Members chiro972 Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 I went to GC today and tried this amp everyone is talking about. The first one was dead. Literally. It would power up but no sound at all. Salesman brought over another. It was nice. Not wonderful. I don't really play well enough to show off my talents, so I played it at full volume only for a few minutes and then messed around for about 10 minutes at lesser volumes. I was playing a Nashville Tele. Anyway, as much as I really wanted to like this amp I was just underwhelmed. So I took the tele over to a Crate V8 Palomino I saw on the other side of the store. At first I thought it was bad also, but someone had put a speaker cable in the input (I guess they're totally unshielded) anyway, once I got a good cable I was truly impressed with this amp. It could play quietly and still have some good overdrive sounds with the gain setting. Not too much hum even with the gain turned way up. I think this is going to be my new practice amp. It is about $80 more, but I really liked it. So Verne, I have to totally agree with you on this one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members docjeffrey Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 I own both of those amps, although my Crate was a special run that they did with a solid oak cab. The Champion 600 is much more suitable for me, personally. The Crate goes straight into grainy EL84 territory with very little usable cleans, but the drive sounds are very good. My Crate has the speaker hardwired to the amp, so I'd have to mod it to hook in a separate cab. Anyway, I can get pretty much the same high gain sounds with the 600 with an OD pedal. Here's a sample:Champ 600 w Tonebone Hot Brit Here's a clean clip with a Custom Shop 56 Strat:http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.bauer/stratchamp.mp3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chiro972 Posted May 13, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 Man, your clips all sound awesome. I just couldn't get the same vibe from the one at GC. Then again I don't play nearly as well as you. I just really dug the crate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members docjeffrey Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 Man, your clips all sound awesome. I just couldn't get the same vibe from the one at GC. Then again I don't play nearly as well as you. I just really dug the crate. The Crate is a very good amp, no doubt about it, and if you need serious gain tones in a mini package, you can't go wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Puckman Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 I own both of those amps, although my Crate was a special run that they did with a solid oak cab. The Champion 600 is much more suitable for me, personally. The Crate goes straight into grainy EL84 territory with very little usable cleans, but the drive sounds are very good. My Crate has the speaker hardwired to the amp, so I'd have to mod it to hook in a separate cab.Anyway, I can get pretty much the same high gain sounds with the 600 with an OD pedal. Here's a sample:Champ 600 w Tonebone Hot BritHere's a clean clip with a Custom Shop 56 Strat:http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.bauer/stratchamp.mp3 Love your playing! And love the sounds you're getting out of that C600.I'm looking to get one real soon now (in large part thanks to your clips). What's the "gainiest" you've been able to get out of the C600? I'm curious how it does if you try to go into punk territory, or even metal-ish (although i hate that super-hi-gain stuff). But I am truely curious about this amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members voneville Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 I've never really been found of the EL84 sound for anything but classic rock and punk rock. I've always liked Fender clean. Now I need fender clean in a small portable package to bring with me on the ship for low volume practice and recording. I also thought about the Pro Jr, but that's a pretty steep difference in price. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bloolight Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 What's the "gainiest" you've been able to get out of the C600? I'm curious how it does if you try to go into punk territory, or even metal-ish (although i hate that super-hi-gain stuff). But I am truely curious about this amp. I don't think you could get really convincing high-gain sounds out of this amp, even if you use a good distortion pedal. I've tried using the high-gain "Hyde" side of my Jeckyll/Hyde pedal through mine, and it just sounds really fizzy and awful. With the small speaker, it seems to be best suited to cleans and warm, (slightly dark) overdriven blues. With the Weber 6" speaker replacement and some new tubes, it sound like buttah with a good OD pedal. Metal, however, is not in its bag of tricks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Puckman Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 To be expected, I guess. I'm not a huge fan of metal anyway. But I do like having the ability to throw down some screaming lead type stuff now and again...think Brian May for instance...I'm still at a loss as to how to best achieve those kinds of tones on a home-sized amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gt5litre Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 I love the playing and the tone you got doc. What did you use to record that clip? gt5litre Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members voneville Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 To be expected, I guess.I'm not a huge fan of metal anyway. But I do like having the ability to throw down some screaming lead type stuff now and again...think Brian May for instance...I'm still at a loss as to how to best achieve those kinds of tones on a home-sized amp. Wasn't his recording amp a solidstate radio that he moddified or something crazy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AaronF Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 I tried the 600 out the other day too and royally hated it. It sounded like the speaker was made of paper and was torn. In my opinion, it sounded like utter {censored}. That being said, I really like your C600 clip docjeffrey. That sounds really good! I like the Palomino a lot better. This is 100% opinion, the C600 just doesn't have the tone I like in an amp. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members bloolight Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 Wasn't his recording amp a solidstate radio that he moddified or something crazy? For his multipart guitar harmonies, Brian would often use a tiny little solid-state amp that was built by John Deacon. Deacon evidently found this circuit board on top of a garbage dumpster when he was walking down the street and he decided to make a practice amp out of it. The amp had a very distinctive overdriven sound which Brian used on a lot of Queen recordings. Vox recently released a mass-production version of this "Deacy" amp which got very good reviews. I've read some claims that *all* of Brian's recordings were done with this amp, but I don't think that's the case. I think the little amp was mainly used on layered stuff. To my knowledge, Brian's main amp in the studio was a cranked AC30. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ancient Mariner Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 Small amps seem more sensitive to the guitar, pickups, cables and all kinds of things. Larger amps seem to homogenise equipment a bit more. on top of that, the current crop of little 'uns do seem to be a bit patchy quality wise. This may be why opinions are quite so divided. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members voneville Posted May 13, 2007 Members Share Posted May 13, 2007 Recording and what we hear live in the bedroom are also two different animals. A good recording amp doesn't always = a great sounding amp for everyday practice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members guitar-fish Posted May 14, 2007 Members Share Posted May 14, 2007 Me loves the Crate Palominos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members docjeffrey Posted May 14, 2007 Members Share Posted May 14, 2007 Some good points here. I did swap the speaker on my Champ 600 with a Eminence Legend with a big magnet. The OEM speaker had a nice open sounding high end compared with the Eminence, but the Eminence keeps the bass tight and punchy. The beauty of the 600 is its ability to drive just about any speaker cabinet and sound very good. I've run mine thru a 2 x 12 Vox AC30 with Celestion Blues, a Marshall cab with a Greenback, and an Orange Cab with a Weber Silver Bell ceramic. It sounded fantastic thru all of them which surprised me considering the lack of any kind of tone control. But there must be something related to problems with the speakers that is causing some of them to sound terrible. Also, like I mentioned somewhere, Chinese tubes are notoriously inconsistent. I happen to like the sound of some Chinese tubes (EL34's especially). They feel really soft and compress early which is great for blues. My Crate is a fun amp to play too. It goes way beyond what the 600 can do when the gain and volume are cranked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Verne Andru Posted May 14, 2007 Members Share Posted May 14, 2007 The Palomino has a Vox AC30 sound to it when running clean and the Champ is a dark Fender - no surprises there. In the old days Fender always tried to design amps that didn't distort and the Champ seems pretty true to those roots. EL84 based amps like the Vox get nice and dirty but you really need to do the opamp/tube change and use the FX loop to get the most out of the V8 clean-wise. You can do it yourself pretty easily and cheaply -> Supercharging a V8 Or there is a guy selling one on eBay with the opamp mod already done -> http://cgi.ebay.com/CRATE-PALOMINO-V8-5W-TUBE-mod-upgrad-ex-cond-Tone_W0QQitemZ140117608990QQihZ004QQcategoryZ38073QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members chiro972 Posted May 14, 2007 Author Members Share Posted May 14, 2007 Shut up Verne!! I've been watching that one. Don't want to drive the price up!~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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