Which is more important to your tone... amp or guitar?

[Bro Blue]

... which begs the question... why the {censored} do we get our knickers in so much of a twist about guitars on this forum?

 

 

Because if we got our knickers in a twist over amps we would have to go to the amp forums, and most of those guys are assholes.

[mcr23]

maps

[Milky Toast]

Amp for sure

[Stspider]

They're both very important. If I had to pick one I'd say amp tho.

[jamdogg]

"8. Your amplifier accounts for anywhere from 55% - 80% of your tone. If your amp sucks, buying the best guitar in the world won't help much. That's just the way it is. "

[jbandy10]

Amp.

[doc oc]

Although, just to play devils advocate, no kickass amp will ever make a single coil sound like a humbucker or vice versa.

If this is indeed true, why do most of us have one maybe two amps and god knows how many guitars?

[PlinytheWelder]

That could be a good thing

I have all the parts for my Trainwreck build.....Shame me into a build thread.:poke:

[MichaelSaulnier]

Although, just to play devils advocate, no kickass amp will ever make a single coil sound like a humbucker or vice versa. If this is indeed true, why do most of us have one maybe two amps and god knows how many guitars?

 

 

Well, isn't the answer in your question.

 

Sure a good amp can make a variety of good guitars sound good... but each guitar will have it's own voice... so an amp can't make a strat sound like an LP or vice versa... for me, I've got over a dozen guitars, and while my amp helps each one to sound good, they certainly don't sound the same.

 

As far as amps with "different sounds"... for example, a Marshall JCM 800 doesn't sound like a Fender Twin... The Mesa I have is pretty versatile with a Fenderish clean channel, and a Mesa Mark style OD channel... each with their own tone stack... adding a M13 pedalboard gives me a whole bunch of great amp sounds... as many as I really need.

 

As a backup, I've recently got great used deals on both a Cyber-twin and a Line6 Vetta, (now upgraded to Vetta II)... these each have tons of tones and while they don't have quite the pure "tube" tone of my Mesa, either one would work in a pinch if I need it to... now that I've tweeked some settings for myself.

 

I do have friends who have MANY amps... but almost all of them have WAY more guitars than amps.

 

M

[MichaelSaulnier]

I have all the parts for my Trainwreck build.....Shame me into a build thread.:poke:

Build it PLINY... BUILD IT!



PICS AND A THREAD TOO PLEASE!

M

[PlinytheWelder]

Build it PLINY... BUILD IT! PICS AND A THREAD TOO PLEASE! M

Not if it gets lost in 2.0....

[Poster Nutbag]

I think of it in terms of the signal chain:

Guitar -> amp -> you listening

A crappy guitar thru a good amp can still sound good. But a good guitar gets masked by a crappy amp. The total win is good guitar + good amp. In other words, the device downstream will have a more pronounced effect on tone compared to the device before it. Seems to apply to pedals too..

[BydoEmpire]

A crappy guitar thru a good amp can still sound good. But a good guitar gets masked by a crappy amp.

Yep, amp. There's a lot wider variation in tone between amps than guitars, too. I bet anyone can tell the difference between a Fender Super and a Mesa Dual Rectifier in a blind test of mp3 files. It's just a huge difference. I bet half the guitar players out there think (or thought at one point) Jimmy Page used a Les Paul on Led Zeppelin 1.

[Steadfastly]

This subject has been discussed over and over again and it's always agreed that the amp produces the greatest portion of the sound and usually it is way more then 50%.

It's like this. You can have a great stereo system but if the speakers are cheap, you will get cheap sound. The same principle applies to guitar. The last piece of sound equipment is always the most important.

[nuke_diver]

This subject has been discussed over and over again and it's always agreed that the amp produces the greatest portion of the sound and usually it is way more then 50%. It's like this. You can have a great stereo system but if the speakers are cheap, you will get cheap sound. The same principle applies to guitar. The last piece of sound equipment is always the most important.

Got to go with this. It is said when buying a stereo you should put 1/2 your money into the speakers alone and it makes sense. The speakers are where the sound comes from. If the speakers are crap and it a beautiful low noise hand wired amp...it's still going to sound like crap

Now if you are looking for a certain sound, a different amp can do that (Blackface vs AC30 for example) and certainly SC vs HB will give a certain sound but the speaker will dictate if is sounds good or not...well that and the player which is why I can use cheap stuff