When did separate "bedroom amp" and "gigging amp" become a thing?

[11 Gauge]

I've never had an amp in my bedroom though.

After I moved out of my parents' house, I haven't had an amp in the bedroom either.

I lived in apartments for about six years before finally getting a house, and did most of the playing in the living room during that time.

I got engaged shortly after I moved into my first apartment, and there's no way my then fiancee would have allowed me to stash a guitar amp in the bedroom (or guitars, or any other guitar-related gear). Thank goodness we had closets in our living rooms.

Now I'm allowed to keep my guitar gear anywhere in the house that I want, as long as it's in the basement.

 

[telemnemonics]

In Maine we have a long standing tradition of gathering in the kitchen to play music.
More in winter when there's no farming to do, and the wood stove makes the kitchen the only warm room in the house.
Plus them what can't play can often cook, or just stomp around enjoying the music with the fridge full of beer set to self service.

Some places are better suited to living room music but always right next to the kitchen, wood stove, beer, food, and front door where new arrivals pop in with instruments food, beer, or any other enhancements they might have on hand.

I literally considered myself a "kitchen musician" for the first few years of playing!

 

[driver8]

In Maine we have a long standing tradition of gathering in the kitchen to play music.
More in winter when there's no farming to do, and the wood stove makes the kitchen the only warm room in the house.
Plus them what can't play can often cook, or just stomp around enjoying the music with the fridge full of beer set to self service.

Some places are better suited to living room music but always right next to the kitchen, wood stove, beer, food, and front door where new arrivals pop in with instruments food, beer, or any other enhancements they might have on hand.

I literally considered myself a "kitchen musician" for the first few years of playing!

I keep a practice amp (bedroom amp? : P) and guitar in the kitchen for occasional spontaneous jamming. The acoustics are really good in there : D

 

[telemnemonics]

It's no big deal, but I don't get why some people say "my ______ amp is too loud for home" when all you need to do is turn it down... I mean, I can see an amp not being loud enough, but not quiet enough?

Similarly I don't agree with the common claims that you have to turn a tube amp up to get a good sound, that tube amps have "a sweet spot" where the sound good, and that you need power tube distortion to sound good.

Bedroom players that don't know how to use a basic clean sound?
Really really odd and sad.

And the desire to get something like a cranked half stack sound for virtually everything one plays, but at whisper volume?
I mean we can practice clean low volume, or we can play low volume dirt that will never sound loud because it isn't loud.
Do those players that require screaming distortion all the time, never play acoustic guitars?

 

[Rocky058]

Honey and I are a musical family

Any room can be a music room - including the boudoir

 

[Drew617]

It's no big deal, but I don't get why some people say "my ______ amp is too loud for home" when all you need to do is turn it down... I mean, I can see an amp not being loud enough, but not quiet enough?

Absolutely see/understand "not quiet enough." Almost any amp can get quiet, not all of them without being stiff-sterile-dead. IME with tube amps, that's usually a function of size, secondarily speakers.

If I were really a performer and just trying to practice at home, work out parts, whatever, I agree the tone wouldn't matter too much. Realistically over the last decades, I get to jam with other people maybe 2-10 times a year for the last decade. Almost all the enjoyment I derive from playing happens at home, so my tone target is in that space. My "big" amp is a loud Princeton clone for those times I get to play outside the house.

I play clean and mostly clean, no screaming tube distortion from preamp or power stages. But there can be huge differences in feel, stiffness, bloom, all those subjective things, between two clean tube amps. A lot of that comes down to sizing - transformers and tubes - and a speaker cone that's lively at a couple watts or less. Hint: Not a V30 or many others that handle much power, though I've noted exceptions. I think that's a cone-suspension thing more than a magnet-VC thing.

 

[BigBillow]

Huh? What you don’t need an excuse to buy another amp?!? Well aren’t you special. SMH

 

[3-Chord-Genius]

Similarly I don't agree with the common claims that you have to turn a tube amp up to get a good sound, that tube amps have "a sweet spot" where the sound good, and that you need power tube distortion to sound good.

Bedroom players that don't know how to use a basic clean sound?
Really really odd and sad.

And the desire to get something like a cranked half stack sound for virtually everything one plays, but at whisper volume?
I mean we can practice clean low volume, or we can play low volume dirt that will never sound loud because it isn't loud.
Do those players that require screaming distortion all the time, never play acoustic guitars?

I actually do require screaming distortion all the time!!. But the amps I've owned have been able to do this at their lowest master volume settings. Well, maybe not screaming distortion, but enough to be fun to bang out chords to. My adaptability in this area might be due to the fact that I've always had to sell an amp to get a new one, so I've never had more than one at a time. So whatever I've had, it's had to work for everything. BUT, before I was ever playing out, all I owned were practice amps. Once I started playing out, all I've owned were gigging amps.

 

[3-Chord-Genius]

Huh? What you don’t need an excuse to buy another amp?!? Well aren’t you special. SMH

Broke, or a tightwad - take your pick.

 

[Ignatius]

Venues are smaller, stages are smaller, stage volumes are getting quieter, and FOH systems and personal monitoring have gotten better. For a lot of people there’s not a whole lot of difference between bedroom amps and stage amps .

 

[BigBillow]

Broke, or a tightwad - take your pick.

respectable

 

[telemnemonics]

I actually do require screaming distortion all the time!!. But the amps I've owned have been able to do this at their lowest master volume settings. Well, maybe not screaming distortion, but enough to be fun to bang out chords to. My adaptability in this area might be due to the fact that I've always had to sell an amp to get a new one, so I've never had more than one at a time. So whatever I've had, it's had to work for everything. BUT, before I was ever playing out, all I owned were practice amps. Once I started playing out, all I've owned were gigging amps.

I actually realized coming back to that post that it's a basic fact that some styles really don't use much clean guitar, and if practicing crunching power chords they need to be crunchy, or single notes with sustain that are intended to be distorted, the sound needs to be distorted.

Doesn't need to sound huge though!
Some of the Orange amps and other modern dirt amps actually do a better low volume Rock dirt and also work live, starting with the range of 15/18/20w amps like the OR15.

Those are not bedroom amps or practice amps.
Today almost all amps are small amps compared to the time when a 50w Marshall was too small for a live Rock band.

 

[loopfinding]

And who that no longer lives with Mom & Dad plays guitar in the bedroom?

us losers that have roommates and/or can’t find or afford permanent practice spaces at astronomical rents.

 

[Drew617]

Yeah I was wondering when the Dad's & Mom's would chime in!
(Do we have any Mom's raising kids posting here? Maybe we could behave in a more women friendly manner?)
Looks like you have a nice big bedroom there!
No kids but my wife is a painter so she needs a painting studio.
She also gets all the closet space and the bedroom is pretty full.
It's easier to move from room to room with guitars than with easel, palette and turpentine.
Then there's marriage management.
Given that some here report they just stopped playing guitar while raising kids, good job making it work!

My workspace takes more of the room than I'd prefer, but it could be smaller. Not the worst situation.

I managed to squeeze in a couple decades of adulthood before starting with my own kids. That was nice for selfish reasons, and I'm thankful to have had some good experiences in that time. I've known some younger parents who appear never to have had much room to develop themselves, and I worry they'll effectively be like confused 20-year-olds at 45 when their kids move out.

It also means that I was not giving up an outlet, the guitar, that I'd grown very accustomed to having. It just occurs exclusively between 2200-0100 now, and during the workday. Still healthier than drinking a 12 pack on the couch.

The downside, of course... ever feel 39 going on 75?

 

[telemnemonics]

us losers that have roommates and/or can’t find or afford permanent practice spaces at astronomical rents.

The hunt for affordable live/ work/ music space in the US is a lot like the old pioneer days when the young broke and hardy settled unwanted places for cheap or free access.
Then everybody else floods in opening businesses and making money, costs go up and us musicians and artists either leave for worse neighborhoods, or give in sell out and open a gallery cafe craft beer cheeses shop.

We’ve really only been at it here for a couple hundred years but I guess after 500-1000 years building up the settlements, there’s no more place for broke musicians to make our noisy way!

 

[Drew617]

The hunt for affordable live/ work/ music space in the US is a lot like the old pioneer days when the young broke and hardy settled unwanted places for cheap or free access.
Then everybody else floods in opening businesses and making money, costs go up and us musicians and artists either leave for worse neighborhoods, or give in sell out and open a gallery cafe craft beer cheeses shop.

We’ve really only been at it here for a couple hundred years but I guess after 500-1000 years building up the settlements, there’s no more place for broke musicians to make our noisy way!

I've lived here in New England for ages now, but home is the steel belt where clean-dry-serviceable suburban houses are still $150k. Notably, I came here after the first RE and gentrification boom, and had no equity to parlay as some of the middle class people participating in the housing market did at the time. Cost of entry felt, and still feels, daunting. This is not a humblebrag, but by the numbers I should be doing fine, financially. Objectively, I am doing fine financially. I would not be living any better in Ohio with that $150k mortgage because that cheap house is a function of the economy there. But a mortgage well north of $500k, probably closer to $1MM if I really stuck to space and location requirements, has simply felt incorrect to me and I've never wrapped my head around the idea comfortably enough to engage. People just shouldn't have to invest such a high percentage of their income, and their opportunity, for a fairly regular house.

But I'll be forced into it eventually (have you seen my ridiculous bedroom guitar space?) and when that happens, it will be Twin Reverb time.

 

[Minivan Megafun]

Venues are smaller, stages are smaller, stage volumes are getting quieter, and FOH systems and personal monitoring have gotten better. For a lot of people there’s not a whole lot of difference between bedroom amps and stage amps .

It's becoming that NO AMP is an expectation. You plug your modeler into their PA system and the sound guy gets to decide what your tone sounds like and how much of it anyone (including you) gets to hear of it.

I HATE having my guitar fed to me in the monitor. Why? Because it muddies up the stage mix. All I want in my wedge is vocals.

 

[telemnemonics]

I've lived here in New England for ages now, but home is the steel belt where clean-dry-serviceable suburban houses are still $150k. Notably, I came here after the first RE and gentrification boom, and had no equity to parlay as some of the middle class people participating in the housing market did at the time. Cost of entry felt, and still feels, daunting. This is not a humblebrag, but by the numbers I should be doing fine, financially. Objectively, I am doing fine financially. I would not be living any better in Ohio with that $150k mortgage because that cheap house is a function of the economy there. But a mortgage well north of $500k, probably closer to $1MM if I really stuck to space and location requirements, has simply felt incorrect to me and I've never wrapped my head around the idea comfortably enough to engage. People just shouldn't have to invest such a high percentage of their income, and their opportunity, for a fairly regular house.

But I'll be forced into it eventually (have you seen my ridiculous bedroom guitar space?) and when that happens, it will be Twin Reverb time.

It’s a pretty crazy mix of opinions and struggle to bet on the best long term living strategy.

One being that many of the most fiscally fit work in places they really don’t enjoy, doing stuff that stresses them out. But then the money pays for home comforts and vacations etc.

While many but not all who chose trades actually look forward to the work day, but have to make some compromises on housing and luxuries, or in many cases put money into recreation but forget retirement saving.

Choose an area where housing is affordable and you get lower pay, or live cheap and doubly stress commuting 30-50 miles to a stressful office job.

I eventually chose to commute about 35 miles into Cambridge Brookline etc where carpentry brought literally double the rate.
While housing was more like triple or quadruple.
My truck insurance alone was $3500/ year not even counting the purchase and maintenance.

Maine potentially allows less stress and a higher quality of life, but because I live by the ocean there are lots of home buyers offering Boston income based prices for second homes while locals are literally driven off our land as valuation requests big prop tax while local jobs pay small money.

Now I have plenty of space (sort of) but fewer musicians really near me who maybe play the non record bin approved stuff I play.
Brooklyn had more of the fringe musicians but once again, I got quickly priced out of my loft as young entrepreneurs with trust funds showed up in the new settlements.
So the yuppie like crowd drove out the broke artists and musicians, but us poor white folks had been just as guilty of driving out the even poorer Hispanic families who settled for crack dealers on every corner because it was what they could afford, and to some degree what they expected as their lot in life.

Along the way in all the places I tried to fit my life around, I never ever had a bedroom amp!

 

[fozhebert]

Never really gigged a lot. Used to play 15 watt tube amps in the living room. Then marriage, a kid, a tenant sleeping below the family office (where I can play in a small house).

I need something very directional at conversation lebels or use headphones. Solution: Zoom G3 into my linux pc, used as an IR cab player and room sound simulation. Fits the budget and keeps me happy.

 

[39martind18]

My "bedroom" amp is my avatar. If I can play it on an acoustic, I can play it on an electric. Besides which, I loves me that old Martin sound!