What do you want the amp to do? Will you be playing at home by yourself or with other musicians? Do you want to gig with the amp? What kind of gigs do you want to do? These are good questions to begin with.

If you're playing at home (or at someone else's home), exclusively, a small amp, (5 - 15 watts) is probably all you need. There are good solid state practice amps available for well under $100.00. You might be able to find one used for under $50.00. If you want a small tube amp it will cost you more than a small solid state amp, but they are still quite reasonable.

If you're playing with other musicians, how loud they play will determine what size amp you need. Someone who is the only electric player among acoustic musicians (with no drummer), 15 to 25 watts will probably be enough to play comfortably. With drummers and other electric players, you would probably need a minimum of 30 "honest" watts, with 40 to 50 watts being a more typical amp size for club size gigs and most electric based bands.

Do you need 100 watts of power (or more)? Do you need stacks of 4 by 12 cabinets? If the people you're playing with are playing like thunder, you'll likely need as much power as the other guitarist has to keep up, especially with no help from a P.A. If you want to play certain kinds of rock or metal, a 4 x 12" cabinet (4 - 12" speakers with a closed back) gives the tone a lot of players want, but typically, an honest 50 watts turned up through a 4 -12 is loud enough to scare most bystanders and be heard over all but the loudest of drummers.

This is an appropriate place for an important aside. If you play music under loud circumstances (loud enough so your ears ring or it sounds "quiet" when you're done playing), WEAR HEARING PROTECTION!! Even if you sing, you can get used to it with a little time and patience. And it may not seem like it now, but you are investing in your future ability to hear well enough to play your best music, not to mention to hear the voices of your loved ones. Take hearing loss seriously. By the time you notice your hearing is changing, it's too late to make it any better.

If you need to be loud and have a clean tone, you may need a lot of power. Bass players typically need two to four times as much power as the guitar players they're playing with to have a clean tone that's loud enough. Pedal steel players also need a lot of power to be loud enough to be heard with an undistorted tone. Players like Larry Crane, formerly with John Mellencamp, play with a very clean tone. When Larry did arena-sized shows with Mellencamp's band, he used a 300-watt Mesa Boogie head and turned it up just enough to still have a clean tone but be REALLY loud. In the studio, however, he could use small amps and get the same effect because he didn't need to be so loud, he just needed to have good clean tone to lay down on tape.

How many speakers do you need and what size should they be? Or, in other words, what kind of speaker compliment do you need? This again depends on what kind of tone you want and how loud you need to be. Each size of speaker has a characteristic tone. Each brand name of speaker also has it's own tone. Generally, the larger the diameter of the speaker, the more bass is accentuated in the tone. The inverse is also generally true: i.e., 10" speakers are brighter and punchier than 12's or 15's. Putting like speakers in multiples will affect the overall tone. Two twelves are not louder, per se, but they move twice as much air as a single twelve inch speaker, so the sound will "carry" better, have more overall presence, and generally have proportionately more low end. Dual speakers also generally have a more "open" sound than the same speaker does singly because of greater dispersion of sound. Putting like speakers in groups of four will increase the bass and the openness of the sound, as well as the "carrying power" of the tone that much more. Also, a speaker with a lower wattage rating will break up at a lower volume than will a higher wattage speaker. Higher wattage speakers also tend to be brighter than a lower wattage speaker of the same size. A closed back speaker cabinet will also have more bass that the same speaker in an open backed cabinet.

How does that translate into use? Stressing again that this is a decision depending on taste and there is no right or wrong, we can make some helpful suggestions. If you are playing a guitar that has an inherently bright tone, such as a Fender style guitar with single coil pickups, you might want to try amps with 12" or 15" speakers to help bring out a bit more bassiness in your tone. Likewise, if you are playing a guitar with a darker sound, like a guitar with P-90's, or humbuckers, or a hollow body guitar, you might like the brightness and punchiness that playing through 10's gives your tone. If you like to play with distortion, see what low vs. high wattage speakers will bring to your tone. Some players like the sound that the breakup of low wattage speakers add to their tone, others just want to hear the sound of the amp breaking up through clean, high wattage speakers. It really depends on you and what that perfect guitar tone is that lives in your head. Your speakers are the transducers that change the electricity from your amplifier back into music. Along with your pickups (they change the music into electricity), they have the most profound effect on your overall electric guitar tone.

The last question we will deal with in this section of our Shop Talk is do you want a solid state (transistor) amp, or a tube amp? First, some generalizations. Solid state amps are usually less expensive than a tube amp of equivalent size and wattage. Solid state amps are usually lighter weight than a tube amp of equivalent power. Solid state amps are usually more durable than tube amps. So why would anyone want to play through a tube (or valve) amplifier?

This takes a bit of technical explanation. First, we should say that solid state amps, when not driven to the point of clipping (not overdriven) excel at producing clean sound with great fidelity. This is why most bass players and most pedal steel guitar players play through high wattage, solid state rigs, often with large diameter, high wattage speakers.

When the player wants even a little bit of overdrive or gain in his or her tone, they will usually choose a tube amp over transistor, if money will allow. In general, tube amps have a "sweeter" overdriven sound than do solid state amps. This also is true (though less so) of their respective clean tones. Tube amps sound sweeter than transistor amps because of the difference in the structure and attendant characteristics of the two types of devices. Tubes are electromechanical devices that amplify signal (electricity coming from your guitar, in this case) differently from the way that transistors (an electronic device) do.

A brief digression will help us understand how these devices do their jobs differently. Harmonics are overtones or secondary tones that accompany a given note, which is also known as the fundamental tone or fundamental, and although they are not always obvious, they have much to do with the tone of that note. The distribution and structure of the relationship of harmonics to the fundamental are what determines the tone of the fundamental. Harmonics occur in numerical relationships to the note you are playing. In other words, if the note you are playing has a frequency (what determines the pitch of that note) of 440 hertz (abbreviated Hz.), then the harmonics at 110hz, 220hz, and 880hz will be naturally prominent, and harmonics of 105hz, 213hz, 445hz, and 879hz, for example will not be heard, except perhaps as very light background color of the note. The harmonics that sound good with, or harmonize with the fundamental, are the even numbered harmonics. Harmonics that clash with, or are dissonant to the fundamental, are the odd numbered harmonics. Because of the differences in their structure, transistors accentuate odd numbered harmonics and tubes accentuate even numbered harmonics. This is why, especially when overdriven, tube amps sound sweeter and have a more musical tone than solid state amps.

When you know what size amp will be best for your applications, you just need to play some amps until you find one you like. Especially if you haven't played through a lot of different amplifiers, play all kinds of amps. Don't exclude one type or brand until you've tried it. Amps are like guitars in that each individual amp has it's own special strengths and idiosyncrasies, each amp has it's own tone and way that it will respond to your playing. The importance of an amplifier to a guitar player's tone is often overlooked. Depending on how you use an amp, it can be the device that lets your tone come out and be heard, or it can be 80% (or more) of your tone. In either case and all of them in between, your amplifier is an integral part of your musical expression and your musical signature and an important determinant in how people hear you.