I've been playing guitar about 5 years now, and it's time for an amp upgrade. I'm still playing on my little Roland Micro Cube that I got when I started (I've enjoyed it, but it's definitely time to upgrade). I'm looking for some suggestions on what I should look into/test out.
I mostly just play at home and although I probably won't be doing any gigging in the near future, I would like to get something that would allow me to do that at some point if I decide to. I want to get something that I can get some nice heavy tones and distortion out of, and can also give me good clean tone. An idea of some of the music I want to get into playing more of would be Tool (I'm a die-hard fan), Deftones, APC, Marilyn Manson....and maybe a little classic rock as well, but mostly more modern stuff. Budget wise, I'm looking at spending up to around $1k - 1200. Less if I can find something I like, but that's the range I'm looking for.
Only amp I've tried out so far was a Mesa Express 5:25, which I did enjoy and will probably have to give one more shot since I didn't have much time to play with it. Being able to turn the amp to a pretty low volume without losing a lot of tone was a big plus. Maybe there's others that can do that as well or better, I'm not sure. I don't know much about amps. Equipment-wise, my primary guitar is a Schecter Hellraiser, and I've also got a Digitech GNX3000 for effects and recording original music with.
Thanks for the help.
Hi and welcome. I like all styles of music, yours too, and hang with all ages of family and players. :shock:
Hey seriously, though you could get tons of choices in amps, I was going to recommend Mesa Boogie, when I saw your price range.
A Peavey 5150 would take you places, and if you'll never need clean, I highly think that the old Marshall JCM900, 50 watts I guess, or the JCM 1000 are the sickest amps of all for thrashing and bashing.
Now there's JCM and JVM 2000 and "Vintage Modern" killers out there.
Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Thanks for the help, I'm going to try and go check out some amps tomorrow.
I'm looking to spend around $1200 total for the amp and cabinet. Any thoughts as to whether it would be better to go for a combo amp like the Mesa Express, or get the amp/cab separate?
My thoughts on the 5:25 would be either take the short head, nice and compact, and get at least one 12" cab for starters, you might like to gig with 2 cabs later.
However a combo is just as nice if you're fine with that and don't need to expand in the future. I like the 12' combo, can't see as much potential with the 10" speaker. 4 - 10's are great in some amps, not an option here.
Man, these things are beautiful IMO, first class! The 50W is switchable to 25 right?, but the price may be more than you NEED to spend. The 25 watts would be making plenty of power, plus delivering the sound you like at lower volumes. 8)
Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Did a little shopping today....
Played around a little with those Mesa combos a bit, also tried a Peavey 6505. Liked em both, but then I tried out that Marshall JCM 2000 DSL100 and loved it. It's probably a bit excessive to get a 100w half-stack when I'm probably going to be relegated to playing in my spare room for the foreseeable future, but I'm not sure I care. I also just realized that 3/4 of the time I've setup a new preset in my GNX, I've ended up choosing the JCM 2000 amp model over the others. While, it may not be the most accurate representation of that amp...I take it as a sign. Perhaps it's meant to be.
So I might go a little over-budget getting the whole half-stack....but what the hell. I probably won't need an upgrade anytime soon......
I do have one question though. I've heard the footswitches for the TSLs are total crap....do you know if that's a problem for the DSL as well?
Thanks.
I don't know anything about the quality of those footswitches, maybe someone else does.
Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
