FAO: whyamihere

The Big Cheese

Could you recommend me a good quality, good sounding, practice amp?

... amd a decent brand of lead... so many out there, are they all much of a muchness?

Budget of around £40

Guitar: Epiphone WildKat.....

Going to resume my lessons again, I need something to keep me out of the pub now I have all this spare time on my hands.

Anonymous

As a sound engineer, YES, all leads are pretty much, much of a muchness.

As long as it has a solid jack, and it's been built well, it will be fine.

The Big Cheese

yeehaamcgee wrote:

As a sound engineer, YES, all leads are pretty much, much of a muchness.

As long as it has a solid jack, and it's been built well, it will be fine.

Cheers Yehaa...

dont want to spend a fortune on the bits and bobs, as I am proper shat on the geetar.... just love learning the thing, albeit frustrating, on an off for 3 years.....

Anonymous

Have you thoguht of getting something like a POD? They're great little amp simulators, and you can even stick headphones in so you don;t annoy the neighbours.

Cferg

POD's are first class, really good pieces of kit, so many effects and variations that you wont get on many amps, its like 30 fx pedals in one, and using headphones is awesome with it. Have a look for something like a Marshall or an Orange Crush secondhand maybe? Any 'brands' will do the job perfectly if youre looking to stick at it, if not then you could pay less but its a great piece of kit.

£60 New Orange Crush


You cant go wrong mate

Twonk

In my opinion, practice amps are a pretty pointless investment

All practising can easily be done without an amp, on your electric or on an acoustic

And a practice amp itself doesn't really aid you in getting your all important "own sound"; your own sound only comes from plugging into a real head/4x12, etc.

Nothing beats just sitting down and playing without having to plug into anything; that's where most of your style and technique will come from

Me: playing guitar for 20ish years, toured Europe and UK many times, recorded lots of stuff, blah

upinsmoke

Yeah, in your opinion. Why would you want a head and a 4 x 12 for your bedroom?

As said, a Pod or try a Roland Micro Cube; great sounding little amps.

Anonymous

POD 2 going on ebay for £89 HERE

Twonk

upinsmoke wrote:

Why would you want a head and a 4 x 12 for your bedroom?.

I never said to get a 4x12 in your bedroom; I just stated my opinion that a practise amp isn't very useful

The Big Cheese

yeehaamcgee wrote:

POD 2 going on ebay for £89 HERE

Cheers Yehaa - so that can be used as a standalone 'mini-amp' for practicing. Seems like its cool and does an awful lot of stuff.

My guitar isnt acoustic, so hearing yourself practising without any sound coming out is a bit shite, hence the practice amp...

Also, live (now) in a terraced house so cant go full volume, Im having tutorledge (sp?) once a week, and the chap is coming around so I need some kind of amplification.

Cferg

The Big Cheese wrote:

Cheers Yehaa - so that can be used as a standalone 'mini-amp' for practicing. Seems like its cool and does an awful lot of stuff.

It has no speaker, you'll only be able to hear it through headphones or through another speaker, it's normally used in conjunction with an amp for effects unless you're using it with headphones which won't be very helpful if the guys giving you lessons and you both need to hear it.

Anonymous

If the guy's giving you lessons, chances are he won't be bothered about having an amp at all, he'll want to hear your technique.

But, yes, in answer to The Big Cheese's question, the POD is an amp and cab simulator, so you can stick headphones in and it sounds like you're playing through a fender twin, marshal cab, fender tweed etc. It also has effect, like chorus, delay, rotary speaker, reverb and so on. And a tuner.

You can plug a set of headphones in, or, it also has separate left and right outputs, so you could connect it to a hifi or something, and still get that "amp" sound.

They really are very good. We use them a lot in the studio for overdubbing parts on TV shows, or incidental music etc, where it just isn't practical to have a whole wall of guitar amps set up ready to go.
A lot of session musicians also use them for that same reason, because they give you so much tonal variation, in such a compact unit.

whyamihere

As it's to me. I may as well reply, but i'll basically say: yehaa's right on all counts. Pods are fantastic (need to get one myself). Roland Micro Cubes are very, very good for the money for a little amp.

Regarding practise amps being useless: What a crock of shite. I live in an end terrace, have a fairly small room and no space elsewhere. I only play for fun, so don't need anything that i can play a gig with. What, exactly, would be the point of me getting a big head and cab?

Anonymous

whyamihere wrote:

getting a big head

ive got big head for you.

thekickingmule

We bought one of these for work to try out 'broken' guitars on. They sound amazing, and can get loud enough for practise!

whyamihere

thekickingmule wrote:

We bought one of these for work to try out 'broken' guitars on. They sound amazing, and can get loud enough for practise!

I've got the Marshall version of that actually. It's great fun, especially being battery powered.

Twonk

whyamihere wrote:

Regarding practise amps being useless: What a crock of shite

"Crock of shite" means a lie/misleading.

In this case, how can my opinion be a lie or false, as I stated my background and reasons?

It's my opinion, so no need to overreact because mine doesn't match your "fun" reason.

You have your personal reasons for liking them, and I have my own for disliking them, eg:

Practise amp= Reebok MTB from Halfords

/ramble

I like owls

Anonymous

Just thought I should add, that if you're going to be recording at all, then a massive amp stack isn't always the best for that either.

thekickingmule

whyamihere wrote:

thekickingmule wrote:

We bought one of these for work to try out 'broken' guitars on. They sound amazing, and can get loud enough for practise!

I've got the Marshall version of that actually. It's great fun, especially being battery powered.

That's why we bought one, no hassle, down off the shelf, plug guitar in and diagnose. When we tested it out, we were amazed as to how loud it can get, and how it sounded! Maybe not quite recording standard, but when you consider some of the shiite we have in our studios, I think I'd still choose the mini amp

MacAndCheese

yeehaamcgee wrote:

Just thought I should add, that if you're going to be recording at all, then a massive amp stack isn't always the best for that either.

Out of interest Yehaa (I have no knowledge of this at all by the way) If your recording a guitarist, does he play through amps which you then record through separate mics or do you plug his guitar directly into your recording equipment?...just wondering?

thekickingmule

You can record either way. Personally, I prefer to record using amps, as you can capture the sound that the guitarist wants to hear.

However, if the guitarist isn't that bothered about their/your amp and wants to alter it, then a DI (Direct Inject) is probably best. There you can send it through all sorts of software to sound like different amps, effects, microphones etc.

Of course, recording the amps and the DI at the same time is probably best if you're not sure.

Anonymous

Like thekickingmule says, it's done both ways.
In most cases it's at the discretion of the producer.
If the sound he/she/they are looking for is the sound in the studio, then they'll go with that.
Some producers, however, particularly ones who are guitarists themselves, will tend to record the amp sound with a mic, as a guid of the "feel" of it, and will also record a clean signal straight fromo the guitar into the desk, which they will then process on their amps during, or before mixdown.

Generally this is because the guitarist/producers will have access to a wide array of very expensive guitar amps, which they know will give the sound they're after.

Anonymous

i'll give the sound your after in a minute.