I remember a time maybe 10 years ago when it seemed like all punk/underground/post adjacent music was at peak volume. There was an enthusiast I knew who would start describing bands based on speaker confiugurations first, "Have you heard them? They're rad. They do the two guitarists with full stacks and the bass player's got an Ampeg on an 8x10 and a Mesa going through two 2x15's. Totally amazing."

It seemed like face melting volume was never going to win me over on a band, only enhance a band I was already enthusiastic about.

In contrast I remember playing a gig with a touring band, incredibly tight jeans that were rolled up mid calf, telecasters worn close to their necks, and each guitarist had a Blues Jr set on a chair. It almost felt like an intentional gear antithesis to my more excessive friends.

There were years when almost every band, regardless of their style seemed to have half stacks with 4x12s, except for those people playing through Fender Twins (the weirdos!).

Now I'm not sure how important any of this really is, but I'm at rehearsal loving the biamp setup. I thought, "Hey a 2x12 doesn't stand so high and I'll just throw my 1x12 combo on top, it's like a medium sized rig made of smaller parts." I looked at the tower of amplification and thought, "What an asshole!". I guess I've just reached a point where we play to a large number of folks in the over 30 crowd and being loud as fuck just seems kind of obnoxious. And yet I'm playing overdriven rhythm guitar.....

I like a pile of old amps as much as the next person, but if it's some 80 person 4-band-bill bar gig, there are matters of transportation, courtesy to other bands, and respect for the audience that you need to consider as well.

I respect the younger folks playing Blues Jr thing, especially if it means a quartet can tour in one of their parent's Toyota sienna and not go into debt doing it. Back when I was playing out of town gigs we had to fuck around renting a cargo van to haul around half stacks and an 8x10 and move them up some stupid staircase in east lansing to play for 8 people. In hindsight it just seems like a lot of overkill.

Seemingly every touring band in the late '90s/early 2000s had huge fuckin' racks and I have no idea why. Maybe there were strobe tuners and noise gates and an effects unit, but what else. I became convinced after awhile that was just something you did to signify that you had your shit together or something.

When I routinely played guitar, my technique was so bad that if I played through a Blues Junior you would probably still hear the guitar strings acoustically over it. No objection otherwise.

Guitar worn across nipples is inexcusable.

I always wanted to get like a dozen solid state practice amps that were advanced enough to have FX loops, and use the loops to stack them. Peavey Envoys or something like that.

penningtron wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 8:47 am Seemingly every touring band in the late '90s/early 2000s had huge fuckin' racks and I have no idea why. Maybe there were strobe tuners and noise gates and an effects unit, but what else. I became convinced after awhile that was just something you did to signify that you had your shit together or something.

Two power amps for your stereo rig. Possibly other duplications too: preamp, delay, etc.

biscuitdough wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:08 am

penningtron wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 8:47 am Seemingly every touring band in the late '90s/early 2000s had huge fuckin' racks and I have no idea why. Maybe there were strobe tuners and noise gates and an effects unit, but what else. I became convinced after awhile that was just something you did to signify that you had your shit together or something.

Two power amps for your stereo rig. Possibly other duplications too: preamp, delay, etc.

Nowadays we just have 25 pedals spread across 2 boards to do all that stuff

Most of those bands didn't have much more going on than a clean and distorted sound though! The few 'shoegaze' bands I saw back then were already into their spaceship pedal boards.

I'll just say this.

I just saw 3 bands that I think were all touring together the other night at a decent-sized venue. They shared SOME of the same gear, namely the drums and bass amp. Two of the bands used 4x10 and 4x12 guitar amps. The middle band used a small 1x12 (maybe even a 1x10) combo and I think the other guitar player had a direct setup. The two bands using the big amps sounded fantastic. The other like dogshit. Pretty sure it was the same sound guy for all 3, but I suppose it is possible the dogshit one had their own sound guy.

Small amp setups can obviously sound great. But I do think it's the exception. If you have larger amps you can control your sound somewhat better and it can work at any venue regardless of their sound reinforcement. My $0.02.

Another one: while I feel like the Roland Jazz Chorus amps are neutral 'pedal platform' amps that can do nearly anything short of saturated stoner rock, if a band rolls up with a Roland JC or two these days you are 99% of the time gonna get some floaty dream pop.

Small amp setups can obviously sound great. But I do think it's the exception. If you have larger amps you can control your sound somewhat better and it can work at any venue regardless of their sound reinforcement. My $0.02.

Yeah, it really can depend. One amp that was pretty hyped for awhile that I found extremely disappointing was those ZT Lunchboxes. And for 200w or whatever it was sounded puny and underpowered to me.

penningtron wrote: Tue Jul 13, 2021 10:13 am ZT Lunchboxes. And for 200w or whatever it was sounded puny and underpowered to me.

agreed

I've taken ours to a few really small shows, but have always plugged it into a 12" speaker cab. The real shitty thing about those are the tiny speaker super sucks. They in no way sound like 200 watts. More like 50. I also would say they do not sound "good" at all, but just gets the job done. I think you would be better off with just a Quilter and a good cab in every way.