Using house gear makes you appreciate your Orange!

[Le Chat Noir]

Last night we did a gig and because I knew our set was short and changeover times were limited, I thought what the heck, I'd use the supplied gear. I hardly ever do this, I generally always bring my own amps whenever feasibly possible. The last shows we did with borrowed equipment were around 2 years ago in Italy, and that was only because my gear got stolen!

I ended up playing through a JCM900 with an old Mrshall 4x12 and a Hartke bass amp. The bass amp was actually OK, but the JCM900 reminded me why I swapped my old JCM2000 for my AD30 in the first place - it just sounded, well, weedy in comparison! I really missed my AD30's muscular, commanding midrange growl - the JCM900 sounded anaemic. I didn't have too long to set the amp up, but I cranked the master to full, whacked up the bass and mids and rolled a bit of treble off. Pretty disappointing to be honest, I don't think I could ever be persuaded to use one of those regularly.

The gig was fine and I'm sure nobody in the crowd noticed or cared, but I did! In a way I'm glad of this experience though - sometimes it's good to play a gig with other people's gear to remind you of what you love about your own rig!

[CD9266]

Yeah I do have the same opinion on the matter. I spent money on my gear because I want to use that gear. That gear is my sound and that's something that makes me, me. I think the most I'd ever borrow is a cab and that's it. I'm glad you can look at this experience with a positive manner though. Makes thinking about it that much easier.

[Aslan]

I'm with you! I love the sound of my Rockerverb and have the settings all dialed in, so using something else never allows me to feel comfortable with my sound and sometimes if the house gear is not in good shape I feel like I'm fighting my sound all night.

[kittenface]

ditto the above!

after our Thursday nite practices, we usually all cruise over to one of many 'open mike' nites in our area to round out the evening - we get 3 to 5 songs on the house's gear -

suffice it to say it can get pretty painful

[irish_admiral]

Ditto...

Having said that, knowing how to get the most out of bad house gear always helps... generally i'd just flick any unknown amp to clean and always have my Blackstone mosfet pedal in the guitar case! I know that'll give me a decent crunch tone on anything, then you can add anything else on top of that.

[blacklight_uk]

Argh don't get me started on the JCM900 I recorded a song recently where we had to use one. No matter what I did it sounded thin and harsh. Luckily we set up a DI as well so I've since been able to re-amp it through my Mesa.

I think the worst feeling I've ever had was turning up to an outdoor gig where we'd been promised a "top of the range Fender amp" and asked by the promoters not to bring our own gear for a quick turnaround. I turned up, barely able to contain my excitement. All kinds of wonderful names jumped around in front of me - *gasp!* A VIBROKING? Or maybe a 65 Deluxe Reverb?! No no no it must be a 57 Twin right?! Imagine my horror when I stepped onstage and saw a Frontman sitting on a milk crate...

Always bring your own gear, even if it's just for backup

[Randy Bass]

...I think the worst feeling I've ever had was turning up to an outdoor gig where we'd been promised a "top of the range Fender amp" and asked by the promoters not to bring our own gear for a quick turnaround. I turned up, barely able to contain my excitement. All kinds of wonderful names jumped around in front of me - *gasp!* A VIBROKING? Or maybe a 65 Deluxe Reverb?! No no no it must be a 57 Twin right?! Imagine my horror when I stepped onstage and saw a Frontman sitting on a milk crate...

Hopefully it was at least a top-of-the-line milk crate. Bringing your own distortion pedal at least makes that type of situation tolerable if you can just use the clean channel on the amp.

[Borderline Productions]

Before I got my Orange, I used house gear once. It was a modified Fender Bassman that sounded really good. Not as good as the Orange I bought a year later, but really good. I guess I was lucky.

[danbond]

Bring a tiny terror to all gigs! That way you are always going to sound awesome.

Problem solved!

[Incubus]

Oh yes, learned that the hard way as well. Housegear usually sucks, and a JCM900 is a terribly boring amp....

[Aranciata]

900s and 2000s are awful, awful amps. IMO of course

[Neiloler]

It's amazing how much familiarizing yourself with gear can help you get into the groove/tone you want. I jammed with our drummer last night for the first time in months (blasted school!), and I used my Carvin Vintage 16. I was getting some amazing tone, simply amazing. Perfect cleans and great dirty tones, and then add some sweet variety from pedals and such. I was glad I took the time to familiarize myself with this amp over the past few weeks. I wonder if that's the problem? That house gear, or gear you borrow from another band in a pinch, isn't familiar, so you don't know how to tune it to get to your tone's sweet spot?

[irish_admiral]

Yes and no... that Carvin Vintage isn't exactly a high gain monster is it Neil?

I'm thinking a lot of the time, the house amp is a twin channel thing which will do clean and high gain. Unfortunately, doing that much gain loses some of the detail in translation. So those lovely mid gain tones you're used to just aren't there.

Of course, the house amp is never the most expensive one either. They'll get a recogniseable name that it doesn't matter if it gets knackered.

[Neiloler]

That's a good point too, it doesn't do high gain stuff (without a pedal), so I think it's more useable all over the tone and gain (and volume) ranges. Fair point Joe.