The Friendly 12bar Blues Guitar Forum

Hello from the U.S., I'm new to the forums and i'm hoping to learn from the old and new players on here. I've been playing about 6 months now started on an acoustic and now i have an Epiphone Les Paul Studio in alpine white, which is beautiful, but hard to keep her nice and clean. The Les Paul is currently plugged into a line 6 spider IV 15 watt amp but i'm hoping to get a new amp soon. So any Input on the right amp for me would be greatly appreciated.

I recently started getting into the blues and have fell in love with it, though this forum seems to have a lot of clapton fans, i haven't listened to much of his stuff. However my lack of clapton has been filled so far with B.B. King, The Black Keys, Junior Kimbrough, and with a bit of dabbling in some Muddy Waters as well as some older tunes like Anita O'day, Billie Holiday, Etta James, Louis Armstrong, and Ella Fitzgerald.I'm looking forward to talking about music styles and gear and hopefully you have some good pointers on what music i should check out to further my blues knowledge. I hope to be fairly active on these forums so lets hope you see me around here.

Love, Bish

here, If you like music you found the best place on the web to hang out for some help and advise.

Hi Mosesearly and welcome to 12 bar

Re your question on new Amp .....I think you need to give a few more details of what your criteria are ..............
Valve or digital/ gigging or home, if home how much can you afford to crank it up / type of music ? who do you want to sound like ?? / any Preferred Brands ??
Budget etc

there are several old threads on various Amps and selection stories, so I would search those too

Who to listen too???.............phew!! ..........how long is a piece of string ??.. & where to start .....it depends on so many things including your own personal choice ... I think I'd start with some Blues Compliation CD's, look at Amazon , they are usually pretty cheap..... and see who you really like. What speaks to you and whose material do you want to play ???

I'd be saying The Old Guard :- Buddy Guy , all the Kings are absolutely essential listening .... .I'm a Freddie King fan, Howling Wolf, Taj Mahal
Then JJ Cale , Alllman Brothers / Derek Trucks / Peter Green ( an absolute must imo.. Listen to Hot foot Powder ... see seperate thread By Viking Blues ) Eric Bibb ( Acoustic Blues ) , Stevie Ray Vaughan.and don't ignore Clapton ......His Robert Johnson cd is Blues through and through .... as is "From the Cradle" and New Guard :- Robert Cray , Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Buddy Whittington & Joe Bonamassa.

Good luck & enjoy !!

Thanks for your replies and as for the amp situation, I play mainly in my room at home and can do it fairly loud. I like the sounds of David Gilmour, B.B. King ( though i don't have a semi hollow body so don't worry about that), and slash's sound in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1ZIK-1k ... re=related.
I'm hoping to find a tube amp as long its under a thousand U.S. dollars i'm going to have to save anyways so why not lol. Also thanks Strummer for the names im going to check them out. I currently work as a night gate attendant at a state park 11pm-7am so i have nothing to do really but listen to music and play my acoustic.Gives me a lot of listening time to work with, and as far as blues go i like slow blues a lot but i'm not a huge fan of Texas blues.


Love, Bish

to the forum. If you've got an interestin the blues you've found the right place.

Good list of names from Strummer. You might have a look at this thread too
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=550
to see some of the blues guitarists in favour here.

A tube amp is a great idea for blues. If you're heading up towards $1000 I'll let other make suggestions - I'm more at the $250 end of the cash spectrum!

Look forward to seeing you around the forum.

Awesome thanks for the list man, and as far as amps go, i have heard that tube amps have the best sounds. I'm interested in anyone and everyones ideas on the amps. $1000 is just the amount i don't really want to go over but if you have something you think is really good in the $250 range i'm all ears. And thanks for the welcome have been some good reads so far.

Love, Bish

from frigid NM (19 below last night ).
You can't go wrong with a Fender Blues Jr, at well under a grand.
What is wrong with Texas Blues??? You probably haven't listened to enough of it.
Try some SRV, Johnny Winter, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Freddy King, Lightnin' Hopkins, Mance Lipscomb.... among lots of others.

MosesEarly wrote:Awesome thanks for the list man, and as far as amps go, i have heard that tube amps have the best sounds. I'm interested in anyone and everyones ideas on the amps. $1000 is just the amount i don't really want to go over but if you have something you think is really good in the $250 range i'm all ears. And thanks for the welcome have been some good reads so far.

Depends a little on what type of sound you want, if it's the fender ( blackface :6l6 end tubes) try a Fender Super champ XD or a Vibro champ. I myself use what fender used to call it's flagship , the Fender Cybertwin SE. Soundwise... mhh try following the link to my website/soundclick or just go to www.12bar.nl
there all kinda samples there :) The CT just might turn out to be on the "too expensive" side of your budget though) I'm thinking of selling my Blackheart little giant head and getting me a superchamp XD myself.

I have a bid on a used Kiitty hawk, but I guess most of those amps are in europe anyway.

Try listening to some of the Blackhearts, nice little amps, just not my "Tone"

to 12bar.de!

This is an amateur Blues site, not just a Clapton fan page (although it started as one - it was JL Hooker who brought me to the Blues, not EC. And that was after my first EC albums...)

Thanks for the ideas on the amps, I love the cybertwin its got a great sound and the rotating knobs are awesome. I like the blues jr. sound so i'm going to try and test one out soon.From what i've heard, marshall amps don't sound very good at lower levels, is that true? i haven't had much time to play any marshalls. i started listenin to jl hooker and he has a great sound and voice, after i get my next amp i want to start saving for a semi-hollow body guitar. Going to start looking at more amps soon. Thanks for your input guys.

Love, Bish

MosesEarly

Bish to the best blues forum.
you will learn and geat the best of the blues over here.
I'm also a starter ans every day i learn things by reading the new posts.

MosesEarly wrote:i started listenin to jl hooker and he has a great sound and voice,

He's a real wonderful one off.
One of my favourites (oh no not again they cry!) - so much mood and emotion in so few notes. Gives me the chills.
7GOCAC8FCqE

MosesEarly wrote:after i get my next amp i want to start saving for a semi-hollow body guitar.

Damn that was a great song, i'm glad i found this site.

Love, Bish