Im after a guitar amp for playing smallish gigs with. Im in a ska band so need something that will give me a nice clean sound.

My mate has just bought a Fender Hot Rod. Its only 40 Watts but its a tube amp. Are these any good? Seem pretty expensive?

Can't beat a Tech21 Trademark 60. No tubes to pop when you drop the amp and a nice set of non-synthesised tones.

Les Paul himself used to use one for his gigs.

Thanks, Ill check it out.

Anything at the cheaper end of the spectrum?

A second hand Tech 21?

Does anyone else have any recommendations? Anything good around the £300 mark?

Roland Cube can not beat the clean sound.

Fender Twin, 1970's silver face.

Untrendy, hance often cheap (500 ish maybe less if tatty on EBay). Bombproof (gigged mine for around 17 years). Many are 135w, you will not hear a louder amp, never got past 4 on master.

Downsides. Bloody heavy. Only does clean, if you want any grit stick a modeller or tube screamer in front of it as the built in push pull distortion on some models is an affront to humanity.

I would sell you mine (my gigging days are over for a while at least) but number 1 son blew the power transformer.. we I did, but he changed the input voltage selector :-O .. still awaiting repair when I can source a transformer at a reasonable price.

PS I quite like the Hot Rod actually.

Peavey classic series are also good, as is their 15w valve praccy amp if you can mike it up – it'd be OK on stage even with brass, but it wouldn't go far beyond your legs.

second for the peavey classic series. have the 30W 12 combo and it is very loud, nice tone, and reasonably priced. the quality is a bit better in the older ones if you can find a good second hand one.

I've got one of the aforementioned 'older' Peavey Classic 30's I could let you have for £200. Needs new valves (£50 ish quid) Still a cheap valve amp at that money.

Thanks for the recommendations.

What about a decentish solid state amp? They all seem a bit cheaper but would they be upto the job? Or would they sound shite compared to a decent valve amp?

Fender do a nice amp which is essentaily half a fender twin, can't remeber the model though (Fender only child?)

fender blues junior – smaller than the hotrod but see plenty being gigged

my dream amp is the 62 Deluxe Reverb Reissue – about 700 quid. I'll find the money one day

Mine, a Marshall TSL122 – I'm crap so selling it, a mate gigged it for a while… am after £450ish though

Cleanest amp I've ever owned was a Roland JC77. It was an eighties model but it looks as though they only do the larger JC120 now.

http://www.roland.com/products/en/JC-120/index.html

Brilliant amp and I really regret selling it.

I'd take him up on the Classic 30 if I were you. Lovely amp, and valve watts are largerer 🙂 Don't know if they auto bias adjust though, so you might want to budget for someone competent you trust to change the valves and check the bias.

Modelling amps are pretty good these days, but there still is something about valves for guitars. If practicality is an issue (bad back, small car, lots of stairs, lots of gigs) look at the Line 6 stuff, they model better than anyone imho. I have an original POD for heavy stuff, through the Fender warming it up a little it's a great sound.