Missing that Early 70's Twin Reverb tone...which pedal does the best job?

[redir]

Originally Posted by Coop47

My '72 Twin almost killed me bringing it back down to the basement after a gig, and I eventually traded it for a nice Martin D-17. But I traded it knowing I'd never experience that big open clear clean tone again. Nothing replicates being in the room with a Twin.

Yeah they are back breakers. At one point I bought a little 1x12 Mesa combo just to have something easy to handle. It was easy to handle and is a great little amp but I always go back to the Twin.

[Mr. Jelly]

Years ago I had a bass player that had an original Ampeg eight ten bass set up. They had the real thick plywood cabinets. Every show we had to haul it up the stairs out of his basement and load it into his truck, set it up and haul it back. It was just one of the reasons we disbanded.

[jonfields45]

Originally Posted by jonfields45

I've been working this exact problem, more or less, since I've switched to electric for gigging. I'm looking for my old Princeton Reverb sound where it is decently clean at my humbucking guitar volume set to 8 (maybe a little richer) and light overdrive for solos at 10.

Some of the little amps are a nice option and I used my Katana Mini at a dinner party two weeks ago to amplify my strumming (with vocals) and fingerpicking solos. No guitarists at the party besides me but they commented they liked it as much as an acoustic guitar.

I was using a HX Stomp and it sounded great in every way, but was hard to adjust on the fly, and really needed their clunky 27 watt power supply to boot reliably. I let it go on eBay as it is more complexity than I need given I've stopped gigging with an acoustic guitar and my IRs.

I have a Behringer TM303 Tech21 Sansamp knock-off as a backup in my gig bag (battery installed). However no reverb which really hurts. It otherwise does the job set this way (be careful the other mic positions sound bad to me).



At today's Farmers' Market gig I used my Katana Mini plugging the speaker simulated output into my CP8 (along with two mics and the other guy's instrument). I think it sounded great for tone. I like the distortion using the clean setting better than the TM303 and about equal to the HX Stomp. You can't always power it with a wall wart (instead of a battery -- I have a Volto2) as with no earth ground it often hums. No problem if you ground it through it's backside ground terminal or plug the backside output or input into something grounded. The delay time and mix both set to 10 o'clock is almost a substitute for reverb.

I found a Yamaha THR5 level 2 on MF last week for $160 minus 8% reward points. Seemed like a good deal and if it works as well as the Katana it will be a keeper given real reverb.

I also found a mint Boss Fender Deluxe Reverb FDR-1 Pedal on Reverb today for $155 shipped and it is now on its way here. I'm not sure if it will be an upgrade to the TM303 backup or my primary amp simulator. I'll know in a few days.

More to follow.

The THR5 showed up a few days ago. It is a big step up from the Katana Mini. It can produce a decent clean volume with no break up of the lower notes, which the Katana can not. The clean "Twin Reverb" model is my favorite and pushed hard enough it gives me the subtle overdrive I like. Of the other models, lead also works well. The tone control was a bit of a mystery until I loaded the THR editor onto my PC. It adjusts bass, middle and treble between total settings that someone at Yamaha thought sounded good. It is not a treble control like a Fender 50's Deluxe. I really like it. It runs well off a 12 volt lithium battery. Here is what you need to make that work using the backside 6x4.3mm power supply connector.

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I measured the standby power of the Katana Mini (2.5 watts) and the THR5 (3.5 watts). Add a watt to actually make some noise. Rounding up to 5 watts, the 3A-hour, 12 volt battery (36 watt-hours), is certainly good for any evening of playing.