OK so right now I'm just running with the Squier Affinity Strat and Frontman 15g starter pack. Now I'll be honest like I said when I got it I was very impressed. But at the same time I will of course be now saving to buy new better gear! However with my job disposable income is at minimum and I can only save for one piece at a time!


So the opinions I'm trying to get here, is in you guys views, would you rather first play the Squier into a better amp or a better guitar into the 15g.

Personally I feel like the sensible option would be to go with a better amp first, but new guitars are just so shiney

But I know there is a lot of sensible knowledge on the boards so just trying to see what you guys think!

Cheers.

i think the answer will be with you, when you are playing do you feel that the guitar doesn't keep up or do what you want? Or does the sound not seem to satisfy you. I have a few cheap guitars that play like madmen so i know that the guitar is not what is holding back my playing. If you are wanting more crazy sounds then the amp would be the choice... or look into a few sound bending pedals. I think that many of the cheap guitar and amp set ups are just fine for many years. You only run into issues if the guitar feels clunky or has bad/cheap pickups. We all crave the best but often it is our consumerism that drives our lust not the technical limitations of the gear we have. PLEASE do not take this as an attack, i have many MANY guitars that are way too good for me.

wanted to add (not trying to spam).... if you are digging playing guitar and love it then by all means upgrade. For a long time i was shopping for amps but kept getting snowed under by technical jargon and general confusion. To me the world of guitars is very straight forward and easy to understand. Amps on the other hand are a very different breed. It took me a very long time to settle on an amp and even that purchase is waiting until i get back home.

No worries I see nothing there as an attack, it's all useful points of view.

If anything I lean towards that the amp is holding back the sound of the guitar, it seems to make sense to go the route of letting the guitar be able to express itself to the fullest first! Luckily next week I'm at a friends for a few days who owns an american strat and a "better" amp than mine so I can try out all the combos and see!


However I do find the more I practise my playing the better my guitar and amp and tone seems to sound.....funny that




Yeah even browsing it seems that way, very confusing, I think the appropriate way to go about it would be to take my guitar along, plug it in a see what sounds good to me, regardless if its the most expensive one in there or one of the cheapest. I think so long as it sounds good it doesn't matter if its top of the range or not.

I know from my snowboarding career (which I'm sponsored and paid to teach) that expensive doesn't mean best for you. I would ride a $300 board and run rings around everyone on "better" boards. So I have experience at not being sucked into commercial fads!

Amp.

I am of the opinion that the amp is just as much of an instrument as the guitar, if not more. I think an inexpensive Squire played through a great amp will sound better than a great guitar through a cheap amp if everything else is the same. The amp is what actually makes the sound.

My 2 cents.

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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.

My opinion.. Amp FTW.

A better guitar will still sound very thin through that amp. Go with a new amp and start enjoying a thicker tone.

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Thats what I've been thinking, my family has been in the Hi-Fi business for years and I'd always skimp on the cd player rather than amp and speaker section, that was the school of thought I was going to apply to this too.

Amp....and here's how to prove it:

Take your guitar and amp to a shop with a wide selection of equipment. Play an upgraded guitar through your amp. Then play your guitar through an upgraded amp.

The second combination will sound (as they Cajuns say), "mo' betterer, sho' 'nuff I gaar-ron-tee!"

As far as what amp, well, there's a million and one nuances to that, but do the same thing you would do if buying a new guitar--play through as many as possible and find what fits your style + budget.

If you're not yet playing in a band, take wattage/loudness into consideration, but don't make it the only consideration. Remember that if you find somthing that "fits", you can always mic it through the PA if it's not loud enough to be heard over a drummer. A good-sounding low wattage tube amp will always be better than a "meh"-sounding loud one.

Although I am a member of the Holy Temple of Vacuum Tubes, don't reject an amp just because it's solid state. The Fender Frontman series (especially the FM212) are great amps, for the money. If you have the money for a good tube amp, go that direction, but if you're desperate to get something soon and have to go solid state, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

...and remember, used is almost always cheaper and saves you big $$.

Whatever you do, please post a pic--we love to see everybody's new acquisitions.

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Good Vibes To Y'all!



Screamin' Armadillos
Texas Roadhouse Music
Guitar/Slide Guitar/Harp/Vocals

+1 on the amp. IMO get yourself a quality tube amp and build your rig from there. I highly recommend checking out the peavey classic series amps. 100% made in America, reasonably priced (for a tube amp) and very versatile.

You really need both but I would go along with the rest and say "Amp" first. Good luck and keep us informed!!

Another check for the amp.

I'd also like to add that Squier guitars really aren't all that bad, especially for the money. Get the guitar a nice amp to play through for now, and until you can afford a new guitar the Squier will serve its purpose just fine.

I guess I'll be the first to say guitar. I assume you're a beginner since you are using a starter pack. IMHO having a decent guitar to practice on is more important then how good your tone is. Chances are you'll be spending more time playing it unplugged anyways. Get a Squire Classic Vibe, a great guitar for the price ($350).

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Tune Low, Play Hard & Floor it!

I appreciate the thought behind this, I'd still class myself as somewhat a beginner but have had a fair bit of time on an acoustic also, just didn't have the cash at the time to fork out for more expensive electric gear.

To be honest with you the build quality and feel of the neck all feels really good to me, no annoying hangups or issues that get in the way of me practising so continuing with the guitar doesn't really worry me. I'm not sure where the unplugged bit comes from, if I'm playing it then it's plugged in, otherwise I play the acoustic, if it's late I'll play it with headphones in so the neighbours don't cry



Still hedging towards a new amp I think, which of course opens up a whole new barrel of fish that only hours of trawling around guitar shops with my guitar can fix

Cheers all of you.

I hear guys saying this all the time and I've never once understood it. That just doesn't compute for me. If I'm not plugged in it's because I've got an acoustic in my hands and even then I might still be plugged in. There's no point whatsoever in playing an electric guitar unless it's plugged in. That's the whole point of it being an electric guitar, it's supposed to be plugged in. It's designed that way ... obviously. Sorry, I know it's been explained to me a hundred times but I still don't understand. I guess I wasn't born with that "black is really white" gene.

Not pickin' a fight, just sayin'...

2 cents

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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.

Here's a clear contradiction: The better the amp, the better most guitars will sound. Conversely, the better the guitar, the better the inherent tonality of it and the better one can navigate on it; and then there's the 'dignity factor'. If it were me, I'd go with a new guitar first for when a new amp eventually becomes attainable, the results will be all the more dramatic. Clearly, YMMV.

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