Which amp do you use?

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Permalink Reply by Roosterman on October 22, 2009 at 5:02am

Im not an experienced player by a long stretch, but I have played a lot of guitars through a lot of amps! Call me old fashioned, but I cant get enough of the Marshalls of my youth.

Very affordable now second hand, killer tone, and plenty of punch. Many have an overdrive channel and reverb too!

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Permalink Reply by HOGS GRUNT on October 22, 2009 at 7:54am

Got me a little ol' Encore amp, about 1w if your lucky, and a Hohner Panther 20w, which came off a tip as it was broken.
Got it home and it turned out to be dry joints.
Amazing what you can do with a bit of patience and a soldering iron..

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Permalink Reply by Bluesdog on October 22, 2009 at 8:50am

Dont know if i qualify as an expirianced player but I'm using a Malboro g-10R (usa) combo amp mostley now because it has reverb and tremmelo.

The Malboro i mentioned above has about 10-15 watts i think, this nice little amp has 2 inputs (bright/normal) a footswitch input,one tonepot, reverb ,tremmelo and a 12" speaker. Its basicly a poor mans twin reverb :)
I also have its little brother the g-a3 (5 watts i think, no reverb) but the guy who gave the marlboro's to me cut that one up into a top instead of a combo because the housing cracked and the speaker was ruind. It has 3 inputs (normal/mellow/bright) ,a footswitch out, one tone and tremmelo.

They both sound pretty good, especialy when playing slide with the reverb and trem on, just need to fix some buzzing pots and they are good enough for me! You should be able to pick one of these up for about 10 bucks on Ebay
Edit: i misred something, you have a Blues devile? Forget what i said and use that!!!

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Permalink Reply by Brendan deVallance on October 22, 2009 at 9:18am

Blues deville, thats like a $1000 amp, yeah, play that. I have a $20 garage sale Epiphone I use mostly, and also a Fender Champ. But really i'll take what ever falls off the truck.

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Permalink Reply by Erik Ryman on October 22, 2009 at 9:24am

I've got an old Fender Champion 110, which is solid state but has a nice reverb that I used to gig with, and then left to rot for a decade in a garage. Somehow it still works though.

These days I don't get to use that too much (too loud) and so have been using mainly a couple of little 1w amps I put together - along the lines of the Smokie ones - which sound pretty cool for a three string slide.

Well, they would do if my playing sounded kinds cool, but I'm working on that..

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Permalink Reply by Mark on October 22, 2009 at 9:55am

I've got a Vox AD30VT "Valvetronix" combo which I bought for £75 (about $125) through eBay. It's a modelling amp which is supposed to do impressions of a range of famous amps - not quite the same as having a real collection of Fenders, Voxes and Marshalls but it does give a good variety of different sounds. Plenty of volume for my purposes and it allows me to play around with sounds and find what's "right" for each particular instrument.

One important question to ask yourself is how could it make sense getting a fancy and expensive amp when the guitars we're talking about originate from an ethos of cobbling something together from cheap materials? Just as people sometimes find great sounds through sheer serendipity with the cheap-and-cheerful approach to guitar building, isn't it also possible for that to apply to amps? If you want your CBG to sound like Eric Clapton then by all means spend thousands on a Fender Crossroads ’57 Twin, but then you might as well get the signature strat to go with it.

Inspired by the efforts of other members I've just started building my own dirt-cheap amps and found you can get great sounds out of them. (see the "Choc-O-Cube" at http://cigarboxnation.ning.com/photo/photo/show?id=2592684%3APhoto%...).

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Permalink Reply by Tam Givens on October 22, 2009 at 10:08am

Roland Microcube

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Permalink Reply by Tim on October 22, 2009 at 10:16am

i have a old tube works TD-742 its a hybrid, 2 channel amp runing a single 12ax7. it as a great reverb and really responsive tone controls. i also have a crate v18 a amp that cant be beat for $150 brand new but needs some mods. groove 12au7 in the splitter 2 jj 12ax7 in the preamp and a accutronics reverb. it would be nice to put a new speaker and output tubes. but i just havent wanted to let go of the money. i can deal with it now great for blues or clean but i go back to my tube works for someting with a lot of gain.

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Permalink Reply by RL Mott on October 22, 2009 at 10:38am

Unless you need battery power (Microcube, Vox DA5 ....) or built-in effects , no way can you go wrong with a Vox V15R for $120 new .
Separate gain control , tremolo , nice reverb , good 8" speaker .
Scored mine on EvilBay for $85 and love it . Best gear money I ever spent .

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Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on October 22, 2009 at 3:06pm

Hey!

Nowhere close to being experienced, but....

I got a Fender Frontman 15R -- that's 15 watts with a reverb circuit. I don't like the overdrive channel (sounds kinda ice-picky) but everything else is really nice, especially given the price (under $100). I know there are tube purists out there, but, for the most part, these *are* guitars we've built from junk we had lying around the house....

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Permalink Reply by Ronnie Retherford on October 22, 2009 at 11:11pm

$40.00 cheapie practice amp, 10 watts I think. Our dobro player played CBG #1 through it and it sounded OK to me. Bought it mainly to test 'em after the wiring was completed. I played it through a bass amp a couple of weekends ago and that had a really neat sound. I'm not one for adding a lot of effects, but it's a preference thing.

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Permalink Reply by Tim on October 22, 2009 at 11:24pm

i honestly expected to see more poeple playing the small tube amps you know fender champion, valve junior, crate v5 and so on. they seem like such a natrual think for a cbg. small simple and fairly cheap.

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