How do I charge the Electric Guitar now?

Gear & Tools Talk 🔊 Amplification & Effects
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Oh, what information you get Silvia :sweat_smile: …KISS, because of your description I say…second hand black guitar around 150 euros and a modeling amp also second hand max 200 euros and off you he go… :smiley:
Greetings

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Great overview from Keith @Majik, interesting read!
I had the same thought as Rogier, maybe keep an eye also on the used market. Plenty off almost new stuff out there at interesting price points. Lot’s of people sell stuff in great condition. I think you can’t go wrong with a good modelling amp, like a Katana or a Fender Mustang and a nice quality guitar, which can both be resold, when your hubby gets more into it and takes his own decisions, maybe earlier as you think… the virus is treacherous :joy:.

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These are nice, there is a cheaper model too (THR5) if you’re not looking to spend as much.

And of course I can recommend the Yamaha Pacifica guitar :slightly_smiling_face: (although it’s a bit heavy)

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Thank you all so much for the input! So…I surely need an amp, probably a combo amp? No headphones thing, he wouldn’t use it.

Now I think I might get some very basic thing waiting for.,

I might need some more help…

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A Yamaha Pacifica or a Fender Squier? The Yamaha has that thing called humbucker @mathsjunky suggested for distortion + 2× single coil ( if only I knew what I’m talking about :rofl:) while the Fender has 3x single coil things (!?! what the heck! The Yamaha doesn’t say about the neck width, the wider would be the better choice.

I was thinking that if he can have a bit of distortion with the humbucker thing then I can go for a simple and cheap amp…if the guitar will get to be something more than a cool addition to the living room furniture I’m sure he’ll be able to chose what he likes best (also he knows a lot more than me about technology).

https://www.strumentimusicali.net/product_info.php/products_id/175522/fender-squier-sonic-stratocaster-mn-black.html

https://www.strumentimusicali.net/product_info.php/products_id/26995/yamaha-pacifica-012-ii-metallic-black.html

For the Amp you all mentioned the Boss Katana…but there are so many models…

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You can distort any pickup. it is a function more of the amp/pedals than the pickup. The timbre will change with the pickup, and while we have two fundamental styles, they also vary based on design and choice of electronics around the pickup.

You will want to pick out if you like humbucker or single coil sounds. Did you see this video that was posted today?

Watch the pickup switch position throughout that video and associate that with the sound changes. This may give you a better idea of what to look for in a pickup.

For the Tele and Strat, switch to the player’s left will indicate the neck pickup, to the right will be bridge. There are other positions, but I didn’t see those used.
For the ES335 and Les Paul, the switch up means neck, middle means both pickups, and down means bridge.

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The humbucker alone won’t give you the distorted sound, but it will give a ‘fatter’ sound, typically with a higher output that distorts more easily. You can distort pretty much anything with a suitable amp or pedal. The Yamaha probably has more variety with both humbucker and single coil, but I’d say get whichever floats your (his) boat - you will still be able to distort it with the right amp or pedal.

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It’s a very popular, and well regarded amp, and not too expensive.

He will certainly have plenty of options to get “overdrive” from that: there’s 3 channels with various levels of distortion ranging from “crunch” to a fairly high gain “Brown” channel (with 2 variations on each). On top of that there are 20 emulations of boost, overdrive, and distortion pedals.

I should say a few (!) words about “distortion”: it’s a bit of a vague term that has been extended by the guitar-playing community beyond it’s original meaning, along with the term “gain”.

In electronics, “gain” is a measurement of amplification, and “distortion” is what happens when a signal gets damaged or corrupted in some way.

In the guitar world, when you turn the amp input stages up by increasing the “gain”, it tends to “overdrive” the amp: there’s too much signal for the amp to handle and it starts to distort it. As such, guitar players often refer to highly distorted tones as “high-gain” tones.

This is one form of “distortion” that is caused by the amplifier itself. You can increase the amount of guitar amp overdrive by putting something in front which increases the gain even further, and this is what “boost” pedals do.

More commonly, guitar players refer to this as “overdrive”, and tend to treat “distortion” as something separate: there are pedals which specifically create artificial distortion, using a variety of circuits (which usually perform “hard clipping”) which give different tonal characteristics to the distortion.

As @sequences says, this is largely independent of the pickups (although they can have a minor influence).

Which is why I said that, typically, guitar players looking for “distortion” traditionally tend to do this by using specific distortion pedals, like the Boss DS-1,the Proco RAT, or the Marshall Guv’nor (to name some of the more classic ones).

These, along with “soft clipping” overdrives and boosts, are built into many modelling amps, including the Katana.

As to which model, I would suggest the Katana 50 is a great starting point. The latest and greatest is currently the mk2, but you should be able to get the original Mk1 on the used market for a very good price.

Cheers,

Keith

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I would agree with the Katana 50 mk2 as a great amp. I owned one for a while but eventually moved up to the Katana 100 mk 2 to give me enough sound to fill a hall. For home use, at full power, the 50 has more power than your neighbours will be comfortable with :wink:

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My wife bought me a Yamaha Pacifica for my birthday 18 months ago and I absolutely love it. I mostly play it using a headphone amp which doesn’t disturb anyone else but also gives me some effects like distortion. I don’t know about Fenders but the Yamaha is fantastic for my needs. I do also have a Benson amp, but it doesn’t seem to have much in the way of effects, so I wouldn’t recommend that one. The Boss Katana seems to have a lot of good comments on various sites, so I am thinking of that for my next purchase.

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Consider the Boss Katana Head. Fully functional like the 100. The small speaker is more than enough for home use. It gets loud. What are you really going to do with a 12” 100 watt speaker? Other than go deaf. Takes up less room as well.

The Head is similar to the Yamaha and Spark in size. There are smaller Spark mini and Katana mini (and air) I think. Don’t know about Yamaha. All good and versatile amps. The small ones really are enough if you aren’t outside playing to crowd. I already have tinnitus, don’t give it to yourself!

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At that price point, of those two guitars, I would go the Yamaha.

The Squiers single coils will have a lot of electrical noise when using distortion, the humbucker won’t.

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I’d recommend:

  • Katana 100. Easy to use, with knobs and buttons instead of digital menus (but if you want digital menus you can hook it up to an tablet or computer and use the software). Good sound from a full-sized speaker with a big enough cabinet. Settings for low volume playing (you don’t have to blow the windows out). It’ll do anything from headphones to bedroom to gig on stage. It has more built-in effects than you’ll ever use. You can record into a computer with USB, or use a line out, or use a mic. You can connect the GA-FC footswitch to control it with your feet (unlike the 50W version). It has an effects loop (unlike the 50W version). Basically, you can buy this amp and it will do everything you want it to do with no compromises, and you won’t “outgrow” it.
  • Yamaha Pacifica in an HSS configuration. Although I’ve also seen some Pacificas with a bridge humbucker and a neck P-90, and that would be pretty cool, too.
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Thanks all for the information given.

This is helpful…Yamaha is going to be my choice.

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Hi Silvia,

Single coils CAN have noise, but that is for poorly grounded amps, poorly powered pedals, bad cabling, and/or a lot of local noise. But it is not a guarantee.

I only get noise on my single coils when it is on the stand and I have something using the graphics card intensively. The guitar is next to my computer. If I were to move it away, like set it on my practice chair, the noise doesn’t happen.

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imho, just muckin about will get old pretty fast as it won’t sound good, clean or distorted. As you know, you have to invest much time with a guitar to make music. I have a pretty good ear and feel rythym too. That don’t mean I can play something that’s pleasing to my ear. Clean or distorted. If it sounds like s**t, I’ll likely give up pretty fast. It’s just not fun to hear. Unless I got motivation to really learn what I need to do to make music.

imho, near any amp can get distorted if you turn it up loud enough.

Also fwiw. I thought I wanted to play distortion guitar too. The longer I play, the cleaner I want the tone.

For what your wanting. Anything folks have talked about above will do. Go cheap imho.
I’d just go to craigslist or whatever want ads you have around you. Go scope out some cheap used gear. Play some different guitars (no brand in mind as long as it plays good), play some different amps (no brand in mind, as long as it sounds good to you). I see plenty of them on my local CL (same stuff recommend above) for near pocket change that comply with above stated amps and guitars.
See where that leads him.
For just muckin about with no goal in mind, near anything will do and most will get you your distortion noise.
Distortion is easy to come by I think. A great clean tone, not so easy to come by. I think good cleans are where to start, then you add in you distortion, or any other effect available for that matter. I understand that’s not the goal here, it’s just food for thought.

One last comment. imho, get a amp with a master volume control. I personally find it easy to get ‘amp’ distortion as long as I got a master volume. Ya just turn up the gain/vol. (preamp) knob for more distortion. Then adj. how loud ya want it via the master volume. You should be able to get your distortion at vol. so low that you’ll hear the strings of the guitar over the amp. In other words, volume lower than bedroom volume. Plain quite.
Many of the amps listed above all have switches to add in your distortion too. Myself, I’ve got amps with switches too. I leave them off and get my tones (distortion) from adj. the vol/gain knob and master volume knob. Generally, as sometimes I do run a overdrive pedal (or switch on a gain switch on the amp) as the amps I have are not modeling amps. So I am not opposed to distortion, I like it. I just find distortion has it’s place and sometimes it has no place.

Good luck in your quest.

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Big thanks to all of you who gave advice! So now I have a Yamaha Pacifica Electric Guitar…but there’s no charger in the box…only the guitar! How do I charge it?

And since you all reccomended Boss Katana I got this one, which is a Mini Boss Katana, but seems to be more than enough for our purposes. But it’s a battery Amp, it won’t charge the guitar for sure!

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It seems to have quite a few things to explore

Stupid question, but really I know nothing about this stuff… Can I maybe charge the guitat through my Acoustic Amp? I apologize if this sounds very silly!

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Silvia, there is no charging required. You just need to plug the guitar into the amp using the guitar cable like this, turn on your amp and turn up the volume on the guitar and the amp and you should be good to go.

Don’t forget to put the batteries in your amp first.

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Hi Sylvia. That little amp is very good. You can get a power supply for it and it is more than powerful enough for the guitar. Even in battery mode it works for a few hours.

Have fun.

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Either we have done a superb job with that joke or you are doing a superb job with fooling me. :slight_smile:

Electric guitars don’t need to be charged. The electricity comes from the nickel/steel string wiggling across a magnet. That voltage is fed into your pedal/amp signal chain where it is amplified to drive a speaker.

Just plug it in and start fiddling. More questions will probably come to your mind!

Just for clarity, there are some guitars that have a battery in them for a different type of pickup. You don’t have that.

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