Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve DeRosa
If it were me, I'd go raw: small-bodied archtop (16" or less), no pickup/amp/mic - and if you're shoutin' the blues and can't be heard in a 50-100 seat room without amplification you just ain't doin' it right...  |
I think most venues that feature live music would frown upon an artist showing up with no PA equipment. It doesn't matter how big your lungs are, microphones and speakers can really go a long way to help the crowd hear you.
Furthermore, if you go that route, you're stuck with one sound - the sound of your voice shouting as loud as you can, accompanied by your guitar being bashed on as hard as you can. That sound can be as fatiguing for the listeners as it is for the guy who's devoting every ounce of energy he has just to be heard. Having sound reinforcement frees the artist to achieve whatever dynamics they choose - you can whisper, or you can back off the mic and scream. You can play subtle lines if you want and the crowd will hear it, or you can back off your volume control and chomp chords.
Don't get me wrong - I truly appreciate when I hear a busker 'shouting the blues" and doing it well, or the sound of a guitarist who can make himself heard without amplification. But here's nothing you can do without a PA that you can't do with one. The opposite is certainly not true.
Quote:
Originally Posted by blue
As to your super clean amp being lame... Nah... You think a travelling blues guy would care if he showed up at a club and all they had was one of those crystal clean Silverface Twins? Those were basically PAs...
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A silverface twin is a good tube amp and sounds great for blues despite the fact that it's a loud, clean sounding amp. As a blues guitar amp, a bass practice amp would not compare favorably. Plus, you could add a speaker attenuator to a Twin and get some great sounding power tube breakup if that's the sound you're after. That wouldn't work with a solid state bass amp.
That said, a good player can make any rig sound good, so if you can't access a good tube amp, then of course, use the bass amp. But a bass amp is obviously the wrong tool for the job, so if you're a serious musician, you should invest in the proper equipment. In this case the proper equipment is a good tube amp.