amp for newbie recommendations

[GuitarHero]

Hey, metalheads!
New to this forum, I hope I'll find what I'm looking for!
First of all, I want to say that I play an acoustic guitar for 6 years, but I'm about new to electric guitars. My friends gifted me an electric Yamaha guitar for my last birthday and I fell in love with it. I can't describe the feeling when I play my favorite metal tracks, but my goosebumps can. So, I'll get straight to the point. I consider buying an amp, and any recommendations are welcome. I read some articles about the amp, but I'd like to know opinions of real people. The cheapest amp I found is vox, but it is over my budget. My budget is $150-200, and I hope I'll find something for this price. Thanks in advance!

[pompeiisneaks]

Hey, metalheads!
New to this forum, I hope I'll find what I'm looking for!
First of all, I want to say that I play an acoustic guitar for 6 years, but I'm about new to electric guitars. My friends gifted me an electric Yamaha guitar for my last birthday and I fell in love with it. I can't describe the feeling when I play my favorite metal tracks, but my goosebumps can. So, I'll get straight to the point. I consider buying an amp, and any recommendations are welcome. I read some articles about the amp, but I'd like to know opinions of real people. My budget is $150-200. Thanks in advance!

Hey,

sorry to not be super helpful, but this forums purpose is to discuss tube amplifiers, and how to build them. I'm not so sure that this is necessarily going to be the right place for that kind of question, here's why:

1. Tube amps rarely cost less than 5-600 used and closer to 1000 new, due to the expensive transformers and this for the less fancy models with limited features.
2. some here may have some good experience with known inexpensive solid state amps, but not a ton.

I personally haven't had an inexpensive solid state amp that I though sounded good, but that's my 2c.

It is often said that a fairly inexpensive electric guitar with a slightly more expensive tube amp gives a new player so much more tone and sound than a pricey guitar and a cheap amp.

That being said, if you cna save up a bit more and look for a good used tube amp in that 4-500$ range you'll be doing yourself a service.

If not, pretty much any solid state amp you find around that price range, with a good distortion pedal in front of it is going to work for metal as a starter, but you'll definitely want to start saving up money and look for a good tube amp at some point. all the big metal stuff nowadays uses amps like the friedman, orange, or the like for their high gain, with a mix of different pedals etc. the friedman is based on the classic marshall 2203/2204 as I recall.

Edit: I should qualify, I'm not the most knowledgeable on what metal players use, I know of the few I mentioned, but someone here may know more/better amps being used for metal. I tend to be more rock/alt rock/blues focused.

~Phil

[sluckey]

A used Epiphone Valve Jr. should fit your budget.

[pompeiisneaks]

A used Epiphone Valve Jr. should fit your budget.

Damn I didn't realize they were that inexpensive! I've modded a buddies once, the drive part of it was kinda weak, so I just changed the cathode resistor from like 2.2k to about 1k or 1.5k I don't recall and it got a much nicer gain to it. (although that doesn't necessarily seem like the same amp, maybe there's another simple combo like that, not the 'junior'?)

cool beans

~Phil

[sluckey]

The Epiphone Valve Jr. head sold for $99 new. Several years ago they were the rage for modification platform. So popular that 18watt.com split up into several separate boards just to ban the VJ comments on the 18watt board.

[M Fowler]

VHT or Mono Price amps are inexpensive.

[MakerDP]

No shame in picking up an inexpensive modelling amp for your first amp. Look at the BOSS Katana amps on the used market. Not too far off your budget and a whole lot of fun to experiment with all the effects for a beginner. Some players are actually switching over to them for live gigs.... *GASP* No, it's true. Not that I would, but it's good enough for a lot of people.

[pompeiisneaks]

and I should state I'm not against solid state amps, I started on an old crate solid state for my first amp. I got a tube amp like 1 or 2 years later, my first blues deluxe in 1996 I think. I knew the tube amp tone was better then for sure. I've got a kemper myself an love it, but it's definitely not entry level

~Phil

[MakerDP]

lol I hear you. I played for many years before ever getting a full-on tube amp. Now, I did use some of the DIgiTech tube preamps back in the day and I bought a Classic 30 that I never really bonded with. Wasn't until I started building my own that I fell in love with them.

[xtian]

lol I hear you. I played for many years before ever getting a full-on tube amp. Now, I did use some of the DIgiTech tube preamps back in the day and I bought a Classic 30 that I never really bonded with. Wasn't until I started building my own that I fell in love with them.

Same. I played a Roland JC120 in my hair metal band. Yup. J. C. one-twenty. Metal.

[pompeiisneaks]

lol I hear you. I played for many years before ever getting a full-on tube amp. Now, I did use some of the DIgiTech tube preamps back in the day and I bought a Classic 30 that I never really bonded with. Wasn't until I started building my own that I fell in love with them.

Same. I played a Roland JC120 in my hair metal band. Yup. J. C. one-twenty. Metal.

I need pics... Please...NOW



~Phil

[johnnyreece]

and I should state I'm not against solid state amps, I started on an old crate solid state for my first amp. I got a tube amp like 1 or 2 years later, my first blues deluxe in 1996 I think. I knew the tube amp tone was better then for sure. I've got a kemper myself an love it, but it's definitely not entry level

~Phil

Hah! Yeah, I feel like, at some point at the beginning, everyone had one of those crate 15w SS amps.

[MakerDP]

lol I hear you. I played for many years before ever getting a full-on tube amp. Now, I did use some of the DIgiTech tube preamps back in the day and I bought a Classic 30 that I never really bonded with. Wasn't until I started building my own that I fell in love with them.

Same. I played a Roland JC120 in my hair metal band. Yup. J. C. one-twenty. Metal.

Wow... did that thing ever even break up at all or did you have to use pedals in front of it?

My first "real" amp was a Fender.... Montreaux. Solid state beast... had great clean tones and sweet reverb but the "overdrive" was NASTY. Just horrible. I had that amp for a long time. Can't remember what I traded it in for... maybe it was the DigiTech 2101 when I went rack-mount direct to PA. I loved that thing. Then I was an "early adopter" in tube/modelling hybrids and had a Johnson Millenium. I loved that amp... the Matchless DC30 was my absolute favorite model on it. It went kaput on me and that's when I started building amps because I could not afford to buy a real Matchless so I built a clone instead.

[xtian]

Wow... did that thing ever even break up at all or did you have to use pedals in front of it?

No break up. I used a RAT pedal. And, just for you, Phil, there is VIDEO! (Dammit, I can never figure out the video link...)




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2OuBhQWV3A

[pompeiisneaks]

Fixed it.. (gotta remove the 'video' link it just stopped working for some reason after about a year.)

The youtube link does it.

And man, that hair! I remember those days Of course I was a skate punk with super short hair to go against the mainstream

and there wasn't any distortion in that pickin. Sounded great though, as usual for a JC120.

~Phil