Expensive guitar and cheap amp or vice-versa?

[bblumentritt]

Years and YEARS ago....I was told by someone to get a good AMP...(I'm talking in the '60's)

...I didn't listen.

Now, a couple years ago...I finally got a GOOD AMP.

NOW...I understand what that guy was talking about and why he was so much smarter than me....

Yep.

 

[StratBluesRock]

SRV's #1 through a line sux would sound like garbage. A bullet strat through a blackface super would sound okay........

Those kids at GC who play spyder amps on the insane setting......

 

[Paul in Colorado]

Well, there's David Lindley with Teisco's through Dumbles and he sounds pretty good.

I like mine pretty evenly matched. Well maybe not. Looking at my gear, I think I favor more expensive guitars. I've got more invested in guitars then amps.

 

[StratBluesRock]

There's really no point in buying a nice guitar if you don't have a nice amp to play it through

 

[tele12]

SRV's #1 through a line sux would sound like garbage. A bullet strat through a blackface super would sound okay........

Those kids at GC who play spyder amps on the insane setting......

The fact that SRV calls the guitar #1 speaks volumes on whether he considers the guitar or amp more important.

 

[musicalmartin]

the amp... always...

and If you want to know why... I mean really why, and come away from a thread having learned something useful... check this one...

(link removed)

"tone" comes from you mainly.. if you suck, everything you do with a guitar sux... If you suck, buying a great guitar may stimulate ya to get the lead out and practice, but if no... you still suck.

after the "you" in the tone "time line".. next is the amp.... those two comprise easily 90% of the quality of sound... everything else falls in that last 10%.

If you don't "buy" into the above.. Consider... someone hands ya Gilmour's rig... how do ya sound.. just like ya did with the POS ya wanna get rid of.... but... hand the POS to Gilmour... how's he gonna sound... yep.. you're right.. and.. to make it worse... everyone hearing him playing your junk is gonna wanna rig just like it..

get the amp....

Ron Kirn

Very true .I have difficulty explaining how i play as its a cross of wilko style rhythm plus fingerstyle twangy almost plucked base line and lead bits all jumbled up plus a few flamenco style flicks a bit sort of Bert Jansch .it seems to work when I play with people ,mainly blues ,rock and country .The point is
it sounds the same playing through anything.No matter what pickups hot or cold ,amps ,ss or tube .if its too distorted I modify how I hit the strings etc
I would choose a good amp and a cheaper decent guitar but its really just important to have guitar set up how you like with a good fret job and its nut ,string hight sorted.It taken me years to arrive at this but when yer plug in and play its all coming out of you ...unless there is specific exact sound you want which you probably wont achieve anyway because the recording has gone thorough so much guff its not a pure tone anyway.

 

[Mjark]

Just wondering if you had to choose, what would it be. If you could only splurge on one, what is more important? Amp or guitar? What Is more important to your "sound". Nash tele and hot rod deluxe, or Classic Vibe tele and a Dr Z? And you can't say both!!!!!! Thanks. Gary.

A good amp is important.
There 's nothing wrong with a HR Deluxe. I see pros on the road use them a lot. They hold up much better than a Doctor Z.

So I would put HR Deluxe in the good amp category. Undesirable would the Chinese clones that are appearing all the time now.

 

[ThickShag]

Buy a good amp. Make the guitar.

 

[Ronkirn]

Here's an example I like to cite....

We're all familiar with Chet Atkins, perhaps the greatest of entertainers on the guitar of the past century...

Those of you that are "youth challenged" as I am, have seen him through the years on TV and in person... often playing a guitar quite different from what we expected to see him with...

But.. there was always one consistency... his sound... It didn't matter if he was on the Porter Wagoner show in the 60's, or Austin City Limits in the 90's Chet always sounded like Chet..

He could be playing with Les Paul.. or with Mark Knopfler ... Gibsons, or Fenders... he was always him...

That my friends has nothing to do with gear, any part of it..

And I use Chet as an example... simply because so many of us old guys have watched him through the years, simple fact is, you can substitute any 5 star guitarist... and the results are the same...

If you don't have the "tone".. you're not practicing enough... accomplished guitarists rarely have problems with "tone".. because they command the guitar, not the other way around.

And remember, practice is not getting together with the guys, suckin' down brewski's tellin' the same old lame jokes... practice is disciplined boredom...

rk

 

[Metacaster]

I must be getting good, because I have a "tone" that I can always hear.

I can play any setup, and within 5 minutes I'll be getting the same sound out of it
The first thing we do when we get new gear is work out how to get a sound we like - and probably the same sound we were getting before.


But answering the OP's question - the amp is where the money is needed.
A guitar can be played differently and setup well, and amp is what it is - most of us don't open them up tweaking them so they have to be good how they are.

 

[Obelisk]

I currently own 10 guitars & 25 amps. In over 30 years of collecting & playing I have owned way more amps than guitars. Sorry to parrot all the similar responses, but I would always allocate more resources towards an amp than a guitar. With that being said, if you like the guitar you are currently playing, then it might be better to save up for the amp you want.

One other question for Gary, why are you more into a combo amp than a head/cab arrangement? Of my amps, I have 9 combos and 16 heads. I have always found a head to be less susceptible to tube wear than a combo. Plus they are easier to carry around. Once you acquire couple of cabinets you can always get another head for tonal variety.

 

[Blue Bill]

I'm not getting it. Why not get a good amp and a good guitar? Is this hypothetical? Who has to choose either/or?

 

[StratBluesRock]

The fact that SRV calls the guitar #1 speaks volumes on whether he considers the guitar or amp more important.

He had two Dumbles and countless vintage Fender amps and some Marshalls remember lol

 

[Metacaster]

I don't see why people assume that cheap guitars can't be good, or expensive guitars can't be bad?

GOOD guitar or GOOD amp

not EXPENSIVE guitar or EXPENSIVE amp


You can tell how how good they are by playing them blind for a few minutes, if you judge them by the price tag or the maker.. well why bother anymore.


The best guitar I have ever played is a Tokai tele copy.
And I've borrowed £9000 custom gibsons.

 

[wrxmania]

I love the idea of plugging my Squier Affinity (with mods but body & neck original into my custom cabinet Mesa Mark IV with other expensive gear on stage - it SO works!!

Cheap but good guitar WITH A GOOD PLAYER into great amp - works every time!

Brian.

 

[Gnobuddy]

But.. there was always one consistency... his sound... It didn't matter if he was on the Porter Wagoner show in the 60's, or Austin City Limits in the 90's Chet always sounded like Chet..

He could be playing with Les Paul.. or with Mark Knopfler ... Gibsons, or Fenders... he was always him...

That my friends has nothing to do with gear, any part of it..

I agree, and I have seen many other excellent guitarists for whom the same thing applies. In other words, they sound like themselves no matter what they play. Eric Clapton and Joe Bonamassa are two more examples. I watched Bonamassa switch guitars dozens of times during one show on the DVD of his Albert Hall concert; he played and sounded exactly like Joe Bonamassa on every guitar, and if you closed your eyes, you'd be hard-pressed to tell if he was playing a Gibson, a Gretsch, or a Fender.

But perhaps the best guitarist I can think of - Jeff Beck - is different. Watch the DVD of his Les Paul memorial concert ("Jeff Beck's Rock n Roll Party"). His set-list for that show spans the entire history of electric guitar playing, he uses multiple different types of guitars as the show progresses, and he changes his playing to suit the instrument and the musical style every time.

To me, that's the hallmark of a truly great musician. Beck isn't permanently stuck with one playing style - instead, he can and does change and adapt his playing to bring out the best from any type of guitar you put into his hands. He doesn't try to play a fat hollow-body archtop the same way he plays a 'Strat - and so when he plays a rockabilly song through a big hollow archtop he sounds like a completely different player than he does with, say, his trademark 'Strats.

Most of us have some trace of that quality in us - how many of us would try to play the same licks on a Les Paul with a 20-second sustain and a nylon-string classical guitar with a 1-second sustain? Anyone here think Gary Moore's soaring solo to "Still Got The Blues" would sound good on a nylon-string classical guitar? No way, right? So we wouldn't even try to play it.

But often musicians, especially self-taught ones, box themselves into a very cramped musical corner. If all you can play are the same fifty pre-canned pentatonic blues licks, then yes, you will sound the same no matter what you play, and what amp you use.

Which brings me back to Bonamassa. That Albert Hall DVD was my first exposure to his playing, and I was extremely disappointed. Sure, he had fantastic playing chops, but all his playing sounded the same to me - lots of super-fast "widdly widdly" with very little feel.

Well, it turned out I was quite wrong in that initial judgement. Some months ago I heard Youtube clips of Bonamassa's collaboration with Beth Hart. Wow. Was this the same guitarist who spent the night shredding mindlessly at his Albert Hall concert? Here he was, supporting Hart's vocals with some of the most expressive guitar playing I'd ever heard. (Take a listen to Bonamassa and Hart's version of "Don't Explain" for a good example.)

So it turns out Bonamassa doesn't always sound like Bonamassa, either. He only does that when he's frontman. When he's supporting a singer, he can switch from show-off mode to being a true musician. And he sounds completely different.

So: if you always sound the same, it's worth working on changing that. A change of gear can help, if you bring awareness to it. A change of playing situation can also help, if you bring awareness to it. The common element is simply the awareness - if you're aware, each new moment is new, and therefore you will not play the same-old-same-old that you have played in past moments. And you will sound different.

-Gnobuddy

 

[tele12]

He had two Dumbles and countless vintage Fender amps and some Marshalls remember lol

Exactly....amps come and go but the guitar stays.

 

[Metacaster]

Exactly....amps come and go but the guitar stays.

Or he's spending more money on amps because that's what makes the difference to him

 

[Freethenoise]

An old timer once told me like this: "a nice guitar sounds like $#!^ in a crappy amp, but even a crappy guitar can sound good in a nice amp" Some of the best advice I ever listened to!

My step-dad used to say the same thing all the time.