Thinking of changing all my gear. Advice needed

Babo 91

Nomad
I currently have a

- line 6 spider 4 15 watt amp ( i think this amp sucks. dont buy it EVER)

- Ibanez grg170dxl guitar

- Boss ds1 distortion pedal


I have been playing for about 7 months and have been practicing on average about 4 hours a day. But i am no longer satisfied with my sound. My tone isnt as smoother or as clear as i would like it to be. it is too buzzy and broken sounding.

I want to take my playing to the next level and hopefully start or join a band but my sound de-motivates me to do so. I listen to maiden and would kill for a tone half as good as theirs. Over the next few months i am going to have plenty of money to burn (between about £900 and £1500) and i would to invest in a great guitar and amp thats going to give me a great tone and overall sound.

I would like some advice on what i can buy to help me achieve this.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Go to your local guitar store and play everything they've got till you find what you want.

Seriously. That's how I found my Ibanez bass, which I love to death.
 
I have nothing different than what what SMX said, but I do have a praise!
4 hours of practice a day, that's impressive! What do you practice, if I may ask?
 
Mega said:
I have nothing different than what what SMX said, but I do have a praise!
4 hours of practice a day, that's impressive! What do you practice, if I may ask?

I will usually play like a 20 song set which will be maiden, dickinson and sabbath orientated but i will throw in a few country or blues songs. I usually spend a bit of time just improvising in different keys and different modes and doing alternate picking and sweep picking. I also try and learn one new song every week, like today i played a deja vu at 75% speed 5 times in row. I cant tell you how boring it is but it works.

Another couple of questions. I was suprised at how loud my amp is even though its 15 watts, is it worth buying a bigger and better amp even though i dont play gigs yet or should i get another practice amp ?

Would you say the guitar or the amp makes the biggest difference in the sound quality ?
 
my ibanez is significantly louder than my les paul. I'd say sound quality has a lot to do with the guitar. I can get about 5 different tones with my ibanez and they all sound good. my hollowbody guitar only plays on clean and my les paul has a great distortion sound. I would say sound quality is in the guitar.
 
Don Dokken said:
my ibanez is significantly louder than my les paul.

A volume difference like that is usually because of pickups, not the guitar as a whole. I'll guess the Ibanez is active and the Les Paul isn't.
 
^ not necessarily, shape and wood (acoustics) largely determine how good guitar sounds and resonates, and can increase volume a bit. There's also the gap between strings and pickups (which can be tuned on most modern guitars, of course).

What most people don't take into consideration is quality of internal cabling, quality of components themselves (pots/switches), soldering and, most important, the termination jack.
When tuning sound or recording, one should take a high quality cable of shortest length possible. Signal decay happens.

Each of these things don't do much harm individually, but when you have most of them screwed, you're going to lose a bit of the guitar sound.

I would say sound quality is in the guitar.

It is, but if you have a lousy or non adequate amp, your guitar won't break through.
It's system as whole, and as with any system, it's as strong as it's weakest component.

@Babo91, for 1500 quid you can get a lot of good stuff. SMX's advice is best...go to local shops and try out stuff, and then i would advise you to look through local ads and see if you can get used gear of good condition.

Amps/effect processors you're targeting for that money are built way better than consumer electronics today, and there's not much risk (IMHO!) if you buy used stuff.
I bought an used amp (Gallien Krueger 250RL, 20 years old) and used effect processor (Digitech Genesis III), and haven't had any problems. Very large majority of the people that hunt used gear don't have problems. Like i said, general building quality is good, and people tend to treat their instruments and gear with more care than some other types of electronics on the used market.
 
lol i'm left handed too. i learned right hand though
 
Best place for left-handed guitars is Sam Ash in Danbury, Connecticut. They have over 100 on the wall. Almost as many as their normal guitars.
 
ok. what im planning to do is to keep my guitar and get some new pickups and try out some amps.

i want to be able to switch between a clean sound and distorted sound instantly and i have been using a boss ds1 pedal to achieve this but if i get an amp with a great distorted sound what should i do to switch to a clean sound ?
 
Check out some of the Blackstar stuff E.g. Blackstar HT-20 or the Artisan (Depends how much you want to spend on the amp) or Jet City amps.
 
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