UKC

If any of the muso's on here would care to give me the benefit of their wisdom I would be very grateful. My teenage son has requested a practice amp for his guitar for his up coming birthday and knowing less than zero about amps (practice or otherwise) I could really use some guidance on what is a good buy for a first amp and what is just cheap rubbish.

Obviously there are some very expensive amps available but I think its a case of trying to tread the fine line between quality and cost without breaking the bank


Your thoughts / advise is appreciated !

In reply to GravitySucks:

Marshall would be my go to brand for amps (I'm sure plenty will disagree). This, or it's predecessor at least was my first amp (about 10 years ago), and did me fine.
http://www.reidys.com/pr/guitar-amplifiers/marshall-mg10-10w-7417/?&utm...
Is it an electric guitar he plays? (As opposed to an electro acoustic?) There are little headphone amps too, but you could probably get similar results by plugging into a laptop/ computer, I was in maplin the other day and saw they had a guitar jack to USB cable, which seemed quite interesting, could get him that and some recording software, but that's probably opening a whole different can of worms.

In reply to GravitySucks:

Did you have a budget in mind? There are some great beginner/practice amps from the big brands (Marshall, Roland, Blackstar etc) to be had for around the £100 mark. I have a Roland cube which has loads of features on it and is great value. With the smaller, cheaper amps, there's always going to be a trade off with sound quality and in my experience, that's most noticeable in the overdrive/distortion sounds.

If you can get to a decent music shop, your son will be able to try a few out and see what he likes.

Also, what type of music does he play?

Chris

In reply to GravitySucks:

Roland Microcube sounds great, is small and is loud enough for practising at home.

In reply to GrantM:

The cubes are great little amps. I have the Roland Cube 20XL (actually just sold it). This looks to be the newer version

http://www.andertons.co.uk/combo-amps/pid29594/cid691/roland-cube-20-gx-20w...

The clean sound was great, it had several different types of overdrive/distortion plus some effects like reverb, chorus and delay. Roland seem to do great value practice amps.

In reply to GravitySucks:

Look at a little Park amp.

In reply to GravitySucks: Fender Mustang I. Lots of different sounds.

In reply to GravitySucks:

I have a Fender Mustang 2. Excellent variety of preset effects, plenty more downloadable ones. It's inexpensive, but it has plenty of output power. Apparently, folks use it for small room gigs.

Usually I run a cable out from the headphone jack of my computer into the AUX input of the amp then listen through the headphones from the headphone jack of the amp. With this set up I can play along with any Youtube band I want to and not disturb the neighbours. It's lots of fun to play around with the amp settings, to come up with a sound which suits the particular sound of a band.

Here's an example video:
youtube.com/watch?v=TOui83Gh9zs&

I also connect the computer to the amp via the USB ports to use the Fender FUSE software, which I find easier to control the amp with than the knobs on top of it.

I use Panasonic RP-HT227 headphones which are low cost, but it has an in-line volume control which is very useful when switching from one track to another to keep the volume consistent.

Your son is going to think you're the coolest dad.

In reply to GravitySucks:

I have a cheap clean Marshall practice amp and a Line 6 Pod which makes just about any sound I want. Endless fun and a nice simple setup if he wants to do stuff like Rockschool.

In reply to GravitySucks:

If your son is into the classic blues rock stuff then one of these will be a good sound. Not so much if he likes more modern metal, then a Marshall is probably better.

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=orange+practice+amp&client=ms-android...

In reply to All:

Many thanks for the above information that has certainly given me some food for thought, and I'm sure I can find something that fits the bill !

In reply to GravitySucks:

Obviously Marshall amps are great, my first reasonable amp was a Park which was marshall's cheaper line. Stuff with valves are more expensive and cooler! If he's into effects I like my vox which has many effects built in so you don't need all the pedals and wires! Even the middle size is very loud!

http://voxamps.com/valvetronix

In reply to GravitySucks:

A small Marshall shouldn't set you back too much - it has a much 'meatier' sound than a Park and is worth the extra money, IMHO.

Also +1 for VOX if he's more of a hipster type.

In reply to planetmarshall:

I got my son a Marshall MG50 CFX to replace a tiny little practice amp and the difference is astounding. I have to beg to have a go! The only downside is being able to hear him practising Back in Black and Paranoid from three fields away.

In reply to GravitySucks:

Another vote for the cubes.

You can save money by going second hand, or try big music shops who have been flogging the previous version of cubes and fender rumbles. They're great but basically the latest versions are waaaaay lighter so the previous lot are going cheap

In reply to Scarab9:

The Blackstar ht1 is a very nice 1 watt amp. Such small wattages are ideal for bedroom use because a 5 watt amp, for example (let alone a 15 or a 50) is staggeringly loud when turned up. A 1 watt amp allows you to overdrive both the pre and power stages for a proper sound.

I use a similar thing http://www.surprisesoundlab.com/ssl-27_003.htm which is a bit boutique but the same principle applies.