Solo gigging with a Marshall AS100D

[Finger Stylish]

I'm thinking about a amp / PA combo for my solo gigging. I am as much a vocalist as an acoustic guitarist. I use a JamMan looper with background vocals and rhythms.
I'm considering the Marshall acoustic amp as well as the Roland.

Any thoughts on these?
I appreciate the information.
Marshall
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AS100D/
Roland
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AC90/

[Bob Womack]

The AS100D is an excellent, full-featured amp offering three inputs (or a dual source input and another input in a second mode) plus an independent stereo line in. It is not light.

There have been several lighter amps. I've just found that the facilities are so comprehensive and flexible on the AS100D that I love it. You may get other suggestions here and that is great.

Bob

[RPK]

Curious about the loop pedal. Do you loop your vocals live or do you "pre-record" them? I have a Jam Man stereo loop pedal. I am practicing with it to try and find it's best use.

RPK

[Laughingboy68]

I use a JamMan Stereo looper for guitar, vocals and percussion.

I've found that for my needs, the Fishman Loudbox Artist fit best. It's light, sounds great and has very flexible ins and outs for those of us who use pedalboards, loopers and the like.

One of the things that I needed, was a way to feed the amp as a monitor and still keep separate outs to feed FOH. The other thing that was nice was the aux in, which I use to monitor the looper. My amp serves mainly as an onstage monitor however, it also works great as my main amplification if I don't need the bigger PA.

YMMV,

Mike

[lschwart]

Originally Posted by Finger Stylish

I'm thinking about a amp / PA combo for my solo gigging. I am as much a vocalist as an acoustic guitarist. I use a JamMan looper with background vocals and rhythms.
I'm considering the Marshall acoustic amp as well as the Roland.

Any thoughts on these?
I appreciate the information.
Marshall
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AS100D/
Roland
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/AC90/

Tell us a little more about the gigs you'll be playing and the signal chain you're trying/Hoping to set up.

Both the Marshall and the Roland are good combo amps, with lots of input/output flexibility; they both sound good, and they're plenty loud as combo amps go, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're the best tools for the job in this case. So say more about the job.

Louis

[Finger Stylish]

Originally Posted by RPK

Curious about the loop pedal. Do you loop your vocals live or do you "pre-record" them? I have a Jam Man stereo loop pedal. I am practicing with it to try and find it's best use.

RPK

I pre-record the vocals and a Rhythm guitar part. Which means rather than recording a small sample / phrase, I record the whole song with a rhythm as the first layer.

[Finger Stylish]

Originally Posted by lschwart

Tell us a little more about the gigs you'll be playing and the signal chain you're trying/Hoping to set up.

Both the Marshall and the Roland are good combo amps, with lots of input/output flexibility; they both sound good, and they're plenty loud as combo amps go, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're the best tools for the job in this case. So say more about the job.

Louis

Most cases the gigs are to 100 or fewer people, in a room about 60'x60' 12' ceiling height.
Before I got a looper, I would plug in my RainSong guitar, and voice the guitar through the PA with only the Fishman voicing that is on the guitar. I am experimenting with the Loop pedal. I'm new to looping,(2 weeks) so I'm still trying to figure out what my performances will ultimately be.
I'm an old dog trying to learn new tricks. I'm hoping not too old. my seven grandchildren think I'm old. Heck, I'm still having fun learning.

[lschwart]

Originally Posted by Finger Stylish

Most cases the gigs are to 100 or fewer people, in a room about 60'x60' 12' ceiling height.
Before I got a looper, I would plug in my RainSong guitar, and voice the guitar through the PA with only the Fishman voicing that is on the guitar. I am experimenting with the Loop pedal. I'm new to looping,(2 weeks) so I'm still trying to figure out what my performances will ultimately be.
I'm an old dog trying to learn new tricks. I'm hoping not too old. my seven grandchildren think I'm old. Heck, I'm still having fun learning.

Are you planing to use the combo amp as a stage monitor or as your main amplification?

Louis

[Finger Stylish]

Originally Posted by lschwart

Are you planing to use the combo amp as a stage monitor or as your main amplification?

Louis

I will use it for both on occasion, but it will be my primary tool for making my full song back up loops with vocals. I have a sound system I will be using in addition to this for the most demanding venues.

[lschwart]

Either of these amps will work well for you, but the Roland is significantly lighter. You might even want to consider an even lighter amp than the AC-90. The Fishman Loudbox Artist, for example, is another 5 lbs lighter, and it's still going to be plenty loud for your purposes. One nice feature of the Roland amps, though, for someone doing percussion in their looping act is a sub output that lets you attach a powered subwoofer or bass amp to your combo for a little extra boom in the bottom. A drawback of the AC-90 is that you can only send--via the DI/Tuner TRS output--a pre-EQ, pre-effect signal for the Guitar channel (the regular stereo DI outs send a post effects, EQ and mixed signal). This means you can't send a direct signal for your vocals without both effects from the vocal channel and the guitar with effects, too. Could be a limitation for working with a room PA. Note that the Fishman Loudbox lets you send a mixed, post EQ/FX signal OR separate pre-EQ/FX signals to a PA. The Marshall is even more limited this way (you can't even send just your guitar signal to the PA). There are easy ways around this problem for guitar, but it's trickier for your vocals.

Louis

[Finger Stylish]

Originally Posted by lschwart

Either of these amps will work well for you, but the Roland is significantly lighter. You might even want to consider an even lighter amp than the AC-90. The Fishman Loudbox Artist, for example, is another 5 lbs lighter, and it's still going to be plenty loud for your purposes. One nice feature of the Roland amps, though, for someone doing percussion in their looping act is a sub output that lets you attach a powered subwoofer or bass amp to your combo for a little extra boom in the bottom. A drawback of the AC-90 is that you can only send--via the DI/Tuner TRS output--a pre-EQ, pre-effect signal for the Guitar channel (the regular stereo DI outs send a post effects, EQ and mixed signal). This means you can't send a direct signal for your vocals without both effects from the vocal channel and the guitar with effects, too. Could be a limitation for working with a room PA. Note that the Fishman Loudbox lets you send a mixed, post EQ/FX signal OR separate pre-EQ/FX signals to a PA. The Marshall is even more limited this way (you can't even send just your guitar signal to the PA). There are easy ways around this problem for guitar, but it's trickier for your vocals.

Louis

Thank you for the insight. Do you currently use this set-up, and/or do you perform in the Richmond area?

[lschwart]

Originally Posted by Finger Stylish

Thank you for the insight. Do you currently use this set-up, and/or do you perform in the Richmond area?

I do perform in the Richmond area, mostly as part of my semi-acousitc ethnic music band, My Son the Doctor (Eastern European music, mostly Yiddish, Balkan and Romani material), but I also perform solo from time to time (guitar and vocal) and in an acoustic trio (two guitars/vocals and a hand percussionist). I use a small PA set-up built around a set of powered PA speakers (RCF 310a) and a passive analogue mixer (either a Soundcraft MFXi12 or an Allen and Heath ZED10FX). I also have a Genz Benz ProLT, which is a very nice combo amp for acoustic instruments and voice. I used to use it for solo gigs and for times when the band played very small gigs and we had an older, much more bulky Yorkville PA system (passive 15" speakers, 10" passive monitors, and a powered mixer). The PA wasn't worth setting up in small situations, so we'd use a few combo amps for me, the bass, and for the background vocalists. For a while, before getting the monitor speakers for that bulky PA, I also used the ProLT as a monitor for myself with the larger setup. But the new PA with the powered 10" speakers is more portable and scalable (one speaker on a pole and the little A&H mixer for the solo and trio gigs, and various versions of the whole thing and the Soundcraft mixer for most of our band gigs--I have a pair of small powered subs for the largest of these--and the RCF speakers work both as FOH and as monitors), so I don't find I need the ProLT for gigging much any more. I use it mostly for rehearsals, so my guitars and vocals can be heard over the other instruments--especially the percussion and the bass.

A combo amp is a very convenient way to set yourself up for a solo gig in a small setting, and if those are the kinds of gigs you'll be doing, that convenience is worth consideration. The drawbacks come into play when the gig is a little bigger and there's no house PA. Combo amps are not really designed to project sound out into larger spaces, although some do this better than others (and getting any of them up off the ground on some sort of stand--or speaker pole for those that have a pole mount--helps a great deal). A PA speaker on a speaker pole does a better job, however--especially for vocals. I really like the sound I get with my ProLT, but the clarity and projection I can get with my RCF speaker(s) is superior for gigging. The drawback to this route (everything has a drawback) is the fact that it's a more complicated setup. I've decided to deal with that for the sake of the advantages. For most small gigs I don't need a monitor; I just put the speaker up on a pole behind me (or us) and it serves both for FOH and as a monitor. When I need more volume than that setup can handle without feedback, I put the speaker in front and I use a second one as a monitor (note that a combo amp can serve this function, too).

Another option that sort of splits the difference are units like the Fishman SA220 or the Bose L1 systems. These will work for a wider variety of gigs than a combo amp, but they're less scalable than a small PA for larger ones. It's also worth noting that if you need a strong bottom for percussive effects with your looper, a keyboard amp can be a good choice, since keyboard amps have to handle the lower end of a keyboard, and amps designed for guitars often taper off below around 80Hz. You can get more thump out of a keyboard amp, in other words. This is why I mentioned the Roland AC-90's sub output. But this really depends on what you'll be doing with your looping. Under normal circumstances, acoustic guitar and vocals don't need a sub or the extra low-end of a keyboard amp.

In any case, I hope that's helpful to you!

If you're in the area and interested, My Son the Doctor will be performing at Stir Crazy Cafe (4015 Macarthur Ave, Richmond, Virginia 23227) on Friday, Aug. 22nd, 7:30-10:00 pm. More information here, if you use Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/My-So..._type=bookmark

Louis

[slewis]

I just hope your looping will all be live. If not, half your act is just karaoke!

[Finger Stylish]

Originally Posted by slewis

I just hope your looping will all be live. If not, half your act is just karaoke!

For what ever reason it would matter to you, 80% of my program involves no loops or saved tracks. All live. While I'm new to looping, I find it more beneficial for practicing.
It's nice you're concerned about integrity in music.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Finger Stylish

For what ever reason it would matter to you, 80% of my program involves no loops or saved tracks. All live. While I'm new to looping, I find it more beneficial for practicing.
It's nice you're concerned about integrity in music.

Hi FS...

I'm pretty sure the concern expressed was due to the fact that audiences respond best to loops pulled live on the fly as opposed to pre-recorded loops which is like playing to canned tracks. I'm also a looper-for-many-years, and that is true. I've been experimenting lately with adding some of the shorter loop, play over it type passages as opposed to entire verse or chorus sections of songs.

I'm also a singer, and my particular looper will allow me to capture the guitar behind my vocal for a verse and stop it without immediately playing it. I save/hold it to solo over later.

As to the amp, I like the Marshall and am not sure how well it does with vocals. I use UltraSound AG-50 (DS-4) amps because the 8" coax speakers reproduce both vocals and guitars well.

The Marshall AS-100-D is very similar, albeit quite a bit heavier (mine is 25 pounds). There are a number of amps in this size range which will do the job. Fishman, UltraSound, GenzBenz, AER all make lighter weight amps with a similar configuration to the Marshall...all 20-25 pounds lighter.

And remember 100Watts as opposed to 50 or 60 etc…the rule of thumb is that it takes 10 times the power to double the volume. Any of the amps I listed can drive you off the stage before you max them out.

Interestingly, the Rolands are not very good if you are using them in ensemble situations. They just don't cut through the mix. A friend was playing on a fairly aggressive stage with us, with his Roland 90, and it was apparent he was not going to hear it.

Fortunately my house was 3 miles away so I brought my extra UltraSound DS-4 in, and it did the gig just fine. The Roland is just too mellow to play nice in aggressive situations.

You do want the 8" and a high frequency driver/coaxial/tweeter if you want not only natural tone, but plan to sing through it. The high Frequency 'driver' is a great addition to singing voices and clarity.

Hope you find the amp of your dreams...