The last tour through Nashville taught me one important lesson: bring a smaller amp! I toured with a Fender Deville, which by all accounts, is a pretty small combo amp, but still it sat just above 2 in volume most of the time. Most clubs and churches now have a big enough sound system that lower stage volume is best for the house, but as a guitarist tube amps sound best cranked. Enter my big idea: use the Fender Blues Jr.
I’ve been thinking about going this direction for a year now. The amp is a quite small, light tube amp that sounds amazing! Here are the Specs: Fender
Also, this amp is can be significantly customized. You can easily switch out the speaker or tubes, send the chassis off to any number of modification shops or get your own D.I.Y. kit and make any kind of Frankenstein out of it.
Not only does this amp have great sound, but it takes pedals very well. In fact the pedal board I use is larger than the amp and it really sounds awesome!
A great friend of mine introduced me to the Blues Jr a long time ago. He since then has customized his amp to the extreme! Here is his amp, with a custom-built cabinet!
Obviously, he did such a stellar job on this, I had to show all 4 pictures.
The only downside to this amp is that with its 15 watts of power, most rehearsal situations without mic reinforcements would be difficult. The amp simply cannot compete with drums or other loud amplifiers.
Read More about smaller gear setups: The C Board, “The Gunslinger”
You should try my 53 Tweed Pro.
I’d love to. Do you tour with that?
No, don’t play out at all anymore except for praise team stuff. I will pull it every now it’s beat up has no tweed but sounds amazing.
Well, church usually is a great environment for those classic amps. They don’t take too much abuse. What kind of pedals are you using through that?