I wish...

[Daniel Nestlerode]

...Someone would build an inexpensive amp that was made for electric mandolin frequencies.

I just bought a little Marshall G15R CD (solid state). It's a great little box and I'm having fun getting to know its two stage preamp tones. But the bass knob does next to nothing and I can make my ears bleed with the treble knob.

It would be nice to play something with an EQ designed to elicit the best tones from a mandolin.

Daniel (thinking about that graphic EQ much more insistently now)

[Jim Garber]

I don't know that Marshall amp but playing my electrics thru a real tube amp made a big difference. I know that solid state is much better now but I still think there is something to the tube sound.

[djweiss]

My Phoenix Jazz, using the Kent Armstrong pickup, sounds really good through my Fender Blues Junior...between the 3 band EQ and the Volume vs Master controls, the amp allows me to really dial in (pun intended) what I'm going for...

-DJW

[Ted Eschliman]

Ditto on the Blues Junior. Very happy with what it does. Little to no tweaking.
Demo clean
Demo distortion (start 2:09)

[Daniel Nestlerode]

I am getting good tones out of guitar amps --and I love the Blues Jr btw.
I am just wishing for something made specifically for electric mandolin. Ya know? I mean we have instruments that produce pitches in a certain range of frequencies. Why not taylor an amp for those frequencies?

It'd be awesome wouldn't it?

Daniel

[kristallyn]

have you ever tried a fishman acoustic blender? I use it for my guitar, it s like a pre amp that you can download programmes for ( comes with the package) I can make my guitar sound like almost anything,..I have a pretty nice guitar with a great sound but with the blender it sounds even better
there is also a programme you can download for your mandolin..sounds pretty good, I used it on mine
the blender isn t a cheap instrument but I must say, it is well worth the money for anyone who plays acoustics

[jdogric12]

On that youtube video I did recently, I played a Rick 5002 through a 1965 Gretsch 6150T (tube amp). You can judge for yourself, but I think it did well. A mando-specific EQ and/or amp is a great idea, though. I usually do my living room playing through a small Orange practice amp, and I've also noticed the bass knob is useless!

[Ronny]

On my Orange crush 15r, the bass knob is nearly useless. (even if the orange C15r is a nice little amp !)

[Christian McKee]

Daniel, I'm with you. I'd love to have an amp that was voiced with a mandolin in mind, particularly to mitigate some of the high end harshness that sometimes comes out. Of course, there are times when I do that to deliberately annoy people...

Christian

[mrmando]

Does anyone participate in an amp discussion board? Somebody out there ought to be able to come up with a modification to optimize a given production-model amp for mandolins.

[mclaugh]

The bass control on most guitar amps affects frequencies mostly below the range of a mandolin, so it's usually pretty useless.

Customizing an amp is kind of involved and probably expensive, unless everybody agrees on the specific model of amp they want modded and the redesign work only has to be done once (unlikely).

I wonder if there is a sufficiently large electric-mandolin-player market to warrant producing an amp specialized for the instrument? Or even to go into business doing modifications?

Have any of you tried an outboard EQ and not been able to get the sound you want with it?

[mrmando]

Well, look at it this way. There have been literally hundreds of builders of electric mandolins, from one-man shops to biggies like Fender and Gibson. If there's enough demand for that many luthiers to have a go at it, there ought to be enough demand for one amp builder.

There's a fella with a guitar shop a couple of miles away who was regaling me with stories about his adventures as a maker of custom amps. Hm...

[flatt]

I use an old Laney LC15 ... I use it for acoustic guitar (neat in) and mandolin with Fishman P/U which I push through booster and graphic (also use Red Repeat reverb and occasionally a Surf-Trem tremolo pedal on slow country songs!).

I tried out a Marshall Acoustic and it had none of the attack and depth that the Laney has.

[mandroid]

the recent Roland AC-90 is stereo, which make Chorus function sensible and each channel is a 2 way speaker an 8" for the lower end and a tweeter for the treble end, which physically is just a little bigger than the AC-60 , its smaller single drivers one per channel, seem to handle most signals fine.
I use a KCW for the bottom end anyhow, the pair used when the Synth stuff gets hooked up.

C,G,D,A, 4 string electrics 2, and one A,E,B,F#,C#, 5 string , and the FM61 an 8 string .

[Cliff D]

My guess is that unless you want a particularly clean sound out of an amp (assuming we are talking purely electromagnetic pups) having a better high end response will not sound that much better, & as the amp is pushed into clipping the treble usually needs to be cut back - & the heavier the clipping the more treble needs to be dialed out. My main guitar amp is a Marshall vintage re-issue, but I think the main "secret" of that amp is that the speaker hardly responds to any frequencies above a given level. Soooo if I play my piezo equipped Crafter through this amp, it is not particularly marvelous (although played through my bass amp, which has a tweeter for the highs, it sounds yummy!). Nonetheless the sound of my guitars, cheapo Alden & less so Risa through the Marshall is very mellow thank you: the power stage clipping is very easy on the ear, & once you are used to it, hearing solid state just seems harsh & un-refined. Horses for courses, as the old cliche goes, but if like you a mildly distorted electric sound I doubt that amplifiers designed for electric guitars need re-designing specifically for e mandos!

[Daniel Nestlerode]

Go Martin!
I would be very interested to hear what an engineer would have to say about building an amp for mandolin frequencies.

For the record: I am not unhappy with the currently available choices for amplifying electric solid body mandolins with electromagnetic pick ups. In fact, I currently run my Epiphone and my Fender through an Ampeg J12T, which works quite well. I have noticed that there are no 'horses' for the this particular 'course', though. And I thought it would be great if there were.

Daniel

[man dough nollij]

I saw on an unrelated thread a couple of weeks ago that luthier Fletcher Brock is working on amps these days. It might pay off to drop him a note-- he may be studying this problem.

[Cliff D]

A few further observations, if I might. In another thread Thistle points out that we are not all necessarily looking for the same sound & I think this applies to amplifiers as much as instruments. Some amplifiers are much more versatile than others. I originally favoured multi-channel switching beasts; not so much now, but arguments about matters which largely boil down to taste rarely provide much illumination. The whole journey of deciding what sound you like & how you then go chase it is a personal one. So were some one to design an amp specifically for an e mando it might hit the spot smack on for me: or maybe not. The difficulty I have had with pedal type graphic equalisers is that they tend to generate a little too much hiss/noise. Possibly a Mesa Boogie with a built in graphic would be more "e mando" friendly, but that brings up against another criteria - price! Some how I doubt that we will see a "one size fits all" e mando amp in the immediate future - but I don't mind being proved wrong!

[meow-n-dolin]

While I currently have only one guitar combo-amp (a Crate), I have played through quite a few. I agree with another poster here that if you want that slightly-distorted-guitar sound, then any number of good amps should work out well. Also take a look at what jazz guitarists are playing -- since they are often into amps with full-range and lots of headroom. While jazz-specific amps can get pricy, the Roland Cubes seem to work out well (the 30 is a good deal, in my book). Also, keyboard amps should work well, which usually have multiple drivers, might be a good choice. They generally have no effects on-board, however.

One note though: on many amps, it's not the amp which controls the frequency response as much as the pre-amp. If your amp allows you to by-pass the preamp, try that out first (you can use a mixer as a preamp).

I knew from my experience with the Crate, that what I really wanted was a good clean amp head and a well-matched cabinet. Most medium-to-high-power amps come with 12 inch drivers, which is definitely not needed for a mando -- in fact undesireable. The C-string on a mando is something like 136 Hz -- so having a amp or combo which is capable of handling something in the 30-60 Hz range is just wasted energy and weight (not to mention loss of efficiency) I lucked into a brand-new Crate PB150 head for $79 about a year ago, and have built/experimented with different cabs. While at home, I bypass the preamp with a mixer, which seems to clean up the sound a little bit (though I don't bother gigging with it that way). I have run my mando through it with PA cabs and a couple I built myself out of drivers I had on hand. A 12 inch actually isn't that bad, but a 10 is better, and an 8 is better still (all else being equal). My latest endeavor utilizes 2, 6.5" fairly high efficiency (97db) drivers with an Fs of 100 and RMS power rating of 100 watts each. Still putting that one together. But it should be just the ticket.

Cost? Using recycled, furnture-grade oak plywood with solid oak trim, two drivers, tweed grill cloth, and including the cost of my PB150 and my "fuzz box" and delay, about $250. With more power than I will ever need. And what is even cooler, from the car to the bar, it's one trip -- mando in one hand, cab in the other, and an old computer bag over my shoulder holds the head, effects, cord, etc.

Sorry to ramble

Al

[Ben Milne]

I thought i was pretty settled on aiming towards a blues cube Junior, but now the Blackstar HT5 has caught my eye... Now i think i want the stack version.