Good cheap small guitar amps for recording

[Harry]

http://www.handsomefamily.com/gregspage.html

This dude makes some pretty cool solid state (and now some tube too) designs for very little money. I am waiting until I see one that I absolutely love before ordering from him (I love "The Martian" in the museum page...I curse whoever bought it!), so I can't vouch for the sound quality. But if nothing else, they would make an awesome conversation piece...

WOW!! if those things sound one tenth as cool as they look then they are pretty damn cool!!!

Harry

[vvv]

S/S: No one ever believes me but some of the Peavy "transtube" amps sound pretty good, and for under US$100.00.

And don't forget the Trademark 10 with the onboard Sansamp.

Also, throw a tube pedal (I use a Chandler) in front of just about any amp and it will sound much better.

[jv]

As far as cheap solid state amps go, people have said good things about the vox pathfinder. Do a search on here for vox pathfinder, and you'll find tons of comments.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

i have an old mesa studio .22 that is about my favorite amp ever...

fender champs are great...

i have some ancient danelectro amp that's maybe 10 watts and is practically made out of cardboard, but it sounds really nice. its all lovely midrange...

[lyman]

i have an old mesa studio .22 that is about my favorite amp ever...

...

word! i used to have a studio .22 which i regretably had to part with. it did have some issues though, but when it worked it sounded great. class A, baby.

[yardleyone]

Anybody know much about fender sidekicks? Were these ever made with tube circuitry, or did they come along too late in the game for that?

[dwelle]

another for the ampegs. i've got an old jet, very similar to the reverborocket if i remember correctly, no reverb. if you play a hot humbucker through it and crank it, it does that whole ac/dc rocknroll thing super good.

gotta check out the smokies as well. those things can be super fun...

[Poppatwang]

Vox Cambridge 15 has been a good recording amp for me. 12AX7 in the preamp
w/solid state output section. Decent tremelo. Likes being miked with a 609.

[HuskerDude]

I have to throw in a vote for the Epiphone Valve Jr. heads. 5-6 watts, LOVES pedals, and can break up at a comfortable volume. Hook it up to a decent cab (has 4/8/16 outs) and it sounds phenominal. If you swap out the stock tubes you can make quite a bit of difference, too.

$99, brand new.

[sirbergersworth]

In the studio, I used to play through this prototype amp that was the original hand built design of Obed Kahn of Saint Louis Music (crate, etc.). The amp was a 5 watt tube combo with a 8" unknown speaker. I thin k the production model was "508". Great little amp. the productions didnt sound like my proto but still very good.
Obed is a great designer, its to bad that crate takes his high end designs and puts crap components in them for production.

Anyone know about the tube pignose? Is it anygood. I think it was a 40 watt tube combo with a 10" speaker. it was like $200. I was tempted many times but never bought one.

[RefD]

another vote for the Epiphone Valve Junior head, i put mine thru a sealed-back 2x12 and it makes all my guitars sound good!

i also like the clean sounds i get from my Ace Electronics Industries FR-20 (analog beatbox with built-in solid state amp) which goes especially well with Tele or electric 12-string.

then there's the little black plastic 1-watt Radio Shack/Realistic amps that seem to have been discontinued: great heavy overdrive (good for feedback at low levels!) when plugged into the mic input and very nice clean-but-agressive sound when into the aux input.

[chovie d]

guild thunderbass, its a whopping forty watts tho