question...

pretty much ive been playing about a year and a quarter. looking to upgrade but dont know what part of my rig to upgrade :/

better to get a new amp or new guitar?

matter wut kind u have, but id say amp. remember u can bearly even hear the guitar w/o the amp. welcome btw

well i was looking at the blackheart BH5 112.

any opinions on that?

both guitar and amp at the moment are pretty decentish but nothing special.

jim deacon les paul copy and rocktronic amp.

neither of whom appear to have websites or anything lol.

cheers btw :]

err..havent heard much bout the blackheart bh5 but id have to recomend a vox amp, if u wana go for a cheaper just get the 5 watt like tht blackheart, id recomend if ur willing to spend 250, a vox ad15vt-xl, they have tons of effects, gain, and everything. my opinion ther gr8 for the price, i own one and im a happy as a pig in shit.

edit:how much r u willing to spend on either of those, is the guitar halfway decent? is the amp halfway decent

blackheart is a tube amp which is quite appealing to me :]

had a look at the vox one as well and that looks pretty good too.

as well as costing £75 less that the blackheart over here.

so ill keep that in mind.

um ampwise probably spending about £200 and looking to get a tube rather than solid state amp.

guitar probably would save up a bit more and spend about £350

PRS SE singlecut looks pretty nice for that price range.

k...so 75 pounds so around 170 or so. k so..id check the marshall's not the mg. bad distortion on mg. check the tube peavy amps if u really want to get good, but those are very epensive. for a guitar if ur willing to spend tht kinda of money, it matters what u play, but for rock, the epiphone plus top is good, ther about $500 and they play gr8, u wouldnt get a good gibson unless u go to spend more than tht. id look to see a vox tube, or a peavy, or an epi plus top, or some kinda ibanez. but i dont like those, i play classic rock stuff.

edit:what music do u play?

sorry typo there. blackheart - £200 = $395 vox - £115 = $230

had a look at the peaveys and they look slick.

they royal 8 looks good and is affordable.

everything else is waaaaay out of my league lol.

yeah epiphone plus top looked pretty good to me.

dunno how epiphones quality control is these days tho :s.

just gotta try a few out in a shop i guess.

but i think ill take your advice and get an amp first.

and finally, i play indie to rock through to metal.

so sort of oasis and blur, bit of guns n roses, led zeppelin and metallica :]

the plus top is a discontinued model, so ull get it cheap. it was the model above the standard, and sold for around 500 or 600 at the time. it should be about 350 or 400 american now. peavy is expensive but very good. still, u gotta try it out. if u like ur amp, then get a guitar, if u like ur guitar, then get an amp, if u dont like either, well, then go 2 the store, and try the guitar u want on the amp u want, its all preferance.

big rnge of music. the plus top plays extraordinary. my guitar teach acctualy thought it was a gibson when he came into my house b4 he saw the guitar. its a quality guitar, and for tht rnge, id recomend it. also check the les paul standard. i wouldnt recomend an sg. esp's are fantastic, but ther also heavy metal, but it all depends on what u like.

also dont let the sales guy sway ur decision. he wants money, he doesnt care about what ur playing. make the desicion on ur own. gl.

good stuff :]

les paul plus top did look pretty good to be fair.

had a look at the reviews and they all seem favourable plus it sounds like a hell of a guitar from your description. and les pauls are my personal fav type of guitar

if only i had enough money for both lol.

well at least im now sorted for my new gear from the looks of things

cheers

like the look of the peavey valve king royal 8, the blackheart and the vox.

so ill try them out in the shop soon.

altho the blackhearts are pretty rare in the uk.

might take a lot of time and effort to track one down bearing in mind the other two amps look pretty good

cheers for the help :]

btw what does gl at the end of your post mean?

might be being a noob :s

lol good luck, as in good luck getting the right stuff.

oh lol

cheers and cheers for the help :]

np..tell me how things turn out.

nothing wrong with a LP copy unless you want a more metalish sound

but whatever you do don't get a royal 8 !!!!

very poor construction.......i went through 3 of them
before finally giving up and spending another $50
for the vox ad30vt. not all tube but it does have a
valve and totally kicks the royal 8's butt in terms
of tone and power. not to mention all the models
and effects it has. heard nothing but good things
about the blackheart,though nobody local carries them
so i never got to play it.

I have a PRS Singlecut SE, really nice guitar. I'll post a picture of it a bit later, bit busy at the moment. Welcome to the forum by the way.

ye lance here was the one who acctually convincined me to get the vox amp, i got the new xl version in the 15 watt, because they had the xl and i wanted it then. also i didnt need the xtra 15 watts. id really recomend the vox. also check out the roland cube box thingy. ther used a lot for metal, but are a very good amp. but it all matters, try all the amps, dont be afraid to piss off the sales man by spending so long in the store(i did, about 2 hours picking my amp and guitar. lol) it really helps.

Upgrade to a new amp first. Remember, you can make a shite guitar sound like an awesome guitar with a good amp.

ye i agree with skold (although i said it first! lol) ye the amp can make or break u. i know u do need a good guitar, but the amp in my opinion is more important, so if i were going to spend $700 american, it be on a amp.

What about buying effects? I was playing my guitar tonight, and instead of using my amp, I plugged my PC speakers (Creative Gigaworks T20) into the headphone socket of one of my FX pedals, and the sound quality was awesome. I rely more on FX rather than my amp to shape my sound - all my amp does is just boost the volume.

o...i got a laptop...so ye... and the speakers suck...

I don't know. The guitar is were the sound starts. If you have a crappy guitar, the sound isn't going to be that good when it gets to the amp. The amp is important, very important but I think guitar is were it all starts. Just my opinion.

I agree with les_paul guitar s more important.

So yeah what? Loads of people have laptops. These are external speakers, I use them on my laptop and the sound quality is amazing when listening to music or watching films. They're far better than the speakers on my PC at home which I used to use on my laptop before I bought the T20s. And they give just as good output as my amp, maybe even a little bit better.

If your going to be using a lot of effects you might as well get an 'average' guitar and an 'average' amp. The effects are going to process the sh*t out of the sound anyway!

And welcome from me too!

i dont have external speakers. just the shitty ones the laptop has. and u could always use pedals.

the guitar is very important dont get me wrong. also the pickups matter a bit. u need good pickups, and wood on th guitar. im just gona stop and say it all matters. upgrade them both. get a $350 or $400 guitar and like a $250 or $300 dollar amp(thts wut i did, 350 for guitar 250 for amp) u did say u wanted to spend around $700 dollars or like 350 euro, idk the exact exchange rate, but its around tht.

those bands dont generally use huge effects, they do, but not a huge amount, some delay, reverb maybe, comp somtimes, but nothing huge. u dont need the effects unless u feel u need them.

still, i feel u should go with what sounds good to u. u never know, maybe ull find a $200 guitar ull like, gl on it anyway.

lol, we use the pound in England, not the euro!

I think having a decent guitar is the most important, poor guitars are hard to play and don't give a great sound.

I would recommend listening to some demos of FX pedals on the internet though, there is a thread on here somewhere that discusses the pros and cons of different types of pedals. The bands you listed don't (generally) use all the crazy modulation types but many types of pedal include amp modelling, which gives you access to lots of different styles of amp with adjustable gain settings. Having said that, Metallica use quite a bit of chorus on clean parts, such as those in "Welcome Home (Saniterium)" or "Enter Sandman". All those bands still use delay and reverb, etc, which are pretty standard FX which every multi FX pedal out there does. But check out some demos online, and see if they interest you. This one costs about £95, and is incredibly versitile.

w/e lol

ye i also wouldnt get multi effects pedals, the effects tend to not be as good as single effect pedals, unless u try it, and like it i wouldnt get it. btw they are very expensive if u want a good one, goes from 200 aamerican up, and 200 would be pretty poor.

@EMB

Are you sure the plus top is discontinued? I bought mine new a couple of months ago. I know the new Slash les pauls are plus tops.

already have a ZOOM G1X. generally its very good but some effects can sound VERY digital and unnatural. but does high gain distortion sounds well which sorts the sort of metal tones.

im probably gonna get an amp first i think, because my guitar is better than my amp comparatively.

i think its one or the other tho simply for financial reasons. cos id rather buy a good amp or save more for a good guitar than split the money and get ok ones of both. thats what i already have tbf. dont especially want to raid my account tooooo much more than needed lol.

i personally think you could get by with your current guitar. that guitar
actually has really good reviews for a low end LP.
http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Guitar/product/Jim+Deacon/Les+Paul+Copy/10/1
i'd really consider a 1/2 decent amp first and a change of strings for a fatter tone.
i have 2 squire guitars, a tele & mini strat. both sounded like ass on my 15w frontman
on my fender twin or vox amp however,they both sound incredible and we all
know squires are extremely cheap guitars. when i had the royal 8 i thought
my $500 Epi LP with gibson 500T/496R pup's would sound awesome.it was
the total opposite and i was so dissapointed.

i really am a firm believer you can get a cheap guitar to sound really good.
however,you need to start with a decent amp to do so.

cheap guitars aren't all that bad,though you really get what you pay for with amps.

i agree with lance totally.

it is a really good starter guitar tbh. id highly recommend it as a first guitar for anyone. served me well so far.

yeah i agree. i think a good amp would be a real improvement.

well i think the royal 8 is out of contention then. ill give it a try but sounds pretty shocking to be honest.

the more i read about it the more i think the blackheart B5H 112 sounds like a beast of an amp.

http://www.blackhearteng.com/bh5112.html

http://www.soundcontrol.co.uk/mod_1/pages/mod_1.12/pages/mod_1.12.1/pages/mod_1.12.1.1/pages/index.php?sku=1.1.1.3.1.1-109-19810

and the vox that emb spoke about sounds pretty good as well.

so what sort of gauge strings would i go up to? dont know what im using atm :/.

I agree lance but cheap guitars and junk guitars aren't always the same thing. That's why I said crappy guitar instead of cheap guitar in my post above. I have seen cheap guitars that sound good and I have seen expensive guitars sound bad.

@Joe

I wasn't saying your guitar was junk I was just stating my opinion on what I think makes to biggest difference to someones sound. I personally think if you like your guitar you should buy an amp, or the other way around if that's the case. Take your amp and your guitar to the shop. Try new guitars on your amp and new amps with your guitar.

no worries les paul. i didnt think you were saying my guitar was junk.

and even if you were everyone is entitled to their opinion.

well i do like my guitar so i think amp is the way to go.

cheers for all the help so far everyone :]

I think the formula is 2ag=p or amp price is double the guitar price to reach full sound potential, might be 2ga=p though.
a=amp
g=guitar
p=sound potential

Tis is guitar forum no mathematic or anything super mathy here!!!

ugg...yes!...yeah...o.k?

anyways, id really look into getting the vox, its a gr8 amp with tons of effects if u need them, its always nice to have them, gr8 sound, distortion, and everything.

about the gauge, it all matters on what u want, if ur fingers hurt after a while, maybe get a lighter gauge, it all matters on personal preference.

If you learned on lights or xtra light use lights or xtra lights...
(lights are pretty stanard i think for guitars straight from the factory...)
i've tried to shred on mediums and i just can't pick fast enough cause i learned on light gauges of course you might be better off to get mediums so you have better finger strength and picking strength...then go down to lights ...

is this kinda like saying pointed guitars w/flames help you shred faster ?

LOL...That's a formula created by over priced guitar companies to turn a profit for overpriced amp companies.

That formula may be completely unessesery but generally, a better amp does more good than a better guitar. You can make a bad guitar sound decent through a good amp... but not even the best guitar will sound good at all through a really bad amp.