Guitar Amp

Guitar Amp

How To Choose A Guitar Amp

Here are some things to keep in your head when you are going out to buy your first guitar amp. There are different amps to suit different styles of guitar music. Blues, jazz and blues based rock are best served by the so-called "vintage" sound. This is the sound of the sixties, brought to the world by the likes of Led Zeppelin, Hendrix and Cream. You can get that authentic sound by getting yourself an effects program that can replicate many of the vintage amp sounds. For playing heavy metal high gain amps are the way to go. These amps give you greater distortion than the vintage amps.

Let's go onto the possibility that sometime in the near future you are going to be a professional or semi-professional guitar player. You will be getting paid to play the guitar on stage. People will enjoy hearing you play at your gigs but don't get the idea that your family will be enjoying listening to your guitar practice. The message here is to get a practice amp or an amp that's small enough to play through without making your family and neighbors mad. Either that or make sure the place you practice is separated by distance or thick walls from the rest of the world. If you must practice in your bedroom, get some headphones.

To use for practice or for small gigs you need a low wattage amp. It's best to go for a good tone so that your relationship with your amp will always be one of mutual respect. Don't let a guy in a guitar store sell you a big bad amp with a boatload of effects. You won't be needing any of that for quite a while, if ever. You will eventually become disenchanted with loudness but a good sound is a joy forever. So get a thirty watt amp and start working on being a serious musician.

The thing that makes the sound of your electric guitar into a nice tone is your pre-amp. You plug your guitar into it and it works on the noise from the strings to give it bass, treble and a number of other qualities that go into a great tone. You will find some pre-amps using MIDI technology to generate your tone. Using this kind of setup you can save your settings and access your preset effects with a pedal. It is best to get yourself a separate effects box. This will give you better quality effects and greater versatility.

What does it mean to run an electric guitar amp through stereo?

I play through a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe and have a full pedal board setup. I run my timed effects(delay, tremelo) through the preamp and the overdrives through the front. What does it mean to run an amp through stereo? Does it change the tone of the guitar/amp?

You can only run an in "in" stereo (not through) if the amp is designed to do so. That would mean two power amps and at least 2 speakers.

Your Fender amp is not stereo, so you can't run a stereo rig with it alone.

Now, if you had a second amp you could possibly have a stereo rig. The one additional component you would need is some type of delay, chorus, or other time-based effect that has a mono-input/stereo-out arrangement.

The advantages of playing a stereo guitar rig are:
- The sound is spread out more
- With the right effect(s), it can mimic 2 guitars playing together
- Gives the option of panning effects

The disadvantages:
- The sound is more spread out (this isn't always a good thing, especially in very heavy music)
- More gear to haul around
- Increased complexity in the setup

There are guitar rigs that are one-box stereo solutions. Most digital modeling amps (once you get past the toy ones) offer stereo. The Line 6 Vetta II I used is stereo. On small stages, I'll run it into a 2x12 cabinet in stereo. On big stages, I'll bring out two separate 2x12 or 4x12 cabinets and put them on each side of the stage. With that setup, I can give the audience whiplash if I put a ping-pong delay on!

Greetings from Austin, Tx

Ken