Could I get an electric guitar amp recommendation?

I’ve been playing acoustic for two years but I’m looking to get into electric. I purchased a Line 6 in the past and really liked it but read many reviews about how the “pros” don’t like it because of its presets. I don’t want to pay anything too outrageous (hopefully not over $1,500 CAD) but I want something that will last me. I don’t want to repurchase an amp in the future if I ever get better. I was also told that it sounds better if the effects are off the amp and on a pedal instead. Could someone give me some insight? I was looking into Marshall. Thanks in advanced!

You did not say what type of music you play. Most amps these day are better for one kind of music or another but are not very versatile. The Line 6 is a versatile amp. You can program your own sounds with it and share sound with other users online. So, that’s a nice feature. If you play metal and hard rock, you probably want a MESA Boogie Double Rectifier. Marshall amps are ok for metal but (as most all amps do) needs a collection of effects pedals added to get it produce good metal and hard rock sounds. My biggest problem with all commercial guitar amplifiers are that they are too expensive for what they are selling you. For instance, I’m a songwriter and I play guitar, bass and keyboard so, I wanted one amplifier that would adequately produce the perfect sound for either of those instruments and would also double as both live performance amplifier as well as a studio monitor. I also needed to be able to play in large venues so, I wanted more than the usual 100 to 150 watts that most amplifier manufacturers stop at. I also sing so, I needed it to accommodate voice clearly as well.

After an exhaustive search, I determined that no one was producing the amplifier I needed. So, instead of buying a ready make amplifier that did what I wanted, I would have to invent one. I started with the most important part of the sound reproduction process. The speakers. I have long been a fan of James B. Lansing (JBL) speakers. After comparing them to Celestions, B52s, Behringers and several others, I determined that for sound quality and specs, you still, even today, cannot beat JBL speakers. So, I finally settled on twin JBL JRX115 2-way speaker cabinets. JBL recommends those particular speakers with a 500 watts per channel amplifier. So, I again searched around and settled on the QSC GX5 stereo power amplifier. So far, all I have is a good clean, powerful sound. In my case, I also needed a way to connect a guitar, bass, keyboard, and several microphones and I determined the rest of the band as well so, I needed a really high quality 16-channel mixer to feed into that system. There is really one that met my requirements and that was the Alesis Multimix 16-channel mixer. This mixer also provides reverb, chorus, delay, and other effects that can be routed to any channel as required. So, that was perfect for my purposes. For guitar, bass, and voice effects, I could then choose any chain of effects pedals and connect them between the instruments or microphones and the mixer.

The amazing thing is that (excluding the effects pedals) in total, I have less than $1,600 invested in an amplifier, speakers, and mixer. I can plug the whole band into this system and balance the sound with the mixer. I saved having to buy a bass amp, guitar amp, keyboard amp, and PA amp for the vocals. With the money I saved, I decided to add powered JBL subwoofers for the bass, BOSS GT-10 guitar multieffects pedal for the guitar, BOSS GT-10B multieffects pedal for the bass, BOSS VE-20 vocal processor for voice, and the keyboard, of course has it’s own built in effects. I can also plug either my guitar or bass into my Roland Juno-G and use any of the keyboard sounds with those instruments as well. So, for a high quality versatile sound, I have it and there are no amplifiers out there that are as powerful or sound as good and my setup. The proof is, I have professional musicians coming up to me all the time commenting on the sound and asking what kind of amplification system I have. So, you might consider something like I have as well.


First guitar amp help?

Hey, xmas is coming and im getting a electric for it. I already play acoustic. I’m a little confused with the amps. The amp I’m getting is a Fender Frontman 25r. It has a footswitch and it says it’s for remote channel switching. My question is, what is remote channel switching? Is it the pedals? I liked this amp because it has a footswitch. I plan on buying various effect in the form of pedals. The reviews I read say its quite loud too. I’m on a budget and this fit. I really need to know if this amp can be used with pedals. If not, what are some amps in the price range that can use pedals? I live in Ontario and the music store I go to is Long and McQuade. Thanks!



I don’t use pedals like that but I’m pretty sure that it switches between the channels ( usually clean or lead) as a cheap amP I personally use a line 6 spider 3 15 watt- pedals work fine with it- I can’t speak for the fender. Hope this helps!!

Marion Henry Electric FUZZ BUCKET guitar effects pedal demo


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