Here's the scenario: You get on stage, plug in, start running through a few chords, but something sounds kinda...funny. You play through a few more chords and think "crap, my amp is acting really weird". A few seconds later a loud fizzing noise confirms it - yup, you're amp has definitely got problems. You hit the standby switch and realize that this amp won't be able to get you through this gig....
This happened to me at a gig a few months ago, and it turned out that one of the el-84 power tubes in my Crate Palomino V32 had gone bad (I didn't find this out until later).
So what to do? We just got on stage, the whole band was ready, and I had to figure something out. Fortunately, I had bought a back-up solid state amp by Electro-Hamonix called the "22 Caliber". It's a stomp box sized amp that connects directly to the speakers in your formerly-working tube amp. So what I did was I plugged the output of my last effects pedal (my Fatboost 2 in this case) into the "22 Caliber". Then I unplugged my speaker connection from my amp and plugged the speakers into the output of the 22 Caliber. After only a minute of making these connections, I was back in action.
(Stomp Box Sized - Easy to keep in your gig bag as a back-up).
Check out the Electro-Harmonix Product Page here: http://www.ehx.com/products/22-caliber
And the sound was actually pretty good! This partciular model has a diode based clipping method to simulate the natural tube breakup. It worked great for getting me through the gig until I was able to repair my tube amp (which turned out to be a pretty easy fix).
Bottom line- I learned the value of always having a backup plan for when gear breaks or stuff goes wrong. Definitely check out the Electro-Harmonix website - they make a beefier version of the 22 caliber called the 44 magnum, which I might get as it provides more headroom.
=Kev=
This happened to me at a gig a few months ago, and it turned out that one of the el-84 power tubes in my Crate Palomino V32 had gone bad (I didn't find this out until later).
So what to do? We just got on stage, the whole band was ready, and I had to figure something out. Fortunately, I had bought a back-up solid state amp by Electro-Hamonix called the "22 Caliber". It's a stomp box sized amp that connects directly to the speakers in your formerly-working tube amp. So what I did was I plugged the output of my last effects pedal (my Fatboost 2 in this case) into the "22 Caliber". Then I unplugged my speaker connection from my amp and plugged the speakers into the output of the 22 Caliber. After only a minute of making these connections, I was back in action.
(Stomp Box Sized - Easy to keep in your gig bag as a back-up).
Check out the Electro-Harmonix Product Page here: http://www.ehx.com/products/22-caliber
And the sound was actually pretty good! This partciular model has a diode based clipping method to simulate the natural tube breakup. It worked great for getting me through the gig until I was able to repair my tube amp (which turned out to be a pretty easy fix).
Bottom line- I learned the value of always having a backup plan for when gear breaks or stuff goes wrong. Definitely check out the Electro-Harmonix website - they make a beefier version of the 22 caliber called the 44 magnum, which I might get as it provides more headroom.
=Kev=