ugh I need a gig amp badly

otay, I just talked to my mom about this, and she's telling me that I can buy an amplifier on a credit card then I can pay it in monthly payments. so now my price range just increased to like $700-800. so now I'm thinking I'm gonna get a half stack. but I want to know a little about half stacks before I get one, can you mix and match heads and cabinets? for example, can you put a Marshall AVT50H head with a Marshall MG412 cabinet? or is there something with having to be able to match the wattages and ohmages? yeah, I need a little educating about this... I can't really afford a AVT50H head with an AVT412 cab, but I might be able to afford the head with a cheaper cabinet... anything that will help me understand what is possible in mixing and matching heads and cabinets will be appreciated... I'm going to guitar center this weekend to try some out, but once I decide I'll probably buy it off musicians friend cause it's probably cheaper... unless it's the same price, then I could just buy it there.

I take it that wattage has to match up somewhat too? now, if I'm guessing right then the wattage of the cabinet has to be higher than the wattage of the head because wattage of a cabinet means how many watts it can handle? that is a total guess... but ohms has to match up... k...

ok... I've got this narrowed down then... Marshall MG100DFX (solid state) head, with Marshall MG412 cabinet... OR... Marshall AVT50H (Hybrid) head with a Behringer BG412S cab... I can't really afford anything better... but would the marshall/behringer combo that I listed work? the Marshall AVT50H has 50W, and I don't know how many ohms it has but the BG412S is an 8-ohm, 400W cab... also, does anyone know if the AVT50H has a clean/crunch switch on the clean channel and a OD1/OD2 switch for the OD channel like the MG has? thanks

wait, ok, I just found out that the AVT50H has a 4 ohm impendance.. so will that work with the behringer?

Dude if you want a half stack...check musicians friend man...I got a crate I love and one of my friends has an ibanez out of there its alright...not phenomenal(sp?) but alright...but be warned I'm a metal guitarist...so I crave super distortion. :D

Originally Posted by: rockonmanDude if you want a half stack...check musicians friend man...I got a crate I love and one of my friends has an ibanez out of there its alright...not phenomenal(sp?) but alright...but be warned I'm a metal guitarist...so I crave super distortion. :D

dude, I am checking musicians friend and zzounds ALOT... I think I've spent more than 20 hours researshing amps in the last few days

You are correct in that the cab should be able to handle the same or more watts than the head. My cousin has a Behringer 4x12 cab and he seems to like it ok. But... unless your church or wherever you play can hold around 1,000 people, with ought going through a PA, then a 4x12 is a little overkill. With your new price range, I would suggest buying a used Peavey Classic 30 and an Avatar 1x12 extension cabinet with an Eminence Governor speaker. Check them out here . That would be one sweet set up, and be under your $700 limit :D !

the Line 6 vetta II is a pretty nice amp. the effects and stuff are almost limitless. Its prolly gonna be my next amp. it really expensive tho. 1`600 for just the head. i think the cab is 1600 too but I dunno.

Originally Posted by: Re2point0the Line 6 vetta II is a pretty nice amp. the effects and stuff are almost limitless. Its prolly gonna be my next amp. it really expensive tho. 1`600 for just the head. i think the cab is 1600 too but I dunno.

$1600 on a solid state amp?!It hurts my brain to even think about it!That things costs like $30 for them to make probly!Get a Mesa tripile rectifier or ENGL powerball or something.

If you disagree that you indeed feel its worth that much money,then please enlighten me.Otherwise,my head will explode.

don't worry about, my church has a PA... and when we went up to winter camp this year, they had 2 guitarists that both had a half stack. and that was just playing in a fairly small room, smaller than the one I'll be playing in, playing for about 30-40 people, I'll be playing for around 50-70 people... even though those guitarists were so much better than me... seriously, one of them played a lightning fast solo for "amazing grace" and played with his teeth... but yeah, I really can't decide on whether to get the behringer with the marshall hybrid, or just to take the marshall solid state with the marshall amp... one set-up has a better head, the other has a better cab (celestions!) if I could afford to get the hybrid marshall head with the marshall cab, I would... but I suppose if I get the behringer now, I can upgrade the speakers to celestions later... sound good?

If you're going to go with a half stack, make sure the head has a "club" setting.

So, let's say it's a 100 watt head, there's a switch on the back that will cut it down to something like 25 watts. Most good heads now-a-days have one and it's louder than you'd think. A guy I know picked up a Sunn 300t and played it for quite a while on the low-power setting before realizing that's what it was. He said he was afraid of what the full 100 watts was going to do in terms of volume.


I point this out because for what you're going to be doing with it, 30 - 60 tube watts is going to be more than loud enough. In fact, to get a 50 or 60 watt amp turned up loud enough to make it "happy" (they're designed to operate at certain volumes), you're going to be making a lot of people's ears bleed.

Also, if you're going to be playing with the acoustic players, they're not going to be very happy about you drowing them out. Conversely, you're not going to be at all happy to play through an amp that's turned down so low you can't get a good tone out of it.

Originally Posted by: RaskolnikovAlso, if you're going to be playing with the acoustic players, they're not going to be very happy about you drowing them out.

ha ha ha... it's their turn... they've been drowning me out up till now!!! just kidding. but we seriously have like 3 acoustic players, and I'm the only electric... it's a very messed up band... 3 acoustics, one electric (me), one bass, 4 female singers, occasionally one male singer, one keyboard player, and since we don't have a drummer we have someone who plays bongos and a djembe..... very messed up band indeed... but the way it usually goes is the acoustic players are all playing the same thing, the bass is playing single notes that match the chords, and I'm playing the power chord equivilent to the chord (for example, if it calls for C#m, I play a C#5) so if a tube amp needs to be in a certain volume range then would I be better off sticking to the solid state amp?

Originally Posted by: 6strngs_2hmbkrsso if a tube amp needs to be in a certain volume range then would I be better off sticking to the solid state amp?

ALL amps are designed to operate in a certain range.

A 100 watt amp is designed to be LOUD, it doesn't matter if it's tube or solid state.

The biggest difference you'll find is that tube amps, once they get to 3 or 5 on the dial start to come into their own and tend to get better and better as you turn it up. Solid states on the other hand will be happy within a certain range, above it and below it they don't sound so good.

That's outside of tube amps sounding warmer and fatter; solid states tend to sound cold and brittle.

what I'm playing through right now is a solid state amp, and it doesn't sound bad to me... it could be better, but it's not bad.

Yea I perfer a tube amp, they sound better.

heh,what songs do you play 6strings?Does the distortion help pickup the overall 'scape' of the hymns/worship music?

It would be neat to hear a hymn with deep pantera-like palm muting..

Originally Posted by: chucklivesoninmyheartheh,what songs do you play 6strings?Does the distortion help pickup the overall 'scape' of the hymns/worship music?

It would be neat to hear a hymn with deep pantera-like palm muting..

An x below the chord means it's plam muted

G|-----------------------------------------5--------7------
D|-2--2--2--2--2-2-2-2-2--2-2--2---------5--------7------
A|-2--2--2--2--2-2-2-2-2--2-2--2---------3--------5------
E|-0--0--0--0--0-0-0-0-0--0-0--0--------------------------
x x x x x x x x
{ played 3x }

this is what I play as an intro to "awesome god"... how's that? obviously I have to tone it down some for slower songs and usually end up just playing a chord and holding it... and some other songs I play some single string riffs high up on the fretboard... trust me, you can use distortion in worship music, we are converting traditional church songs into something more contemporary... which is good, cause if they tried to throw an acoustic in my hands and told me to play normal chords... i would quit

I saw your post and might have a suggestion for you. I recently went "amp shopping on a budget" myself. I tried out some "Classic Names" and everything else in between.

I tried the Behringer V-tone GMX 212 combo, and fell in love. It is a 100 watt 2x12 2 chanel combo. It is a analog modeling amp, with 3 amp models, 3 speaker simulators,and many many built in affects (That can be tweaked and stored).

It has 98 adjustable presets, and an presence knob to tweak the highs a bit more. it also has more plugs in the back than I will ever use, with line in & out,
loud speaker outs (For hooking into a cab) tape in and out (you can hook in a tape or cd player and play along) aux. with adjustable volume, slave inputs, loop, and midi port.

Since it is analog it has a sweeter warmer sound, similar to tube like sounds, both channels have a drive knob so you can tweak from just a hair distortion to full shred on either chanel.

Or go all acoustic if you like. So far it has been realy user friendly.

The price new is $275.00 I believe. So far I have been realy happy with it. You might want to test drive it and see what you think.

Good luck hunting!

Lep

well, just to let you all know, I got the Fender FM 212 R, cause my budget went back down, but I'm not going to get all technical on you and tell you why... but musicians friend says it'll be here in 2-5 days, can't wait...

hope you enjoy it! and be sure to give us a tone report, and/or a full review (following the format) in the "gear review" section.