I've seen many posts asking for help but many ties the thread starter does not provide enough information. So this is why i write this to provide some basic info for those who decide to post here.

First of all for the conventional guitarist achieving your favorite guitar players tone is impossible. They own expensive gear...guitars, amps, pedals, rack effects, etc etc. Your gear may come close but you will not get there without the exact same gear.

Therefore, do not make threads asking "I have my line 6 spider, how do i make it sound like Vai?"

If you want to know what gear is recommended we need to know a few things.

What is your current gear. You have to be realistic here.
What is your desired tone. Again be realistic.
And most important of all, what is your budget. We cant help you unless we know how much money you have.

Now for a rule of thumb you will 95% yield better results with a tube amp rather than solid state.

Avoid: Line 6 Spider Series
Marshall MG series

You can get better for the price.

But wait i need a halfstack to get teh br00tals for my band!

Wrong, a cheap solid state halfstack sounds like a dying cat being dragged through ass
So you dont need a 100 watt halfstack. Remember that watts does not equal to volume, it is just the ammount of power put out by the amp.

A tube amp of 50 watts will sound much louder than a 100 watt solidstate amp, and will sound better.

unless you are amplifying acoustic instruments. tube amps work ok if you have an active pickup (requires a battery) or preamp, but solid state is still better for an acoustic 99% of the time.

This post was edited by juliusjuice on Feb 18 2009 10:07pm

waits, i want to sound like vai, slash, george benson, paul gilbert, and john petrucci at the same time, how does i do thats with my line 6 spider?

Use a hammer xD

i think this is a little too subjective...avoid line 6?

couldnt edit my above post but


high end line 6's are great amps....valve series sound cool, and the vetta series are used by a lot of professionals such as michael romeo from symphony x


i agree though, for a "cheap" amp, those suck...


now the battle between solid state and tube will go on forever...but its really subjective...someone might "think" that tubes sound better, when to someone else, they dont. I own a mesa, and im in love with the sound not because of the tubes, but because of the "mesa" sound. Roland only makes solid state amps, but their amps like the "JC-120" are known for their incredible clean sound that no other amp creates.

line 6 makes one of the best recording interfaces for the price (the Toneport, POD studio series) and i was using those for a year before i got my mesa....easiest and cheapest way to record good quality sounds..


i dont care much for marshal at all...not even their tube amps...IMO, their amps sucks up a lot of tone.


although i agree with a lot of the things you said, i think that its better for someone to ask "should i get this line 6 or marshal" than to not ask simply because they will learn better that way. I used to be a person who loved buying low end stuff....i thought i was doin myself a favor by having a lot of cheap guitars and amps...but boy, when i got my first real full time office job, i sold all my cheap crap, and bought some real pro stuff....and i gotta say...SAVE YOUR MONEY AND BUY HIGH END STUFF....even if you are a noob.

High end stuff has a better resale value (incase you wanna give up on music) and itll last you longer....why pay $200 for a squire now and then pay $1000 for a higher end guitar later...thats $200 extra than you need to spend, and the higher end guitar will last 1792383209 x longer than the low end one.

Remember that this guide is for noobs who are looking for something to sound good. 95% of the time people looking for help are not jazz musicians who are dying for a roland chorus. I would suggest a blackheart or valve jr over a vyper if you are looking for good distortion for something dedicated to having really good distortion. If you are looking to play around i have suggested the Vyper many many times, which is obviously not a tube amp. As for active pickups, you dont need to have active pickups to have a tube amp. Active pups just push your signal with the pre-amp in the pickup to give you an already overdriven signal before you reach the preamp of your amp giving a tighter more distorted sound.




I never said avoid all Line 6 products. I myself use a toneport recording interface. I wrote "avoid the line 6 spider series", i know of the valve state and the vetta series are very much appraised amps. As for cheap amps, there are some that are worth getting solely for their practice usefullness. The vypyr is the best modelling amp out there due to its vast models and good sound. I love that little amp, i had one for a while but decided to return it to get my Carvin V3 (which rapes).

The Axe Fx as of right now in my opinion the be all end all of solid state trying to sound like tube amps.

EMG's are lifeless tone suckers.

The Carvin V3 is decent head. I just don't like Carvin as a company.

If you play guitar in your bedroom, you're limited on cash, and just feel like more of a person that is just learning how to play songs for the hell of it, a Spider Series Combo is probably one of the nicest options out there for the money.

90% of High gain tube amps were inspired by Marshall amps.

Rectos sound like mud covered in mud and lack something I call definition.

5150/5150+/6505/6505+ sound like bees trapped in a box.


Here's some respectable companies to look at when purchasing some higher end gear:

Peters - http://www.petersamplification.com/ - Realllly nice hand built high gain tube heads.
Splawn - http://www.splawnguitars.com/amps08.htm
Rock Solid Amps - http://www.rocksolidamps.com - My forum friends website that caries some awesome High end Amps.