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.

Les Paul Upgrade

I have recently upgraded one of my Les Pauls.

I recently swapped out the stock pickups in one of my Les Pauls for Alnico Pro II pickups. The change in sound is great, the Alnicos give my guitar more of a vintage sound that is classic Les Paul rock!

Keyboards and MIDI

One of the best things digital technology brought with it was MIDI Data.

This technology allows me to have a keyboard set up in my studio that can access an unlimited amount of sounds. By using MIDI Data I can load in sound "Samples" from the computer and assign them to the keyboard. The major benefit of this is that I don't need to have an army of synthesizers to access different sounds for myself and other artists.

Ibanez Guitars

I have a lot of different guitars but over the years I have found myself using my Ibanez RG 570 the most.

There is something about this guitar that just fits my playing style more so than all of my other guitars. My model has a Lo-TRS tremolo fitted to it, many people claim that this tremolo is inferior to the Ibanez Edge tremolo. I however would disagree strongly with this. I have used a couple of Ibanez guitars with the Edge tremolo and would prefer mine over any of them. Maybe I am just lucky, I have never had any problems with it, yet if you read the internet forum boards there are a lot of posts from people who claim they have multiple problems with the TRS from them wearing out to not holding the guitar in tune.

I have had this guitar since 1999 and it has never failed me.

Guitar technique

My guitar technique: