Played first gig with my newly acquired Redplate Tweedyverb. Here are my experiences and impressions:
Room: 300 capacity bar with large dance floor. Large stage with ample house PA and monitor system.
Band:9 piece horn band doing R&B/funk/disco party hits a la Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, Ohio Players etc.
Amp: 1X12 Tweedyverb combo with Classic Lead 80.
guitar: Collings i-35 deluxe
Pedals: delay, distorion, wah.
First things first: This is a loud amp. The small cabinet sounds plenty open. There is enough headroom for my application (and I'm a clean-freak).
That said, this amp is all about dialing in your desired amount tube distortion. The whole continuum of tweed-type distortion is at your disposal. I want to emphasize the distortion is definitely of the Tweed persuasion. It has the loose and woolly character of a cathode-biased circuit, not the smooth OD of the dumblesque circuits. At 40 watts, there is enough backbone that it doesn't get mushy when you hit hard. At high-gain settings, there is some compression, but the amp remains responsive, not too squishy. This is important to me, as I tend to prefer quick, punchy amps.
For most of the night, I set the amp for "juicy clean". This is a sound that is "clean", but has enough distortion that chords are a little fluffy and single notes are nice and plump. The amp excels at this. I experimented with higher gain settings as well. But I mostly relied on my distortion pedal (Octone modded DS-3) for my lead tone. The Tweedyverb worked well with this pedal.
The amp controls are unusual. Without going into the details of the controls, I'll say that there are many ways to go about dialing the amp in. The 6 position rotary switch is very useful for jumping between levels of fatness. Between this control, the gain knob, and the ability to remove the tone, reverb and presence control from the circuit, there are many ways to adjust gain level. EQ control is affected by 3 position bright switch, tone knob and presence control. There are a lot of combinations to try, and there is much more to learn about the way the amp works.
I used the guitar's controls to keep the amp from sounding too thick. I set the amp for more juice than I typically do and rolled off the volume to clean up the sound. I spent more time on the middle and treble pickup positions that usual. The amp puts out a lot of bass, especially on the Tweed positions of the 6-position knob. There were tones I wished there was a bass control to help tame the low end. Instead, I compensated with the guitar's controls and touch on the strings. Playing a semi-hollow in a big ensemble, I don't want to be too thick. The amp is naturally very fat sounding, so care must be taken to get the right sound.
I'll add to this post as I learn how the amp's controls behave and interact. For now, I can say that the amp is a musical instrument in itself More than any other amp I've owned, it adds a lot of character to the sound. It is very lively sounding with rich and musical overtones.
The 1X12 combo is a wonderfully portable package that didn't make me wish for a different cabinet.
I invite others who know about the amp to chime in. I'm especially interested in hearing from guys that play semi-hollow bodies through their Tweedyverb.
Room: 300 capacity bar with large dance floor. Large stage with ample house PA and monitor system.
Band:9 piece horn band doing R&B/funk/disco party hits a la Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder, Ohio Players etc.
Amp: 1X12 Tweedyverb combo with Classic Lead 80.
guitar: Collings i-35 deluxe
Pedals: delay, distorion, wah.
First things first: This is a loud amp. The small cabinet sounds plenty open. There is enough headroom for my application (and I'm a clean-freak).
That said, this amp is all about dialing in your desired amount tube distortion. The whole continuum of tweed-type distortion is at your disposal. I want to emphasize the distortion is definitely of the Tweed persuasion. It has the loose and woolly character of a cathode-biased circuit, not the smooth OD of the dumblesque circuits. At 40 watts, there is enough backbone that it doesn't get mushy when you hit hard. At high-gain settings, there is some compression, but the amp remains responsive, not too squishy. This is important to me, as I tend to prefer quick, punchy amps.
For most of the night, I set the amp for "juicy clean". This is a sound that is "clean", but has enough distortion that chords are a little fluffy and single notes are nice and plump. The amp excels at this. I experimented with higher gain settings as well. But I mostly relied on my distortion pedal (Octone modded DS-3) for my lead tone. The Tweedyverb worked well with this pedal.
The amp controls are unusual. Without going into the details of the controls, I'll say that there are many ways to go about dialing the amp in. The 6 position rotary switch is very useful for jumping between levels of fatness. Between this control, the gain knob, and the ability to remove the tone, reverb and presence control from the circuit, there are many ways to adjust gain level. EQ control is affected by 3 position bright switch, tone knob and presence control. There are a lot of combinations to try, and there is much more to learn about the way the amp works.
I used the guitar's controls to keep the amp from sounding too thick. I set the amp for more juice than I typically do and rolled off the volume to clean up the sound. I spent more time on the middle and treble pickup positions that usual. The amp puts out a lot of bass, especially on the Tweed positions of the 6-position knob. There were tones I wished there was a bass control to help tame the low end. Instead, I compensated with the guitar's controls and touch on the strings. Playing a semi-hollow in a big ensemble, I don't want to be too thick. The amp is naturally very fat sounding, so care must be taken to get the right sound.
I'll add to this post as I learn how the amp's controls behave and interact. For now, I can say that the amp is a musical instrument in itself More than any other amp I've owned, it adds a lot of character to the sound. It is very lively sounding with rich and musical overtones.
The 1X12 combo is a wonderfully portable package that didn't make me wish for a different cabinet.
I invite others who know about the amp to chime in. I'm especially interested in hearing from guys that play semi-hollow bodies through their Tweedyverb.
