strontiumtom wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 8:16 am Thinking of going for this Frankenbeauty Traynor

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/266863391753

Will probably need to get an attenuator in the mix there.

Any thoughts from those more gear-minded than me?

I had one of these last year. Now, I absolutely suck at guitar, but I just couldn't get it to rock, even with an attenuator. Maybe I got a dud (or the attenuator was a bad match)?
If you want to do clean blues or jazz it's a knockout though.

That guy also has it posted over on thefretboard for £350 and is local to you (I think?) if you want to go try it. It's not a bad deal, considering the speaker upgrade.

andyman wrote: I had one of these last year. Now, I absolutely suck at guitar, but I just couldn't get it to rock, even with an attenuator. Maybe I got a dud?
If you want to do clean blues or jazz it's a knockout though.

That guy also has it posted over on thefretboard for £350 and is local to you (I think?) if you want to go try it. It's not a bad deal, considering the speaker upgrade.

Oh great shout on the price drop. Cheers Andy!

That's a shame about the rocking. Pedals didn't help?

I had a YGL 3 mk III that had a channel that would break up beautifully, I was hoping I could mimic it with an attenuator. Also the whole playing indoors and not having my neighbours hate me thing. The YGL was LOUD

Lu Zwei wrote:Looks like sex to me! I would go for it!

You know what, I just might!

strontiumtom wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 9:45 am

andyman wrote: I had one of these last year. Now, I absolutely suck at guitar, but I just couldn't get it to rock, even with an attenuator. Maybe I got a dud?
If you want to do clean blues or jazz it's a knockout though.

That guy also has it posted over on thefretboard for £350 and is local to you (I think?) if you want to go try it. It's not a bad deal, considering the speaker upgrade.

Oh great shout on the price drop. Cheers Andy!

That's a shame about the rocking. Pedals didn't help?

I had a YGL 3 mk III that had a channel that would break up beautifully, I was hoping I could mimic it with an attenuator. Also the whole playing indoors and not having my neighbours hate me thing. The YGL was LOUD

I'm sure pedals would do a decent job. I'm just saying it's not something that overdrives too easily. If you check out the first few demos on youtube they're fairly accurate. You'll see you need to max the volume, and I found with the attenuator it kind of sucked the fun out, as they always do. It's still a great amp.

If you have a practice space or are happy with pedals then this is mostly moot.

I think those have bax tonestacks, right? The Traynors I’ve owned weren’t like that, but If I’m not mistaken, 12 o’clock on the eq is flat, under that cuts and above boosts. So you don’t really set them like a Fender or whatever.

There’s all sorts of ways that works out on amps, but as on my old Rickenbacker amp and Ampeg Gemini (as opposed to V-series Ampegs) it’s definitely a smokey sort of sound like andyman says. Clean but you do get good tube compression. But you can also get sounds that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Silver Jews or Pavement record or something. That really rich neck pickup thing. The V-series has the boost/cut thing too, but the sound of those is way different and does absolutely rock.

I have one of those - maybe we have different definitions of 'loud' or different guitars, but mine certainly 'rocks'. It's really all I want in a 'lower' powered combo

TylerDeadPine wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 6:13 pm I have one of those - maybe we have different definitions of 'loud' or different guitars, but mine certainly 'rocks'. It's really all I want in a 'lower' powered combo

Are you able to 'turn it up' or do you live in an 'apartment'?

andyman wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 6:21 pm

TylerDeadPine wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 6:13 pm I have one of those - maybe we have different definitions of 'loud' or different guitars, but mine certainly 'rocks'. It's really all I want in a 'lower' powered combo

Are you able to 'turn it up' or do you live in an 'apartment'?

It depends… is that Freedom Rock?

andyman wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 10:01 am I'm sure pedals would do a decent job. I'm just saying it's not something that overdrives too easily. If you check out the first few demos on youtube they're fairly accurate. You'll see you need to max the volume, and I found with the attenuator it kind of sucked the fun out, as they always do. It's still a great amp.

If you have a practice space or are happy with pedals then this is mostly moot.

Got you. I was hoping an attenuator would do the job of a master volume and get the break up at a lower volume, but I've never used one and I'm not tech minded at all! Some people swear by them, but I guess they aren't ragging the amp,

strontiumtom wrote: Sat Jun 22, 2024 3:01 am

andyman wrote: Fri Jun 21, 2024 10:01 am I'm sure pedals would do a decent job. I'm just saying it's not something that overdrives too easily. If you check out the first few demos on youtube they're fairly accurate. You'll see you need to max the volume, and I found with the attenuator it kind of sucked the fun out, as they always do. It's still a great amp.

If you have a practice space or are happy with pedals then this is mostly moot.

Got you. I was hoping an attenuator would do the job of a master volume and get the break up at a lower volume, but I've never used one and I'm not tech minded at all! Some people swear by them, but I guess they aren't ragging the amp,

AFAIK, the attenuator + amp combo matters; this is less of an issue if you splash out on like an ox amp box for £1000 or a tone king for £500.
However, living in an apartment, I had to turn the attenuator all the way down, and they're only really good if you use them a bit. Less is definitely more.

But like I said, with pedals this is moot.

If I were you home players, I would always go for a smaller head + cabinet solution, or just a straight small combo for home use.

Orange has wonderful small combinations for that and I have one at home:

https://orangeamps.com/products/guitar- ... ro-terror/

+

https://orangeamps.com/ppc108speaker-cabinet/