Which Amp to Use?

The endless search for "that" guitar tone can drive most guitarists crazy.

I have tried many different amps in this eternal search and what I have discovered is that the best amp is one that has a great clean tone. Why? Because if you have a great clean tone you can put any other effect through it and it will sound good. What a lot of people do not really know is that most major artists/bands do not rely on their amps alone to get their tone. Rather they use pedals, multi-effects and plugins through an amp on the clean channel.

For example Joe Satriani used a Boss DS1 through the clean channel of a Marshall amp for Flying in a Blue Dream. Brian May famously uses Vox AC30s yet his tone comes from a 1 watt transister amp built by Queen's bassist John Deacon lined into the Vox. Recently Def Leppard's Phil Collen stated that all of his guitar effects in the studio are now done through the computer.

With that said, I like to use Fender and Vox amps when playing live. In the studio I don't use any amps, I line in to the desk through a Line 6 Podxt Pro.