- So you've got a cheap amp,
and you think it sounds like garbage.
But we're here to tell you today
that you can make it sound great.
Even if you're stuck with one of the
least expensive amps on the market,
you can still make it sound good.
Randy, one of our coworkers,
is constantly buying guitars on Craigslist,
and often times the guitars he gets will be cheaper,
because he buys them to work on.
And he gets amps with them.
So we've got three of the most
common, inexpensive amps here today,
and we're gonna dial in some really good tone for you.
- A lot of these amps you can actually,
I think if you bought them used,
you can get them under a hundred bucks, which is crazy.
And the thing is, a lot of times,
if you maybe buy a starter pack guitar,
something like that, you might get one of these amps,
or if maybe you have a nicer guitar,
but you want to kinda cheap out on the amp a little bit,
go for something more affordable, which is totally okay,
especially if you're just playing at home,
you might end up with one of these as well.
So what we have is a Frontman 10G,
we have a Peavey 158,
and a Line 6 Spider IV 16.
So these two both have eight-inch speakers,
this one actually has a six-inch speaker,
which is pretty small.
Alright, and let me just tell you,
one of the best clean tones I've ever heard
on a guitar, anywhere, was from this jazz cat
who was in this guitar store, and I was like,
"Holy crap, what is he playing through?"
I looked over there it was a Frontman 25R.
He was just a really good player.
- Yeah.
- So no matter what you have,
you can dial in a really nice tone that you will like.
- Absolutely.
So what we're gonna show you today
is how you can dial in a pretty decent tone
on one of these more affordable amps.
- Probably the biggest tip right off the bat I have
for you is, well people are always asking,
"What pedal should I buy," right?
Get a reverb pedal.
It'll make a small amp sound a lot better.
The first two amps we're gonna go through,
the Frontman and the Peavey Rage,
don't have reverb on them,
so it's just a way to kinda lushen up the sound
and make it a little more enjoyable experience.
- That's right.
- So here is the Frontman, completely dry,
and I've set up, intentionally set up kind of a
non-great tone with this.
(guitar plays)
So, first thing I'm gonna do is turn the reverb on,
and this is just a TC Electronic Hall of Fame reverb,
with some plate on it.
(guitar chords)
(guitar riffs)
Right, so it makes it - It really sounds better
- a little wetter, now,
I'm kinda getting ahead of myself here,
but this tone lends itself to my next point.
Only use the amount of gain necessary to get the job done.
This is supposed to be a clean tone, you can hear...
(guitar chord)
It's not quite clean, right?
So what I'm going to do is back off on the volume,
which in this case, on the clean channel,
is the amount of drive you get, right?
- Right.
(guitar chords)
(guitar riffs)
- Already cleaner, a little bit more jazzy,
so whether you're going for a high-gain sound
or a clean sound, only use the amount of gain
necessary to get things done,
'cause if you just gain out, like dime the gain
which we'll do here in a second, on an amp,
you're probably using more than you need,
and it's probably making things sound a little flabby.
Use moderate settings, is my next tip.
So if you're maxing out,
whether it's the gain, the treble, the bass,
especially with smaller speakers and smaller wattage amps,
it's gonna really make it sound flabby,
or just like something's not right.
So I have the treble and the bass set to 10 on here,
so I'm just gonna back off both of those to around eight,
and kind go from there.
(guitar chords)
(guitar plucking)
And also what I'll do is turn (guitar plucking)
the bass all the way down, (guitar plucking)
and bring it up, (guitar plucking)
til it starts to sound good.
And that's on seven for me.
So same thing on the treble,
(guitar plucking)
just under seven again.
(guitar riff)
For bedroom playing, I think that's a pretty good tone.
- A common thing that people will do,
is with something like a six-inch speaker,
you're gonna feel like it's lacking oomph, right?
It's not gonna have a ton of low end or bass,
so people tend to overcompensate with too much bass,
but it actually takes away from the fidelity,
and I guess articulation, and stuff like that,
so don't go crazy with the bass on a smaller speaker.
A smaller speaker is gonna sound like a smaller speaker,
and that's perfectly okay.
- It's funny, it sounds like the nicer the amps get,
the less bass I have to use.
In general.
I don't know, I don't know. - It's true.
- So maybe it's because higher wattage and bigger speakers.
- It's possible.
- The smallest speaker I've ever owned
on an amp is 12 inches.
- Okay.
Should we maybe hear this thing set up with maybe some gain?
- Sure.
I'm gonna do the same thing,
I'm gonna max out the bass and the treble.
(overdrive guitar riff)
It's a little bit shrill to me,
the gain is a little bit too much gain too.
- I would say so.
(guitar chord)
- So remember I said about using
only as much gain as you absolutely need?
(guitar plucking)
That sounds pretty...
(guitar chords)
Even that...
(guitar chords)
Anything past that...
You get kinda diminishing returns.
So I ended up on eight, for like some really heavy stuff.
(overdrive guitar playing)
And it's still really blazing, treble-y, trebleized, right?
- There's a lot there, yeah.
(guitar plucking)
- Take it down to where it's just nothing.
(guitar plucking)
It's on five.
(guitar chords)
And take the bass out,
it sounded like the bass was only on five to me,
but it was cranked.
(guitar plucking)
I get kind of diminishing returns after seven and a half...
(guitar chords)
So that's probably where I would leave it.
- Nice.
- Let's see what it sounds like with the single coils.
- That sounds good to me.
Do you have a tuner?
- I do on my phone.
(electronic music)
- Thank you!
(smooth guitar playing)
So obviously the reverb, immediately,
just makes that sound...
That sounds good to me,
I would say it sounds a little too midrange-y,
a little bit honky--
- Can't do anything about that.
- The problem is, is an amp like this
doesn't have a midrange control,
so I kinda can't do a lot about that,
the honkiness actually a lot of times
comes from smaller speakers,
it's very common that...
And so I don't know what's coming through
necessarily on your end, coming through that microphone,
but to me it sounds a little too honky,
can't do much about it.
But the pretty moderate EQ settings,
you have it on seven, treble,
I would probably bump the treble up,
maybe, if you wouldn't mind, maybe to like seven-ish,
- Seven, yeah, go ahead.
- Yeah then for me...
(relaxed guitar playing)
I would say that sounds pretty good.
Again, a little bit honky, but not that bad.
Alright, next amp, Andrew,
why don't you walk us through the Peavey,
Peavey Rage 158. - Okay.
So this is an older amp, but it's pretty common.
I mean I used to see these,
probably back in the day a little bit more,
you don't see them as much these days.
Usually I see Fenders and I see Line 6.
Those are kinda the two main ones that I see.
But these Peaveys were everywhere,
especially in like the '90's and the early 2000's.
When I was first trading guitars and doing stuff like that,
almost everybody I knew head something similar to this.
This, spoiler, is my favorite sounding amp of the three.
- It's the best sounding amp of the three t`o me as well.
- So, should we start with maybe something,
out of the box, how it might sound?
A little bit crazier on the lows and mids,
so this one has a mid control, which is really nice.
(rock guitar chords)
- It sounds a lot bigger right away.
I don't know what it sounds like to that microphone,
but it sounds a lot bigger right away,
and that just goes to show you,
bigger speakers, with more air,
make it sound more bassy and full.
(rock guitar playing)
And there's a modern and a vintage...
(rock guitar playing)
Because it sounds a little harsher.
First of all I think there's too much gain on it.
Even for the kinda stuff I was playing,
'cause I have it maxed.
(rock guitar playing)
That already sounds better to me.
- It does.
(guitar plucking)
- About six.
(guitar plucking)
I have it on the vintage right now,
it sounded to me like it just gave it a mid boost,
so I just turned the mids down a little bit.
(guitar chords)
See how much we actually need.
(guitar plucking)
I don't see a lot of difference beyond that,
it just gets a little flabbier,
so its on like four.
(rock guitar playing)
And if you wanted to flip to modern.
(rock guitar strumming)
Obviously it needs a little more mids
and a little bit more highs.
(rock guitar playing)
(smooth guitar strumming)
- Okay, so we have pretty moderate settings
going on there, right?
So I would say the highs,
might be a little bit too much highs,
so I'd maybe bring the highs down a touch,
I'd probably bring the mids down as well,
maybe to four, and then the lows,
I would probably bump them to five maybe,
(relaxed guitar playing)
- So it's getting somewhere...
I would put more volume, actually.
I would probably turn it up a little bit louder,
and some of these amps have a master volume,
so if you can bring the regular volume up,
you'll get a little bit more compression out of the amp,
but the master volume keeps it kind of in check.
(guitar playing)
- Started sounding pretty good in the room.
(guitar playing)
- So it's pretty spanky, actually.
- Yeah, it's starting to sound pretty good in the room.
- Surprisingly pretty good.
So obviously, that's a very bright tone,
but that's because of the single coils.
- And use your guitar knobs to dial in a good tone.
If that's bright for you, but you need it for some parts,
back off on the tone knob.
- Back off on the tone knob, absolutely.
Do you wanna hear the cleans maybe through the PRS there?
- Yeah, let's do it.
(jazzy guitar soloing)
For the price, that's one of the better
practice amps I've played through.
- It sounds really good.
I would say, if I was dialing that in,
I would maybe drop some lows a little bit,
but other than that, to me that sounds amazing.
- On to the last one.
And this brings up one of my most pet peeve
kind of points about guitar practice amps,
and that's do not rely on presets.
I cannot think of one multi-effects unit,
modeling amp, anything like that,
inexpensive or very expensive, that I've owned,
where I like the presets.
I always end up having to dial in
just what I want from the ground up.
And this one, I don't think it comes with presets,
but the Line 6 Spider stuff,
often a lot of them do come with presets.
People are like, "This amp sounds like garbage,"
I'm like, "Why're you using a preset, man."
(guitar riffing)
I would like a little more high end
and a little less low end.
Okay.
(slow guitar soloing)
Is there any room to bring the gain down a little bit
and keep the volume up?
Yeah.
(jazzy guitar playing)
Yup.
- Sounds pretty good to me.
So as far as now dialing in a gainier tone on this,
we actually have to change,
I believe there's four channels on it, so it's got like,
Normal, Crunch, what is it?
Metal, and Insane? - Metal and Insane.
- We're going to leave the Insane.
- This comes back to the gain moderation thing.
Like, I like heavy music and I like metal.
But on Line 6 Spider amps,
I almost never use the Insane channel.
I always just put up the gain a little more
on the Metal channel, and it seems to give me what I need.
- So for this one do you want to go with Crunch,
or do you want to go with Metal?
- Let's go on Metal.
- Okay.
(metal guitar strumming)
- Where's the gain at?
I'm curious about that.
- Drive, right there.
So the gain here's at nine,
I have it very low.
- Oh, just crank it.
Pour it wide open.
- Okay!
(intense guitar chord)
- That's a classic example of what happens
when you put too much gain on it.
(metal guitar playing)
- And often times, especially when you're
recording in a studio, layering multiple guitars in,
with a sound like that,
is really key to getting a really fat sound.
Instead of relying on gain,
"Oh I need more gain to fatten up my sound."
- But you could probably hear,
as I rolled back that drive, it opened way up.
Right? Like the tone really opened up,
and maybe for your playing, it wasn't quite enough gain,
but it sounded way, way better.
For the listener, especially.
- Let's try this one with some singles, you know.
- Sounds good.
- I just wanna hear the exact same tone
that we had, on singles.
(heavy guitar riffing)
- Can you back off your tone to like six or seven?
(guitar riffing)
I think it sounds good. - Sounds okay.
Okay, let's check it out clean though?
So I just set the amp basically back
to it being very flat across the board,
I just wanted to make sure I had enough volume...
(guitar strumming)
So immediately that sounds, again, very honky,
a little bit too much midrange and not enough treble.
So I'm going to back off the midrange,
I'm gonna put the midrange,
I'm gonna put it all the way back to like nine o'clock.
And then I'm going to turn the treble up
all the way to like three o'clock,
and bring the bass back a little bit.
Bring the volume up a little more.
(chill guitar playing)
Still it sounds really, almost honky to me.
(guitar strumming)
I guess when you go to the neck pickup--
- When you go to the neck - It immediately does sound
- pickup it sounds good, yeah. - Better.
(guitar playing)
Okay, well that's kinda those three.
Do you want to maybe go through what this might sound like
on a different guitar, or what do you think?
- Yeah, let's do just a couple examples on a cheap guitar,
so you guys aren't like,
"Oh, you're playing expensive guitars."
Again, it doesn't matter that much.
I'm gonna go grab a Squier.
Alright, this is the exact same settings
on the Spider that Andrew just had his guitar plugged into.
(guitar riffing)
Let me hop over to the Peavey here, but that sounds good.
(bright guitar strumming)
And one more.
(bright guitar strumming)
Alright, so those are the tips
for making your inexpensive or small amp sound good.
So in summary, the first thing is use gain in moderation.
Another thing you wanna do is when
you're setting up that more affordable amp,
is set the EQ very flat.
- Cool.
Also, if you don't have reverb on your amp,
look on Craigslist, find a reverb pedel for,
you know, 30-40 bucks.
It can help a lot.
- Some people tend to give up on their amps way too soon,
especially when they're more affordable,
but you need to remember that even with expensive amps,
sometimes there's just one sweet spot
and you just have to go out and find it.
- Just dial it in, yeah.
If there are any tips that we left out or we didn't cover,
that you have for dialing in great tones
on small or inexpensive amps,
let us know in the comments below.
- And make sure you give this video a thumbs up,
and make sure you subscribe to
the channel here on YouTube as well.
We'll see you guys next time.
- And just for comparison's sake,
here is a little clip of the least expensive tube amp
that we could find, in case you want to compare them.
If you want to spend the extra money for that, you can.
So it's just a Blues Jinger.
(funky guitar playing)