Which Guitar Recording Amp?

[mtl777]

I'm looking for a guitar amp that's good for recording mostly a Fender Strat Plus with Lace Sensors and a Gibson Les Paul with PAF's. Music style is mostly pop-rock, rock, and blues. Good clean tone is more preferable than good distortion since I can get good distortion with pedals. Although, good of both is ideal. My budget is up to $600. I'm considering ADA Rocket A20R (a rare amp--I have a chance to snag one), Peavey Classic 30, Fender Pro Jr., and Fender Blues Jr. Which one do you recommend? I heard the ADA is very good. Is it way better than the others mentioned? Any others worth considering?

Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Michael L.

[inLoco]

go for the fender hot rod deluxe!
i use it with my les paul standard and my strat deluxe! love the sound of it! both clean and with overdrive!
gotta love the tube!!!
go for the extra bucks with the hot rod instead of the blues junior!
it has 2 inputs, loop, and more power!
a must!

[Kurt Foster]

No one can say ... this is a thing you must decide for yourself. Everyone plays differently and what might sound wonderful with you playing might really suck when I pick up the guitar.

My opinion;

... the ADA is outdated / obsolete. A lot of players have reported these amps are very noisy.

Peavey's guitar amps suck for the most part.

The Fenders you mention are tube and I've heard them sound very good with some players. Just be sure not to bang them around too hard. These amps employ large circuit boards with the tube sockets attached to them. One good physical jolt can crack a trace or even the board itself ... which in turn may cause complete failure or even worse an intermittent problem you may Neve be able to find or repair. I advise anyone who uses these newer Fender amps to get a good road case for transport and to be very careful to avoid banging them around when moving.

[CoyoteTrax]

The Pro Jr. absolutely rocks and is one of my faves for recording.

The Blues Jr. is just as sweet.

inLoco is right about the Hot Rod Deluxe too. It's a great sounding amp with beautiful tone but make sure it's not too loud for your studio. 40W of all tube power is really FN loud man.

Kurt's right about deciding for yourself. This is a realtively easy decision though. 2 main questions:

1) How many watts do you really need?

and

2) Do you prefer the tone from 10" or 12" speakers?

Piece of cake.

You're going in the right direction though. You need something to warm up those Lace Sensors and push that signal a bit. All tubes...small watts...the only way to go, IMO. Don Lace pup's do sparkle so nice in the high's and they're great pup's for strat's when your focus is "clean" work.

[Pootkao]

I'll also tip my hat in favour of the Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Its got some of the warmest tones around, is versatile, and offers great bang for the buck.

[TheArchitect]

Any old Fender or Marshall that are in reasonable shape will get it done. The tweed Peavey's have a decent clean but the dirt isn't my style. I like old musicman amps for mild dirt.

Wow, I guess I really don't like new amps...

[moonbaby]

I have a room full of amps, and I have had sooo many problems with the "newer" Fender "Jr" and "Hot Rod" amps, I have dumped them all. Kurt has a good point about them. They are very poorly built. They develop some very annoying rattles and microphonic noises due to the close proximity of the speaker to the tubes. The Hotrod never seemed to footswitch like it was supposed to.
I now have a 68 Fender Bandmaster Reverb. Did a "VibraVerb" mod. Am in love. You can find these on e-bay in your price range.
I used to sell Peavey amps. They have lousy parts, poor QC, and the buzziest overdrive in the biz. Southern-fried crappola.
ADA gear is cheap on the internet because it is cheap gear.
I also have a Musicman HD65. Good clean tone. Whimpy reverb compared to the Fender. I put a 12" JBL D120F in it. Southern-fried chicken-pickin' to the max!
You might check out a good used Sunn, like a 100s or Solarus or Sceptre. All tube, great clean sound, built like a tank. Ditto with the Traynor MkIII...a Twin on steroids!

[idiophone]

The only amp I know that sounds great with Fenders and Gibsons is a Fender Bassman. You can find reproductions of them in boutique shops. I have a Holland Gibb Droll, and it's fantastic.

I know that's probably not in your price range, but it helps to have an idea of what the best amp is, and work down from there.

~id

[RAIN0707]

I played a Peavey Triple X head and now I play a Peavey JSX Head. By far the best amp I have ever played. Beats the crap out of my Mesa Dual Rectifier and my Marshall JCM800 (and I loved my Marshall). The only amp I have played that I can get a better tone out of is the new Hughes and Kettner Triamp MkII but those are like 3,000 bucks. Too much for me.

[Hardtailed]

For recording, more power is useless. However, an amp with a 8" speaker will sound harsh IMHO. For me, nothing beats a 12" speaker for guitar, so I'd limit my list to strictly 1X12 or 2X12 combos. Might want to throw Traynor in the mix though (a YCV50 Blue or a YCV20 are interesting flavors). But it's really up to you to decide what sounds the best to you. I can attest that the Traynors are very reliable (having used 2 YCV80 on the road for a couple years).

BTW Kurt: yes newer amps are cheapily built, but they're not that fragile: my Marshall JCM2000 DSL50 use PCB too and gets banged around quite often (we gig every weekend and carry our stuff in a trailer) and recently was sent flying through the air from the top of the cab, landed a good 10-12 ft further and was left exposed to heavy rain for a few minutes. It still works and sounds awesome!

I wouldn't advise a Marshall combo though (at least not the newer ones), to me they sounds like pure shit (really different than the stacks) and some have overheating issues. God intended Marshalls to be used in stacks.