more important: guitar or amp?

  • Thread starter Thread starter OverlookFran
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Guitar has to be decent and feel good...The amp has to feel right also..when the two converge...ahhhhh...bliss..for example playin' a nice stock Strat thru a '59 Bassman just feels right for a cleanish tone..The amp has just enough "give" and enough string content with the harmonics..Now a Les Paul thru a Plex Marshall feels different a little harder but still some give in the setup..Now a Boogie with..say a Lester or even a Strat will feel like butter lots 'O give..Its so soft that you will dig in harder...These are my experiences..yours may differ :)
 
Having a guitar that feels right is very important.When I walk into a shop to try an electric I like to play it w/o an amp first.Listening to the way an ele
ctric resonates w/o an amp can give you a lot of clues toward the sonic
capibilities of a particular axe.
When I walk into a store to check out an amp,I pick up a cheapo guitar and
plug in,then work my way up the scale of better instruments.
I am looking at a reverra fandango and I can honestly say that the shittiest
guit that I plugged into it sounded great.
Amp choice is just as important as the guitar,and the guitarist ability.
 
I have always believed that a good amp will make an average guitar sound OK but a crap amp will make a good guitar sound crap.

Going back many years a lot of the amps we played thru were copies of Fender amps but due to import restrictions were equiped with the most god awful speakers imaginable, we also used locally made guitars which we thought sounded crap and we blamed the guitars. Years later I was able to put some of these old guitars thru a decent amp and hey! they were OK. So much so that I've been looking for them ever since. And with those old amps, with good speakers they are good too but I won't tell you the brand as I'm constantly on the lookout for them and the price hasn't gone crazy yet.
 
I personally believe it's the amp. I have a mexican strat, not the best and not the worst, which I have played through many amps and I can get better sounds out of better amps and worse sounds out of the lesser amps
 
If you can live with your guitar but dislike your amp, get an amp. In general, I believe you should get the best amp you can and get a guitar in the $300 range because there are a number of decent guitars in that range.

$3000 Zakk Wylde LP and an MG 15 practice amp, or...
$3000 Zakk Wylde 100W stack and an epi bolt neck LP.

I'll take the stack any day, I don't care how nice the guitar is, if you play it through an arse amp, you still sound like arse.

The player and the guitar do make a difference, but I still say the amp is the most important part of a guitarists sound. But then, I build amps...and "Everyone knows what a dragon looks like," eh? ;)
 
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grandpa used to say ....

a good guitar amp will make a crappy guitar sound good,but i disagreed with th ol'man on a lot of things it depends on the situation starting out i would have rather had a good guitar it makes learning easier in my opinion...and if its a more advance situation would you play out with a guitar that stays out of tune more than in ....i lived in an apartment for awhile then my amp was destroyed,i went about a year without amplification but i had a good guitar ...

my vote is for GUITAR :D
 
i say amp 60 - guitar 40.

good amp will make a less than good guitar sound good. bad amp will make anything sound like crap.

there are a lot of good, very good guitars to be had for under 500 bucks. Good enough to feel right when you play them, and good enough to sound good through a good amp. If you get a guitar for 400 and replace the pickups with better ones for another 100, you've got a great deal.

for example, if you put good pickups in an Epi les paul and play through a good amp, there will be a difference between that and a $3000 gibson, but I dont think it's enough to justify the cost.

my 2 cents.
 
Hey AaronK, are you by any chance Aaron Kunk of the Shenandoah Valley?
 
It's about a matched pair, the player and the sound. The sound is made by the guitar, boxes, amps, chords and so on.... Since they are all in the chain of creating the sound, the chord you use is as important as the guitar when you look at it from a sound perspective!!

Stage Presence is important for playing out. I think the guitar you are holding plays a far more important role than anything else, in that respect. It's what the audience is looking at and what you are feeling while you play. Do you think the audience relates the guitar to a specific song???? I know the we pick out a guitar for a given sound for a given song, but I think the audience tends to think that if you are going to play a song (stairway to heaven), you need a certain guitar (double neck) because it looks right as well as sounds right.
 
I think as a player there will always be a guitar I want, I go to Guitar Center or Sam Ash,, and play guitars while once in awhile I will play an amp. I have Marshall JMC 800 4010 combo, this amp I bought off a guy who was upgrading to fenders. This amp is great ,and it would be a hard find if lost or stolen. Marshall has gone the way of to much stuff on one amp, I tried a fender blues junior, good little tube amp, but crackled, and sounded tinny with reverb. Now I got rid of that amp , my guitar collection is Les Paul Spec,w/ P-90s,Mex tele body ,w/ Seymour Duncan’s (59 in Bridge, and strat in neck) Warmouth Mahogany neck, and a 52 RI bridge, and a Squire Affinity Tele.All these guitars sound great threw the Marshall, they didn’t change the sound of the blues jr.
So you may want the guitar more ,but good amp will make you appreciate the guitars you have, and the ones that you will get in the future.
 
Wow. I'm frankly surprised at the answers here. When I read the post title I figured it was a no brainer: AMP.

I'd play a Mexi Fender through a Black Cat or Dr.Z any day before I'd play a PRS Dragon through a Line6 Spider II.

A
 
Aaron Cheney said:
I'd play a Mexi Fender through a Black Cat or Dr.Z any day before I'd play a PRS Dragon through a Line6 Spider II.
Click to expand...

Hear hear.

tele_player75 said:
I have Marshall JMC 800 4010 combo
Click to expand...

Awesome. Wish they still made or reissued 'em.
 
It all gets back to 'Lights' very first comment, and the variety and the lack of true commitment on anyones part in answering this proves it...Its all in the hands and head of the player..

The amps reaction to the guitars input is important but in the hands of a great player,it will simply determine what he(she) can get out of it.It may call for a change in style to suit the environment.A great player will instantly evolve to the situation at hand, so it really doesnt matter what instrument and amp combo is available.

That being said, my guess is this...If you polled the one hundred greatest guitarists, most of em would swear by their ONE favorite guitar and the amp would be a minimal consideration.

For me, when the guitar is completely 'right' it matters very little what amp I play through.....this is from an avowed AMP JUNKIE!
 
AMP AMP AMP. definetely. A mediocre guitar will still give nice sound from the amp, but a great guitar will not give a nice sound from a cheap amp. I mean would you record with a peavey stack or a line six stack etc? I would record with an epiphone special (£180) in the other hand though with a decent amp.
 
"If you polled the one hundred greatest guitarists, most of em would swear by their ONE favorite guitar and the amp would be a minimal consideration."

i'm going to get flamed im sure :)

these greatest guitarists are often concerned with soloing and virtuosity in the guitar-playing sense. I am not. a good quality, very musical amp contributes, IMO, much more than any guitar would to the overall sound of a song. it adds texture and harmonic content that the guitar cant on its own.

also, for example, neil young uses many different guitars, but im pretty sure he only uses one amp.
 
One of my recent personal favourite sounds has been produced by some unbranded, unplayable, strat copy and a small Canadian amp that would appear to have an oval speaker.

Like someone else said, it's all about what you want.
 
Nearly as many right answers as there are guitarists...

That's why we aren't all alike.

And neither is our music.
 
more important: guitar or amp?

Both are very important... I'd get the best guitar first... then I'd wait untill I saved up enough money for a good amp too.

Get the good stuff now... if you don't, later you'll only wonder if you made the right decision or not... and wish you got the stuff. ;)
 
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