6000.00 guitar and a cheap amp

[phsyconoodler]

I had a customer come in and ask about custom amp prices.He balked at a couple grand for a killer hand-wired custom amp.I asked him what he played now and proudly ran out to his Mercedes and brought in his 6000 dollar Les Paul.
 He open the case up and a band of angels started singing a chorus.Nice ax!
   Anyway then I ask him what amp he plays now and he toutes his Line 6 modelling amp.I almost barfed on his Gucci shoes!
  So he notices my lack of candor and asks me what's so special about my amps anyway?I plug him into my 'little bastard' jam amp and he says " Oh" and drops the cash on the spot.
  I'm so surprised by guys who have huge budgets and waste huge coin on a guitar and have crap for amps to play them with.
  Well he then says to me he has 10 Les pauls of various descriptions and several custom shop strats too.
And a Line 6 modelling amp.
 

[Ritchie200]

I don't know how old he was or how recent he started playing, but it seems there is this HUGE group of....make that, generation of players who honestly don't know any better.  These people have never heard an old Marshall in meltdown in the hands of Steve Marriott, or Dick Dale rattling your ears, Brain May's wall of doom, or Townsend's deafening roar.  They are lost in the sterility of the swiss army knife, all-in-one, on a microchip, jack of all trades - master of none, amps.  I am just amazed at the crappy sounding amps out there bringing huge $$$ just on the badge hanging on the front.

Well done!  Who knows, he may be a good repeat customer with that kind of disposable income.  Plus, you never know where your next referral will come from!

Jim

[stratele52]

Many people are in love with guitars not with amp and don't know how a good amp is a must until a test drive. I was like that many many year ago.

We saw that in many forum , don't need to buy a $6000 guitar to have a good amp . Any cheap guitar will sound fabulous with any high end amp.

[smackoj]

there are not many sales people in music stores that know about good amplifiers for starters. if they can't give a good explanation of what each type of amp does, they show their 'knowledge' over by the guitar rack. And, a guitar player that can't really play well is not looking for a well defined note reproduction, they are looking for a mega distortion/sustain to cover up lack of ability.

[Ed_Chambley]

Humble Pie, thanks for the reminder, Jim.
I am from the generation where you had to be able to play to record and in doing so we had to together and play as a group.  When you go into a big music store there is not a lot of amp options anymore.  If you plug into a modeling amp in the store, it seems like a good value.  It is an all in one thing and you don't have to invest in pedals.

I ask you how does the computer music generation know any difference?  Track into Pro Tools and you can pretty much make anything you want that sounds better than mp3 quality,  Yes, I still have vinyl and a real stereo.  I sound like my Father, it was better back then.  How is it possible to know guitar and bass tone when your music is mp3 and your stereo is an ipod?  Compared to this media forum, a line 6 sounds pretty much the same.......................until...........you play with a drummer, bass player and a hammond b3/Leslie.  Then and only then will you look at your Lame 6 and think I must have the wrong guitar because Fender and Gibson is hard at work making new beat-up guitars in the attempt to convince us that is the finish is bad the guitar has more tone.

We are a dying breed and I am happy to have found some folks I relate to.

[Stankfut]

I don't think a lot a players understand that an electric guitar is only half an instrument. I went to see a friends band once. Had a pretty decent guitar player, he was maybe 50ish. He was playing a Klein. I was talking to him after the show and he was showing me his "rig," some Fender modeling setup that he plugged straight into the board. That pretty much explained why i thought his tone was sterile. I brought up tubes and he looked at me like I had just sprouted a horn. He said something to the effect of why bring a big heavy amp along and just get one sound when he could have any sound he needed in the palm of his hand. I didn't bother to argue that there are some really good amps that have more than one sound.

[Stankfut]

I ask you how does the computer music generation know any difference?  Track into Pro Tools and you can pretty much make anything you want that sounds better than mp3 quality,  Yes, I still have vinyl and a real stereo.  I sound like my Father, it was better back then.  How is it possible to know guitar and bass tone when your music is mp3 and your stereo is an ipod?  Compared to this media forum, a line 6 sounds pretty much the same.......................until...........you play with a drummer, bass player and a hammond b3/Leslie.  Then and only then will you look at your Lame 6 and think I must have the wrong guitar because Fender and Gibson is hard at work making new beat-up guitars in the attempt to convince us that is the finish is bad the guitar has more tone.

We are a dying breed and I am happy to have found some folks I relate to.

My nephew (20) knows the difference. When he is home from school, he likes to come over and play my amps because they sound so much better to him. When I can get some spare cash, I would like to build an amp for him, probably a stout. I will make sure when my son (3) is old enough to play he will know the difference!

[phsyconoodler]

I'm happy I'm not alone in this!

But last night I had the urge to go to a jam,so I packed up the tele and hummed and hawed whether to bring my amp too,and decided not to cause my knee was acting up.So I get to the jam and the host band has only a Line 6 and a Peavey bandit.I chose the bandit and surprisingly, the tone was.........................................worse than you can possibly imagine!!!
  So I smothered it with ripping lead pedals and ripped the guys a new blues ass.

That amp was so lame sounding that I almost wanted to cry.
  The host of the jam is a fantastic player but he must be deaf.No,actually I KNOW he's deaf.
I'm NEVER going to another jam without a tube amp.NEVER.
  Tube emulation. 

[HotBluePlates]

Anyway then I ask him what amp he plays now and he toutes his Line 6 modelling amp ...

Line 6 has better marketing than you do.  

We can laugh about it, but it's true. They're part of the big-corporation machine, wherein more money is spent per-amp on the marketing rather than the materials for the amp. Regardless of the sour taste, that is a profitable business model.

I'm lucky that when I was a teenager and relatively new to guitar playing, there were a few vintage guitar shops around my town and they had the classic amps for only a little more than new products (I'm thinking ~1992 or so). I played 1 chord through a '67 Princeton Reverb and knew I had to have an old tube amp to play through. That amp was only $400 then, about the same price as a brand new Fender 60's reissue Strat (which I also bought).

Buyers generally don't have well-stocked stores full of vintage stuff and knowledgable salespeople who can help guide them to what is best for them. So what they know about amps derives from guitar magazines, and the new stuff gets the most print. Everything gets superlatives that are a little (or a lot) overblown. And without making a judgement on reviewers impartiality, it's probably always been true that the overwhelming majority of magazines stay afloat due to advertising revenue rather than sales of the magazine.

So it's understandable; players know what they're source of information tells them. And that source is overwhelmingly marketing from companies spending the bulk of their budgets on ads.

[mresistor]

My exposure to tube amps went kind of like this in the 60's..

"It wasn't very large
There was just enough room to cram the drums
In the corner over by the dodge
It was a fifty-four
With a mashed up door
And a cheesy little amp
With a sign on the front said fender champ
And a second hand guitar
It was a stratocaster with a whammy bar

Seriously if it wasn't for a Fender Champ I don't think I would have happened on tube amps
as early as I did.

I'd rather play a beat up old guitar through an old Marshall or Fender amp any day... than play a custom shop axe and use
microchips to funnel the sound through...

[carausius]

What's the point in having 10 expensive Les Pauls when there are so many great guitar choices, 335's Rickys, Gretsches, various Fenders & many others?

Some people just have cloth ears as a (non musician) producer friend calls it, turn up to record with him he demands a valve amp or else!!! Make sure you tune your drums as well

One of my guitar playing friends spent thousands on recording in various studios with an old rickenbacker with totally worn out frets, buzzes all over the neck & badly needs a setup & refret, using a solid state Fender. I told him get a valve amp & repair his guitar, but he just wasted a few thousand pounds getting his material mastered instead  Polishing a turd some call it! 

[bigsbybender]

I tell people to spend more on the amp than the guitar..   A $300 guitar can sound decent... a $300 amp cannot.

(*In General, at new price)

[phsyconoodler]

Yes.

Now I have another friend who can play the strings off the guitar.Killer chops.But he plays a Zoom digital pedal in front of a Hot Rod Deville.
 The guitar is good(american strat) the amp is good,but the Zoom thing makes him sound like ass.
So I tell him to ditch the zoom and use a tube screamer or some nice pedal.He asks me "whats a tube screamer?" OMG!
  He has been playing for 35 years and he has never heard of a tube screamer.
 Where do these people hang out?
I'm a relative new guitar player,having started playing electric in 1994.I has solid state amps until I heard a Peavey tube amp for the first time.Then messy boogers and then my own amps after that.
 My nickname on the jam circuit is Keith McTone.
I'm not a flashy player but I have good tone.I knew what a tubescreamer was in 1994.
  I do not understand the mis-information out there.

[stratele52]

I tell people to spend more on the amp than the guitar..   A $300 guitar can sound decent... a $300 amp cannot.

(*In General, at new price)

+1000

[SILVERGUN]

You'll love this...(just this past Tues. 11/13)

I'm in the market for speakers, so I typed Celestion into the Craigslist searchbar and saw a Traynor tube amp in the results....
It said "Traynor 15w guitar amp-wine red "price reduced" again- $225"
In the description it also said  "Last price reduction before I sell it to Guitar Center".....
it's got a 25W greenback in it so I thought sure,,,I'll check it out, so I asked the kid for his address.....it was 7 houses away from me, so I walked up the street, plugged in, played it like a tube amp was meant to be played (cranked), handed the kid $200 and told him and his mom that it was "very nice to meet them"........and the kid said,,,,,,,,,WOW, I never heard the amp sound that good...........I asked him what he was going to do with the money,,,and he said,,,,,,,,"There's this Line6 up at Guitar Center etc., etc., etc.,"............I didn't want to ruin the moment, so I didn't get into it,,,,,BUT, I did walk away with a mint Traynor that I really like the sound of, and would grab and go to a blues open mic in a second
,,,,,,,,it's my new couch amp........

[zendragon63]

You're killing me--oh, how I wish it weren't true. Kind of the bane of their generation, where they assume they can start further up the life's general learning curve. Modern, seemingly cheap and easy to attain tone technology is so attractive that is little wonder the kids are not motivated to dig down deeper. Wax on, wax off.... I guess some will get it, the rest get frustrated and move on to lower hanging fruit.

I just don't get the $6K Les Paul thing though. Or ten of them for that matter. No, I don't think you can fix rich AND stupid. Regards

dennis

[alerich]

I dunno. I'm the other way around. I have a few really nice amps that I will never sell. A Splawn modified Sovtek MIG60 head that just slays and Goodsell Super 17 combo S/N #0003 - both "sleepers" that sat on the floor at Guitar Center with barely a nibble. They weren't cheap. I'll drop some change on an amp. I've decided there is a certain price point below which I am rarely satisfied with the tone long term. As far as guitars go that price point for me is much lower. None of the guitars I own cost over $500. Having had all of my guitars stolen a few years ago and having had to start over made me re-evaluate the whole paradigm. It made me look at the guitar for the guitar and not the price tag or brand name (which I also do with amps). I finally learned that if I couldn't tell the difference then I shouldn't pay the difference. Great guitars can be had on a budget and will often say Epiphone or Squier on the headstock. Just like every custom shop instrument isn't a keeper. They make their share of dogs, too.

Right after my gear was pinched I bought one of those cheap Epiphone Les Paul Junior models just to have something to bang around on. Single pickup, wrap around bridge, bolt on neck. $125. I dropped a Seymour Duncan '59 pickup in it and replaced the cheesy keys with a budget set of sealed keys from GFS. I am still beside myself over how good that guitar plays and sounds for under $250 invested.

[darryl]

One point about guitar gear I have never understood is when a player does have a $3000 guitar and a $3000 amp, but he won't replace the crackling, intermittent, 30-year-old lead that goes between them . . . 

[Ritchie200]

Hey!  Your talkin' smack about my white (well, somewhat off-white with various mystery stains) coil cord from 1960-something!  That's an antique! 

Jim

[darryl]

Hey!  Your talkin' smack about my white (well, somewhat off-white with various mystery stains) coil cord from 1960-something!  That's an antique!

If you're using a Marshall Major, you need that vintage curly cord to filter out some of the excessive highs.   

[plexi50]

I have run across the same issue here as well many times over the past few years. How can you not know that tube amplifiers exhist and are just as important as that 6K guitar? Crazy man. Maybe i should open a Bank and i will spend there money wisely for them*
First Tube Financial Inc  

[tubeswell]

You definitely need to sell him some more tube amps.

[Zipslack]

Don't give up on them...I still remember when I didn't want anything to do with those old tube amps.  They're hot, they stink, they're expensive to work on, tubes have to be replaced and go bad...blah blah blah.  It was many years before I came to appreciate things like my father-in-law's '74 Silverface Twin Reverb Deluxe.  My only SS amp now is an old Roland Cube (not the DSP model) that I keep in my workroom for testing guitar repairs and as a failsafe backup (until I decide to gut it and build something else in it...maybe a Vibrochamp...)

BTW, I go the opposite route in the store....grab a cheap Squier (or other extremely cheap guitar) and use it for testing.  If the amp sounds good with a really lousy guitar, I can single-out the ones that have a good chance of sounding good with better gear.  I have a cheapo Squier Affinity (early model, not the better ones that are made now) in my workroom just for that same purpose - testing my amp builds/tweaks.  If it sounds good with the Squier, it usually sound REALLY good with my '87 G&L ASAT.