Guitar Amplifiers 101

Amps, short for amplifiers, are the life and soul of any and all electric guitar setups.

We’ve extensively covered this on this blog before, electric guitars produce no sound of their own, as opposed to hollow-bodied acoustic guitars. Electric guitars, instead have pickups on them, which convert string vibrations into electric signals, which run through the attached amp, producing a sound.

Powerful amps also allow you to put different effects, and change the tone and sound of the guitar easily, such as different distortion effects. This, coupled with a good electric guitar, gives the player the freedom to produce just about any sort of sound as he’d want, and tweak it to perfection. A good amp, however, is instrumental in this.

There is no good or bad amps out there, it all really comes down to personal preference, what genre of music you play, and of course, your budget.

A few detrimental factors include brand, series or type of amps produced by the brand, which amp is best suited for a particular genre of music (such as for rock and its sub-genres, metal, blues, jazz, etc), the power on the amp, which amp offers the most powerful effects processor, and of course, which musicians promote or endorse which amplifier.

Amps produced by the likes of Fender, Peavey, Jackson, Marshall, Laney, Roland, Gibson, Yamaha, to name just a few, are usually good places to start. Almost all these companies are renowned for producing some of the best electric (as well as acoustic) guitars, amps, effects processors, pedals, tuners and other musical instruments.

It is usually a safe bet to pair an electric guitar and amplifier of the same brand. However Fender and Marshall amps are usually a safe bet with just about every electric guitar out there.

Some of the most well-known, renowned amplifiers, which are accepted industry-wise to be the best of the best, include the Peavey Ecoustic Series, Marshall AS50D and AS100D, and the Fender Acoustasonic series.

All of these deliver great power, come with powerful amps on-board, a whole plethora of functions, a lot of control, and of course, the reliability that these brands are known for. I’ll be doing an in-depth look at some of the best amps out there that money can buy, in a later post.

For beginners, it is a good bet to go for a smaller-sized and relatively lower-powered amp as your first purchase. In fact, according to LearnGuitar, you’ll be good to go with around 15-25 watts of power, especially if you practice indoors. The same applies if you play in a garage, in your home, in a pub or any other relatively-small place.

It is also important to note that there are two distinctly different types of amplifiers available out there – one that use solid-state circuitry, and on the other hand we have tube-bases amps. While it is generally accepted that the former produce a more cleaner and a much more superior, powerful sound while being less expensive, however pros and seasoned guitarists tend to go for tube-based amps. However thanks to technological advancement, we now have hybrids available to us as well.

Budget-friendly and basic amps (starting at around $150 a pop), which offer modeling, provide a no-compromise experience, including a clean rhythm tones, to must-have effects like reverb, chorus, phase, flange, delay and the like.

In the end, choosing an amp is all about personal preferences, and a combination of factors, such as those listed in this guide here. Make an informed decision before taking the plunge, especially if you are a new guitar player.