Advice purchasing kit.

Lord-Fraquart · 2011-11-17T09:25:51+00:00

I need to buy my son an electric guitar and amp. He likes rock and metal music. I've been Googling, lurking on forums and visited quite a few shops. The budget is in the region of R5k for amp, guitar and hardcase. Doing my homework has confused the situation more than it actually helped. I guess after this topic and the advice I'm going to get here, I might be off worse. ? Points I need clarity on is as follows: 1. Amp size? I was looking at getting him a 15-20W amp for his room to practice on. Then someone said I should rather get a 30-40W as the smaller one will not be able to perform as well. Higher wattage will mean more noise, but is forking out an extra R600-R1k worth it for the bigger amp? 2. As for amps, we were initially looking at the Roland Cube and Vox VT amps. Then we were introduced to the Line 6 Spyder IV and Fender Mustang amps. Some said the Vox was more suited to Jazz and not to metal, which the others apparently are. So why have a Metal setting if not suited? The Mustang also has a USB port. Would that be a gimmick and become a white elephant? 3. Guitars. Not knowing anything about guitars and the hardware associated with it, I have picked up that the guitar need to have at least one humbucker. Now some guitars have D, S, S configurations and some D, S, D and some just D, D. For metal music, should we worry about having single coils? 4. As this will be his move from acoustic to electric, I have gathered that he needs to stay away from Floyd Rose bridges as they are finicky. Should he also stay away from a guitar with whammy bar? 5. As for guitars, we were initially sold on the Yamaha Pacifica 112. Later on it was some Epiphone. Now it is the LTD Viper 100FM. He also started off liking the sunburst colour, now it needs to be black. Which of these would you guys suggest would be a good first electric that would not have too many finicky things to worry about and that would be the easiest to play? Feel free to add things I have not yet considered. I am a total noob when it comes to guitars, but I'm learning quickly. Hopefully I can one day learn to play his guitar, when he gets one. 8)

chris77

I agree that tube amps are the mutts nuts in the tone dept and that if you want 'great tone' (even though that is a very personal and subjective value) that's the way to go.
But not for a beginner. And certainly not for an aspirant metal player with dedication issues. My advice is to get him a line6 spiderjam, or even a regular spider. The tones won't be authentic, but he will certainly enjoy it more to get close to a hundred tones by turning a knob than to fiddle with a tube amp, spend hours frustrating himself, realizing he needs pedals, and spending even more and still not nailing one 'great tone'.
Tube amps are great, but when you're starting out and not yet a tonehound, a modelling amp is a helluva lot more practical.
That's my opinion anyway, and you know what they say about opinions and how everybody has one hey ? Good luck in the hunt.

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