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So, I've just bought my first electric guitar since retiring from gigging at the grand old age of 19. It was my grandson's fault. He wanted a drum kit and whilst looking for the ideal kit, I had to walk past rows and rows of lovely strings and a strange kind of desire just happened.
Searching the Internet, I decided on a Squier Affinity Strat + Fender Frontman 15 amp 'starter pack'. After reading and heeding lots of advice here and elsewhere, I've ended up buying a used but good condition 2-year-old Yamaha Pacifica 112 from a dealer (Hardy Smith in Sutton-in-Ashfield.) Tomorrow, I intend to order a Blackstar Fly 3 with the extra box. At £145 for the Pacifica + cable and £80 for the amp, it comes out at a shade less than the Squier pack.
The gear is for bedroom use only unless/until my grandson takes to the drumkit, then I intend to by a more suitable amp to play along with him - again bedroom only.
A good choice? The right route? A bad choice? Any comments will be most welcome.
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Comments
http://www.coda-music.com/blackstar-core-p-18240.html
I used to have one, then got the 20 for the added footswitch ability for bedroom use. Some cool lil stereo effects built in, with a tuner too. I believe the 10 has a built in tuner as well.
The fly 3 gets a good rep though, but I dont know much about them to compare!
Thought that may be of interest though man, happy playing!
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Although if you intend spending any time around these parts it will probably be a starting point, things tend to escalate awfully quickly round here....
You do know that it won't end with just the Pacifica and the Fly3, don't you?
It wont end with a Pacifica but it is a good choice. Both my of nephew in law and sort of son in law have Pacifica's and strangely they are both white with maple necks (the guitar not the in laws). I've had a tootle on both and they are fine guitars.
Also strangely they both have Yamaha FG acoustics, so if you are looking for some folk music action...
Thanks for the welcomes and comments chaps.
The Mustang and Core amps are what put me off the Squier Kit with the simple Frontman amp. I actually had a tryout of the Core ID-10 amp and was amazed at the volume, quality and all the effects in such a small (and light) amp! In my gigging days, all amps were just simple valve amps, big and heavy. Effects were limited to a fuzz box and a Wah-Wah pedal! Pretty much the only other thing in general use was an echo chamber; yes an endless loop of tape running past a record and several playback heads. Now I see we can get all this and a lot more in a tiny box and costing peanuts!
At the moment, I'm still with the Fly 3 'stack' mainly due to its size but I have a couple more hours of Internet browsing before I need to order so....
My first worry is that when my grandson is a fan of Ozzy, Iron Maiden, Slipknot, etc. and when he spots the electric guitar, he'll be expecting to hear some instant heavy metal thrash and a shredding session which is quite different to the Country Bluegrass I'm more familiar with. :-) Now I'm on a search for some quick to learn stuff of those genres - any suggestions welcome :-)
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Enjoy them!
justinguitar too, but I've found Carls of guitarlessons365 pretty awesome
for the more thrash or metal stuff!
The tonal variety that you can get out of it is absolutely staggering. And the software you can use to fine tune the tone is brilliant.
They have a very small footprint but have a fantastic sound and go much much louder than you would want in a bedroom but still sounds amazing at low volume and through headphones.
The Aux In (which has a selerately controllable output volume to the guitar output volume) means it's a doddle to play backing tracks etc through it and get the volume just right to match your playing volume. Also means you can hear both your guitar and whatever you're playing on (for example) a laptop at the same time through headphones which was a big plus for me.
Also by hooking up the laptop to it and using GarageBand I've been able to essentially use it as a loop pedal, making a recording in GarageBand and then playing back through the aux in. Magic! Also means you can have a seperate tone for each part of your loop.
I've barely scratched the surface of GarageBand but the direct USB recording is a massive massive plus for me as a beginner.
As a bedroom only player (and likely to be for some considerable years....) I can't imagine what else I could want an amp to do that this doesn't.