The Steel Guitar Forum

Greetings to all. I am new to all this and want to start with steel guitar. I will only play for my own satisfaction at this point, at home. What amp, by size, type, manufacturer would be ideal? I would also want it to allow me to plug in vintage instruments that I collect.

Thanks for helping out a newbie.

James Nottage

You might define a budget and what type of other instruments you wish to plug into it.
Style of music and tone you are seeking, Clean / Distorted / Vintage
300 -400 Dollar range
800- 1000 $ range
2000-3000 $
Playing steel and guitar can be a trade off.
I do it with a Fox D56b 4-10 amp.
Staying home you may be better served to use two separate amps, like a Peavey and Fender combo.

Yours is a simple, good question. You deserve a simple, good answer.

Look, you plan on playing at home for awhile. Great. I assume you won't be playing gig-loud in that environment.

So, go get yourself a black or silver-faced Fender tube combo amp with reverb.

You'll be just fine with that for quite some time.

Really, anyone disagree?

I agree with Eric. For gig-volume guitar and home-volume pedal steel, a vintage blackface or silverface Fender Deluxe Reverb is very hard to beat. Depending on how loud you want your gigging guitar amp to be, you might find something larger like a Pro Reverb or something smaller like a Princeton Reverb fine also. I'm using SF Princeton Reverb with a JBL for a lot of stuff these days.

Of course, it depends on what kind of sound you're looking for. But for anything besides some types of hard-rock or heavy metal, a blackface or silverface medium-sized Fender covers a lot of ground - blues, rock and roll, country of whatever sort, jazz, rockabilly, you name it.

If you need a hoss for pedal steel gigs later, it's pretty easy to scarf up a NV 112/400/1000 or Session 400 for reasonable do-re-mi.

pretty amazing thing..

after as many as 42 years those Fender silverface amps are still in demand. Seeing you are playing at home that opens up much more opportunity..the new Fender single 12 /40 watt amps are also excellent, Blues Deluxe, Hot Rod Deluxe and will also serve your purposes really well. It really gets down to a $$$ budget that you have in mind...

t

James - You might consider a small Peavey with a 12" speaker. You can often find them in the $100-$150 range. Most Solo Series, Special 112, Special 130, Bandit etc. will serve as a good versatile amp for a small investment.

For all those pushing small tubey Fenders, the Peavey Classic 30 and 50 are right there in terms of great tubey tones and solid build, and depending on which Fender you compare it to they have more clean headroom too. I've got an old Classic 30 head and varying speakers, but I've plugged about everything but the cat into it with great success.


here, kitty... he-ere, kitty...

For home practice I agree a silver face Princeton reverb is a great choice, but expect to pay $600 and up. It would be a good investment because it will only continue to go up in value over time.

An affordable alternative would be a Fender Blues Jr, which I see on Craigs List all the time for around $300. 15 tube watts is plenty for home practice and will even let you jam with friends if they don't get too loud.

If you want to spend less than that I see a lot of Fender and Peavey solid state combos on Craigs List for $75 to $150 that would work just fine. My wife found me a Fender 25 watt Frontman for $20 at a yard sale. Works fine for low volume band practice and saves me from having to schlep my Twin back and forth. Value-wise these are pretty much throw away amps.

Better check with your local laws, but I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have only one amp, especially if you have more than 1 instrument.

What Tim said. I'll add these amps that I've been happy with at home: Roland cube 30 or 60, or the small Vox DA5. But if you have more to spend, you never can go wrong with a Deluxe Reverb or Princton Reverb - my favorites.

Bill-

I think you will find that it is only illegal if you do not exceed the 2 to 1 ratio of instruments to amps. It is perfectly lawful to have two guitars and one amp, but as soon as you add the third instrument, you must buy another amp. If you have six guitars you had better not get caught with less than three amps. The more you are out of whack to the 2:1 ratio, the stiffer the fine.

Of course if you live in Nashville, Austin, or LA, the laws are much tougher.

Hello Brick,

The Roland Micro Cube is a popular practice amp you can use for lap steel and electric guitar, since they sound pretty good and have amp modeling and effects.

That said, I've sold the two I've owned previously and only use a Pignose 7-100, which isn't for everyone, I suppose.

PS You really have a cool name

i'd look for a used peavey bandit 112 for $150 or less...it will cover any situation cheaply. i even played a concert stage with mine when my nash400 had a problem. threw a mic on it. sounded great. friends have played tele through it at bar gigs. looks good..fairly light..decent eq..cheap!

ZT Club Amp --->
nice warm and clear sound, loud, small, light, cheap

(double post)

If you ever plan to do any gigs, and you probably will, I would go ahead and get a bigger amp. I have 4 amplifiers, but I use my Peavey Nashville 1000 about 80% of the time. If I only could have one, this would be it. It is also a bargain.