Amps for Recording

[Cowbell Anarchy]

What kind of low wattage amps do y'all use in particular to record for an awesome tone? I was trying to remember this one amp namedropped all the damn time on the last manifestation of the tapeop board, I think it was a Fender?

[surf's up]

I have been going direct in more and more with electric guitar. Not always though. Im sure all of the fancy expensive boutique amps generally sound good. on the cheap, my best 'creative' experience was with a $15 fender solid state, no dstortion but the volume cranked way up, 57 right up on the grill. provided a gnarly/nasty/grungey tone that had its place on a few tunes.

[theenvycorps]

I have a little Silvertone Champ wannabe that just kills when cranked. I also love the Ampeg Jet...a tiny looking little 15 watter with a 12" speaker, really smooth sounding.

[joel hamilton]

Fender Pro Junior. Use it ALL the time.

Movieola/Magnetone "squak box." Use that all the time.

Gibson goldtone 1x12 RV on the 6 watt setting.

There are a bunch more, but those are the big three aside from the obvious champ/princeton/twin/jtm45 type of amps.

[norton]

small amps in general seem to work really well. It seems that the microphone can tell if the amp and the speaker are working hard... with a small amp you can crank it up and that energy seems to transfer to tape/disc etc.

i see a bunch of small amps every time i go to a music shop...and most of them seem to be around the $100 mark give or take a few bucks.

i've been running a little amp i got for $5 at a salvation army into a 2x10 cab and it's great. on the edge of clean or completely wound up. I've got a couple of those kind of amps and they really do sound much better through bigger speakers... even a 1 watt harmony amp can sound great through a 12" speaker.

if you're into the diy at all check out www.ax84.com
it's small amp revolution.

[luckybastard]

I use a dr z carmen ghia... great clean... great grit....loves pedals... 2 knobs... volume and tone... u can find them used 8-900

[mjau]

I agree on the Fender Pro jr. - what a great little amp. I've also had luck with a Laney LC15, once I put a Weber speaker in it. You can find them cheap and do some upgrades that turn them into nice recording amps.

[mjau]

Forgot to add...
A Fender Musicmaster amp can be really cool when driven hard. They're still pretty cheap and you can mod them quite a bit.

[lifeintime]

I am curious if anyone uses this:
http://www.smokeyamps.com/

[janusmusic]

'66 Deluxe Reverb Blackfaced, really hard to make it sound bad.And I use the smokey it's great! can drive a 4X12 cabinet and it's also good for alot of other things..

[rolandk]

I am curious if anyone uses this:
http://www.smokeyamps.com/

I have one. People rave about them but honestly I don't really like it that much. Might be cool for a special effect but not a main guitar track. YMMV, of course. I may have blown the speaker playing bass through it.

[segaface]

I really dig my Kalamazoo Model 2 and Vox Pathfinder. Always on the lookout for more, of course. Heh.

[monkeyboy]

60's fender princeton. I suggest the non reverb, they sound decidedly different from each other and I've always preferred the non-reverb version. It's a great recording amp, always translates well.

Unfourtunately the word is out on these little 60's fenders...I've seen some ridiculous prices.

[nacho459]

Fender Champ / Prinston, great amps, all tube class A five watts. I think every engineer should build one. I just built my own recording amp that started as a champ and grew to this two channel vox / fender / my own thing amp. You can't go wrong with a simple single ended tube amp.

[Cowbell Anarchy]

Thanks for all the replies! You've all given me a lot to think about. And the Fender Pro Junior WAS the one I was trying to think of. I think I may try and hunt down a good deal on one of those.