What was your first amp???

[Rodeking1]

My first amp was bought for my by my grandpa for $49.95 brand new in 1967. It was a Kalamazoo. Little bity thing with tubes and it would shock you when you played it...especially if your hands were damp. My first electric guitar was a "Gibson" ....not a Gibson brand but one bought at Gibson's Discount Store in Oklahoma for the sum of $21.95. Terrible tremelo and hard to play barr chords with but better than the $15 dollar acoustic I had with strings 1/2" high from the frets. Loaned the amp to my brother and he loaned it to my cousin...and where it is now, I do not know.

Present:
Mesa Lone Star short head
Mesa recto 2 x 12 Verticle cab
Mesa 4-10 Classic cab
Fender Twin Reverb II
Fender Deluxe Reverb Silver face

Guitars

Gibson Les Paul Std 1978
MIJ Fender Strat
MIUSA Fender Strat 2004 50th anniversary
Gibson ES335 1977
Ovation Ballader 1980

 

[exposeenmity]

My first amp was a Peavey 112 TransTube, like the one below:

After that I graduated to a solid state Marshall head. It was the Valvestate 8100 matched with two (straight and slanted) Crate GS412 speaker cabinets. These aren't actual pictures of the stuff I had, but same models:

Now I have only one of those Crate cabs, the straight one, and a modified Laney VH100R. Again, this isn't my VH100R, but I will post a picture of it once I get the chance.

And within a month or so, I should be the proud owner of a Mesa Rect-O-Verb, my first Mesa.

 

[oyster]

My first amp was truly awful.
I can't remember the manufacturer's name but I THINK it might have been CRATE.
It was 15 watts (rated aggressively) and I think the frequency range was something like 1k-2k.
It sounded horrible, no matter what I did with the tone knobs it always sounded the same.
It did have overdrive though, which was labeled "distortion" and that is exactly what it did. Blech!!!
I couldn't get the thing to sound at all like what I heard on the radio or in my head, and it was extremely hard on the ears.
Actually, with an amp like that it is amazing I stuck with guitar (or that my roomates didn't kill me).
Thanks for the memories. :wink:

 

[AMG1]

Small Kalimazoo SS. with tremlo and a 10" speaker.

 

[NoGlassNoClass]

crate cr110.....looked like a wooden shipping crate and sounded about as good.

 

[spot]

Mine was an old Epiphone solid state 50w 2x12 from the late 60's - early seventies. Absolutely no distortion.... Ran it with a Washburn AV-15 and an Ibanez 9-series Sonic Distortion pedal.

After that I graduated to a Peavy Classic 50 watt 2x12 and POS early '70's Gibson SG II.

Some people get sentimental about missing their first rigs - I hated all of mine LOL.

 

[Gordman]

Peavey Backstage 30, purchased new, back when they still had the silver metal knobs.

 

[nocluejimbo]

Fender Champion 30, pre-DSP.

It wasn't the loudest or best sounding amp, but it was reliable and did everything I needed.

 

[waxnsteel]

Gorilla. I blew it up.

 

[zakk615]

It was a 15w Crate amp with useless/horrible sounding built in effects. I had it for about 3 months, and then traded it in for a 30w solid-state marshall which was a bit better sounding.

 

[riddick]

My first amp was a Jade 15w practise amp, then l got a Marshall Valvestate, then a 5150ii now l'm after a Boogie.

My first guitar l can't really remember, it was probably built in a country that no longer exists. :twisted:

Scott.

 

[HappyStrat]

1959 Fender Bandmaster that I bought in 1970.

 

[Bikedude]

My first amp was a Maestro (by Gibson i believe) in 1963, I still have it. It's got an 8 in. speaker, 10 watts, rev. and tremelo, all tube. My next amp was a 65 Fender Bassman piggy back. I wish i still had it. I traded it in for a Randall RG60 back in the early 80's, what a dumbass!! I bought a brand new fender twin in 1970 with a Les Paul custom Gold top, and a 70 Strat Cream with Maple neck hardtail. I still have this stuff today. So here is a list of the junk I have today.

63 Maestro
70 Twinn
Flextone II w/ extension cab
Hot Rod DeVille 4X10
Lonestar Classic 1X12

 

[Chickentown]

after the little sears catalog battery operated job I got, I think it was this.

The Ampeg VT40. Heavy as hell, any number of the speakers not working at any moment. And it got *hot* while playing.

 

[R_ADKINS80]

My first amp was a little 10 watt soid state Park amp made by Marshall. It had 2 gain knobs on it. Leave em both low for clean tones, turn one up for ac/dc style crunch and turn both up for ultra gain! It actually sounded pretty kick *** until my brother fried both his and mine trying to play in a band with them.

 

[mechanic]

It was a long time ago, but I believe the first amp I had was some sort of Ampeg 2x12 combo. I eventually cooked the speakers: I used to play it cranked with a Boss Heavy Metal pedal in front. Oh, and I was dumb enough to let my old singer plug his mic into the low-Z input while I was playing through the other one - that may have been a bad decision... :wink:

 

[richt]

Mine was a Peavey Special 130 1x12 combo...2 channel solid state with the Black Widow speaker. Actually the sound was not too shabby, for a solid state amp! I even got compliments on my tone a couple of times (amazing!) With a TubeScreamer on the clean channel, it did quite a good job! We won 2 "Battle of the Bands" with it, so it served me well

Cheers,

Richt

 

[sixlicks]

A tweed fender champ .

 

[Kaz]

My very first amp was an Ibanez IBZ10 10 watt practice SS combo. It was a real piece of work with a 'boost' button that made everying gainier but completely indistinct (I called it the **** button).

I eventually sold it to some unsuspecting, poor soul on ebay.

 

[Jay22]

Wow, my first amp was actually my bedroom stereo. I plugged into it somehow and played clean for a while.

When my old man saw that I was getting a bit better he got me a little combo 1x12 amp. Im pretty sure it was a peavey amp of some sort, and I then bought a little zoom 1010 pedal for some tone.
Then I traded up to a 2x12 peavey combo later on.

After that its a long rash of weird *** amps. One of them was a big bear.