What was your first amp?

metropolis_4

Rock Star
Messages
1,018
I was just reminiscing, remembering my first gear.

My parents bought me my first electric guitar for Christmas, but they couldn’t afford to buy an amp too.

We had a bookshelf stereo in the dining room that had a mic input for singing karaoke, so for the first year I plugged my guitar into that mic input and played through the stereo.

Next Christmas they bought me a Crate GX-15 and it was the greatest sounding thing I had ever heard!

No amp will ever sound as good to me as that amp did the first time I played it

What was your first?
 

TSJMajesty

Rock Star
Messages
1,817
Peavey Classic. It was a 50 watt, tube combo w/ 2- 12" speakers and a built-in phaser. It sounded good airc. Lot better than the Yamaha SS combo I got talked into for my next amp.
 

TimOwens316

Roadie
Messages
241
I don’t remember what it was but it wasn’t a guitar amp, it was a mono hi-fi tube amp that my mom bought for me at the Goodwill. Then my cousin gave me a Fender Blender and that’s what started it all for me 😀
 

scole

Groupie
Messages
31
I still have it- Yamaha G100-210 Mark III

i-mdFKV3d-M.jpg


Solid state, weighs a ton, and has horrible distortion. Apparently these are now viewed favorably in jazz circles and as a pedal platform. It is frigging loud..
 

Boudoir Guitar

Shredder
Messages
880
I got a Marshall MS-2 with my Squier II guitar. I plugged a pair of Koss over-ear headphones into it and cranked it up full volume for dirt. I kept the headphones around my neck or just sitting out b/c it was too loud to wear. Pretty sure I blew those headphones out doing that. 10 months later I got a Fender studio 85 - my parents were pretty freaked out because they figured if that tiny little MS-2 was as loud as it was, how insane was this huge box gonna be?!? "Don't worry!!! It's got a bunch of different volume knobs so you balance them out!!". It took about six months for someone to finally convince me reverb didn't always have to be on 10....
 

headcrash

Groupie
Messages
26
Mine was this:
This was wayyy before the internet, like 1991 or so. I ordered it at Voelkner or Conrad, which were or are mail order companies for everything electronic.
That damn thing just couldn't really distort, the pull overdrive function must be something like a simple overdrive, and I remember soon getting a cheap plastic overdrive pedal PSK SOD-2, which still wasn't metal enough for me, so next was the Ibanez 10 series Metal Charger.

After that came the first real amp, a Peavey Envoy 110 (blue/alu stripe). That one was tested in German Metal Hammer in early 1993 or so, and thus was convincing enough to me to save up for this :grin
 

paisleywookiee

Rock Star
Messages
1,797
Fender M-80 combo. Okay cleans, awful distortion. I naively thought as a 16 year old “well yeah amp distortion is bad on every amp. Everyone uses pedals for that”.
 

Piing

Shredder
Messages
546
I had no money for that luxury. I was interested in electronics, though, and I managed to hack a AM transistor radio to plug the Framus that I had borrowed from a friend.
 

Sascha Franck

Rock Star
Messages
1,607
This, a glorious Echolette CA30 (yeah, they really named it that...), made in GDR (former east germany). Unlike some other Echolette units (such as their tape echos, small tube PAs and what not), this populates the other end of the "collectable" spectrum:
echolette ca 30 – Google Suche-2.jpg

As a funny side story: Last year, I put it in the backyard for a while to get the car, finally wanted to take it to a place caring about to-be-trashed electronics (no idea about the english name for such a place...) and also take a picture beforehand. But while I was getting the car (which took like 5 minutes or so), someone stole the thing! And it looked really *way* worse than the one in the picture. Also, as said, that was in the backyard - sure, a place shared between different houses, still something where someone might easily watch you. The good thing being that I didn't have to care about it any longer, the bad thing being that I couldn't take the planned farewell-picture.

Soundwise, the thing was supposed to stay clean (solid state and no drive circuit) but didn't exactly, as neither the amp nor the speaker were up to perform at band volume - which I used it for anyway. The only thing I owned along with it was an original (first series, malaysian chip) TS-808, a match made in hell. The amp was kinda fullrange-ish, constantly running into PA and speaker "edge of breakup" (ahem...), then gloriously pushed into more gain territory by said TS. It only got better because I fed it with this kinda guitar:
1960s 1970s Hertiecaster - PhilThy Guitars.jpg


So, now you know a part of the tortures I went through in my younger years...
However, in case I had a Kemper or QC, I still would've taken a capture of that amp. Unfortunately, there's no recordings of it anymore, but for a certain kind of really strange indie sound, it was doing quite a great job - certainly something pretty much impossible to achieve with quality equipment.
 

AFKAEjay

Roadie
Messages
120
Fender M-80 combo. Okay cleans, awful distortion. I naively thought as a 16 year old “well yeah amp distortion is bad on every amp. Everyone uses pedals for that”.
Also my first amp…ok in the bedroom…awful on stage..
Fertile ground for my dislike of solidstate amps …I still hear fragments of the m80 in all of them ;-)
 

la szum

Rock Star
Messages
4,900
I am in the Peavey Solid State club, too. Peavey Studio Pro 40. Nothing Studio or Pro about it. :LOL:

I somehow convinced my Single Mom to put it on a CC and I paid it off over the Summer. It
was Hot Garbage!
 

KingsXJJ

Shredder
Messages
519
A tiny Crate 15 watt combo… the old wood stripe “Crates.” Because it had more gain than the others in the pawnshop where I bought my first Ibanez guitar and practice amp.
 

Stratzrus

Roadie
Messages
260
My first amp was an Epiphone Galaxie like this one that I got in 1966 to amplify my mahogany Guild acoustic with a DeArmond pickup in the soundhole...

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But the next year I talked my mom into buying me a piggyback Bandmaster like this one and a Stratocaster.

lkffnk0rjeydfofrnigz.jpg


I loved that guitar and amp!
 
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