Mic'd the VJr in a school gym yesterday

[scott58]

The results were great. Standing in for the guitarist in a Dokken cover band and tried it

in a 12,000 sq/ft gymnasium (1st practice). I get almost spot on tone with my POD XTL/Vj at bedroom

practice levels and was worried about retweaking everything with a more powerful amp.

Carried my PA along thinking I'd have to plug direct into it, but the tone isn't as good. Mic'd

the 2 together and it really worked out great. Now it's practice, practice, practice. We gig in

about a month.

[Steven Lister]

The results were great. ...tried it in a 12' date='000 sq/ft gymnasium... mic'd the 2 together and it really worked out great.[/quote']

Tremendous, and great for you scott58!

 

The "is VJr. big enough" question keeps showing up and this should answer a few questions. Some of us have mic'd it in smaller venues with good results but who knew you could do arena rock:-k :-

Now where's my BIC lighter?

 

Hit every BLUE NOTE baaaby..., I'm going to play on:-"

[iansmitchell]

Try adding an extension cab sometime.

It's amazing not only the volume, but the articulation of your sound is WAY better.

I think they charge about 130 'em now.

You have the combo or the half stack?

[scott58]

Nobody was more surprised then the guys I was playing with. When I started

unloading everything they were like "dude your not seriously gonna use that?

We got an amp you can use." I said lets just check it out. Set my Vj between

12 and 1 o'clock, maxed the volume on my POD and set the PA at about 70%.

The first riff from Alone again just blew them away. The tone filled that gym and

it was almost dead on (apparently better then what they had).

Even ended up turning down the volume at the POD a bit.

It's gonna be great live. Seriously the only short comings i've found with the Vj and

it has nothing to do with volume really is trying to pull off pantera or death metal or

something like that and it has more to do with the cab then the head. Always feels like

the cab is going to come apart when i try, But stuff like Ratt (at least that level of distortion

and below) it's perfect for. Different cab would probably help that out alot. mic into a 200w

power mixer PA and your good to go. My Vj is the V3 head/cab with eminence speaker. Stock

no mods.

[m-theory]

You're talking about a venue in which a single snap of the fingers can sound like a rifle shot, so yes, a 5 watt amp will sound massive when the room is empty. Things change quickly and dramatically as warm bodies fill it, however. I doubt you'll hear the amp at all without monitors, with people in the room, but it doesn't sound as if you have near enough PA for FOH, let alone monitors.

 

Your best bet in these types of places, as always, is to play as quietly as you can on stage, and have a large enough PA to support that effort out front. The drummer will be the enemy of your mix, as usual.

 

As for copping metal out of that amp, you can only do what you're already doing...place some sort of solid state device in front of the amp to emulate the heavy, front-ended distortion required. There simply aren't nearly enough gain stages in that amp to get you close.

 

Keep your volume down, drop a LOT of bass out of the mix (these rooms have HUGE amounts of bottom end on their own, and your mix will turn to noisy mush very quickly if you're not careful), and just have fun. These rooms suck to play in, but you just have to deal with it when you're booked into one.

 

As for a 5 watt amp being useable on stage, Neil Young has been playing with a 12 watt (you wouldn't hear the difference between 5 and 12 watts) tweed Deluxe for decades, and he plays some fairly large venues at times. With adequate stage and FOH systems, 5 watts is plenty.