Sorting out an electric guitar for son's birthday- can anyone recommend an economically priced amplifier for it?
Guitar will be a Yamaha Pacifica 012, on reccomendation (which is at the top of what we want to spend) - unless anyone else has any other outstanding ideas.
He's 10, been learning acoustic at school for the last 18 months if that might help.
Thanks.
Vox valve tronics or roland cubes.
They sound fine and have headphone outs. 😉
A Fender Mustang II or III for versatility, grunt and sparkle. I like the Cube too, it does the bottom end very well, but prefer the clean Fender sounds. I've got a tiny Vox, have used The VT range and find them thin compared with the Cubes and Fenders.
Junior with the first electric and amp I bought him: Mustang II amp and a Squier Classic Vibe Tele.
Vox valve tronics
got one for £70 off gumtree - excellent.
has a power limiter so you can turn down the output but still hit a high volume (according to the volume knob but with output turned down to say 5W so high volume=not too much noise) to get a proper valve distortion sound without bringing the house down.
Slightly Off topic.
On topic PSA.
[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04c3l7j ]BBC 4 10pm. Story of the Marshall amp[/url]
Roland Cube has similar volume reduction called power Squeezer .
From a budget point of view it is worth looking at what is for sale locally for pickup only - I got a Cube 15x for £30 in perfect condition.
look into one that doubles up as an audio interface too. My wee blackstar id core 10 can be used as such, I'd imagine others mentioned on this thread may well be similar.
Could save you 100 quid or so, down the line, if the wee yin decides they want to start recording.
On the guitar front if you can stretch to it I would recommend the Squier classic vibes.
Ive got the 50's Tele and it play like a guitar twice the price.
Slightly different idea
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Small and neat ... just three controls Vol, gain and tone means less messing about with effects and more playing, a good thing... and no chance of upsetting the neighbours or having to hear Smoke on the Water a 1000 times 😀
Be careful of his ears, mind
Never used one of these but maybe its an idea... although this will be the polar opposite in terms of effects and messing about
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You could always abandon any pretense of responsible parenting for about £20 - Smokey Amps
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Roland Microcube.
It's only 2W, has line in (for mp3) and headphone socket (5mm?). Can run on batteries if needs be.
1/2 dozen amp models, 4 effects, reverb/delay. Doesn't cost the earth.
Great for a first bedroom amp.
+1 for Roland Cube, daughter has one and it's great, picked up used but like new for £35.
One of these: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orange-Micro-crush-CR3/dp/B001C9R5P6
I've seen these being used at a gig, The Drink, in Bristol, and I was incredibly impressed with them, obviously miked/DI'd into the band's own little PA, but really excellent sound, and stupidly cheap.
Actually, I've just checked back at the photos I took, and the bass player was using an Orange Micro Terror head amp and cabinet, but the head is still only £99, not bad for a proper valve amp, was pretty loud in the small venue they were playing:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orange-Micro-Terror-Head-MT20/dp/B00DV9H47E
Blackstar Fly, superb little amp for the money.
Roland cubes are excellent little amps
Positive grid bias on the iPad with an apogee interface would be another good move
...and for something completely different https://www.thejamjaramps.com
Although he's better off with one of the suggestions above!
I'd put more money into the amp than the guitar
Yamaha thr10 is my default recommendation.
I think we got my son an orange crush 20
I took him to a few shops to try things, Everything online seemed to rate the Fender Mustang
But in the end he rejected all the digital emulation modes and just bought an amp in an ok size box
I think we payed about a hundred
It replaced a cheap no brand AMP that died. It was a false economy
Roland micro cube
fender mustang
Fly3
In that order, you've had some pretty good advice here, I've had the vox too and it just isn't on par. Another option is a second hand Marshall avt275 I've seen these go around the 100quid mark and would be great for life and better quality .