A truthful answer about 100 watt heads

  • Thread starter Thread starter BDuncan
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DanTravis62 said:
It's about headroom, not volume for metal bands who want tight low end and a drummer who knows what the fuck he's doing

Why is this so fucking hard for people to understand?
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What do you understand under the word "headroom"? Specifically for a metal band.
 
I'm just absolutely astounded you guys get to play that loud at gigs lol. I get sound guys bitchin' about my DRRI on 4-5, y'all runnin' 100-watters wide open :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
 
anomaly said:
Ya, I'm not really a Mark III guy myself either and prefer pentode. It's not so much that a Mark III has that blanketed sound it's that it's very hard to dial them bright enough without them getting harsh I think?? So I would always end up dialing them dark to not kill my ears. That said, I've played some outdoor gigs with my old mark III and with a decent 4x12 it was plenty fat enough sounding for the job. After watching your vids i think your Bassist needs to upgrade his rig, it doesn't have enough balls to it to keep up with a decent half stack guitar rig IMO.

Also, have you ever tried running a second 4x12? and you need to play places that have a decent PA so you don't need to fill the room with your amp alone. If a triple rectifier ain't getting the job done you've gotta reconsider what the problem is... I mean Cannible Corpse use triple and dual rectifiers and their sound is brutal to say the least.
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Those vids are years old, my bass player is running a 1x15 + 4x10 now. Problem solved.

The theater we usually play at has a great soundman & a big PA. In reality, that little 35w setup would do just fine since it, or a triple recto, could be EQd on the board. However, at sound check the first thing I'll do I really crank the amp to see how it fills the room & satisfy my own gear whore curiosity. Then, I'll turn it down to quieter than we play in the garage & let FOH do its job through the PA. Still, as the guy playing on stage I can tell the difference in girth even though I know the crowd for the most part could care less- and when the feels are right, I play better.

I have brought a second 4x12 out a couple times but with a PA involved it's more for show.
 
jtgainor said:
I believe he is referencing power amp headroom. How clean and tight the power section gets before it starts to sag/break up and get shitty sounding.
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Specifically, how "clean" the low end tracks during fast palm muted parts is the main issue

When the power section starts sagging/breaking up, the low end "smears" and everything sounds loose - it can get bad enough to where the drummer can't keep track of where you are rhythmically, especially at high tempos

This isn't a big deal if you're playing classic rock or doom, or other genres - in fact it's DESIRABLE in them

but if you're playing metal, hardcore, punk, where the drummer is consistently hitting 105-110 db, you're going to need that headroom
 
ewill52 said:
I'm just absolutely astounded you guys get to play that loud at gigs lol. I get sound guys bitchin' about my DRRI on 4-5, y'all runnin' 100-watters wide open :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
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Most Deluxe reverbs max out at about 5 on the volume knob, any more is just more breakup. So running a DRRI at 4 to 5 is pretty much running it wide open.

Also audiences for different styles of music will want different volumes. The mistake I see alot of folks make is to mic their guitar amps live for small bar gigs. If you can just keep your vocals for PA, you can run your amps louder where they typically will sound their best. Lean on the amp, not the PA is the lesson here.
 
blackba said:
Most Deluxe reverbs max out at about 5 on the volume knob, any more is just more breakup. So running a DRRI at 4 to 5 is pretty much running it wide open.

Also audiences for different styles of music will want different volumes. The mistake I see alot of folks make is to mic their guitar amps live for small bar gigs. If you can just keep your vocals for PA, you can run your amps louder where they typically will sound their best. Lean on the amp, not the PA is the lesson here.
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As long as you are using an open back cab that works fine…sealed back cabs have such a narrow sound field that only thise pretty much directly in front get to hear it.

I quit using 4-12 cabs many years ago for the majority of gigs. Semi open backs are so much easier to hear for me and my bandmates.
 
blackba said:
Most Deluxe reverbs max out at about 5 on the volume knob, any more is just more breakup. So running a DRRI at 4 to 5 is pretty much running it wide open.

Also audiences for different styles of music will want different volumes. The mistake I see alot of folks make is to mic their guitar amps live for small bar gigs. If you can just keep your vocals for PA, you can run your amps louder where they typically will sound their best. Lean on the amp, not the PA is the lesson here.
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Very true

Especially in small bar/club gigs, there really is no reason to mic your amp - just position it on stage where the drummer can hear what you're doing
 
blackba said:
Most Deluxe reverbs max out at about 5 on the volume knob, any more is just more breakup. So running a DRRI at 4 to 5 is pretty much running it wide open.

Also audiences for different styles of music will want different volumes. The mistake I see alot of folks make is to mic their guitar amps live for small bar gigs. If you can just keep your vocals for PA, you can run your amps louder where they typically will sound their best. Lean on the amp, not the PA is the lesson here.
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yes...22 watts wide open. Having had lots o' 100-watters, my DRRI on 5 is nothing compared to the volume of some the amps being thrown around in the conversation. I've had my 101b in front of 10k people and in front of 10. I've played more shithole bars than I can remember, i'm somewhat familiar with how the house sound works lol.
 
DanTravis62 said:
Very true

Especially in small bar/club gigs, there really is no reason to mic your amp - just position it on stage where the drummer can hear what you
DanTravis62 said:
Specifically, how "clean" the low end tracks during fast palm muted parts is the main issue

When the power section starts sagging/breaking up, the low end "smears" and everything sounds loose - it can get bad enough to where the drummer can't keep track of where you are rhythmically, especially at high tempos

This isn't a big deal if you're playing classic rock or doom, or other genres - in fact it's DESIRABLE in them

but if you're playing metal, hardcore, punk, where the drummer is consistently hitting 105-110 db, you're going to need that headroom
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for a very short time before Dime died, a few folks in the metal community were opting for 15" speakers in conjunction w 12"s. It didn't seem to last long. Does anyone still do that? Why didn't it work?
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@ewill52

There are still a handful of death metal guys, and a ton of doom guys that use 15s in conjunction with their 12s.

Generally that isn't for "tightness" reasons but rather for just "more low end."

A couple of metal specific cab companies (arachnid, etc) still offer 15" guitar cabs.
 
DanTravis62 said:
I think alot of this is blues, indie rock, classic rock type players simply not understanding how hard the drums need to be hit to sound right in a metal/punk/hardcore context

Which correlates with how much headroom is needed to keep things from sounding like mush when the whole band is fast and loud
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I think you're on to something here. A guy I used to jam with now and again was more of an indie rock drummer, to the point he preferred to use dowel and rod brushes instead of solid drumsticks. Being a metal player, if I played in my normal style I'd destroy him with a 100 watt head. If I toned it down to his level my 100 watter would sound thin & weak. I would need to break out the low watt amp to be in the same space and sound right.

On the flip side playing with my hard hitting metal drummer I needed at least 100 watts of headroom to have the volume and not fart out. Anything less and I couldn't keep up.
 
MadAsAHatter said:
I think you're on to something here. A guy I used to jam with now and again was more of an indie rock drummer, to the point he preferred to use dowel and rod brushes instead of solid drumsticks. Being a metal player, if I played in my normal style I'd destroy him with a 100 watt head. If I toned it down to his level my 100 watter would sound thin & weak. I would need to break out the low watt amp to be in the same space and sound right.

On the flip side playing with my hard hitting metal drummer I needed at least 100 watts of headroom to have the volume and not fart out. Anything less and I couldn't keep up.
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My buddies drummer in his band could break two ply Tom heads on command he hit so damn hard. He needed a USA 5150 full stack on 6.5 to keep up. Bass player used a 4x10 and 1x15 setup. Band was balanced sonically too - when they were mic’d all they needed were drum mics and vocals.
 
DanTravis62 said:
Specifically, how "clean" the low end tracks during fast palm muted parts is the main issue

When the power section starts sagging/breaking up, the low end "smears" and everything sounds loose - it can get bad enough to where the drummer can't keep track of where you are rhythmically, especially at high tempos

This isn't a big deal if you're playing classic rock or doom, or other genres - in fact it's DESIRABLE in them

but if you're playing metal, hardcore, punk, where the drummer is consistently hitting 105-110 db, you're going to need that headroom
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My understanding of your words is that a more powerful amplifier gives you more room (headroom) to increase the volume without distorting the power stage, to keep up with mad drummer :D
 
mcstinger said:
My understanding of your words is that a more powerful amplifier gives you more room (headroom) to increase the volume without distorting the power stage, to keep up with mad drummer :D
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Kind of, but it's nowhere near as simple as youre making it, because not all amplifiers of the same "power" are created equal. Or perform this function equally.

How the transformers operate is a key ingredient here also.

Even with two amps of the same relative volume, you could have vastly different amounts of headroom.

And also, it isn't that the drummer is mad, it's that the style of drumming REQUIRES that type of power and volume.
 
I find headroom is a lot easier to see when you're on a pure clean channel. How loud can you run it without any breakup or mush out? As the benchmark rises it takes a LOT more wattage.

I played one show in a bar where the guitar cab wasn't mic'd. (closed back 4x12) About the third song I realized the drummer could not hear me AT ALL. I had to rotate the cab to sidewash him. Going forward, I realized that is the one practical application where I should bring my lexan cab shield. I can turn it up to get saturation without laser beaming the crowd, and point the wings back at the drummer so he can hear the guitar. Win win.
 
GJgo said:
I find headroom is a lot easier to see when you're on a pure clean channel. How loud can you run it without any breakup or mush out? As the benchmark rises it takes a LOT more wattage.

I played one show in a bar where the guitar cab wasn't mic'd. (closed back 4x12) About the third song I realized the drummer could not hear me AT ALL. I had to rotate the cab to sidewash him. Going forward, I realized that is the one practical application where I should bring my lexan cab shield. I can turn it up to get saturation without laser beaming the crowd, and point the wings back at the drummer so he can hear the guitar. Win win.
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Everyone’s team attenuator, but I’m right there with you dude. I’m team lexan beam shields and for both of the same reasons. I get to crank my amp way louder with them than without them and everyone is happy including the drummer.
 
mcstinger said:
My understanding of your words is that a more powerful amplifier gives you more room (headroom) to increase the volume without distorting the power stage, to keep up with mad drummer :D
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Mostly, but let's think about it in another way. Let's say you have a 50w amp and a 100w amp and they're both turned up to the same loudness level, basically typical loud heavy metal volumes, so... loud. Both amps can easily get loud enough, but the 50w amp will be more likely to flub, or sag, or mush out during moments of high power requirements where a lot of low end thump and percussion would happen, like aggressive palm muting, fast single note runs, or complex chords. By contrast, if the 100w amp is set to the exact same loudness as that 50w amp, it will hold together better and reproduce those big thumpy palm mutes, fast single note runs, and complex chords more clearly and cleanly.

So while it's true that yes a 100w amp can get slightly louder than a 50w amp, that's really mostly incidental. A 50w and even some 35w amps can get more than loud enough for even the loudest bands, but their power sections won't be able to stay clean enough at those volumes to retain the kind of clarity and articulation most metal guys want out of their amps.
 
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