Hey,

I'm a bassist who started playing guitar like a year ago. I'm getting pretty good but I don't know shit about guitar amps. I borrowed my friend's 15 watts Crate and I wish I could get a better sound without having to pay a thousand bucks.

So do you guys have any suggestions for a good practice amp (15-30 watts) ?

I heard good things about Orange amps and they don't look to pricey at all on eBay. Roland Cube is a suggestion I also got... Anyone?

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orange are super fucking pricey as fuck. Unless you get the orange crush, and those are crap for metal, so fuck em. Roland cube is nice because its a modelling amp, and if its just for practice, its all you really need. Roland can get you lots of sounds... so you arent stuck between clean and brand name distortion... you can get like 6 different kinds of disto

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i have a roland 30 cube, i dont use many of the other channels often so i cant comment, but the 3 or so distortion channels arent great, except for the r-fier setting, which absolutly rocks for metal on a budget

who the fuck tried to sell you a 30 watt amp for 1000 bucks?
go out and get yourself a 100 watt swr working combo, or laney, or behringer or something.
If you plan on being with other instruments, a 30 watt is useless.

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30W combo amp? TECH 21 TRADEMARK 30 BITCH! I used to own one, it was my first amp that I saved a up some good cash to buy my first electric rig. I love it and still regret selling the fucker, but now I have an Engl tube head and can't complain. You could get so many sounds out of it it was just awesome, and sounded great at high volumes not shitty like many other 30W combo amps. The tone was rich and natural, not fizzy or digital sounding. I compared it to a Roland Cube and the Tech 21 blew it the fuck away in every aspect, the Cube effects are horrible, the Tech 21's spring reverb sounded much better. Not to mention the distortion was very tweakable and you could get good sounds for anything brutal or soft. Now the TM30 does cost 270 bucks though, more expensive than other 30W combo amps, but it's worth every penny. It has XLR outs too so you can hook it up directly to a PA without the need of micing it and gives you infinitely better sound quality for recording too.

I wouldn't reccomend a Behringer or most affordable Laney SS amps, despite they're price. They sound horrible at higher volumes especially the Laney, and the Behringer... you probably won't get better tones out of it than your Crate.

Watts don't mean shit. A TM30 cranked will sound 10x better than any Behringer combo amp cranked, they use better speakers and the preamp/poweramp doesn't sound like shit. The Cube isn't bad especially not if you're getting started on guitar but if you wan't some really pimpin tone save up for the Tech 21.

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tech 21, you can get a shitload of sounds out of them, but i find they need tweaking, and are for higher budget, rockin tone though.

Soeru is right... NEVER BUY A BEHRINGER! it will poop out on you in exactly a 2 years and will never work again. its the worst investment in the world. EVER!

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Read the post. He's looking for a guitar amp, not a bass amp.

The Tech21's are definitely great for that sort of thing. The Roland cube isnt bad, its pretty much what you would expect out of a 200-350$ modeling combo. If you can afford it, grab a Tech21.

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I got the Vox Valvetronix 30 watt amp. I paid i think 200 for this (guitar center took off some money for me like they always do)

This thing is pretty kick ass. Probably half the distorton settings i don't like, but there are some ones in there that kick ass, and the cleans are pretty solid.

It has a ton of extremely changeable effects that are pretty decient. It also features a built in variable noise suppressor.

It also has an optional footswitch that i bought and its pretty sweet, you can switch between 2 programmable channels (both type of gain, and effects on it) and you can turn on and off the effects with the other switch

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That's why I wrote I needed a practice amp, I'm not going to play with a band any time soon. Just doing my recordings on my own.

Thanks for all the suggestions!

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i dig the cubes, i do some work in a guitar store few days a week, and everytime i play a guitar, its through a cube, cuz they just sound awesome clean thr reverb isnt bad either, ofcuz the dist lack, but what can you expect, most 400/500 euro amps (new) suck alot harder so ... the ones i play in that store, and the store is pretty shitty i might add

didnt ibanez or so make a small full tube amp, like a 15 watt pre and powertube amp?
i never played it, but who knows it might be nice.

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i've only heard of their 100 watt thermion...

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Along with what everyone's suggested, I'd recommend a Line 6 Spider series...
But the Vox Valvetronic is a hell of a deal.

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i played a vox valvetronic for 2 hours in a store today, goddammit that thing sucks, the cle3ans aer ok, the effects are ok aswell, but nothing to be realy enthousiastic about, but goddamn all the distortions are horrible, id take the cube.


also, did you try out some amps at a store? ro did you just ask for suggestions here in the first place?, anmyway, play them and deicide what you think will woprk for you.

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I'm not going to completely disagree with you, theres alot of crud with the amp. But did you play and let hte store people dial in the tones? If you didn't do that, then in my opinion you made the fundamental error in testing out an amp you don't know how to use.

But i'm not going to attempt to lessen your opinion in anyways or your knowledge, cause to be honest like i said out of like 6 distortion channels there is one that is decient and another that i really really like. Its label nu-metal go fucking figure. I had to turn th highs all the way up, mids scooped a lil, and bass sitting at 12 or maybe 1. The rest..... yeah they sound pretty bad. More muffled than anything.

Meshes well with my crate when i record the 2. But its definately worth the money.

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Oh so you're only gonna be using it for recording? Then dude, go grab a Tech 21/Sansamp GT2 pedal instead. It's a "Guitar preamp in a pedal" type thing, it's essentially like if you ripped out the preamp section from a tech 21 amp. It is motherfucking GOLD for recording just hook it up to your computer/mixer/recording interface and hear it through your comp's speakers. You can get em used for 120$.

And if you later need to amplify the signal like a real amp, buy a Tech 21 Power Engine 60, which is a 60W powered cab(so you don't need a poweramp), specially made for preamp pedals. OR an Atomic Reactor amp, which is essentially the same thing but uses poweramp tubes and may sound better at very high volumes.

But if you're not sure if you're gonna be playing strictly at home or not just get a regular Trademark 30 amp. The Trademark 10's are like 60$ cheaper but not very loud, but still sounds better than the Cube.

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if you want a REAL practice amp, get a badcat hot cat, or a black cat.

you'll need a booster to bring out the grit though.

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Uh sorry to burst your bubble ahha, but its more for practice than recording, i'm just saying it sounds good recorded too. But i'll keep that in mind (the preamp) haven't thought about trying a direct in like that before. That brings up some intresting ideas.....

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Im enjoying my peavey bandit 112 (80 watts). It only cost me $275 on ebay and I love it. I guess 80 watts is little more than a 'practice' amp but I practice on it, and it's fine. I really don't know a whole lot about amps either.

Oh and Ive only been playing for about a year too.

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actualy, last time i played it was for a hour or so in the store i work, but my friend used to own one, so ive played it plenty of times and tryd to get a good sound from it while being at his house. but we never got any good distorted tone from the thing. he ended up selling it to buy a dual recto.

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Sounds interesting. I already have a Delta 44 for recording so I guess that would be the perfect choice for me. The samples on their website sound pretty good : http://www.tech21nyc.com/gt2.html

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haha wel.. thats a fucking upgrade to say the least.

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Don't overlook a Guitarport ... you obviously have a computer, and if you have computer speakers then you have an excellent practice amplifier setup should you purchase one. I made a gigantic review on it on here and I could scour for the link if you're interested. If you like to practice with your computer then you'll love it, and they're cheap too.

The more I look into it the more I see I don't really need an amp. I just want a good recording setup. My current one looks like this :

Guitar => Delta 44 (audio card) => Computer => Guitar Rig 2 => Delta 44 => Crate GX-15R

From what I've understood so far, I should replace the Crate with a real stereo amp (cause I play bass too and I hate switching amps every 10 minutes). Someone told me to get a preamp too between the guitar and the Delta but I don't know if it's really worth it.

If I were really pro I'd probably mic my amp but it sucks, and I don't have any good microphone.

Sooo am I right or wrong on this?

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Haha, and while hes at it he can pick up a solid gold road case to carry it in.

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i've got a Cube 30 and it sounds great for home practice and recording.. more than loud enough for cranking up when nobody is around, and the amp models are pretty good. i only really use the 5150 model, which they call "METAL" ..the R-FIER model is not bad, but i prefer the sound of the 5150. the on-board EFX are not the best, but the delay and reverb are just fine for metal purposes (you shouldn't be using too much of these, after all).

ROLAND CUBE!!

Everything that seems to come out of guitar rig sounds fizzy and super fake.. If your looking for a good recording amp for metal.. save and buy something worthwhile like a Framus or a VHT.