Best amp for country music?

[SPUDCASTER]

Saw Brent Mason at #rd and Lindsley in Nashville. He was playing through two Super Reverbs.

It did sound pretty good.

 

[Synchro]

You have more will power than most. Usually when I see someone with a twin they are playing painfully loud.

I have a Twin with a 12AY7 in the first preamp stage. I don’t play it often, but it’s fine at living room volumes. On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve never had it above 8 (outdoors) and that was as loud as I cared to get. At 8, it was still clean, and that’s when the nuclear test site in Nevada called to complain about the noise.

 

[deytookerjaabs]

Let me check my book I carry with me....

Oh yes, here it is...

"And on the 3rd day He built the Twin Reverb."



Lest we not forget. Guitar, Cable, Twin Reverb.


And if you don't think it sounds good at bedroom volumes you're not pickin' right.

 

[Synchro]

Let me check my book I carry with me....

Oh yes, here it is...

"And on the 3rd day He built the Twin Reverb."



Lest we not forget. Guitar, Cable, Twin Reverb.


And if you don't think it sounds good at bedroom volumes you're not pickin' right.

Not to foment a theological argument, but I always thought it was on Day One, with the pronouncement “let there be light”.

Seriously, it’s hard to improve upon a Blackface Fender. In a sense, I own three, my Twin in a piggyback cabinet. I have a healthy back, and I intend to keep it that way, so I broke it into a piggyback with a single 15” speaker. I have a Fender ‘68 Custom Deluxe Reverb, which is basically a hot rodded DRRI, and I have a Winfield Elizabeth, which is a single channel amp, based upon the AB 763 circuit, but no tremolo. Mine has 6L6s and runs about 40 watts. The same amp can also be biased for 6V6s, which leaves you with 22 watts. That Bright switch comes in very handy, and that’s a major advantage over a Deluxe Reverb.

 

[Willie Johnson]

Most country players I know default to a Deluxe Reverb when I asked what amp I should get for such tones.

I played a Chris Stapleton Princeton and liked the tone but not the price and lack of reverb. I almost bought a used one and kick myself for not doing so. CS plays a Jazzmaster through his.

You can get an old one for a couple hundred bucks more than the CS. Cool amp, but just a little too expensive.

 

[wulfenganck]

I'm not much of a countryplayer, but I started dabbling into lapsteel lately.
Quite frankly, take any amp with a clean sound you like. If it's a Fender, well, that's obviously a recipy for loads of players for the last decades. If you prefer a Marshall clean - why not?
I use my solidstate Peavey Express for it. Good clean sound and takes pedals nicely (EHX The Glove for boost, TC Electronics Dark Matter for grit, Keeley Verb O Trem for reverb and some ambient trem/vibrato). Built like a tank, but still possible to carry around. Bought it second hand for about 80 Euro a couple of years ago.

 

[Les H]

So typically certain types of music are usually associated with different guitars such as country music/telecaster, classic rock/LP, blues/Strat or maybe an ES etc. I know there are always exceptions and such but as a general rule these things are true. By that same token certain amps are often associated with certain music and often specifically with particular artists such as Jimi and Marshalls or SRV an Twins or Brian and his Voxes or BG and his Magnatones etc. So are there particular amps that certain country guitar gunslingers are associated with. I know Chris Stapleton has a signature Princeton but do people associate that amp with him as a guitar player or are people who listen to country music less aware of those types of associations than say a more hardcore blues or classic rock fan? I’m often times more aware of what amp an artist is using but that mainly because I’m a guitar player but I don’t know particular amps are associated with artists in that way in country musicdom. What y’all think? Also what is a “country music amp” in the most generic of terms?

In strictly my opinion when it comes to Country Artists in general I don't think certain amps are associated with a majority of artists because usually most country albums are recorded with studio musicians and not the actual band members. As a country fan I know what the studio musicians use/d but take a guy like Danny Groah, Alan Jackson's guitarist I have no idea what he uses because I associate the leads on Alan Jackson albums as being Brent Mason for example and I don't have a lot of interest in Danny.

There are only a handful of country artists who use their own band members to record their albums.

A guy like Pete Anderson of Dwight Yoakam is famously known for using modified Deluxe Reverbs but it was early in his career. By 1992 he expanded to several different amps and was using a Groove Tubes Soul-O 75 for the songs that normally featured his Deluxe Reverb and by the late 90s wasn't even using an actual amp to record Dwight albums anymore. I almost associate him with Line 6 more than I do Fender now and have for over the last 20 years.

With players like Marty Stuart and Kenny Vaughan out there it's hard to imagine how a Chris Stapleton deserves a signature model and they don't. Marty has used Fender for so long it's hard to think of one without the other.

 

[Flaneur]

Something you can carry in one hand.

 

[telemnemonics]

 

[Chiogtr4x]

In his Vintage Guitar magazine interview,
Buck Owens mentioned that they used ( earlier days) tweed Bassmans for everything!
It was at the time the most powerful amp out there*, so guitars, steel, fiddle, vocals, bass> Bassmans!
Sure are beautiful!

* assuming before the tweed Twins? not sure of timeline

 

[Cosmic Cowboy]

AC 30 or Twin Reverb

 

[Milspec]

Twin Reverb, because Waylon is never wrong

 

[telemnemonics]

Plain Allman?
Use what Duane used (live)!
Marshalls have great cleans and eat Twin Reverbs alive...

 

[hepular]

just to troll @telemnemonics: a Peavey 400.

 

[Sparky472]

Deluxe Reverb. I don’t know where you guys claiming to use twins are playing, but there is no place in my area where you can play loud enough to get a twin to sound good. I love them, but it’s like buying a Corvette to drive around a parking lot.

I disagree. My experience with Twins - and I’ve got a fair amount - is that they sound good even at lower volumes.

 

[telemnemonics]

just to troll @telemnemonics: a Peavey 400.

Im cool with that if YOU carry it!

 

[39martind18]

The amp stable I use includes a 1969 Deluxe Reverb running 6L6s and a solid state rectifier (talk about CLEAN!!), a 1979 Vibrolux Reverb and a Tone Master Deluxe Reverb. The old tube amps running 6L6s give me all the "country cleans" I need, and the TMDR's lack of weight dictates when I use it.

I have a good friend that has toured with some older country name acts, and he really loves Peavey products. His requirements were very loud and clean, since micing amps was not a widespread practice in the 70s and 80s, and the need was a Twin Reverb equivalent or more.

 

[Wildeman]

Twin

 

[Synchro]

The amp stable I use includes a 1969 Deluxe Reverb running 6L6s and a solid state rectifier (talk about CLEAN!!), a 1979 Vibrolux Reverb and a Tone Master Deluxe Reverb. The old tube amps running 6L6s give me all the "country cleans" I need, and the TMDR's lack of weight dictates when I use it.

I have a good friend that has toured with some older country name acts, and he really loves Peavey products. His requirements were very loud and clean, since micing amps was not a widespread practice in the 70s and 80s, and the need was a Twin Reverb equivalent or more.

That Deluxe Reverb sounds like a great amp. That’s pretty much the way my Elizabeth is setup, and it’s great for a clean Country sound. Flip the Bright switch on and you are transported directly to Bakersfield.

Now, in the era where amps are commonly mic’d, the choices open even further. Our band plays the Country Fair, every year, and they provide a great PA, complete with a competent sound man. For this gig, I frequently use a 5 watt amp, based on a Vox preamp. Through the PA, it sounds as big as a Showman.

 

[zhyla]

Deluxe Reverb is the sound to me, but I grew up listening to Dwight Yoakam albums.

My ‘68 Custom Vibrolux Reverb certainly hits the sounds. It’s got bright switches like a Twin Reverb. I won’t pass up the next good deal on. Twin I see. The Vibrolux is probably all I’ll ever need but I’ve got a sickness.