Amp for 70s and 80s Rock and also clean things

[kludge]

You can find Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amps (or Blues Deluxe) for under $500 all day long. Great clean sound, big bottom end, reasonably portable, loud enough for a real band. Spend the rest of your budget on drive pedals, to get a sense of what you like. There is no "best" drive, it's very much a matter of taste and feel.

All the classic, famous drive pedals have been cloned as mini pedals cranked out of Chinese factories for $25-50. You can get a Rat, Tube Screamer, Big Muff, Fuzz Face, Klon, all the standards, and see what works for you - the Chinese minis are usually 90% as good, often 100% as good as the "real thing". And they'll all sound great through that cheap Hot Rod Deluxe.

We all can and often do pour a fortune into our gear, but I could quite happily do a gig with a Hot Rod Deluxe, and a knockoff Rat and knockoff Klon and no one would know the difference but me.

 

[Obrubnik]

You can find Fender Hot Rod Deluxe tube amps (or Blues Deluxe) for under $500 all day long. Great clean sound, big bottom end, reasonably portable, loud enough for a real band. Spend the rest of your budget on drive pedals, to get a sense of what you like. There is no "best" drive, it's very much a matter of taste and feel.

All the classic, famous drive pedals have been cloned as mini pedals cranked out of Chinese factories for $25-50. You can get a Rat, Tube Screamer, Big Muff, Fuzz Face, Klon, all the standards, and see what works for you - the Chinese minis are usually 90% as good, often 100% as good as the "real thing". And they'll all sound great through that cheap Hot Rod Deluxe.

We all can and often do pour a fortune into our gear, but I could quite happily do a gig with a Hot Rod Deluxe, and a knockoff Rat and knockoff Klon and no one would know the difference but me.

I dont know where you live, bu t where I live, the cheapest Fender Hot Rod Deluxe is around 900 - 1000$...

 

[Obrubnik]

What about a Fender Blues Junior and a pedal?

 

[kludge]

I dont know where you live, bu t where I live, the cheapest Fender Hot Rod Deluxe is around 900 - 1000$...

Used! Reverb has a bunch of 'em in the $350-$500 range, and, new for $799. I also see them regularly on Craigslist (heck, I got one on a whim for $200 and flipped it on Craigslist for $400).

I really wouldn't recommend new gear to anyone on a budget and a quest to get beyond raw beginner. Used amps, guitars, and pedals are cheap and widely available, if you have enough know-how and taste to pick out the decent stuff.

 

[IM4Tone]

Well, from a guy who gigged in the 80s playing 60s-80s music using a solid state amp i have to disagree wholeheartedly with totally dismissing solid state.

Roland Blues Cube Hot and the (not included) Boss FS-6 footswitch for OD and normal or bright tone switching. Add a JOYO Sweet Baby JF-36 for clean boost. This is all you need and will be well within your budget. Lightweight and can get loud if you want it to. Perhaps Thomann in Europe may handle these .

Brett likes to play with a fair amount of gain, but clean can be had by dialing it in properly.

 

[Obrubnik]

Are there any other pedal platform clean amps?

 

[65 Strat]

Dumble clone? You can probably get a used Ceriatone OTS for $1,000.

 

[244300]

I really dislike the idea of trying to expect a single amp to serve as both a practice amp at 70-80 dB AND for use with a full band at 100-110 dB. Especially a 50-100 watt tube amplifier which is really designed to produce the volume required for live performance.

I recommend putting your budget towards getting the right amp for live performance and using whatever money is left over for a practice amp. There are lots of choices for practice amps that are very inexpensive. If there is no money left over, try what I do all the time and practice with an unplugged guitar.

 

[4styx]

And also - the DSL , if i would get it, shoulf i go for the 40 or the 20 version? And also - comvo or head and cab?
thanks

I would definitely go with with the 40c if you want a DSL. The 20 doesn't clean up very well when you back down the guitar volume and isn't nearly as versiltile. I have one and it drives me crazy.

 

[Obrubnik]

Hi. I just realized, that i really like the tone of a driven Vox amp. So i was thinking to go Vox, but i ran into a problem. Vox amps have like one channel or you choose from one of two. But how can I have the Vox distortion and also a clean amp? I searched some pedals that sound like Vox, bet many of them arent made anymore! (Boss Combo drive, Tech 21 Liverpool...) Are there some other ways tohave a Vox distortion and aslo clean? Thanks!