amplifiers for mandos??

[Mock Schimock]

Best sounding amps for a mandolin??? Own an F5 loar copy built last year by James Bernabe, and the pick up is a K and K..... so far, I like a Fender tube amp (blues jr, or deluxe), preferably with Jensen speakers, bass turned up, trebles down, and mids a quarter the way up....any suggestions?? Thanks in advance!

[LongBlackVeil]

I think you'll really want an acoustic amp with that setup, it will give the most natural sound.

I guess it depends on what your doing though

[Mock Schimock]

I play a lot at festivals and loud bars, so I'm trying to get the lower mids to cut, so the people listening, including myself, can hear the body of the mandolin. What acoustic amps are best, though? LR Baggs? Fender?? Fishman Loudboxes??

[LongBlackVeil]

I have to admit I haven't even plugged a mandolin into an amp before, but I do know that if you want to amplify what your mandolin truly sounds like, you'll need an acoustic amp. Electric guitar amps are designed to have a certain character, where as acoustic amps are kind of like PA systems, with a flat response curve.

I do like the the roland ac series for acoustic guitar though, it's the same general idea and I bet they would work well for what your doing

[Mike Bunting]

AER amps are the leaders in this field, they are the bee's knees.
http://www.aer-amps.com/index.php?lang=en

[Homer Savard]

AER amps are the leaders in this field, they are the bee's knees.
http://www.aer-amps.com/index.php?lang=en

AER Got one, use it, love it!
Cheers
Homer Savard

[ricomando]

You can use a small tube preamp to get the "warm tube" tone , you do not need to buy a whole tube amp . this will give you the option to remove the tube preamp or keep it in the loop as the situation needs .

[Chief]

I've been playing an Ultra Sound 100wt. acoustic amp for several years now. Plugging a fiddle and various mandos in. I've never heard another acoustic amp that comes close for reproducing a very natural tone. I also use a Baggs Venue pre amp, which I also highly recommend.

[clobflute]

A few of us here use a a Yamaha THR10 - not a pure tube amp but comes very close!

I like it - really neat bundle which also runs on batteries (but I only get 20 minutes on 8x AA batteries lol!) which means practicing in the woods is on!

[Verne Andru]

IMHO for acoustic instruments it's best to go for a special purpose acoustic amp, PA/Keyboard amp, or most solid state amps with a sweepable midrange.

Tube amps work well/are coveted for electric rock guitar because the pre-amp tubes can usually be driven into distortion fairly easily. Plus they have a mid-range bump that puts them in an isolated frequency space in a band-mix that works great for guitar. You want neither of these for an acoustic mandolin unless you're going for that particular tone, which most are not.

I use an older Yamaha G100-210. Solid state, loud as hell with a parametric eq and spring reverb. If I need more EQ I use a Tech21 Sans Amp Para DI in front of it.

[Dave LaBoone]

James Bernabe is a heckuva player and a fine mandolin builder, too. How do you like your new mando??

[Django Fret]

Love my Roland AC-60 which has two inputs so you can use for vocals and instruments. There is a smaller (AC30) and larger (AC90) version available.

[Barry Wilson]

I love the Yorkville keyboard amp. 100watts, 3 inputs and seperate channels (incl an xlr) spring reverb (2nd ch can push button reverb on/off). very clean and more power/volume than my 100 watt fender mustang 3. Why I bought york pa speakers recently. great stuff.

[lloving]

Acoustic Image Corus possibly. Very nice little amp.

[JeffJones]

I have never really understood the appeal of a standalone amp, especially for acoustic instruments.

Are you all using them where there is no PA, or no monitor's, or a shortage of inputs on the board? Just like the sound you get through one better?

My experience, albeit a fairly limited experience with amps, has been that they sound worse than running through the PA, they make for terrible monitors, and they do not provide for very good coverage when using them as the main sound source.

I kinda get them for straight up electric/rock music where you want the sound color that the amp can add, tubes and distortion and feedback and all that jazz. Or as a bass player in a rock group you might want more low end power than some PA's are able to provide. But when playing an acoustic instrument and you are trying to reproduce an acoustic sound as accurately as possible...

I play a lot at festivals and loud bars, so I'm trying to get the lower mids to cut, so the people listening, including myself, can hear the body of the mandolin. What acoustic amps are best, though? LR Baggs? Fender?? Fishman Loudboxes??

If there is a PA that you can use, I would say get a nice pre amp (something like a Fishman PRO-EQ) and run straight into the PA. Then get yourself a set of IEMs, wired one's work fine and are relatively inexpensive, and skip the amp. This is basically the setup I use in similar situations to what you describe. I am also experimenting with the addition of a clip on mic in addition to a pickup to try to get the best balance of tone and volume possible. The clip on mic is not really necessary and may, depending on the venue and the other instruments in that band, cause more problems than it is worth. But so far, it is working well for me.

If IEMs are not your thing consider something like a personal monitor(something like a Behringer EUROLIVE B205D Active 150-Watt PA/Monitor Speaker) or a small powered monitor, in conjunction with a good pre for your mandolin, instead of an amp.

Of course my suggestion assumes that there is a decent PA involved somewhere, disregard if that is not the case.

[almeriastrings]

Unless you are looking to highly color the sound (or as an 'effect') a regular amp intended for electric guitar is not ideal. Some of the reasons have been mentioned above. A couple of others are that they will not have an super-high impedance input, and there is no crossover on the speaker. Everything goes through that single 10" or 12" driver - so you lose an awful lot right there. This is fine for electric guitars, it provides the classic "tone" demanded - but it is far from faithful and is not capable of reproducing an acoustic instrument's frequency range or dynamics. The cabinet designs also differ, they use completely different EQ's, and lack useful features such as a notch filter and phase reverse.

So, as an effect, fine - but don't expect accurate reproduction because they are technically incapable of doing that.

The best acoustic amps are in effect a "mini-PA" with suitable EQ and multiple drivers - a LF + HF pair, typically, plus input impedances designed for both passive and active transducer systems. Lots of good ones out there these days.

To get best coverage, get up off the floor. Over the heads of the audience. The Fishman SA220 'Solo Amp' does this for you, but you can often bracket/pole/chair mount most others.

There is a lot to be said for forgetting the acoustic amp altogether in some situations, as suggested above, and simply DI'ing into the main PA via a really high quality dedicated acoustic preamp (Tone Bone Z, Headway, Baggs, Fishman or whatever). On the other hand, for 'coffee shop' type gigs you can use a good acoustic amp as your main PA...most also accept at least one microphone input and you can usually run a line in from a small mixer too...so they can be quite versatile.

[Jan Viljoen]

I have been playing electric mandolin for many years in a folk and dance band amongst other events. In certain competition sections acoustic instruments are required.

But, I found the Roland 80 XL to be the best all rounder. It has enough settings for clean sound, acoustic and various overdrives.
The JC Clean setting is rewarding.

Of course using a mic to play acoustic is the best.



Sorry, I add. The Roland cube is being used quite freely amongst pedal steelers for the clean sound.

[mandroid]

Another Roland AC-60 , Here.

It's Padded Gig bag is a Plus..

on your shoulder, it's strap lets you carry more stuff into the Gig in the same trip.

[RichardF]

For what it's worth, I suspect that all the advice above is good, but all you can do is try to tour some outlets with your equipment and use your ears.
My personal preference in backline is a very old Trace Elliot TA 100, so old its English made from the 90s, bought second hand. It works with my Breedlove OF with Fishman M200 into the passive input, my active Takamine guitar into the active input. In fact, it's such an old amp that the downloaded instruction manual mentions using Ovations into the passive input. When I do use my ageing Balladeer Custom it's good. I hardly ever have to move the amp tone controls whatever I'm playing although I do use the onboard notch filter.
However, It's my amp. I know how to "play the amp" to make it sound good to me and have received compliments on the sound I get. But I bet there are much better, modern alternatives, if I could justify the expense. So I suspect it's, as ever, a case of going out using your ears, asking questions and getting the best deal you can.

[Jim]

I play a lot at festivals and loud bars, so I'm trying to get the lower mids to cut, so the people listening, including myself, can hear the body of the mandolin. What acoustic amps are best, though? LR Baggs? Fender?? Fishman Loudboxes??

I use a Behringer ADI 21 pre amp / di box and it has a mid boost / cut that might help with your body noise. A pick guard/finger rest can help a bit too. The effects , delay and reverb, on my acoustic amp ( also Behringer) make the body noise more annoying. I was able to decrease the body noise best by cutting the mids with the nob turned to about the 10 oclock position. Possibly a tone guard to reduce the noise of your instrument against your body.

[Mock Schimock]

I'm happier with this mandolin than every one that I've owned up until now. Pro level instruments are hard to afford, so I encourage people to look into his mandolins, for sure! Thanks for asking!

[mandowilli]

I currently use a Fishman Loudbox Artist 120W Acoustic amp and am very happy with it.

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/LoudboxArt/

[Mark Seale]

I love my Acoustic Image Corus. It is simply the cleanest, most transparent amp I've played either fiddle or mandolin through. Close on its heels would be the AER, which we just got for my wife's use. I think it is naturally a touch warmer than the AI, but not quite as transparent. You wouldn't go wrong with either.

[Atlanta Mando Mike]

Mark-long time no see-hope you are well. I use a Fishman Loudbox and a K&K and think its a killer plugged in tone and a work horse amp that can take a hit and keep going. I just use a volume pedal and a tuner pedal as well. Ernie Ball makes a volume pedal that has a dial on the side that lets you dial in how much volume you have all the way open, which is really helpful. Open is rhythm, closed for leads. The trick is keeping most tone nobs way down. from 0-10 i run highs at 2-3, mids from 1-2, lows from 3-4. Really cutting those tones makes it much more real sounding and it cuts like crazy-the mids are where much of the plastic quake resides so pulling them way down is key, there is alread so much high in the mandolin so don't need much of that, and the lows are where the feedback seems to come from so pull that too. Not like a mandolin really has much true low end anyway. Then I use a little of the on board reverb the amp has and its very sweet. I use the same set up with a loud electric band with drums-I usually have to tape the f-holes, but can get very loud and compete with electric guitars. Another cool thing is many stores have the loudboxes to try out.

[John Adrihan]

I use a fishman mini or what ever it is called - 60 watts. I mic my instruments and use an converter to plug into the instrument port. plenty load for bars or medium venues. I sing into also. if needed it plugs into the PA and then becomes my monitor. two mics chords, stands and shipping 300 and change from sweetwater.