Amp/pedal recommendations for Epi Ultra 339

[Nina Owl]

HI my band Scowlin Owl are just now moving into a more electric sound - I am traditionally our rhythm player on an Ovation acoustic, but I recently bought a lovely cherry red Epiphone Ultra 339 to see how I get on with it. I was attracted partly because I am hoping to still be able to get great acoustic tones from it as well as crank it up when required, and I read it was good for rhythm due to being a semi hollow. I already love it madly though it needs a good set up (a little fret buzz).

 

Anyway as I say I traditionally play rhythm and my bandmate Yvonne lead guitar - she has a lovely Fender Strat and goes through a Fender HotRod Deluxe I think. At the mo she has no pedals but we're looking for generally a clean sound with delay/reverb on our lead stuff, as our stuff is folk rock/alternative indie/atmospheric not heavy stuff that requires crunch.

 

I'd like to make sure I get an amp that means my Epi is working well with hers - I imagine I need to keep my trebles low if she is doing lead anyway and doubt I'll need much in the way of pedals (maybe overdrive and reverb) but what amp would best complement? Probably a Fender I am thinking again if we're going for clean tones as a rule. I need my chords to stay sharp and to still have an acoustic 'cut' if needs be when I am playing more percussively... I am told that at least one of us should play 'thin' while the other plays with fatter effects to get the right balance between us. Of course with the Ultra I can either put the acoustic output through a PA live or through an amp, but it would be good if there is an amp/amp stack where I can plug both the acoustic output in and the electric output in at the same time and control my sound that way when live.

 

Anyway any thoughts appreciated as I'm new to this electric game and want to spend my cash on the right things and make sure two electrics can complement/ not screw with the sound too much. Anyway if anyone has any advice...:)

 

Nina

[rct]

For acoustic sounds out and about in a variety of sizes of venues, I spent way too much money and a long time trying to get the right thing. Right around the year 2000 the right thing became immediatley apparent when I spent some pretty big money on an Ovation. That was the only way I did it ever after that, and if I went back out tomorrowo night I'd do it that way again. Simulator pedals, undersaddle type bridges, mic'd acoustics, pickup'd acoustics, all failed compared to just putting down the tele and picking up the Ovation, or wearing both at once which is uber kewl but not easy.

 

As for amps, too many to even talk about. Get to the store, plug in, figure out what sounds close to right, take it to rehearse and wring it out, if it doesn't work right for you take it back and get a different one. And above all, nobody on the internet knows what sux and what rewlz for you, including my advice above!

 

Good luck with it.

 

rct

[Nina Owl]

For acoustic sounds out and about in a variety of sizes of venues, I spent way too much money and a long time trying to get the right thing. Right around the year 2000 the right thing became immediatley apparent when I spent some pretty big money on an Ovation. That was the only way I did it ever after that, and if I went back out tomorrowo night I'd do it that way again. Simulator pedals, undersaddle type bridges, mic'd acoustics, pickup'd acoustics, all failed compared to just putting down the tele and picking up the Ovation, or wearing both at once which is uber kewl but not easy.

 

As for amps, too many to even talk about. Get to the store, plug in, figure out what sounds close to right, take it to rehearse and wring it out, if it doesn't work right for you take it back and get a different one. And above all, nobody on the internet knows what sux and what rewlz for you, including my advice above!

 

Good luck with it.

 

rct

 

Yeah I have an Ovation. They rumble!

[deeman]

Sounds like you'd benefit from a vox or fender amp. But as said above, try a bunch out at your price range and get what you think sounds best.

[Not-Too-Late]

HI my band Scowlin Owl are just now moving into a more electric sound - I am traditionally our rhythm player on an Ovation acoustic, but I recently bought a lovely cherry red Epiphone Ultra 339 to see how I get on with it. I was attracted partly because I am hoping to still be able to get great acoustic tones from it as well as crank it up when required, and I read it was good for rhythm due to being a semi hollow. I already love it madly though it needs a good set up (a little fret buzz).

 

Anyway as I say I traditionally play rhythm and my bandmate Yvonne lead guitar - she has a lovely Fender Strat and goes through a Fender HotRod Deluxe I think. At the mo she has no pedals but we're looking for generally a clean sound with delay/reverb on our lead stuff, as our stuff is folk rock/alternative indie/atmospheric not heavy stuff that requires crunch.

 

I'd like to make sure I get an amp that means my Epi is working well with hers - I imagine I need to keep my trebles low if she is doing lead anyway and doubt I'll need much in the way of pedals (maybe overdrive and reverb) but what amp would best complement? Probably a Fender I am thinking again if we're going for clean tones as a rule. I need my chords to stay sharp and to still have an acoustic 'cut' if needs be when I am playing more percussively... I am told that at least one of us should play 'thin' while the other plays with fatter effects to get the right balance between us. Of course with the Ultra I can either put the acoustic output through a PA live or through an amp, but it would be good if there is an amp/amp stack where I can plug both the acoustic output in and the electric output in at the same time and control my sound that way when live.

 

Anyway any thoughts appreciated as I'm new to this electric game and want to spend my cash on the right things and make sure two electrics can complement/ not screw with the sound too much. Anyway if anyone has any advice...:)

 

Nina

 

If you are not playing anything heavy, I would recommend chorus. It adds a nice flavor, so to speak, to a rhythm guitar. I play rhythm myself and I am playing through a Fender Princeton Chorus amp. A nice blend of reverb and chorus should sound great with the 339. If I want, I can add a small amount of gain depending on what I'm playing. I recently changed out my strings to chrome flat wounds and along with a rubber pick, I achieve a nice warm sound without pick slap and string squeal going up and down the fret board. I would like to eventually get a 339, but I can produce a nice warm sound now out of my Epi Les Paul Standard.

 

 

 

[milod]

I played one of the original Ovation AEs through a Deluxe Reverb in saloon gigs in the '70s.

 

Worked fine.

 

A coupla points here, though.

 

1. RE: the buzz... You're likely playing lighter strings on the semi with roughly the same technique you used on the Ovation. Don't. Don't need to. They're different creatures; most electrics are set up lower than acoustics for that reason. Play gentler; it'll mean less buzz, easier left hand work. There are volume pots on the guitar and on amps to handle making more noise.

 

2. Amp? You have too many variables unmentioned in your note.

 

Small venues and an amp behind you? Put it on a chair and significantly increase the audience-perceived volume whether it's tube or ss.

 

Any venue small amp, mike the amp and run through the board for the PA?

 

What's the budget? You're likely better off with a good small amp miked through the board regardless - if you have a good PA.

 

Finally, I was there when today's "retro" was brand new stuff. There are arguments on SS vs. tube amps, this tube amp vs. another, etc. I have two big powerful 1960s tube amps that are used as end tables at home and never go out, and two 30-pound ss amps that both get played out as well as at home, and a nice little PA that makes a guitar amp unnecessary. (Still use the light bass amp for bass, but that's another tale.) The PA works fine with even an archtop and mike and no guitar amp at all.

 

Bottom line is something where, it seems, younger folks ignore the advice until they figured out it wasn't all that stupid. Consider even a solo gig that requires amplification as a "system," not a collection of noisemaking equipment. An AE plugged into the PA board can work well. So can various "solo gig" options such as a mike and AE plugged into many current "active speaker" systems. Heck, in the old days the Deluxe Reverb did half decently on that, too.

 

In a band, there are a lot more variables. Bottom line, though, IMHO is still to consider things are a "system' rather than a bunch of folks with guitars, amps, then a PA and a drummer. It's all gotta balance in various sorts of venues. Remember that what you think you sound like and what an audience actually hears can be very different.

 

Ask those questions first to get an answer to what sort of amp to get.

 

Folks here have strong opinions on this brand or that, of this type or that. Tube amps are praised, SS usually dissed. It's their money, but one notes that most PAs are SS nowadays and the human voice a huge tone engine to be reproduced.

 

Me, I want an audience to hear what I'm playing and/or singing in a way that isn't "mudded up" by various factors.

 

My tube amps are the sort that are "legendary," but never get used. My "too little and cheapie to consider" guitar and bass amps (I use the bass amp also for solo jazz instrumental-only stuff) are the ones getting used. A lot. The little AE guitar amp even can work in a small venue for vocals and/or guitar played up to electric blues band volumes if set on a bar stool, or in a theater of 500 or so capacity for a solo folksie/bluesie/jazz solo one way or another.

 

And the 30-watt guitar amp has line out which runs into the computer; haven't messed with the Fender 40-watt ss bass amp that much.

 

Budget, sound "system" that includes instruments... then worry about a holy grail of "tone" that some seek.

 

m

[Nina Owl]

Thanks all. I can spend up to £500 but don't need to and am not precious at all about tube/ SS. Think the best thing is to try out a lot of them.

 

The fret buzz is a known factory issue for these models but most people sort it by tweaking the action, nuts or strings so I'll take it to an expert for that. It sounds lovely just through my little Roland cube so excited to check out how it sounds through other set ups too.

[milod]

If you have a little Cube that gives a sound you like, you may wish to consider miking it through the PA - or upgrading the PA.

 

Then again, I don't know the sorts of venues you might play in.

 

I'm not so sure about the fret buzz being "a factory issue" although the bridge or neck torsion bar might use some adjustment.

 

I've purchased or played a number of new guitars recently that, whether Internet purchased or in a music store quite a ways away, that have had fret buzz problems due to climate differences. Most have been Epis of various sorts, for what that's worth, since they're a bit of a preference. It took a bit on the torsion bar to correct. I'm at about 3,100 feet - figure 1,000 meters - and quite dry on North America's "high plains." That ain't what the climate's like a lesser elevation and greater humidity.

 

I guess I tend not to blame "the factory" for what happens to wood after it is checked, put into a box and shipped.

 

For what it's worth, too, I've spent far more than today's 500 sterling on "guitar gear" that has little practical value to me today. But then, I was a lot younger when I did so. My best money the past dozen years has gone for those two little SS amps and a quality "small" but not terribly expensive PA system.

 

Don't ask about how much spent for guitars in that same latest decade. <grin> I'm old but still strongly afflicted with Guitar Acquisition Syndrome (GAS).

 

BTW, I'm at work and didn't listen to the music but...

 

Poker Alice worked in my neck of the woods. Was a not infrequent visitor to my town and several others within 30 miles. Interesting lady. Madame DuFran had her most successful "establishment" in my town here, although she's better known up the hill a bit in Deadwood, as was Poker Alice, although she later had her ... rooming house ... in Sturgis of biker fame. Ain't quite what the movies tell, nor what the "nice" writer might do. Calamity Jane ditto.

 

Oh - Nina, you're into Japanese culture? Hagakure and Go Rin No Sho?

 

And Americana folk... listen to some Chris LeDoux for the real last new sorts of Americana. A world champion rodeo rider who knew how to help cows give birth and died young leaving a young family a tradition of strength against adversity and a knowledge of how to "Cowboy Up."

 

Yeah, I do a bit of cowboy stuff too, as well as Bach, rock and jazz, but it's where I live and what my wife has said I am regardless of functionally nonexistent horsemanship skill.

 

m

[joevacc]

Thanks all. I can spend up to £500 but don't need to and am not precious at all about tube/ SS. Think the best thing is to try out a lot of them.

 

The fret buzz is a known factory issue for these models but most people sort it by tweaking the action, nuts or strings so I'll take it to an expert for that. It sounds lovely just through my little Roland cube so excited to check out how it sounds through other set ups too.

The Roland Cube is a great sounding amp. If that is your control it can only get better from there! ;~)

I recently bought a VOX AC15 and I am in love with it. Beautiful sounding thing and it is not too heavy to gig with. I would put it on your must try list!

Good luck in your search!

[Nina Owl]

The Roland Cube is a great sounding amp. If that is your control it can only get better from there! ;~)

I recently bought a VOX AC15 and I am in love with it. Beautiful sounding thing and it is not too heavy to gig with. I would put it on your must try list!

Good luck in your search!

 

Thanks for that suggestion.... Yes something not too heavy might work for plugging in the electric output. I could of course yes mike up my Cube for the acoustic output, it does actually pack a decent sound in itself.

 

The gigs we play are normally 50-100 people max at the moment, normally in venues with **** gear so we need to take our own stuff, PAs not always that great/dodgy mikes. So the more we can control our sound ourselves the better.

 

I do think getting an amp that I can carry reasonably easily would be good - SS's are lighter aren't they I think.

[Scott Marlowe]

I do think getting an amp that I can carry reasonably easily would be good - SS's are lighter aren't they I think.

 

Yes and no. The issue is that a 15W tube amp will usually have more usable volume (if you want distortion) than a solidstate amp in the 40 to 60 watt range. On the other hand, you can drop some solid state peaveys 15 or 20 feet and have them survive. Most tubes aren't gonna take that kind of abuse. And ss amps are a lot cheaper per watt, so that you can still get a loud amp for a reasonable price etc. For 50 to 100 people you'd want either 15 watts of tubes or 60 watts of solid state, minimum.

[milod]

There are a lot of interesting options today that "we" didn't have in the '60s or even the '70s.

 

One advantage to a lot of "PA systems" is that they're in pieces one might manage to carry with relative ease.

 

I used to spend my "sound" money on guitar amps.

 

The past 10 years the emphasis has been instead on "sound systems."

 

There are so many options there that there's no way to enumerate them all. I have friends using small systems such as mine that will easily cover a 50-100 person "house" even in a noisy environment such as a pub/saloon. You're talking well under 500 quid in the UK. Add a cupla $100 mikes and common sense and you're cooking with gas. Miking the little amps.... you're only four or five people, so it should work well enough in venues you're using. My current PA rig (I'd likely buy something different today, but this was 5 years ago) will handle a trio or four-piece fairly well, depending on overall setup.

 

I've seen "big names" in some circumstances using small amps and a huge expensive PA play for a crowd that ran roughly a 300 or more meters from the stage.

 

My favorite "guitar amp" regardless of some very nice "old style" tube amps is a Kustom 30-watt AE amp. It has enough juice to run a semi-hollow in a saloon electric blues or country rock gig as you describe as long as it's lifted to chest or head level. It's worked fine in a 500-seat theater for solo jazz/blues gigs and in a 200-seat "room" for cowboy/jazz gigs - and that includes running a mike through the mike side of the little thing.

 

It weighs about 30 pounds. I've also run line-out to a board for live solo stuff and into a computer for voice/guitar recording. Meanwhile, my "window breaker" tube amps sit at home as end tables.

 

m

[BobF_]

For acoustic sounds out and about in a variety of sizes of venues, I spent way too much money and a long time trying to get the right thing. Right around the year 2000 the right thing became immediatley apparent when I spent some pretty big money on an Ovation. That was the only way I did it ever after that, and if I went back out tomorrowo night I'd do it that way again. Simulator pedals, undersaddle type bridges, mic'd acoustics, pickup'd acoustics, all failed compared to just putting down the tele and picking up the Ovation, or wearing both at once which is uber kewl but not easy.

 

As for amps, too many to even talk about. Get to the store, plug in, figure out what sounds close to right, take it to rehearse and wring it out, if it doesn't work right for you take it back and get a different one. And above all, nobody on the internet knows what sux and what rewlz for you, including my advice above!

 

Good luck with it.

 

rct

 

+1 on going and plugging in to see what you want.

 

BTW, I had an Ultra 339 for a while. The shadow mag pup is NOT going to sound like an acoustic guitar. It's interesting and best blended with the 'buckers. The tone palette is great, it just doesn't include an authentic acoustic sound.

 

I really liked the 339 tone thru my Bugera V22. Basically any cleanish tube amp will make it sound great, IMO.

[kb5szo]

I have a 339 ultra and get a great sound out of my Acoustic AG60 it has 2 totally complete seperate channels you can run the nanomag super clean in channel one and crank the gain up in channel two for the humbuckers you should check one out. my Mustang III V.1 sounds pretty good also but much more complicated to set up to switch channels .

[crust]

Mustang III V2 with a couple of XLR cables and 2 more amps connected (amps of of whatever appropriate size, tube or SS) I have a HIWATT Bulldog 18 as well as a ACOUSTIC 20 (brand) attached (via xlr) to my Mustang III V2. Shakes the house..<img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_thumbup.gif"><img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_biggrin.gif">  The <font size="2">Ableton lite recording software is an added bonus (if you are into home recording) and Fender's site has many additional presets and backing tracks. Keeps me busy when I'm </font>bored<font size="2"> on rainy days (the same with this site) </font><img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_laugh.gif"><br>I have a laptop that has the FUSE software installed, upgrade/updated the "version" to the latest, firmware updated also, quite an easy process (heck, even I can do it)<img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_biggrin.gif"><font size="2">. Works perfectly. 5 year warranty is a good thing too. </font><img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_thumbup.gif"><br>I still like Epiphone guitars, and have 2 small Epiphone amps<img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_biggrin.gif"><img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/msp_sleep.gif"><img src="http://forum.gibson.com/public/style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif">

 

<div>A 100 watt version of the Mustang III V2 (I have the 40 watt version) and a couple of external amps of the appropriate size could blast </div>