Amp Guide

What is your budget, and what type of music do you play?

My mind works in £, so I'm not 100 percent sure of everything, but that wipes out vox (Well, any vox that's decent + gigworthy).

Don't be tempted by the satan that is digital amp modelling, because unless it's very expensive chances, are it's going to be horrible sounding.

I would be tempted by a Fender Blues/Pro junior, as they can get decent volume, sound sound pretty good, and count as one of your five tubes a day.

They don't (as far as I'm aware) have footswitchable channels (Or channelS at all), so you'd need a floorboard for gain, but there should be a built in reverb

need volume and clean tone for pixies/nirvana thing?try a 90s sovtek mig or maybe a 100 watt 70s univox (they are not really 100 watts, more like 80).... or the dreaded musicman hybrid amps from the 70s, leo fender designed, Joan Jett gigs one with a dirt box, very punk rock...

most all tube amps with real power are way outta your price range... I was a teen in the 90s with tad, the melvins, pixies and, YES, nirvana... reference some albums and I'll see what I can recommend to fit your budget and needs... where do you live? if you are anywhere near DC or Baltimore then hit up Atomic Music in Beltsville MD... be polite and ask a lot of intelligent questions and they will hook you up...

Also live in Texas that's too bad, not a lot of great, cheap gear there as I recall.... there's great gear, but its pricey

for a foo sound? jeez, your budget is too small, save your beans... they used to use expensive mesas live and vintage or handwired RI ac30s live and in the studio.... recent foo has some hot-rodded marshall courtesy of a Friedman brown eye and even some peavey 6505 amps too (which are kinda in the mesa recto camp), but still vintage and HW series voxes featured heavily on the records... for greenday stuff billy joe pretty much used to exclusively use his modded marshall superleads. They have crazy gain mods done to them. A JCM800 willg et you close... I think the dude used some vintage fenders on insomniac too.... more recently he's been breaking out some silvertone twin twelve heads thru marshall cabs.... you could probably cover everything you need to do with a powerful clean amp in the fender cap and a couple am-in-a-box pedals by catalinbread... PS, none of those bands are very grungey

I know they're not grungy but I was talking about nirvana

for bleach or in utero you want a silverface twin reverb, a small clone and a ds1 or ds2... I think that Kurt used Jack Endino's late 60s/early 70s twin on that record and he used his late 70s/early 80s twin forin utero... for nevermind you want a blackface bassman and/or an ac30, same pedals, he just used the amps that were in the tracking room at Sound City where they recorded it and that's what was there... for live its the same pedals with a mesa studio preamp from the 80s in clean mode with the midrange knob cranked to 10 and a huge solid state poweramp through a generic 90s marshall 4x12 with stock speakers, same pedals.... a music man will get you close to the SF twin thing on the cheap, also the traynor amps from the 70s with reverb are like twin reverbs in a head and can be had cheaply since they are not so desireable compared to the bassmaster amps of that era that have more of a marshall plexi tone... in modern amps you can sometimes get those 90s 'the twin' amps that have the distortion channel pretty cheap and the normal channel can pull off some okay twin cleans. The real key to Kurt s a fender guitar with a bridge humbucker like a dimarzio distortion or a Duncan JB installed going into a clean, fender voiced amp with a 3 band EQ blackface input stage, the midrange turned way up, bass all the way down and the treble set to suit the room.

You got anything on the thermals

no idea who they are, I am an oldster

some close enough kurt amps:

https://reverb.com/item/1303009-fender-twin-1991-black

https://reverb.com/item/1283783-mesa-boogie-studio-preamp

https://reverb.com/item/243475-crest-audio-ca6dom-1996-black

a good billy joe/chris shifflet option:

http://usa.matrixamplification.com/guitar-amps.html (cheaper than a real 800 and way cheaper than a hot-rodded superlead or Friedman amp, I tried one and it sounds pretty good.... its hard to believe its part solid state!)

Oh you should check them out they're good

I'll see what I think next time I can work up the courage to listen to a current band.

I find that young people are cheap about gear even though they claim they are serious about guitar... hey are also impatient with a need it now attitude and they spend years and thousands chasing what they want when all along they had an idea what they wanted and just didn't want to outlay the scratch up front to get it, they buy junk stuff with bad resale and trade in and throw lots of money down the toilet rather than working hard , saving and buying good gear 1st time out. When I was a teenger I didn't bother buying a car until I was 18, the expense lowered my gear budget. As a young adult I was very careful about putting music spending 1st and being extra frugal, living with my folks if I couldn't get a roommate to share out expenses, living in the city and taking the subway instead of insuring a car all the time... also, wrking my ass off at 2 jobs when I wasn't in any bands, doing the day gig as well as recording bands and working at studios at night... I never slept, but I came out with awesome gear and lots of it because I was serious about music

I can't imagine them being your kind of music. I just had a listen, and they sound a lot like REM, on some songs, but with a little more poppiness, and a few synthy bits

I like REM. Especially 'automatic for the people'. I'll check them out then...

I'd recommend a 30+ watt combo amp, I'd say 40 watts is best bet, something like a hot rod deluxe would work great, safest way is to go to a shop tell them what features you want budget and size, and don't rely on others opinions, you'll know when you fall in love with an amp

And also try to get tubes