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Topic: 2 Birds With 1 Stone-Amp for Dobro & Lap Steel? |
Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 3 Jan 2006 3:36 pm |
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Okay, here's the deal: In the next few months I'm going to be purchasing a 12 string MSA SuperSlide.
That alone will put a crimp on this year's GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) program. We have a couple of solid state electric guitar amps around here-but they are used mostly by my son these days as I concentrate on the lap and dobro. I'm in 2 groups, and one is the church band-I normally go direct into the mixing board with that group on both instruments.
I was using a Crate acoustic amp for my dobro the other day, and I thought it sounded pretty good-a fairly natural acoustic sound with the dobro. It also sounds pretty decent with my old Supro lap.
But when I upgrade the lap guitar quality to the SuperSlide, is an amp like this going to be a disappointment-too much of a compromise?
I have to tell you that it's nice not having to fight the feedback when I'm amping my dobro, with an acoustic amp. The Crate has a built-in preamp, and gave a much more natural sound, as written earlier-and I don't have to use the Fishman Platinum preamp with the disappointing tone.
Any ideas for a 2 birds with one stone amp for my situation? I'm thinking that at some point down the line I'd buy a Peavey or a Fender Steel King for the SuperSlide, or some nice tube amp, but that could be a couple years away.
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Mark
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Dave Zirbel
From:
Sebastopol, CA USA
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Posted 3 Jan 2006 7:22 pm
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Congrats on the Superslide!
Does the Crate belong to you? If so, go down to Zone Music and buy the Steel King they have down there and deal with two amps. I don't think that there is an amp that is great for both steel and acoustic instruments. I usually end up playing my Dobro through a steel amp and it has more of a lap steel sound since I use a magnetic pickup on it.
Dave Z |
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Mark Eaton
From:
Sonoma County in The Great State Of Northern California
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Posted 4 Jan 2006 1:03 am
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That's the problem, Dave, I borrowed the Crate from another guy.
I hate the sound of the dobro through an electric guitar amp. My Clinesmith has the Fishman passive pickup in it.
I played one of those import Gretsch lap steels through the Steel King at Zone several months ago-and even though that guitar isn't well thought of here on the Forum, it sounded pretty good through a Steel King. I can only imagine what a quality non-pedal like a SuperSlide would sound like through it.
I don't have a problem dealing with two amps-but I think my wife might have a problem with me buying a new steel guitar along with two amps in the same year!
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Mark
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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 4 Jan 2006 8:48 am
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| Many people prefer a tube guitar amp for lap steel. And as you have found, a Dobro with an acoustic pickup sounds best through an acoustic amp, which has a full spectrum amp and speaker system (typically a two-way system with a separate tweeter and woofer). Since you liked the sound of a Steel King for lap steel, you may not need a tube amp. But you may find that the lap steel doesn't sound so great through an acoustic amp, because the extra highs provided by the tweeter make it sound shrill and thin. One solution would be to use a POD XT or other guitar amp simulator to play the lap steel through an acoustic amp. You would play the Dobro directly through the acoustic amp, and play the lap steel through the simulator then into the acoustic amp. An acoustic amp will very well reproduce the amp models of the simulator. All of them have both clean models similar to the Steel King and other solid state guitar amps, as well as tube amp models. The POD XT is around $300, but Digitech makes an amp simulator that costs around $100. As a bonus you also get multiple reverbs, delay, fuzz, distortion, overdrive and other effects. The tube models don't have the full tube sound compared to a real tube amp, but if you were happy with the solid state Steel King, that may not be important to you. The main thing is that almost any of the guitar amp models will filter out the shrill highs and make the lap steel sound like it is playing through a guitar amp. But the Dobro will be free to use the full spectrum acoustic amp. |
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