Singing through a Twin Reverb??

[JohnnyRebKy]

Last night me and the kids had a concert in the living room. I took my Twin Reverb Reissue and plugged a microphone in it to sing and play guitar. I did a search about this before and didn't come up with anything other than it won't sound good. I have to disagree with that. I tweaked the controls and I thought it sounded great to sing with. Loud and crisp. I even let the kids read karaoke off the tv and sing along with it.

Now the question is......will this damage my amp?? I don't gig or play shows and this is the most excitement the amp will ever see most likely. I usually kick it on once a day and play guitar with it at home but the singing through it won't be all the time. But I do have a desire to use it now to sing with since it worked so well. It certainly creates a wall of sound for a living room concert I just wanna make sure I don't damage it. Volume never goes above 3

 

[P Thought]

I've done this too, with my Classic 50, through a small mixer gizmo. Why would it damage the amp? I'm with you in hoping it doesn't.

 

[ProToneThinline]

Your amp will be fine.

 

[Bartholomew3]

Human voices will never produce sound pressure equal to a guitar.

 

[backline]

It was common for amps to have Inputs inked for Mic as well as Accordion. If it sounded good to YOUR ears..... it was good.
You hear the same crap about Twins and acoustic guitar. In the time it takes a guy to argue in favor or against, he could just plug in and actually see/hear what it really sounds like.
Good Luck

 

[muchxs]

I picked up a hitch hiker... this must have been 30 years ago. The constant erosion of trust and comraderie has rendered that practice obsolete. So much for social networking.

Anyway, Hitch Hiker Dude explained he was gonna be a rock star. He had a whole van full of Twin Reverbs just for his voice.

O.k., Hitch Hiker Dude. Where's the van?


I met Inga when she was hitching. Actually got a date with her. She asked me if I would take her and her mom shopping 'cuz I was the dude with the car. Sure! Captain Hero, here.

Turns out she meant take her and her mom shoplifiting.


I mic won't hurt your Twin. A cheap old high impedance mic works best with a guitar amp.

 

[MrTwang]

Our vocal PA blew up at a gig once. As my Musicman amp had 2 speaker outputs, we connected it to the PA speakers (luckily my buddy lived round the corner so I borrowed his guitar amp).

Wasn't the most brilliant vocal sound we ever had but it sounded OK and got us through the gig. No after effects on the amp either.

 

[RockerDuck]

1960's and early 70's, that's pretty much how we did it when we played.

 

[MonkeyKing]

The only way you could damage the amp ( via your input choice that is)
is to pump bass into it that it can`t handle, whereupon you might blow a speaker. The lowest a bass voice goes is about 87hz. Your low standard tuning e is 73hz - so you`re well within the safe range.

 

[JohnnyRebKy]

Ok guys thanks a lot! It never fails to get a good straight answer here. You can read so much different crap online and not be able to believe half of it. I was just asking because I saw somewhere else that the human voice can damage a tube amp because it isn't designed to handle it. I figured it was a load of crap.

I have a old 65 twin reverb Solid State I used to sing with. One of the CBS models they called heavy twins. Not very many left anymore. Mostly because they were junk but mine lasted 15 years before it gave out. Used to sing with it a lot and one day it popped and hasn't worked since. It will turn on but hums and won't output any sound. I didn't figure it was worth fooling with so I bought this 65 twin reverb reissue tube amp. I'm pretty fond of it so don't wanna abuse it any.

Anyway thanks for the answers.

 

[JohnnyRebKy]

It was common for amps to have Inputs inked for Mic as well as Accordion. If it sounded good to YOUR ears..... it was good.
You hear the same crap about Twins and acoustic guitar. In the time it takes a guy to argue in favor or against, he could just plug in and actually see/hear what it really sounds like.
Good Luck

Yea I put a seymour duncan sound hole pickup in my Gibson Advanced Jumbo acoustic and wasn't impressed with it. But I don't blame the twin for that. I think with a good pickup properly setup in the guitar it woulda done just fine with a few tweaks. I had a Martin acoustic electric that done just fine with my solid state twin. But it had a better pickup than the sound hole one.

 

[muchxs]

I was just asking because I saw somewhere else that the human voice can damage a tube amp because it isn't designed to handle it. I figured it was a load of crap.

A Fender PA100 is a Twin Reverb with four "vocal" channels, all tube. It would make a cool retro P.A. system for a trio playin' small clubs.

Not enough channels? Buy two!

 

[JohnnyRebKy]

Here's my old twin reverb solid state in case y'all never seen one. It's broke down right now and gonna cost 100 bucks to fix it. May sell it but I'm not sure what its worth fixed or broke. Prob not much either way. But it worked pretty well surprisingly for 40+ years

 

[Bartholomew3]

I have a Siverface Twin from early 1968 - never saw a Solid State model - didn't even know they existed - wonder how much it's worth today.

Definitely worth fixing if you can find a good tech.

 

[muchxs]

Here's my old twin reverb solid state in case y'all never seen one. It's broke down right now and gonna cost 100 bucks to fix it. May sell it but I'm not sure what its worth fixed or broke. Prob not much either way. But it worked pretty well surprisingly for 40+ years

There's probably not much wrong with it. What does it do? What doesn't it do?

It's worth more as a curio than it is as an amp. Real tube Twin Reverbs are cheap right now. They're a big heavy amp so they're worth around $500. That's a lot of amp for the money! LFor comparison look at Vibro Champs on eBay. Guys seem to think their Vibro Champs are worth $500, $600 or more.

 

[Mike Simpson]

We have run vocals through mu 52 Pro Amp lots of times. I take a small non powered mixer and plug all the mic's into that and take a 1/4' cord from the right output that would notmally go to a power amp and plug that into the Pro. Works great... sounds best if no instrument is also being played through the amp at the same time.

Click on my reverbnation link below, all these songs were recorded with the vocals through the pro with a tascam DR-05, these tracks are raw mp3's with no processing.

 

[nadzab]

Does this work without a mic preamp?

 

[JohnnyRebKy]

I have a Siverface Twin from early 1968 - never saw a Solid State model - didn't even know they existed - wonder how much it's worth today.

Definitely worth fixing if you can find a good tech.

I thought about fixing it but after buying the new twin reverb tube I really don't have room for both. And actually this old solid state worked real well for many years. Well if you like to play clean anyway. The reverb worked on it but the tremelo didn't. I suspect it was just turned off with a foot switch before dad bought it and we never had a pedal to turn it back on.

What's wrong with it?? Not sure. It turns on and has a low hum and won't output any sound when you plug a guitar in. The local tech seems to think its a easy fix and quoted me a tops of 100 dollars. But I don't recall enzactly what he thought it was.

And yea I know the twins are down in the market. I bought a slightly used reissue for 600 bucks in mint condition. Love it! So I'm sure this old solid state prob isn't worth much money wise . As I figured though not many people even know they exist. I think they made them for 3 years 66 67 and 68

 

[pbenn]

I once saw a picture (of course I can't find now) of a reviewing stage in Vietnam during the war, with a TR as a PA, and understood that TRs were somehow standard issue for troops in that situation?

 

[leebman]

I used a blackface tremolux for a PA in the pub gigs I used to do ,plugged one vocal mic and one mike on my national. It was the only time I used this amp never liked it for electric guitar just lacked something.