Curse the site crash! I have to rewrite my... story now. Hope someone can help this newb out

Alright, so I've been playing guitar since around Christmas time using the fender squier strat pack, which sucks to say the least (not that im any good anyways). It really wasn't all that enjoyable to play, so I figured after playing for this long I really needed to at least upgrade my amp. I started looking around for something around just 200 or 300 bucks that had some good metal-ish distortion and was loud enough to play over drums with friends. I had my eye on the Crate xt65r since it was cheap, loud, and had -decent- sound. I was having trouble deciding so after wandering around in guitar center for a little bit I found myself in the effect pedal section. It was there that I did the unthinkable. I looked at the distortion pedals there and tried the boss MT-2 pedal. I thought it sounded like god compared to what the amps did, none of them had really impressed me much.

So basically, I came home with the crate amp and the notorious MT-2 pedal for 290 flat w/ tax. I was enthralled.

But alas; it is now a few weeks later and the more I play it the more I realize that the pedal sounds like "angry bees in a can" as one person on this forum put it. It's like white noise almost, and it just doesn't have a true heavy sound to it.

I can still return it since I bought it all on July 4th and guitar center offers a month on returns...

So basically, I have some questions. Is the cheap sound something I should expect with paying so little? Any alternatives I could get for the same or just a little more money? Any good affordable Head + cab setups you can recommend? (I hardly knew about those when I was looking) Will my humble guitar make anything I buy sound like crap? Should I take this stuff back to the store ASAP? How much of a newb do I look like asking so many questions? What is the meaning of life? er..

Yeah, I would really appreciate some opinions since no one I know knows anything about guitar stuff. Thanks in advance!

Id say return them and get a peavey bandit, their pretty nice. or mabye a guitar research amp (the red ones) or save up a little and get a used tube combo or somthing off ebay. good luck whatever you decide.

btw did you used to watch battle bots? lol that was one of the robots names.

edit: oh yeah i fogot, definatly get rid of the crate they SUCK suck suck suck i hate crate i hate hate hate crate. its not just me btw.

edit2: one more thing look for the trans tube on the preamp, thats the key for a SS amp imo.

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Yeah, I've heard people say Peavey stuff is really good. Problem is that they don't sell them at guitar center so I couldn't try them unless I found a different guitar shop to go to. I haven't really seen many around here... As for the red guitar research amp, Ive never heard of it but just looked it up and it seems kinda small, and really really cheap (price-wise). Does it really sound that good?



Haha, I did used to watch battlebots a little bit but I've never heard of that before, I've been using this tag since, like... grade school or something, just made it up one day.

Thanks for your suggestions though, Ill have to check it out.

if thiers a Sam Ash were you live they have both the amps i mentioned.

if not, ebay is somthing you might wanna get into if you havent already. only thing is you cant try the stuff out,

but if you like metal you can trust me on the bandit 112. iv got one as a practice amp and it works great for what it is. also have a friend who gigs with one, but i think its a 212, not sure though.

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Awesome, checked the site and there's a Sam Ash five miles from here. This pleases me Ill have to head over there soon.

I dabble in ebay a bit. I sell rarely and buy sometimes. I'll check the price of the amps on ebay and then try them out at the store.

Thanks so much for your help, you don't know how much I appreciate it.



Oh, trust me. I love metal. I'm a metalhead disguised as a semi-geek. It's funny, people always assume I'm into techno for some reason. Multiple people have said techno in specific, it's really strange. Anyways, the amp looks really nice but I always need to try before I buy. I'm very hopeful and really have a feeling I will be switching to it, though. Thanks again =D

cool man, glad i could help, about the guitar reaserch amp, the one listed on the sam ash site IS too small, theres a bigger one, or should be atleast. thier isnt much range or ajustments in the sound, but its good for the price if i remeber correctly (like $150)

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buy freakin used!
take it all back and get a crate blue voodoo combo or a peavey ultra
you'd still have money left over
i got mine for 200

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Oh, were you talking about this? Link

Yeah, that one looks more affordable than the bandit, only 150 like you said. I'll have to try it out too.

Heading over to Sam Ash tomorrow!



Please excuse my nubness, but I can't find the peavey ultra on their site. Is there a different name for it or something? And the blue voodoo, which one did you get? There are multiple kinds, and they're showing up like 800 bucks on google search and there are none on ebay. D:

I wouldn't buy this one. I used to have a Peavey Bandit 112, decent amp for the price. They also have an option on there to hook it up to an external cab of some sorts and add some volume. This would be a good amp for you ina transition period, as you can have a decent somewhat loud amp (PB 112), and then you can buy a cab let's say for your tube amp down the road which you can use with your 112. Then when youa re ready, you can sell the 112, and put that money towards a good tube amp. As most can tell you on here, you eventually are going to want something better than the 112.

Well I went to the store today to try out some of the stuff you guys suggested. People were using the bandit 112 when I got there so I tried some other stuff to begin with. This line7 one, I forget which exactly, sounded alright, but not the greatest. The guitar research one sounded okay but seemed kinda muddy. I tried some of the big tube amps too but they didn't seem to be working... Then I finally got to try the bandit and it sounded great, pretty much exactly what I had in mind. I tried using a cheesy guitar to simulate what I had and it still sounded really good. I even played a random marshall amp for a minute afterwards and I didn't think it sounded as good... After playing for a while I immediately came home and played on my boss pedal, and it was easy to see the difference... the boss pedal sounds so processed and buzzy, kind hard to explain but now I really know why people curse this pedal to the depths of hell

Anyways, Ill probably pack up my stuff and take it back to guitar center sometime this week. For now, Ill hunt for a good deal on the bandit. Thanks for the input everyone =)

did you even read my post?!?

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Looks like you missed the edit I made on my post afterward. =/

oh sorry
seriosly. crate blue voodoo will make you very happy
and the peavey ultra is almost the exact same circutry as the xxx. play a triple x and you will know. play a crate bv too

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Argh, did they stop selling the ultra or something? I see the xxx and it's listed as 1400 new, and some ultras on ebay but they seem really old. And I'm guessing you mean the BV120HB, that one is 800ish online and about the same on ebay. Unless you're telling me to get an older 90s model or something. I dunno!

Oh yeah, and neither are on guitar center or Sam ash websites. Bleh. Looks like I need to somewhere else if I try these.

yeah get the old ones. i got my blue voodoo 2x12 combo for 200. you can get ultras for 200 to 300. old ones. use ebay and search www.harmonycentral.com classifieds

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http://www.musiciansfriend.com/prod...-Amp?sku=480023

cube30 FTW

i havent gotten to personally try one out yet, but i have listened to clips of it, and the distortion is great, the clean is great, its only 30 watts, and since you havent been playing very long to begin with, that should be fine for you. and its right in the $200-300 price range. you wont need the MT-2 either, that has got to be the shittiest distortion pedal i have ever have the displeasure of using.

if the 30 isnt loud enough:
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/prod...-Amp?sku=480197

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Okay, I looked em up and it does look like I can get them for a good deal. I was about to try the peavey xxx combo at the store but they said they were closing up and made me leave . The only problem I would have with buying like this is never being able to actually hear the amp itself being played, which is a little scary to me =/. Ill go back to the store and try the xxx and consider the ultra, although I've always had a hard time buying anything used, especially when we're talking years of use. I also have no idea about tubes or how to replace them if they break or anything @_@



I hope the sound clips you heard are actually people playing it and not the ones on the guitar center website. Those are never real, just look at the MT-2 ones . If you have actual sound clips and know where they are, I would like to hear them, otherwise I'll just go back and try it out sometime. I still plan on going back to the store to try stuff and make a final decision.

Oh and dont worry, I am planning on taking everything back, MT-2 and all.

And oh yeah, I found the peavey bandit 112 for 300 brand new. I'm really leaning towards this one right now but I won't buy anything until Ive tried a lot of stuff including all the suggestions I can, so thanks again guys. I don't want to screw up like I did on my first choice

try the blue voodoo yet? try the new style, because thats all they'll have, and then hear it being better because the old style souds IMO better.

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i have a bandit right now, if you go back a few threads to "moonie has an amp question" or something like that, i got several suggestions for the cube amps, the bandit rocks, its a great amp, its just a bit too loud for my taste right now. the distortion is fucking killer, the clean is mediocre, though. for 300 it isnt too bad, i got mine used for 150 or so after a trade in.

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I don't think they made a new blue voodoo combo amp, only heads. If you could link me to it that would be great, but I don't remember seeing one in guitar center and Sam Ash does not carry crate... there are none on the Crate website either. Iunno



Distortion is what I'm going for. Clean doesn't matter as much to me as I barely use it. As long as it's there, I'm fine with it. I'm still leaning towards getting this one.

they dont make the combos anymore. heck. find a BV 1x12 combo and replace the speakers and maybe tubes and you'll have a screamin little amp that will be very loud.

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Id take his advice... if you can find one of the above mentioned, that would be ideal. if not, the bandit 112 is probably the best new amp you'll find for the price.

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what the fuck you repeated yourself 4 times

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Yeah, except for the problem that I don't know anything about changing tubes or speakers. Plus I am not going to get to try it before I buy it. Not that I don't believe you guys that it's good, but I have a hard time buying some things used to begin with. Plus, Im finding a highly unusual amount of reviews on the amp (used) saying it randomly broke one day. Im not kidding when I say I am finding more horror stories about this amp than positive reviews. This seems scary to me as, like I said, I dont know anything about fixing up amps and would rather not EXPECT to have to fix it up which might mean for me to take it to an expert or something like that, or read up on how it works and attempt it myself. I just want to have a nice amp that I can start playing on in the next few days, that's all.

And yeah that quad-post is pretty freaking sweet. 0_0

wow, yeah, no clue how that happened... fixed it though.

but anyways, if your not comfortable with buying used I wouldn't, bad things tend to happen when you act against your instinct.

but on a side note Iv had my bv120h for 2 years now and original tubes are still good. and when tubes do go bad, you dont need to know how to change them..... a professional needs to do it.

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not on the bv. first, preamp tubes are plug and play. second, the BV is a fixed bias amp, meaning it will work with any 6l6 or el34. so for tubes you just buy the right kind and plug them in, no problem there. also, as for speakers, if you ever replace the speaker (buy a eally good one since its only a 1x12, like a tone tubby) theres already a wire there to use. find any local person who has any electronic experience to watch or do it for you.

http://cgi.ebay.com/crate-blue-vood...1QQcmdZViewItem

heres a good deal on harmony central, there a couple i just picked this one becuase its seems ideal.

"Marshall JCM800 head, Peavey Ultra 60 tube combo
Asking Price: US$N/A
Condition: Good
Age: N/A
Description:
Marshall JCM800 twin channel 100 watt version tube head w/ reverb.
1989 model which has all of the updates, making it what Michael
Doyle refers to as his favorite JCM800 in the "the History of Marshall" 900$.
Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave uses the 50 watt
version.

Peavey 3 channel tube combo, w/ Celestion speaker , reverb,
resonance, separate eqs for clean, and crunch/ultra channels. 300$
w/ cover and footpedal.

Buyer pays actual shipping + insurance
and we can split the Paypal fee if needed.

Pictures available for serious buyers.
Seller: Todd Strother,
E-mail: atstrother (Profile)
Post Date: 1/31/2006"

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I actually looked at that one on ebay already, and it looks good... but very used... broken dial and all.. the bandit 112 I was looking at just dropped 25 bucks in price, making it 275 with shipping brand new plus he is throwing in a 25 foot cable and a 10 foot cable. I'm having a really hard time passing this one up. My gut tells me not to buy used to avoid a horror story, plus the bandit is more affordable than ever for me.

ok, the bandit sounds like its working out great. get it. i have acctually never played a bandit so i was suggesting something that i had played and knew sounded good for the price.

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Can you just answer me this question... you said that the big tube amps you tried out didn't seem to be working... did you give the tubes time to get warm?

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ROLAND CUBE!!!!!!!

man, my GIRLFRIEND has the bandit, its kinda sad. The cube has a modeling knob on it though so you can change the voicing of the distorion. You can get so much out of that amp for so little. Its probably one of my fav low budget SS combos. Though peaveys do kick major ass, you cant get as much out of them as you can with the cube. It pretty much comes down to money.

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which brings me to my earlier statement

roland cube FTW

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Haha, I can't believe I wrote that. At the time I hadn't realized that the tubes needed to warm up. I learned so afterward. A newbie learns more by the day I guess.

I haven't had a chance to go to the store yet and try the cube, I've been pretty busy the last few days. Ill probably go today... Im afraid someone else will buy the bandit if I wait too long though so I might just order it already!

thing about the roland cube is It sounds like you playing a distortion pedal. at least the smaller one my dad owns.... basicly if you dont like the MT-2 you wont like the cube, because it IS an mt-2.... boss and roland are the same company.

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Two things. One, Roland OWNS Boss, not the same company. And two, thats like saying that a Dodge Durango IS a PT Cruiser because they are from the same company.

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Well I tried the cube and you guys are right, it did sound great. I had a difficult time deciding which one I liked more, between the 60w cube and the bandit. The only thing I didnt like about the cube is after turning it up past a certain volume, it would make a buzzing noise like something was vibrating against something else. I don't know if that was just a crappy display model or not, but it was annoying. Otherwise, the distortion really sounded great. However, I could still get the bandit for way cheaper and it made more sense to buy the cheaper one if they were so similar, so I ordered the bandit for 270 w/ 2 extra cables thrown in, which is a great deal from what I've seen . Thanks everyone for your input, I learned a lot of stuff I can pass on to my newbie friends when they get a new amp too

Awesome, you made a good choice! You couldnt really go wrong with either amp, you'll be pleased. I would say that the Bandit probably has better distortion but the Cube is more flexible so it would be a trade-off. Let us know what you think when you get it!

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Well the amp finally came today, and it's perfect. Sounds great and I got away with spending less than I had expected to. It's such a difference from the pedal, I really can't believe it. Im glad I came here looking for help and not my friend who insisted the pedal was the greatest thing he had ever heard.

But hey, before I go off to sleep, I'll post a last question that can hopefully be answered by someone. It's not really about the gear, it's about my guitar, but maybe I can get away with not having to make another thread in the guitar section. But yeah, is it normal for a cheap fender squier strat to make a crazy buzzing noise on all but two pickup settings? It's always done it and I thought it was just due to cheap quality, but it's especially bad on this amp because I like to turn it up so loud. I just make do and use the ones that don't buzz. Just curious because I saw something posted on here about someone's guitar making the same kind of noise and someone suggested opening it up to check for loose wires, or something.. I haven't opened the guitar before. I plan on buying a new guitar as soon as I save some money but it would be great if I could fix this one for now. Anyways..

Thanks, again

Yes, its normal. Single coils hum at the best of times. But yes, do save for a better guitar.

yeah its the single coils making the hum, thats the reason they call humbuckers, well, humbuckers, aaha

Congrats on the Bandit man, its a Nice Amp

Haha, okay, at least I know that it's normal. That makes me feel better. Time to start checking out new guitars!