Recommend an amp for P&W

James Cullen said:
Hey Cliff have you looked at Jackson Ampworks amps they are very nice Class A amps.Several of the best know P&W guys have signature models. Nigel Hendroff from Hillsong (Scarlett amp) and Jeffrey Kunde from JC (Luca amp)
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Too bad Nigel doesn't use his Jackson anymore. Last thing I saw of his during their last tour, he was using the combo of a Matchless DC-30 and a Vox AC-30. He mics them both, but also has a split box before the speakers to send a direct signal to FOH......and he also sends a direct signal to the board from his pedalboard before it hits the amps. SO he's running 5 channels to the board......fun times for that engineer!!!

All those P&W Boutique amps are just AC30 variants though.....so if you want "Classic Modern P&W" sound.....find an AC-30 model and get a good cabinet(The new ML Class A pack is AWESOME) and go to town.
 
scottburrow said:
Yep! what Cliff says. Any of the Vox varieties will work for mildly overdriven guitar tones.

If you have a song, I might have a preset for it. I have one preset per song.
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Scott, that is a lot of work brother!!! You seriously program 1 preset per song? Man, you have more patience than I do......tried that once and quit after 3 songs and just started creating All In One patches. Made my life loads easier.......but since you've done all the hard work.....you can send me those presets anytime you choose...just let me know when you're ready and I will shoot you my email address. ;)
 
All good suggestions here. I use a patch based on the Ford OD2 model at church- I play it with either my Strat or Gretsch, both of which are fairly bright guitars, so I set it up as a dark, somewhat mid-forward sound. I'm not at home at the moment, but I'll post it here when I get the chance. The patch was originally designed to thicken up the sound of my Strat. TBH, I don't really love the sound of it alone, but I think it sounds fantastic in the mix, so I've stuck with it. It's pretty gainy- I use my third expression pedal to adjust the overdrive of the amp, and take the level down a decibel or two. This gives me a really wide dynamic range. In a mix, it sounds smooth with lead stuff and nice and crunchy with rhythm. I will post back here with the patch in an hour or so once I'm home.
 
When I do church/P&W gigs, I tend to use ac30tb and various drive blocks to boost/overdrive the tone. Add copious amounts of dotted 8th delay and some shimmer and you'll get right into the Hillsong, Lincoln Brewster, Phil Wickham etc range.
 
ssmorga78 said:
Too bad Nigel doesn't use his Jackson anymore. Last thing I saw of his during their last tour, he was using the combo of a Matchless DC-30 and a Vox AC-30. He mics them both, but also has a split box before the speakers to send a direct signal to FOH......and he also sends a direct signal to the board from his pedalboard before it hits the amps. SO he's running 5 channels to the board......fun times for that engineer!!!

All those P&W Boutique amps are just AC30 variants though.....so if you want "Classic Modern P&W" sound.....find an AC-30 model and get a good cabinet(The new ML Class A pack is AWESOME) and go to town.
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Yeah he tends to keep evolving his setup. In the past he used that matchless vox combination. Pretty heavy payload and loud as well! My vox/matchless fractal patch is spot on for those sounds especially with a Gretsch. I'm getting to meet some Hillsong guys soon. Looking forward to seeing what they think of the Fractal Atomic CLR sound!
 
ssmorga78 said:
Scott, that is a lot of work brother!!! You seriously program 1 preset per song? Man, you have more patience than I do......tried that once and quit after 3 songs and just started creating All In One patches. Made my life loads easier.......but since you've done all the hard work.....you can send me those presets anytime you choose...just let me know when you're ready and I will shoot you my email address. ;)
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I have been a fractal user since 2010, you eventually get a workflow, that works for you. I will take an existing preset, listen intently to the song, then start breaking it down verse chorus bridge. well you know they are not changing amps mid song, so then you work on the delays, 1/4 dotted 8th etc.

I literally have about 4 seconds between songs, so having a song per preset just works, each song we play is always a different Tempo with a different type of delay. that is my competitive advantage, I don't have to bend over to change settings on a delay pedal.

It's kind of funny I started playing in a 70's - today band and I use hardly any delay for those songs, just a little reverb.
 
I've been using the div/13 ft37 lo just at breakup for cleans and X/Y with the dirty shirly for leads w/ my PRS Vela & it's working great for me lately. We do a lot of Bethel stuff.
 
Buttery for almost all crunch tones. Good warm mids and some nice chime. Using it with the factory Twin w/ M160 mic. Sorry I can't recall the actual IR name.
 
scottburrow said:
I have been a fractal user since 2010, you eventually get a workflow, that works for you. I will take an existing preset, listen intently to the song, then start breaking it down verse chorus bridge. well you know they are not changing amps mid song, so then you work on the delays, 1/4 dotted 8th etc.

I literally have about 4 seconds between songs, so having a song per preset just works, each song we play is always a different Tempo with a different type of delay. that is my competitive advantage, I don't have to bend over to change settings on a delay pedal.

It's kind of funny I started playing in a 70's - today band and I use hardly any delay for those songs, just a little reverb.
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I hear you Scott. We use a metronome going to our in-ears during service, so I just tap my tempo's into the MFC. I have a 1/4 and .8th Delay programmed into my template(I use the X/Y state of a Delay block) so all I have to do is swap between the two. I am not knocking what you are doing with your presets......everyone is different in what works for them. My problem is that I seem to always want to change what amp I want to hear on Sundays. Some weeks I want that chimey AC30 sound, some weeks I want that classic Fender Tweed sound, some weeks I want to hear a Blackface, some weeks I want the British crunch thing........ That's why I settled a while back on just making a template with all the pieces in the puzzle except for the Amp block. I just go in and make a preset per Amp type that I want to use, which currently is 8 different Amps(Dr Z Maz 38, Orange AD30, Urban Twin Tweed, Blackface Deluxe Verb, Bogner Shiva, Marshall JMP, AC30 & Tweed Deluxe). I don't stay completely true to the original recordings though...... I mean, I get in the ballpark....but I'm not trying to make it sound like a dead ringer for the originals.
 
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Former P&W leader here. I used the Vox types and sometime 5153 Red for leads.
That's if you are playing the modern Lincoln Brewster/Rocking contemporary and the U2 imitation type stuff.
 
Been playing P&W each week for years. My clean amp (Shiva) and crunch (Buttery) are pretty common approaches. I also use the JMP1 model for high gain when I want a lot of mids (hello Marshall).

Something different to try is one of the Mesa's for high gain, but don't scoop the mids quite as much as many Mesa players do. I'm using the Triaxis model. Because there is so much midrange music already (acoustic guitars, piano/keys, 3 or 4 singers, etc.), a little more scooped tone gives a fuller mix overall where voices and instruments can be heard individually. When I solo, I boost 6db using a filter with the mids raised to give single note lines more body. This has been working really well for me for quite a while now.
 
Lots of great suggestions here. One of the problems for me is (as an example) the Vox AC30 sounding thin. We have one available to use at church, and I would describe it as thin and bright. Even adjusting the controls it feels too thin for me. I love the feel of a 4x12. I currently use a XiTone 1x12 powered wedge along with factory cab # 147 4x12 Mar-Cb M-BB-55 Mix (OH).
This gives me the feel and tone I am after using CA3+ amp models.
But want to try a new amp for some P&W stuff. Hillsong is one example.
 
that's one thing i love about the DC30 over the other AC types, it never sounds or feels thin to me at all
 
karmakarmakarma said:
Been playing P&W each week for years. My clean amp (Shiva) and crunch (Buttery) are pretty common approaches. I also use the JMP1 model for high gain when I want a lot of mids (hello Marshall).

Something different to try is one of the Mesa's for high gain, but don't scoop the mids quite as much as many Mesa players do. I'm using the Triaxis model. Because there is so much midrange music already (acoustic guitars, piano/keys, 3 or 4 singers, etc.), a little more scooped tone gives a fuller mix overall where voices and instruments can be heard individually. When I solo, I boost 6db using a filter with the mids raised to give single note lines more body. This has been working really well for me for quite a while now.
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6db?! wow that's a big boost!! I stay around 3/3.5....used to do 4 but even that seemed too much, lol. whatever works, though, right?
 
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