Hello Chaps,
I'm a noob here on the forum and with respect to playing a 6-string so I'm hoping to get some advice from more experienced folk about what to do in the situation I find myself. I think I might want to buy a new amp of some kind, but I'm an untalented guitarist and not experienced enough to know how to weigh up the factors involved.
So - quick sit-rep:
I'm a bassist by trade and play in a small trio band and the local church band. I play a little guitar (badly!) when I have to - e.g. to fill in some rythym / strumming if that's more helpful than bass on any given Sunday.
My daughter is currently learning guitar and flying along with it. I'm doing my best to encourage her.
I have a couple of guitar amps I've picked up over the years - a small Marshall Practice amp (10W, I think) and a Fender Champion 100.
I don't like the Marshall amp - it's small, nasal and boxy (but I got it for free). It's currently on loan to a friend.
I like the Fender amp very much, but it's far too big for home practice - we can't turn it up past 2 on either channel before we risk complaints from the neighbours / blowing the windows out / deafening ourselves. On the other hand, we've been using it quite effectively in both of my bands (in church-sized spaces) and all the relevant guitarists seem to enjoy it. My daughter currently practices on this one.
I think I'd like to stop carting the Champion around and just leave it in the church which is far more convenient for both bands' practices.
I think I'd then like buy a smaller practice amp for my daughter and I to use at home.
On that basis, I've been looking at things like
Fender Champion 20 / 40
Fender Mustang LT25
Line 6 Spider V 30
Line 6 Catalyst 60
Questions I can't satisfactorily answer:
I already have a Helix Stomp which I use with both basses and guitars, so do I need to bother with a modelling amp?
Flipped the other way: my daughter isn't capable of using the Helix as she's still small-ish, so perhaps a modelling amp with presets will encourage / excite her into making new sounds without the complexity of creating Helix patches?
I like the whole Helix "ecosystem" so is it better to buy a Line 6 amp that has some of the Helix FX built in because it'll be familliar?
Or, should I go with the Fender amps because they're cheap, cheerful and I like them, and, if I went with the Mustang, give me another implementation of "modelling" for an even wider variety of tones?
The LT25 sounds like a good option:
[+] it's the right size, power- and feature-wise, but
[-] it only has an 8" speaker. Perhaps I'm biased as a bassist but isn't that rather small?
Overall, the Catalyst 60 also seems like a good option:
[+] it has a 12" speaker, which ought to sound better with modelled tones, but
[-] it's hardly any smaller / lighter / less powerful than the Champion 100, but
[+] it does have a half-power switch so I could run it at 30W at home, which sounds a lot more reasonable.
[+] The app that runs it looks simillar to the Helix interface so it would be familliar,
[-] but the FX / etc. on there are straight off the Helix, so there's nothing "new" - I could probably create an identical Helix patch for any sound it could make, so I'm essentially paying for a speaker in a box.
If I were a more experienced guitarist, I could probably give weight to each of those considerations and come up with an answer, but as a bassist, it's not my area of expertise. Please could anyone lend some experience to the questions above?
Many thanks in advance.
