i am gettin an electric guitar and obviously an amp to go with it. I would be using it to pratice in my bedroom mainly so what size should i get ?
A small 10-15 W practice amp will be mooore than enough.
I have a small I believe 15W Fender that I can rarely turn up past 2 on the dial without having the neighbors strart banging on the doors.
I think I only paid about $50-60 for it. It's good to practice with, but when I play with other people you can tell that it's a fairly cheap amp the tones isn't that great.
If your just starting I'd go with a small practice amp and then after you have some experience you can go look for a more powerful amp.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
The other option is to buy one of the modelling preamps such as POD and just use headphones until you have a better idea of what size amp you really need/ enjoy.
"Things may get a whole lot worse/ Before suddenly falling apart"
Steely Dan
"Look at me coyote, don't let a little road dust put you off" Knopfler
I'll second the modeller-headphones (or computer!) way of going about it. My podxt through my stereo system is darn good sound for the money, and gives me a lot more sounds than I could ever have gotten for the same amount on just an amp and effects pedals.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
Going the headphones way - you can bug a multi-effect like zoom 505 II
- plug it to your guitar. plug a headphone to it - and hear your guitar + many effects.
itzik
I started with a 15W Marshall MG15DFX that was plenty loud and never went beyond 50% on the amp. I switched to tube and bought a Hot Rod Deluxe and man is that loud! Can not get that above 3 in the house, and the pot goes to 12! This 40W is to much! 10 to 15W is great for that. I never used a pod, but I do not want to wear phones all the time. JMO
John M
I've got a Fender Frontman 25R. Sounds pretty good, especially since I'm pretty much a total beginner (though I really am wanting something tube like a Blues Jr). I have to keep the volume set at about 3 and keep the volume knob on my Strat at about 3 or it's too loud.
I don't like playing with headphones - they're annoying and most of the time when I'm practicing I'm also watching my kids so I don't want to be oblivious to what's going on, which happens with phones.
It seems like the amp is more forgiving tone-wise when it's running at about 7, and getting everything sounding good down in the low end of the range is challenging. Running the amp really high and rolling the volume pot on the guitar way down to compensate, or vice versa, doesn't ever seem to give a satisfying sound. I ended up giving my Strat the volume pot mod so that when I rolled it down to the low numbers it would't roll off the highs and that's helped but it's still a balancing act.
I've started running thorough a compressor stompbox - I've found that I have to run the volume on the Strat a little higher to send enough to the compressor for it to have something to work with, then lower the compressor's output to compensate. The compression makes the whole
sound feel fuller without having to run the amp up to where it's realy loud.
