Hey all, i have a basic 100 watt fender frontman, FM 212R amp, that i play my American Strat, MIM tele, a schecter sh-1 semi hollow body with split coil duncan designed humbuckers which are good, but not as fat sounding as true buckers go. Now, as a player, i am only somewhat advanced, not yet ready for being in a working band, but can perform a small song list for church worship leading, using the clean channel only. As i said, the amp isn't bad i'm sure, but i have been drooling over several sweet deals on seemingly good tube amps, listed on my local madison wisconsin craigslist. currently, i'm gassing heavily over a fender limited emerald green deluxe 50 watt amp for $450, a fender tweed blues deluxe 40 watt reissue for $500, a fender hot rod deluxe, 40 watt, black tolex, i think it's the same amp as the tweed reissue? for $450, a peavey classic 50 212 tweed amp for $400, a 1995 laney vc30-210 for $425, a circa 82-84 music man 112 rd50 that got very high marks at harmony centrals user reviews and priced at twice they asking price of $200 for the one i'm eyeballing. and finally, a pignose g-40v that got great reviews for $225 All these amps are tubers, i of course lean towards the fender blues amps because they're fenders, but the music man seems to be a great price, however tube condition is unknown, it is dated, yada yada yada. I guess i'm trying to figure out if i should: 1- go for the best i can afford, fenders, 2-grab a $200 deal, 3- make the best of my Fm 212 till i can buy what i want new when i'm advanced enough to need a tone monster with that driven tube breakup that is so sought after. Ah, sweet confusion, so many choices, what a country! Thanks for any input guys!

_________________
I believe in Christianity as i believe that the sun has risen. not only because i see it, but because by it, i see everything else. C.S. Lewis

I have, but I slam the crap out of the signal going into it with a Keeley modded Boss Metal Zone...

I suggest trying out a few overdrive pedals on the clean channel of your amp to see if you can get the tubular sounds you want while taking the time to try out various tube amps until you find one that meets your taste and needs...

_________________
RAMA LAMA FA FA FA

Wow ash, i've never seen those two amps! Thanks a lot!

freshener, thanks for the tip! Sides, i payed $225 for it used, and haven't experimented at all with it yet. i do have a boss bd-2 blues driver pedal to tweak with, which i realize is not near as potent as your keeley modded metal monster. I just wasn't greatly impressed with the sound, running my Strat direct into the clean channel with only the spring reverb. One thing i noticed right away after i bought the amp, is how short in length the spring reverb box is compared to the ones in the late sixties fender vibrolux amps! Those bad boys ran a pretty fair ways across the amps bottom, something like 3/4 of the boxes entire width! Ah well, i suspect it's the player more that the amp anyway, i very well could be expecting too much of any type of amp. Doesn't fender have a "makes the mid skill level player sound like a guitar god" model? They have an SRV Start don't they??!!

P.S. You guys really are the best man, i could come on here and complain about my dog, and you would chime in with good advice and support!

_________________
I believe in Christianity as i believe that the sun has risen. not only because i see it, but because by it, i see everything else. C.S. Lewis

I have and use the Fender SCXD exclusively now. It is an amazing amp and believe me it has plenty of power for gigging. If it does not have enough, you can always mic it and life is even better.. Hope that this helps.
ABS

Going from a 100 watt FM212 to a Pro Junior will be trading one disadvantage for another. You currently have an amp with enough power to gig with but a tone you're not fond of. If you move to a Pro Junior you lose your gig-readiness as even miced up a PJ will not be enough amp and your gains in the tone department would be debatable and as well you would lose channel switching.

I am assuming the reason you ended up with the FM212 in the first place was due to budget restraints. With that in mind, Fender used to make a line of SS amps that were actually fairly decent and affordable called the Dyna-Touch series and they sounded better to my ears than the FM amps, especially on the clean settings. Impressively chimey for SS. Maybe try to find one of those in the used market. There was a 90 watt version with a single 12 called a Deluxe 90. There was also a 100 watt 2X12 version called a Stage 100. These amps also had some kinda cheesy built in FX but there's no law says you have to use those if you don't want to. These amps would have been built in the early 2000's. By the mid 2000's Fender was starting to mess around with that amp range making them ever cheesier until they eventually dropped the line-up altogether.

My 2¢

_________________

Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

Honestly, just make sure that you take the opinions in this forum as only one of many information sources in your decision.

For me, I run a Line 6 head through a 2x12 cab with EVM 12Ls. I get a great clean tone and a heavy tone. For my heavy tone which admittedly is quite heavy, I have a Digitech multi-effects unit that I use to mildly layer some effects over the L6 to fatten it a bit. However, my clean tone is dry. The key to me with solid state is being eq'd right and finding that sweet spot. I am not slandering tubes or telling any body what is better. All I am saying is ... you can get gobs of tone with modern solid-state gear. You definitely can ...

_________________
Laughing out loud with fear and hope, I have a desperate plan ...

I have a late 90's Line-6 AX2-212 which I used to use quite often and have recently decided that I like it again. For that late 80's and early 90's hard rock sound with tons of signal processing it works remarkably well. I find the clean amp emulations don't succeed nearly as well as the heavier models like the Dual Rectifier and the Soldano emulations. The only clean emulation I find useful at all is the Small Tweed. It's not bad for general tone but lacks the dynamic response of a real amp.

_________________

Just think of how awesome a guitar player you could have been by now if you had only spent the last 10 years practicing instead of obsessing over pickups and roasted maple necks.

I used a line6pod into a marshall solidstate poweramp for a good while. I couldnt have been happier with it.
I like the FM212 too. Thought it was a great amp. Lots of people with no performance experience slate solidstate amps.

The main thing they have in their favour is that they sound the same night in night out. Ok you have to work harder with them, but once your done they respond the same at any volume. Except 8+ where some start to distort a bit.

_________________
No no and no

First amp was a Marshall masterlead 60w 2x12 great sound when you could get the pots just right, age / damp got the better of it though, got a marshall avt 100 now 3 channels, effects, footswitch, bit of getting used to but love it now, heavy bugger though compared to the old 2x12

WOW!!! What a wealth of knowledge that has sprung forth in this thread!!! There's just no question, the possibilities are pretty much endless! Well, thanks very much everyone, just doesn't seem to even begin to cover it here! Guys, i'm really grateful, this is such an awesome collection of valuable opinions based on so much experience, that one person could never gather all the information from it all, in an entire lifetime! This is priceless knowledge here, IMHO! This is the good stuff here baby! I'm SO glad i asked, to put it midly!

_________________
I believe in Christianity as i believe that the sun has risen. not only because i see it, but because by it, i see everything else. C.S. Lewis

Dave theres a lot of gumf about how much better valve amps are than solidstate. Its just that, gumf. Both are tools and have their applications, advantages and disadvantages in any given situation.
Where your at, stick with what makes you comfortable. Comfort is what makes you play better, not what some bloke on the internet says.

_________________
No no and no

He said bloke! Seriously, Well said indeed Nikininja, i'm sure that in the end, we all need to put all information to the test before we can know what really floats our individual boats tone wise, oh yeah, as mentioned in one of the posts here, tastes can change over time anyway! Ah, but what an adventure it all must be, savoring all those different variables, and different combinations of such, over time! Yeah baby!

P.S. It's funny, you're mentioning amp performance above 8, as i never put mine beyond 3 so far, as it sounds so loud already, that i seems sure to blow the speakers at say, 5 or so!

_________________
I believe in Christianity as i believe that the sun has risen. not only because i see it, but because by it, i see everything else. C.S. Lewis

Whats wrong with using the term Bloke? It means normal everyday man.

_________________
No no and no

I have a solid state Vox Pathfinder 15R ,it's 15 loud watts with reverb and a great tremolo,for around $130 you can't go wrong.This little darling sounds more tube like than solid state,I imagine that in a blindfold test it would be hard to tell.

_________________
'65 Strat,65 Mustang,65 Jaguar,4 more Strats,3 vintage Vox guitars,5 Vox amps,'69 Bassman with a '68 2-15 Bassman cab,36 guitars total-15asst'd amps total,2 vintage '60s Hammond organs & a myriad of effects-with a few rare vintage ones.

Oh, there's absolutely nothing wrong with the term bloke, i mentioned it becaues it's really cool to me, to hear someone from the UK use such terms. i would be saying i dig your accent as well if i was able to hear it. I've pretty much always had a thing for accents, and things like terms used by many cultures to describe things, i.e, that bloke's daft as a post! Don't get me started on monty python!

_________________
I believe in Christianity as i believe that the sun has risen. not only because i see it, but because by it, i see everything else. C.S. Lewis