bishopdante wrote:JohnnySomersett wrote: no venue in the south of England will even begin to let me open [my or120] up Loads of engineers have trouble with OR120, but they miss the point. It is wise to tell them "I don't need a mic on this" and make sure the cab isn't pointing at the vocal mic. If the engineer says "but I have to put a mic on everything in order to control your sound / level", explain "you don't have to do that, no" and as justification ask "why no mic on the crash cymbal?". Anywhere that's smaller than 500 ppl the orange is loud enough without a mic.If they insist on a mic, crank it and let them put a mic on the cab and keep the fader at zero after explaining that it's not Wembley stadium and it's loud enough on its own.OR120 is loud enough to keep up with a club PA without being further amplified. That's the job it's designed to do! Same with 200w hiwatt heads. Wear earplugs. A lot of '70s musicians have tinnitus from using that stuff.Would certainly be super handy to have a less-deafening OR120, but they shouldn't be impossible to use as-is. Certainly there'd be less beef with inflexible sound engineers who want everything under their control.Very particular angry sound on full blast, certainly.I feel the same about a powerful drummer beating on a snare drum in a small club as I do about OR120. It's often loud enough without help, doesn't necessarily need a mic, certainly not a default. Nor does the hihat.Am a big fan of self-sufficiently loud backline myself, if it's possible to get away with not putting stuff through the PA that's great in my books.I've tried the sensible, explaining route plenty of times...and also making it subtley obvious beforehand that I actually know how to (and often do) run sound for venues so am 'on their side' but, inevitably, it makes no difference. I pull two tubes which drops it by probably a dB or two but still I end up having to pull out the attenuator (read: the compressor I never wanted) and choking the hell out of it.I've moved over to a TS-50B and poweramp at the moment as it gets me a raspy/angry sound at more sensible (and lighter) levels and I'm enjoying it...but I do miss the OR and its particular flavour.There's one venue, and one sound guy there, who totally 'gets' it and lets us run our backline loud. I love it like that and we played a splendidly loud set there last week:phpBB [media]

The band is super in love with that head AC30 head. It's sitting right next to a YBA1 and '64 Super Reverb and we think it sounds every bit as good as the others. Also worth noting that I own three of his pedals, which are simple, elegantly voiced versions of vintage effects. I have the Rangemaster, Colorsound Power Booster, and Big Muff. Unless there's something specific you're looking for, I'd recommend the Rangemaster first - I like to set it dark and hit the front end of the amp with it. The Power Booster gets the most use, as I like to leave it on and work the knobs on my guitar for different sounds. The Big Muff is great for certain uses as well.

Johnny S, have you considered a power soak? Sorry to derail the thread. Balls products look excellent and I would very much like to own one someday.

JohnnySomersett wrote:I've moved over to a TS-50B and poweramp at the moment as it gets me a raspy/angry sound at more sensible (and lighter) levels and I'm enjoying it...but I do miss the OR and its particular flavour.What about one of those plexiglass discussion avoiders?

J. Burns wrote:Those are totally reasonable prices for those amps. Time to start saving.Dammit, dude. Stop making sense.(Starts a separate "Gear Money" envelope)

Just pointing out this option for the "I Need Orange And Options" peeps -phpBB [media]No telling how close that will get to what "Orange" is in your respective heads.

Dr Tony Balls wrote:yard barf wrote:Say, Doc. Would you mind ballparking (no pun) your prices for amp builds that you have done, and maybe some of the builds that people are expressing interest in? I know this could be done through PM's, but it seems to me that it might be cool to have some numbers (estimates) out there so people could consider different models and mull them over and get tempted and maybe start to put some money aside.Your amps are just gorgeous. Weird sentence, I know.Everything pricewise is based on the specific parts I wind up, which vary amp to amp,so prices also vary a bit. This is usually related to the transformer requirements, but price of tubes can factor into that. That said, generally the price for a custom build 30-50W head like what's been shown in this thread is gonna be around $1100 or $1200.Awesome! Thanks.

bishopdante wrote:If ever I saw a man who should have a trade account with http://www.sowter.co.uk/, I believe that you are he.Yeesh. Those prices make Mercury Magnetics look cheap.

Those switchable wattage things never sound right unless they both disable 2 out of 4 tubes AND change the amount of negative feedback in the power amp so that it's appropriate for the new power level.The ones that change the plate voltage or switch from pentode to triode mode always sound a little off, at least to me.Maybe a 4x6V6/2x6V6 amp with the negative feedback scaling option, for 40/20w?

biscuitdough wrote:Maybe a 4x6V6/2x6V6 amp with the negative feedback scaling option, for 40/20w?Bingo.