within your specified budget. Power is not the only thing to consider..reliablity and ruggedness is a prime factor.

A very fine quality amp is will be in the $400 to $550 (USA) range whether it's a 40 watt Fender Hot Rod Deville,Peavey Classic 30 or even a Nashville 112.

You have already determined that HI Power is not a requirement so now choose a quality amp with a reputation . Move on past the power now.

Anything less than a rugged 30 or 40 watt amp from a mainstream supplier will be a KIDS entry level amp anyway...

Ray Minich · From: Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra

Headroom.

John Bechtel · From: Nashville, Tennessee, R.I.P.

That's in case you need a little spare Wattage for your Pace~Maker! Sorry, just trying to be funny!

Yeah, I know, that's not very funny! Especially if you have one.

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“Big John” Bechtel
’04 SD–10 Black Derby w/3 & 5 & Pad
’49-’50 Fender T–8 Custom
’65 Re-Issue Fender Twin–Reverb Custom™ 15” Eminence
web site

Nicholas Dedring · From: Beacon, New York, USA

If you are miked, or are going out of a direct line into the board, then you don't need it.

Bear in mind also that twice the wattage is not twice the volume; I think it's 10 times the wattage to yield double the volume. So, a 400 watt amp is twice the volume of a 40 watt amp, not ten times the volume.

If you don't have additional sound reinforcement, you just need to have enough to be heard in balance with other instruments and provide decent sound for the size of the room you are in.

Bob Metzger · From: Waltham (Boston), MA, USA

If you don't think you need it then you probably don't. Inversely, if you think you do, then you probably do. Isn't choice a wonderful thing!

David Doggett · Posted 7 Jun 2005 6:29 am

Terje, does your instrument have a magnetic pickup or an acoustic type pickup (piezo electric, etc)? If it's the latter, you probably want an acoustic guitar amp. These are very high fidelity full range amps that are more like a PA in sound quality. In fact, if you have an acoustic pickup with a preamp, you can go directly into a PA system, with no guitar amp.

If you have a magnetic pickup like an electric guitar, then you need a guitar amp. And you need to decide whether you prefer a tube amp sound (warm, but with distortion when pushed, especially on sustained chords and slide with a volume pedal), or a solid state sound (colder and more sterile, but cleaner more high fidelity sound). Rock musicians tend to prefer the tube sound, but jazz musicians and many pedal steelers prefer the clean solid state sound.

Once you have decided which of these three types of sound (acoustic, tube, or solid state guitar amp) you prefer, you then have to decide how much volume you need. For various reasons, the rated volume wattages of these three types of amp are not equivalent. You will have to try each type of amp in different sizes. All of the three types come in low, mid and high volume sizes. As you have seen, many guitarists and steelers own amps of different sizes for different occassions, and for backup.

Terje Larson · From: Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden

I have a magnetic pick-up. It's a PRS McCarty Archtop Humbucker for the neck position, I chose it because I wanted something smoother than the P-94 I had there before. One can think of my instrument as a high pitched electric guitar really.

Tried some amps today. I go nuts with this. A Fender Deluxe, Fender Pro Junior, Peavey Classic 30 and some Hughes&Kettner Silverline Edition (a 50 watt solid state amp). They all sounded good to me except the Pro Jr that really sucked. What a noisy little amp! I think the Fender Deluxe sounded the best.

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf

Charlie McDonald · From: out of the blue

I would love to hear an electric balalaika!
Do you recall a band called something like The Red Elvises? I don't think that's the correct name, but they were great. The bass was a huge balalaika, and they played American rock tunes.
I have an old Danelectro, maybe 25 watts; it does the job on steel and guitar.
There's a lot of guys who like a lot of headroom.
My tv system, for example, is powered by a two-watt Radio Shack amp. It's loud.

Buck Dilly · From: Branchville, NJ, USA * R.I.P.

If you go with 100W you will probably notice that the attack will be punchier, and you will have better string to string clarity. I love tubes, but modern solid state comes very close.

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

It doesn't have to be 100 watts, but make sure it goes to 11

Terje Larson · From: Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden

Charlie McDonald, you can hear this instrument if you go to my band's homepage www.drbalalajka.com

We have some clips that you'll find if you look around a little. The page needs to be updated.

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf

Terje Larson · From: Rinkeby, Spånga, Sweden

Billy, you're telling me that there is more to it that just sheer volume and headroom, right? I really need to try something out that is 100 watts so i can get an idea.

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

I think headroom is important if you're looking for a clean sound at a healthy volume, hence the sense for 100W, especially if it's a tube amp. I use a 100W Rivera and stay clean with a loud band, so it's good. On the other hand, for tube amps, the power tubes needs to be driven enough to make them sound their best, so if you never get your tube amp up to a good level where the power tubes are actually being pushed you'll never realize the full potential of the amp's tone. I lot of people who use big and loud amps like the Fender Twin Reverb--which steadily evolved in power from 85W, to 100W, and finally to 135W with the master volume silver face models of the 1970's--never need to turn them up past 3, for example, hence they never get to push the power tubes to where they start to sound really good. For those situations a big amp like a Twin is over-kill, and less efficient in a lot of ways--including tone--than a smaller amp. In a scenerio like that a smaller amp makes more sense, at least if you are interested in the tone of your power tubes. I think it's a balance of being able to push the power tubes enough to make them sound their best and having enough headroom to retain a clean tone at volume.

Some amp companies--like Mesa Boogie, Rivera, et al--have addressed this dilemma by offereing models with switchable power, like the Mesa Boogie Mark series that allow you to switch between 100W and 60W. People also deal with this dilemma by removing pairs of power tubes, e.g., pull two of the four power tubes on a Fender Twin Reverb amp.

[This message was edited by Cliff Kane on 08 June 2005 at 12:25 PM.]

[This message was edited by Cliff Kane on 08 June 2005 at 12:36 PM.]

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

To expand on what Cliff is saying, I agree, tube amps like blacface/silverface Fenders are quite nonlinear. At very low volumes, say below 2-3, they tend to sound quite thin. A nice clean usable range starts between 2-3 and ends somewhere between 4-8, depending on the guitar/pickup/effects used and which model you're talking about. Then above that, they enter the more distorted mode. So whether you want clean or distorted, one needs to use an amp of the right size.

I need at least 3 different size amps for different volume levels.

For clean sounds, Low volume: Champ/Princeton. Medium volume: Deluxe Reverb/Vibrolux Reverb or a small solid-state pedal steel amp. High volume: Twin/Dual Showman Reverb or a large solid-state pedal steel amp.

For distorted sounds, a Champ can be made to work for low-level sounds. A Princeton Reverb might be fine for a medium volumes. A Deluxe/Vibrolux Reverb might be fine for louder volumes. If you want really loud and distorted, the pre-1972 Twin/Dual Showman Reverb (without Master Volume) work nicely.

These examples are based on classic Fender amps, but others could also be used, like the more modern Fender, Peavey, or other amps. On amps like the later 135-watt Twin Reverbs, Super Twins, most clean pedal steel amps, etc., there's no discussion of 'distorted', they get deafening before they distort significantly, and many don't care for the distortion they produce.

To get around these limitations, people put high-gain preamps (e.g., Mesa Boogie), or use power attenuators, so that an amp style that is too large for the desired application (e.g., a Twin Reverb used for distortion at medium volume) can be made to work. I think they're a compromise, tonewise (just my opinion). The modeling amps, like the Pod or Digitech Genesis 3 into a clean power amp are also good for multiple-duty.

I agree, trying a bunch of things out is the key. Everything depends on musical context.

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