Now I have that out of the way, I need to make arrangements to get a decent amp (or any amp at all). Anybody have any experience with amplifier emulators for the PC and the associated equipment?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: vulrath,

My son has a Marshall amp he never uses. I can give him a call to see if he wants to sell it?

Just reading the title, I was thinking guitar for some reason. GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) is very real.

I always liked an SG.

NGAS - presents as either new gun or new guitar acquisition syndrome, common problem, afflicting primarily middle-aged males. Etiology not well-understood.

For a small amp with good tone suggest Roland/Boss Katana Mini.
The larger Katana 50 is versatile and sounds great.

Very nice!


Been quite happy with the Fender Mustang 3 v2 amp. It does Fender clean amp models great. Most of the other stock ones are blah. A lot of user created ones are very nice. It takes a lot of tinkering to find the ones you want. Get the deluxe switch if you go that route.

Thanks Skins for the resize. I fixed the title and swapped the pictures.

Cool.

SGs are fun, and pair especially well with Marshall amps (but will sound fine with loads of others).

I'm in the anti-amp simulation camp for the most part, though they do have their fans and more understandable Use Cases. I have a copy of Native Instruments Guitar Rig that came with a bundle I bought. It's better than nothing, for sure, and fun to dork around with a bit, but short of a full Kemper setup or Axe Fx (which I don't care for either and is as expensive as nice amps), it and everything like it are going to be a temporary place holder at best, IMO.

A tube amp worth a damn usually starts around $300+. Sometimes you can catch deals on used ones. Marshall DSLs come in 5w and even 1w versions, for instance. Little VOX AC4s are inexpensive, too, and do that VOX thing well in a little bitty package. Blues Juniors in the Fender camp are quite popular and small and can be found for around $300.

If you search "used (whatever)" at Guitar Center's website it will search their nationwide used inventory. At the very least it's a good way to index used prices. Reverb.com is great, too, but tends to be a touch more expensive than the used gear at GC.com. I've bought loads of things from both venues without issues, plus things like Craigslist.

This time of year is a great time to buy gear, between now and spring.

Not much to go on, like...do you play?

You might want to look at a Pignose Amp. I’d like to get one myself to bring an electric out to the family room or upstairs to practice. Less than $100

quote:

Originally posted by Edmond:
Just reading the title, I was thinking guitar for some reason. GAS (guitar acquisition syndrome) is very real.

Or more broadly, Gear Acquisition Syndrome for all your "needs".

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
Not much to go on, like...do you play?

You might want to look at a Pignose Amp. I’d like to get one myself to bring an electric out to the family room or upstairs to practice. Less than $100

I don't, but have wanted to learn for a long time. I saw a deal I couldn't pass up on the guitar I've wanted bad enough that I started building my own so I grabbed it. I have a thousand laptops and a number of desktops laying around, that's why I asked about PC amps.

I'll definitely look into those. Thanks.

In that case (a true new guy), you can score a used solid-state amp that will suffice for a while for $100 or less. A few months ago I found a friend a little Vox Pathfinder 15r for $60... Solid-state amp and tremolo, spring reverb, 8" speaker, and great for practicing and learning. It nails the Vox sound pretty well. And there are loads of solid-state Marshall combos from over the years. All of which you can get for about what you'd pay for a software pkg on the low end of that spectrum (like Guitar Rig). I forget the Marshall solid-state model numbers, but I'll look some up for you shortly. And the Pignose, as mentioned, is fun.

What bands would you most like to sound like and play?

As an aside, I've been laughing at that recursion joke in your signature line for years.

Love that one.

There are used solid-state Marshall combos as cheap as $30 at GC, for instance:

Used Marshalls, $0-200.

The topic of Cheap but Decent combo amps comes up in all of the online guitar forums damn near daily, and certainly tons over the years. And there are standouts in each brand, like the little Vox Pathfinder 15r I mentioned - which I learned has a solid following - especially for a something you can usually catch for under $100.

Once we have a better idea of the sound you're after it will be easy to see what's out there for cheap-cheap, which is fine for a beginner. What ten, or five/etc, songs/bands do you want to sound like most?

Congratulations, vulrath!

I have poor CC and impulse control, too. Luckily my wife is the family CFO and manages to somewhat restrain me

To be honest, I'm not sure what I want to play just yet. I listen to everything from Beethoven to Edguy to Dream Theater and more, but if I had to pick something right here and now, I'd say I'd like to end up somewhere between Edguy and Dream Theater, though I'd settle for something more chill like Dance with the Dead.

Nice! Exactly two guitars I’ve impulse bought, and they were both Gibsons, with no regrets. Enjoy that SG!

As for emulation stuff on a PC, I have a Line 6 Toneport DI That I’ve used here and there, but it’s a poor substitute for an amp of any kind. Over the Pignose suggested, if you want a small practice amp that won’t run you deep into your pockets, it’s hard to go wrong with a Roland Micro Cube of some sort. For the money, I think it’s a fantastic little amp, and if I’m honest, I have many more hours through it than my Hughes & Kettner Duotone. There’s nothing like a Gibson through a roaring tube half stack, but... it’s a roaring tube half stack all the same.

Petrucci-like sounds require a true high gain amp (he's a Mesa Boogie guy as I recall). That sound is a bit hard to find in the Small and Inexpensive and Low Volume category as the sound itself is borne of high gain power amps driven to the point of the power tubes providing most of the distortion and faking that is all but impossible to do convincingly, at least convincingly and inexpensively.

Boogie amps are at the beginning of the expensive amps market, even for their small ones. And Edguy use Engl amps, another high gain variety from Germany. The least expensive amp I've seen lately that is of that ilk is the Mark Tremonti one from PRS, the little MT15 head, but even that is $500 used and doesn't include a speaker cab.

I'm sticking with the idea that a used Marshall solid-state combo will get you to the edge of that neighborhood, at least, maybe with a pedal like the venerable Boss Metal Zone to get you the rest of the way there. You could probably find both an amp and the pedal for $100-300 depending on which amp you choose (bigger is better in almost all cases (and 10" and 12" speakers will sound best, and used Metal Zones can be had for ~$50 from GC.com, too).

That and countless hours of practice ought to keep you busy for a while.

My first guitar was a single pickup SG. That was in about 1964 or so. I currently own a Les Paul Jr. SG that is a 1963 with original hangtags, case, and strap. I have never plugged it in and hope to sell it someday for a profit.

There are a couple of That Pedal Show episodes on YouTube that feature the Metal Zone, and are good examples of the sounds you can conjure with it. It's not my thing, but they've sold hordes of them over the years to hordes of bedroom shredders and such. For ex:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l6x6AjsKaMk


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_5PX4Fl6Mu4

And this guy has YouTube vids about the Dance with the Dead sound. Here's one of them:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FSh9nZsj56Y