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What is the BEST (and inexpensive) PRACTICE AMP out there?


aiiiiee

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for the money- you'd be hard pressed to do better than a fender frontman 25r. the valvetronix sound pretty nice.. but for a simple, usable, good sounding combo with footswitching and reverb... the frontman. if you're using A LOT of gain.. meh.. it's pretty solid statey-- but if you don't use it for full onslaught metallzorz madness chuggz.. it's a great clean to midgain amp up to about halfway on the master- which is pretty doggone loud for an 'in the house' sorta amp.

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Do you mean individual practice, like at home?

Hmmm. I dunno... for practice I've been using a LIne6 guitarport through my laptop with a nice set of cans for about 10 years now. I can play over backing tracks, my own tracks, or MP3's with a perfect mix, and the tones are plenty good enough for inspired practice in headphones. If I need to play it out loud, I have a pair of desktop reference monitors. It works great..... for me.
it was $99 10 years ago.

I had a small Marshall MG.... sold it to a 12 year old on my street. it was worthless to me.
tried using my MarkV combo, but even at 10W it's just too loud, and not easy to jam to tracks with. The headphone modeler can't be beat for simple practice.

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Good question, pinky! Practice at home, so headphone jacks are pretty much a must (Live in a council flat w/my wife!)! My PC isn't really good enough (nor do i have the programs/memory) for recording/listening/practicing on it. I agree with Marshalls (or at least the cheaper Valve-oriented ones) - have not had a good history w/Peaveys; I'm concerned that cheaper Vox's might be like cheaper Marshalls, but youtube demos make them look/sound more versatile. Have owned Fenders and only tube Fenders are worth it, IMHO, and they're too expensive. Curious about Orange amps, never played through one.

Please keep the suggestions/advice/experiences coming, people! Thanks!

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I wonder about your PC thou... cuz really... the one I'm using is a 6 YO laptop... that is so jacked up at this point I can't even stream Pandora on it anymore. I wouldn't dream of using it to record with any longer... that is a different system now. Yet... Gearbox (the line 6 app), and itunes work fine. Gearbox is a free download, and it's been around for over 10 years, and is very light on system resource needs. The interface (guitarport) is (was?) $99 new. Not sure if they even still sell them, because they closed up the guitar port website last summer. They are $25 on Fleabuy thou..
The interface becomes the soundcard, so you can mix your guitar right over itunes or anything else.

That's worth a shot if you ask me. If you're useing headphopnes, there is no better tool that I have found, even after 10 years. It has a ton of built in amp models, tons of FX, a built in tuner, and a built in player that lets you slow stuff down to half speed (still in tune) for figuring out solo parts. for $25? It's a no brainer.. my 1.5cents worth.

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Quote Originally Posted by aiiiiee View Post
Good question, pinky! Practice at home, so headphone jacks are pretty much a must (Live in a council flat w/my wife!)! My PC isn't really good enough (nor do i have the programs/memory) for recording/listening/practicing on it. I agree with Marshalls (or at least the cheaper Valve-oriented ones) - have not had a good history w/Peaveys; I'm concerned that cheaper Vox's might be like cheaper Marshalls, but youtube demos make them look/sound more versatile. Have owned Fenders and only tube Fenders are worth it, IMHO, and they're too expensive. Curious about Orange amps, never played through one.

Please keep the suggestions/advice/experiences coming, people! Thanks!
so basically, you want an orange, having never played one. facepalm.gif

why ask, if you've got biases against pretty much everything but an amp you haven't played?
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Quote Originally Posted by aiiiiee View Post
uuuuuuhhhh, WHAT?
I'm researching amps and Orange amps have taken my interest along with others and I'm asking what everyone thinks. "Unbiased".
Any other questions that really don't need explaining?
Yeah...why are you being an asshole when people are trying to help? freak.gif

I've never understood this {censored}...


Anyway, the blackstar amps are great practice amps...I have an HT5 and I still play it a lot. The Peavey Vypyr line is pretty promising though I haven't played one. Even the Line 6 spyder stuff sounds decent for practice.

FWIW, I use a Roland Microcube that's about 10" wide and 8" tall as my practice amp and it's great for that. I don't need stellar tone when I'm working on chops or writing song idn_smilie.gif
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Trying to avoid a real Solid State sound, it's gotta have a headphone jack, nice clean/true-as-possible distortion and preferably reverb (other effects would be fine, I suppose!).

sure maybe you could tether terms like 'Solid State sound', true as possible distortion, and nice clean.

really-- you're asking for a lot from an amp-- and people've thrown you some decent suggestions, but you seem to dislike peaveys, fenders, marshalls, and voxes. leaving orange. and some yamaha lunchboxes. icon_lol.gif

SO- for $200, gimme great distortion, great clean, great reverb, and it can't be by an amp company that makes anything available anywhere. unless it's an orange.

you sir, are confirmedly, a guitar player.

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