Hey guys. I need some help choosing an amp. I am going to buy a cheap little guitar to practice on for a while but I need an amp also. One time I bought a cheap guitar and it came with an amp but had crappy quality. I want an amp that's got good quality but not too expensive. This is just for practicing on. I plan on buying this guitar:
How much do you want to spend?
My son has a Vox Pathfinder, and he loves it. I was thinking of picking up another for myself as well. Great clean tone, built in reverb, tremolo, and overdrive/distortion that is very good, and the Vox Bulldog speaker gets surprisingly loud. That's what I'd recommend.
http://www.zzounds.com/item--VOXV9168R
Dan
"The only way I know that guarantees no mistakes is not to play and that's simply not an option". David Hodge
I know I recommend this amp a lot, but the Roland Cube series is a great choice. You can get the Cube 30x for less than $200 I think, and it's the best amp I've played through in that price range by a long shot. It's obviously solid state, has many modelers built in, and has a great headphone/line-out(recording) output that actually sounds good.
Right now I'm leaning towards this:
Does this look good for a newbie to buy?
Something that I did (as recomended by many people on this site), I bought a cheap guitar (a hundred dollar squire strat), and a reletively good amp (a line 6 spider 3 30 watt). One thing is (which makes sence), when youre on a budget, get a 'cheap' guitar, and a better amp. That way, if you want to upgrade a squire to a Gibson, Fender, Gretsch, whatever. You wont be stuck with an amp that doesnt do the guitar justice. :D
-Preacher
I play the guitar, I taught myself how to play the guitar, which was a bad decision... because I didn't know how to play it, so I was a sh***y teacher. I would never have went to me. -Mitch Hedberg
Right now I'm leaning towards this:
Does this look good for a newbie to buy?
I'd say yes, with reservations. If you're on a limited budget, then IMO you can't do better than an Epiphone or Squier starter pack - guitar and a small practise amp. BUT....those starter amps are exactly that, very basic amps. I don't know much about the amp in the Epi pack, but the amp in the Squier pack - I got a Fender Frontman 15G amp - is a bit limited.
I'd say get a decent Epi (LP or SG) or Squier (Strat or Tele) and go for a decent modelling amp - sooner or later, you're going to want to vary your sound with pedals (especially if you're hoping to do live gigs) and something like a Cube 15 or a micro Cube will give you an insight into the various tones/sounds you can get. With a Cube amp, you can get virtually any amp sound from a clean amp sound to a rectifier amp sound, which is about as heavy as you can get.
The Vox modelling amps (again, from my limited experience) have a pretty wide range too - every sound you'll ever need from one amp. And when you DO upgrade to an amp you can gig with, and start adding FX via pedals, well, the practise amp will still be there - for practise.
:D :D :D
Vic
"Sometimes the beauty of music can help us all find strength to deal with all the curves life can throw us." (D. Hodge.)
Throwback, do you have actual music instrument stores near you? If so, I'd go with them and get them to do a set-up on whatever you buy. A setup is a series of adjustments to a guitar that make it more playable and more importantly, not unplayable. It makes sure the strings are not too high, the tuning is the same up and down the neck, pick-up heights within reason, etc. It'll probably run you at least $25, but it will be worth it big time.
Besides, starting a relationship with local guitar shops is never a bad thing.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
