Pignose Hog 30

here's a crazy idea that alot of us are already practicing out in the parks and out at the beaches... buy a good y cable and two roland micro cubes(they are super lightweight and have carrying straps people) 12 rechargeable double a batteries and charger and forget this pignose horses**t!!!!I bought my hog 30 from an art teacher for $50 dollars brand new but boy did i have problems keeping the batteries charged plus it's the battery packs (and the asinine shape/material/design of the cabinet) that makes these amps so damned heavy

average sound quality through the 8 inch speaker... i thought to myself this thing is already wayyy too heavy so why not take the speaker out and install a good celestion 10 inch well the sound quality did not improve one bit. i wanted to use this as a stage monitor but would not work with the tranformer/adapter plugged in so i could only charge up the batteries for them to die out 10 to 15 minutes later... a real bummer!

no reliability what so ever i feel sorry for those who paid so much for these brand new...if you need a pignose 'cause zappa used one backstage cooking up burgers then buy the original pignose for heaven's sake... don't buy this it's not for bass anyway...i know that my art teacher took extremely good care of this amp before i got to it so i blame the parents!

absolutely amateur sophmoric customer service company to begin with... nothing like dealing with the professionals at boss/roland! buy two microcubes instead of this junk take it from a noise/streetperformer who has had to run from the police with a pedalboard in my backpack and two roland microcubes

just not a happy customer that's all

Hog 30 watt bass amplifier. Treble, mid, bass controls. Dual volume controls, master volume and volume. Volume has no real effect, master volume is the resistor. That set-up could be made much better. Funk Bass switch mostly useless. 8" speaker says it all.

Battery charges in 8 hours. Decent enough, though underpowered.

Have both a short scale Gibson retrofitted with Duncan pickups, a split P and a J, and a Fender Jazz. Amp cannot handle the low E from either bass without distorting, even on full charge.

Tone isn't bad with the rest, and is comparable to other priced speakers with AC.

Takes abuse.

I did call Pignose about the exact configuration of the volume switches. The answer they gave - finally when I did get them, could have been better. manual with amp is minimal.

Don't do it for the bass. Guitar players who don't mind the heft will love this over the micro-cube, it's much louder. Not as good sounding as the Mouse. Not full and solid like the Crate Bass Bus. Hold out for the Bus. If you have to buy this, just remember, you can't go low. And it's not just my amp, have tried two other Hogs, all the same, and I am a very clean tone player.

The front panel has Volume, Master Volume, Treble, Middle, Bass, Funk Switch, pig snout on off and one main input. The rear panel has a line out, headphone jack and another input jack. It also has the panel to replace the battery if needed. Amp is covered in the pignose signature "pigskin". The speaker is protected by a metal grill.

I use this as a practice amp. I play an Alembic Essence 5 and a fretless Carvin LBW75. Amp sounds really good except for the low b string. It has trouble with that but hey, it is a practice amp. There is a funk switch that I keep off due to the high trebble gain that is produced when using it.

I have used it at several outside camping jams and use it for practice with my acoustic banjo buddies. So far it hasn't broken down or given me any other problems except for the input jack lug coming loose a few times.

Havn't had to deal with them

I would give this amp an overall rating of 8 for a practice amp. I have used other practice amps that sound better but since this one has a battery it moves up on the list.

30w PORTABLE amp. 8' speaker. Solid construction, but cheap materials. Basic dials. Master volume is active. Volume is passive, seems useless. Bass, Treble, Mid. Funk Bass switch. Recharges, can play while on charger. Basic paper cone on speaker. Batteries can be replaced.

Not bad sound. Sounds best with fast, trebly players. Pignose says this is a bass amp, but it probably still is a guitar amp. Cannot handle low thick bass out of a Jazz style pick-up. Farts/distortion at low low end, and I have a 4 string. Speaker slower than you might think, with more sustain, than you would expect from an 8" speaker.

Within its range, sounds really good, decent projection for outside, but really, still not enough to stay with even a controlled drummer outside. But equal sound to my Behringer 30 watt.

Seems fine. Saw one that had new batteries after three years, that's typical for Ni-Cads. Case will not care if it is abused. Had to rescrew my grill however, to cut out rattle, and cheapo bumpers on the bottom of the cabinet. My stays on it's cart.

Did manage to actually find out the phone number for the company on line. Info with speaker minimal to say the least. At the company, someone vaguely thought the master volume was active, volume (the other knob) was passive, but they weren't really sure.

playing 19 months. Gibson short scale EB-0 style retooled with a Jazz and a P-set pickups. Yamaha bb300 beater bass. Ampeg b-15n.

If I had to choose between the Beringer 30w, and the Pignose Hog, it's the Hog hands down. Different sound, but equal. IF YOU ARE BUYING YOUR FIRST AMP THIS IS THE AMP TO BUY. Sound is tolerable, it's not a b-15N, but it does go wherever you go. You can play outside. You can gig if you know the drummer. Price is tolerable. May be the best bang for the buck period.

Want more? A lot of more experienced players play the Electro-Harmonix Freedom amp. $250ish.

MOst people don't know the Hog 30 is designed to be a BASS amp.
It's a 30 watt, with 8" speaker, battery powered, rechargable, pratice amp. For Bass (or keyboard) A very speial piece as how many other battery powered Bass amps are there? (like almost none)
Yea it's got the cool "pignose" knob for volume, and pigskin classic look.

fairly good qualtiy sound for a small cheap amp. But keep in mind it's a practice amp you will not be playing any big gigs with this amp. Has a stupid "funk" switch which just seems to increase the distortion.

If you don't remember to recharge the battery regularly it could die on you. You can plug it in with the adapter but then this is just another small cheap practice amp with nothing special.

Pignose has a good website as they sell direct.
But other than that I don't know. I bought mine used from a dealer who didn't really know what it was. He thought it was just another small guitar amp.

A very unuseual piece of gear. Heavy for a small amp because of the weight of the battery. Great for campfire Jamm alongs with your acoustic guitar buddies, when you play bass. Useful for street preformance with other acoustic musicians when there is no place to plug in.

30 watts of power, 8" speaker, simple controls, all solid state electronics, one funky switch marked "Funk Bass" which seems to punch up the drive a bit. Five knobs on the front, Volume, master, treble, mids, bass. Cool looking "pigskin" color covering, "pig" nose shaped power on/off knob. Extra input on the back. Battery powered or plug in AC. I bought it used (cheap) the battery power doesn't seem to work but that's not why I bought it so I don't really care.

I am a BASS player. I saw the hog 30 used in a music store and know it's listed as a Bass/keyboard amp so I figured I'd give it a try. I was impressed by the quality of the sound for a small amp. It cranks fairly loud for a small amp without distorting. It sounds pretty clean on my fretless Jazz bass, and nice on my P-bass as well. I don't think I'll be using it with my Yamaha 5 string, don't think it could really cut it on a low B string. Not enough sound to compete with a full drum kit.

First week I had it I took it out to play a coffehouse gig. Sounded great with my 3 piece acoustic group. I let some other Bass player with a trio use it and I got to hear it from the back of the room. The tone was round and full with good overall quality. This is just a practice amp for me I have several larger Bass amps including SWR WM160 and a Gallen Kruger RB1001 (540 watts of power).

Brought it used, don't expect any customer support. But hey Pinose has a pretty cool website at www.pignose.com

I've been playing over 15 years have tons of gear this amp is to fill a small nitch in my stuff. Like the amp because it sounds good, is fairly small and lightweight, and it's kind of cool looking. I have been impreesed with the volume and tone so far from this small amp.
Battery power doesn't work, would be neat if it did, but I can't complain. Overall a really cool little amp makes a great value for the price.

This amp is supposedly a bass amp. I bought it for the 30 watts of power instead of the Hog 20 at 20 watts. I had one of the small original Pignoses in about 1977 and it was great for playing in the dorm at college. When I got back into music two years ago I needed an amp that had some power but was inexpensive, so I bought the Hog 30. I was not disappointed. It is one channel master volume and volume, bass, mid and treble controls. There is a funk bass switch which seems to boost the volume but cuts the bass for some reason. I never use it. It would be nice if it had reverb and especially tremelo, which you used to see all the time but now seems to be rare. I use the amp in the church choir every week and in my own band on the weekends. It has plenty of power in the church and with the acoustics inside it sounds great. My band plays at outdoor gatherings and it has plenty of power outside, too. I give it an 8 for versatility because I have to use pedals for overdrive and reverb.

I use a 98 Fender Deluxe Super Strat through a Zoom 505 and a Morley PDW II into the Pignose. I use the Morley for volume only - it has some noise supression circuitry that cleans up the noise from the Zoom. The amp itself is silent. It never makes any noise that I have detected. I run it with the master volume full, the volume at about 3/4 and all the tone knobs full. Then I use the Morley to control the volume as I play. The sound of the amp is clean. It will distort when everything is wide open - but I detect some speaker distortion as well as amp distortion. I run it on batteries most of the time (and they last for an unbelievably long time - I've gone months of using it 6 hours a week and no loss of power. However, when the batteries are exhausted, it loses power in about 5 minutes.) I run on AC power when playing at gigs outside church. I give it an 8 for "sounds" because it does everything I need it to do, but again the speaker distortion.

Very reliable. I never use a backup. I just keep the AC adapter with me in case I happen to hit that day that the battery charge runs out.

I haven't had any need to get service. But I have e-mailed Pignose several times and never received any response. If the amp was much more expensive I'd be concerned about that.

I played for about 8 years in high school and college then not for 20 years. I began playing again about 2 years ago. I used to have a 69 Les Paul Deluxe goldtop with mini humbuckers, an Acoustic 470 head and 204 bottom (4x12), and a 72 English-built Hiwatt 212 combo (it was a great amp - back when Hiwatt was used by Robert Fripp (my favorite guitarist of all times.)) If this amp were lost or stolen I would probably by the Pignose 40 or 60 watt tube amp. I might anyway. For the price of this amp, it's sound and eternal batteries I think it's a good value and recommend it highly.

It's a single channel, simple to operate, decent quality practice amp. It has a line out and a headphone out. It has all the features a bass player needs to get a decent sound at low to medium volume. Controls are pre-amp, bass, mid, treble and master volume. There is also a small rocker type switch called the "funk" switch which is totally useless for bass as it cuts the low end when engaged. It could be omitted in my opinion. It can run off AC power using the supplied adaptor or it will run for a long time off it's two internal batteries. By "a long time" I mean that I don't really know how long. I've taken this amp on two different week long camping trips and used it for 1 to 3 hours each day for a week and heard no appreciable deterioration in the sound quality. I've never tried to see how long it will run on battery power, but it has always been more than adequate for me. I'll mention more in the Service area of this review about charge times. I bought this amp to use for performing outdoors with my band. It's much cheaper than any acoustic bass and about 10 times louder. I play a Mid 70's Fender P-bass through it and have been very happy with the sound of it. It's volume level competes well with the "coctail" drumset, acordian and accoustic guitar instrumentation of my band. After playing with it for several months, we decided that it would be cool to have 2 of them and use them as a battery powered PA. We bought another, and have played small coffee house gigs and a corporate "strolling" gig using a cheap Radio Shack battery operated mixer. We run two vocal mics and my bass through it and it works suprisingly well. The whole thing fits on a two wheeler and is easy to push around as needed. These amps are quite light, though seem fairly well built.

It sounds really quite good. Not much growl to speak of, but a good clean tone that doesn't break up much and no annoying cabinet rattles or problems that plague most other amps in this price range.
The amp is quiet and reliable as I've had one for almost 2 years now and have used it in lots of different situations. I've played P-basses, Jazz Basses, fretted and fretless through it. No complaints at all. Our guitarist plugged his Strat into it once and was not too impressed with the sound. He liked the clean sound better than the dirty sounds which are comparable to other amps in this price range. Not bad sounding, just nothing to write home (or to Harmony Central) about. When used as a battery powered PA,
vocals are just fine. It suits our group well. We are a roots rock/polka group and like to play loud. But we often rehearse outdoors or get calls for low volume gigs.

It's been very reliable. I've taken it camping and in my fishing boat
many times. I don't think it would take a lot of abuse due to the light ness of the unit, but I'have had no problems.

When I first got the amp, I was concerned about how long I could go on a single charge of the batteries. I was planning on taking it on a week long camping trip, and I didn't want to bring it if the charge was only going to be good for a few hours. I sent a letter to Pignose asking about charging and received a hand written responce within a week. I was happy to hear that they have received reports from other bass players that they have gotten as lm many as 30 hours between charges. I would not dispute this as I'm sure I've gotten at least 20 hours several times. I would then re-charge it just because it seemed
the right thing to do. Not because I had noticed any decrease in performance. I always charge it for several hours if I don't think I'll be using it for several days or weeks because that's what your supposed to do with batteries.
The response from Pignose also mentioned that if needed, you could create an adaptor that would run the amp from an external 12 volt battery if you wanted, or you could run it from your car's cigarette lighter. Nice to hear I thought. Though I haven't tried it. Sorry, I can't remember what the warranty was. I think it was a year on the electronics and 90 days on the batteries. The batteries appear to be motorcycle batteries and should be easily found anywhere. Though mine have been through numerouse charging cycles and still seem to be as good as new.

I've been a professional musician for about 15 years.
I managed a music store for 4 years a decade ago and still keep track of whats going on out there. For bass, this is the only battery powered amp worth buying. I've tried the Hog 20 and can't recomend that amp for anybody. But I like the Hog 30 a lot.
I think for under $150.00 this amp is a great deal and a good addition to my collection of amps. If mine were stolen, I'd buy another tomorrow.

Bought this in 1997. I wanted a rechargable amp that could be used for playing acoustic blues on the street. It's a single channel amp with standard 3 band eq., Master Vol, headphone jack, 30 watts, and an 8" speaker. This amp is the one that's designated for 'bass' and 'keyboards'. I bought it instead of the HOG-20 (the one recommended for guitar) because of the higher wattage rating. (30 vs. 20) It also has a 'funk bass' switch which I will describe in the sounds section. It's also the perfect height to use as a seat.

I originally bought it for playing through a soundhole pickup on acoustic guitar. I wanted something that would add more projection to playing on the street without coloring the acoustic tone. For this purpose it works great, it's got a VERY clean sound. It also has more volume than the local police would allow. So it rarely gets turned up past 5. It has something called a 'funk bass' switch (it's supposed to be for a bass), that is described in the manual as a compressor limiter switch. For my purposes it just gives a little 'browner' sound. (ie. cuts the treble a little). My only complaint is the master vol. If you 'do' want to try to get some overdrive or distortion out of the amp, you have to do it via pedals. When the vol is turned to 10 and the Master Vol is turned to say 2. You get no overdrive or distortion whatsoever. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, the Master Vol doesn't seem to really do 'anything'??? As far as using it for electric guitar? I play classic all tube amps with my electrics. I've tried plugging a strat into this amp and in a word it sounds "horrible". Very sterile, no touch response, and no real overdrive. But as I said, that's not what I bought it for anyway.

So far so good. It's never broken down on me. The batteries at a mid level volume last for about 3-4 hours of continuous playing. The one time you get distortion out of this amp is when the batteries start running low. Unfortunately, it also intermittently cuts out. So it's not really anything you could use.

N/A Other than getting new batteries if the originals ever stop taking a charge, I don't think I'd go to the trouble of having it serviced.

I've been playing seriously for 9 years. Other gear includes, SRV strat, 66 strat, ES-335 Dot Reissue, 57 Les Paul Jr., Guild JF30 12 string, 34 L-00, 34 Duolian, 76 Super Reverb, 87 JCM800 4210, and a 59 Bassman (a real one). If this were lost or stolen. eh, maybe I'd replace it. Or maybe I'd try something different like a Crate Taxi. It's an ok amp for what it is. But I wouldn't be too broken up if something happened to it.
They should market this as an acoustic amp. It works very well for that purpose. And I like it for playing on the street occasionally.
The one thing I wish it had? "REVERB" I know you can drive spring reverb with batteries. But they could have put something akin to a scaled down alesis nanoverb in it.
The main reason I got this instead of the other rechargeable amps on the market? At 30watts it was the most powerful one at the time. And it's just the right height to sit on, so no folding chair necessary. ;)