How much should you spend on yor amp??

[knotty]

Cost of your guitar x 10%? 50%? 150%?

 

for instance if someone had a budget of £/$ 2000. What split would you recommend? What would you choose first, amp or guitar?

[billybilly]

Depends on a lot of things. If you don't gig it's an entirely different equation. My Bugera V22 cost $350, it's all I really need. My guitars generally cost double that. Factor in a few pedals and it's about even. I'm going with even.

[Caffeinated Cat]

Depends on if you're in a band or not. If you're just playing at home you don't need something terribly loud. Also if you fall in love with the sound of a certain amp, then you'll need to spend however much that one costs.

[WRGKMC]

If you buy used, you really cant figure it as a percentage like that.

I buy allot of used gear and as an electronic tech I refurbish the gear myself.

I use $1 a watt as my bargain baseline buying gear and can double or triple my money fairly easily.

If you want to figure it out percentages it might be the Blue book value of the gear is vs. what you pay for it.

 

Cost has little to do with the quality of gear and what tones you may want to get.

If you're looking for a very unique sound, then the gear may be more expensive because you're going for

something that isn't main stream and may be harder to find.

[soundcreation]

Spend whatever it takes to get a sound you are happy with.

[eflatminor]

for instance if someone had a budget of £/$ 2000. What split would you recommend? What would you choose first' date=' amp or guitar?[/quote']

 

Personally, I would decide on the features of both first. What features do you need for the amp (straight forward design or something with a master volume, effects loop, channel switching, etc). Then decide how loud you'll need to get. If it's for your own practice space only, there's no reason to get into high wattage/large cabinets, not with a limited budget anyway. Once you've defined the kind of amp you're looking for, then do the same thing for the guitar. Do you need a solid body to avoid uncontrolled feedback or a hollow body for a jazzier sound? Do you want the chime of single coil pickups or fat humbuckers? Need a tremolo bar? What kind of scale makes sense for the overtones you want, etc.

 

Once you've got your basic ideas down, I would say it's all about the marriage of the guitar and amp. That is to say, don't pick your amp without your guitar and don't pick your guitar without your amp. Try them together and pick the combo that works for you within your price range. Choose them TOGETHER! If you do it that way, it makes no difference the percent breakdown between guitar an amp. None.

 

[Dr. Scottie C]

All 3 guitar teachers I had between the time I was 12 and 17 were all of the opinion that the amp was far more important than the guitar...... they felt that in order to increase the chance that a student would stick to playing, a mediocre guitar was fine, but that a kick ass amp was a must. Years later when I became a teacher myself, many of my co-teachers felt the same way.

[stormin1155]

You can't put a formula or rule of thumb to something like this. Depends on your needs. My Fender Mustang III is perfect for what I need. It cost about what my cheapest guitars and about 12% of what my most expensive guitar cost.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I'd probably split the budget, with a grand going to the guitar, and the other grand going into the amp. IMHO, both are equally important in terms of sound... although I do "get" that it may make more sense to get a smaller, possibly less-expensive amp if you're strictly a at-home player. I'm primarily a studio guy, and most of my amps are 20W or less... but that doesn't mean they were all super inexpensive... although I did find a beat-up Princeton for $80 in a pawn shop and tossed a couple hundred into restoring it and wound up with a killer recording amp that's worthy of even my nicest guitars.

 

As others have said, it really depends on the individual, their preferences and the situation.

[jtr654]

I've bought way less amps(15) than guitars (250+) so buying the best amp new or used that you really want (I used Marshalls for 30+years) .Guitars change like the weather until we find the perfect one and than we still GAS for others.

[Buttcrust]

I dig the Fender Mustang 3, version 2 amplifier. Particularly when the other 2 amps (Hiwatt and Acoustic) are connected with the 2 XLR "out" plugs. For me, it's perfect. That particular amplifier also has a total of 6 buttons on 2 foot switches and an expression pedal and is connected to this laptop with the USB port and can be "fine adjusted" with the included "FUSE" software. I haven't got rid of it yet, because, for me, its actually perfect, which I already statedsmiley-happysmiley-lolsmiley-indifferent:)

Spend as much as you can afford, I guess.