United States

Talbot,

I've heard that Fender G-Dec is nice, sh#t I don't
know nothing about guitar amps. Would love to have
onr that sounded good and was loud, and had a
footswitch with 3 buttons, 1 for clean rhythm channel,
1 for dirty rhythm channel, and 1 for higher gain lead
channel. Thinking about having Santa Claus bring me
a Fender HSS Stratocaster for Christmas, I feel like
I got to have that one humbucking pickup. I'll still need
amp like described above to gowith it, I just don't
know what it will be.

Hey Marcus, I'm using a Line 6 Spider Jam 3, I think
this is the best practice amp I've ever used, it has a
bunch of tracks you can play lead against, allowing you
to run thru lead scales with a backing "band", I don't care
much for it when playing with a group, so am looking for
something more old school where I can set-up a rhythm
channel, and then a channel with more gain for lead
breaks. You might be able to do this with this amp, but
I haven't figured it out. I'll defintely check out other Line 6
amps while looking for a new amp. It seems around here
Mesa Boogie is the gold standard in amps. We've had
a guy sitting in with us who uses a Bugera amp, and it sounds
good, but still up in the air on what to get next.

Off topic-- sorry.

If you have one of the Line 6 pedals (shortboard or express) that goes with the amp you should be able to do what you want. Basically, get the sound you want (e.g. rythm channel)- save it under one of the user banks (e.g. User Bank 1A). Then get the 2nd setup you want (e.g. the Lead channel) and save it under User Bank 1B. Then you use your board as a stomp box to swtich between settings. You can do 4 per bank which correpond to the pedals on the board.

Lynard

The Mustand V head has the pedal you want. Very slick. The G-Dec has one as an after market option.

I use a strat HSS and love it dearly. Plus it has the maple neck that fat fingered Mike requires.

Talbot

Talbot,

Thanks I'll check that Mustang V head out
next time I go to town to the music stores.
I like the HSS, but believe I would prefer the rosewood,
or ebony fretboard, than again I've never really tried a
maple fretboard for any length of time.

Not being the most accomplished guitar player it does seem to me the Maple board on my Strat plays quite smoothly.
It's the neck profile and scale ( length ) that gives me some difficulty with my smaller hands.
Though someone with beefy fingers may find my LP Goddess a little crowded. Especially above the 12th / 14th fret.

Sans

Bingo on the LP - its been my good luck to play a couple of very nice Pauls over the last few months and what a trip. I'm fender guy but it ain't like Mac v. PC. It just fell down that way.

But yeah - I can't do much above the 12th fret on any Paul I've played with the possible exception of a Junior I owned a million years ago and swapped for a bass. Can't even make E type bar chord reliably.

In my case - I reckon it has something to do with Bass being my primary instrument and the one I played professionally.

Even on the bass I'm using now, a Hohner V with as sweet a neck as you please, the frets are very far apart in comparison to a guitar. I used to just use guitar for song writing (or for jams) but now I'm playing it a lot more. I've found that even thought the HSS strat is my primary it's a smoother switch from bass to guitar (fingering wise) when I use the old Telecaster Esquire (with Maple neck) since it has the broadest fret board around.

A G-Dec note: last night I took my G to practice and mic-ed it through my drumnmer's Fender Bassman. (much different from the old bassmans and very nice). The result to my surprise was outstanding.
Drummer was very happy with it as well. That will save lugging the big stuff around.

Talbot