best 1-watt / very-low-watt amp

[tuj]

Nah man, I'm not selling the Champ. I picked it up in Cincinnati at a great place called Mike's Music (which is where, coincidentally, I bought my first proper guitar amp, a silverface Bassman 100) for a really good price, shipped it down to Houston while I was living there, and then dragged the Champ down to Puerto Rico (where I am now). Surprisingly the Champ made it intact; only the pilot light bulb needed replacement.

If you ever want a Champ, give Mike's Music a call. Last time I was there, they had about 10 or 12 decent-looking silverface and other Champs. Secret: cash makes a big difference to them for some reason...

Recording the Champ:

[Gone Fission]

Keep the Champ for cleans. Add an amp-in-a-pedal with good master-volume level control or a small but cool solid state amp for dirt tones. I'd probably look at Marshall-in-a-box pedals like the DLS for the former, and I'm holding tight to my Marshall Lead 12 for the later. Or maybe add a master volume control to the Champ if pushing the front end with gain peds is essential to your sound.

You could also try a smaller modeling amp, like the Yamaha ones (THR?) that people seem to like.

[friendship]

Interesting mic technique, tuj. Can you tell me more about it?

[tuj]

how do you guys feel about the AMT tube boxes?

[goroth]

Bought it online at emusic.se for four salmon.

[tuj]

Interesting mic technique, tuj. Can you tell me more about it?

Sure! So I was struggling one day to get an SM-57 to capture what I was hearing; I think we've all been there, so I decided to try a technique of using lots of different microphones with varying frequency responses and construction to get a variety of sounds of the same track and then blend them to taste. So what you see going on in my pic is an AKG kick mic placed right near the edge of the speaker. It has obviously a good low-end response and a bit muddy highs for a dynamic, so I use it to pick up some bass. The SM-57 (aforementioned) is placed on-axis against the grille. Then I brought in a TS-1 Chameleon Labs tube mic with the small diaphragm capsule and put that pointed basically on-center but a little farther back than the SM-57. The TS-1 has a really sweet sound. Finally I put a Fathead II with upgraded transformer and a FET-head booster inline with it (let's you phantom power a passive mic).

Then I take and pair the pics; the SM57 and the Fathead both went panned hard left, while the AKG and the TS-1 went hard right. I think I inverted the polarity of the close-mic tracks. Then I blended the volumes of each mic to taste to get a really rich stereo sound.

It's a lot of setup work, but the overall results give you a lot of sonic flexibility.

[grindonomicon]

I have the Blackheart Killer Ant head. Really like it. Nice quiet tube clean, and loud tv volume when you get overdrive / compression / sag, great with pedals. The Marshall is better, but not $1000 better - played through the JTM head and 1x10 cab. The Killer Ant could be found for pedal price ($100-$150) but I think they were clearance-sold and the company shut down the Blackheart brand (owned by the company that owns Ampeg and Crate).

[kosta]

Matamp Minimats are pretty great. Vox AC4TVs are fun too.

Hats off to that mic setup. Damn!

[chuckjaywalk]

I have a Blackstar HT-1RH that I love. 1 watt, spring reverb, plenty loud. Very Marshally.