A guitar amp is one of the accessories you will have to possess if you are serious about your playing an electric guitar. A guitar amp increases the volume of your guitar and is a must have if you are making public performances. Guitar Amps also allows you to modify the tone by emphasizing or de-emphasizing frequencies and adding special electronic effects. The amplifier works in two stages. The first one is preamplifier stage which amplifies the voltage of the signal from the guitar. The preamplifier stage allows electronic effects like distortion, reverb, and chorus and controls like graphic equalizers. The second one is power amplifier stage which produces a higher current for the speaker. There are certain things that need to be taken into consideration while buying a Guitar Amp, particularly an acoustic type. Construction: Guitar amps may either use tubes or transistors. Amps with transistors are cheaper and are likely to last longer. Amps with tubes produce better sound. But, they tend to burn out and need to be replaced. Guitar Amps with tubes may also distort the signal when pushed too hard. Noise: When you buy a guitar amp, one of the things that you need to look out for is the sound production. A clear sound is desirable. There should not be any hiss or crackle. The guitar amps should not produce sounds when they are not being used. They should also have basic controls like bass, volume and treble, reverb feature and an auxiliary input. This auxiliary input will enable you to connect a CD or an mp3 player to the amplifier. Speakers: Speakers are separated or combined. The combination design contains the amplifier and the speakers in one cabinet and hence is favorable for transportation. You can also opt for a separated type that has the amplifier placed on the top of the speaker cabinet. This design is favorable if there are many speakers. You may also opt for acoustic guitar amps that have headphone jacks. This will allow you to listen to the guitar without disturbing other people. You can choose from a wide range of amps that include hard rock style guitar amplifier and acoustic amplifiers. Your choice of amplifier will depend on your personal needs, but, always make sure you are well informed. You can always buy amps through the net, and various websites are designed to help buyers choose the right amp.

Once you have learnt some chord progressions and riffs and you are beginning to sound like a guitar player it will be time to start getting yourself your own individual sound. These days guitar players can add effects to their playing in many ways. It used to be necessary to connect to an amplifier but now their are guitar plug ins and software to give you all kinds of effects. You can apply distortion, sustain, wah-wah, chorus, flanger, reverb, delay effects and listen to the results in your headphones without disturbing your family or neighbors. All you need is a sound card. The effects software that many guitarists reckon is the top of the range is Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3. It is expensive but excellent.   It provides guitar and bass effects by modeling many well loved amplifiers, cabinets, microphones, and effect pedals. It has twelve guitar and bass amps, and a matched cabinet module gives you real classic sounds. The Guitar Rig software has faithfully modelled stomp boxes, distortion and volume pedals, eighteen guitar and six bass cabinets, four rotary speakers and nine microphones – all based on well loved vintage gear. A fantastic feature of this effects software is the drag and drop interface for mixing your sound. Just choose an amplifier from classic Fender, Marshall, and Mesa Boogie amps, select the size of your cabinet and play around with the forty-four effects. The Line 6 Pocket Pod Guitar Multi Effects Processor has over three hundred onboard/portable tones and over 3000 presets. Battery-powered and about the size of a tuner, Pocket POD is a portable guitar effects solution. You can use it for effects in front of your amp, or just plug in headphones and practice. Guitar FX 3 is a cool software that has not been updated for years but it is excellent and it is free. Just do not expect it to work if you are using Vista and you should make sure you have plenty of RAM. To get started you just plug your guitar into the microphone or line in. It offers a huge range of presets plus you can the tabbed menus to make custom tones which can be saved as presets. You can apply distortion, wah-wah, noise gate, compressor, flanger, reverb, chorus, delay and some of other filters. Another free effects program is Audacity. Audacity is a free, user-friendly audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. With Audacity you can record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs, edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together. You can record from a microphone, line input, or other sources and make multi-track recordings. You can change the pitch of your music without altering the tempo, or vice-versa plus Audacity lets you remove static, hiss, hum, or other background noises. The guitarist can alter frequencies with Equalization, FFT Filter, and Bass Boost effects. Other built-in effects include echo, phaser, wah-wah and reverse. Just so you are not left looking for the guitar effects software using redundant URLs I have left it to you to search using the product names. Some of the software that you need to pay for is available on a trial basis or you might find it for less money on ebay.

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You know you want to get your child a guitar for Christmas. It will help them build confidence and creativity and give them an understanding of music. But with all the choices out there, have you given it any thought which brand you would choose? Not only that, but there are also accessories that you need to buy that go with the guitar.
No matter if you want to get them an acoustic or electric guitar. There are guitar packs out there for both instruments. Electric guitar packs come with everything your child will need to make a sound including the guitar and amp. Acoustic guitar packs usually come with a strap, gig bag, and other essential accessories. In general, guitar packs are a fantastic value and an brilliant way to get a complete beginner started with the instrument.
Behringer Guitar Pack
This pack comes with all the essentials for playing the electric guitar and is a perfect Christmas gift. The pack includes a guitar with a maple neck. It also has three pickups and a vintage style bridge. It also includes the V-Tone GM-108 which is a with a 15 Watt combo amp that has 27 presets for a varied sound. The pack also comes with some picks, a strap, a gig bag, and some how to instructions.
Fender Squire Guitar Pack
Fender is one of those fantastic guitar brands that are an ancient favorite to beginner and experienced guitarists alike. The Fender Squire Guitar Pack is a guitar starter kit that comes with absolutely everything you need to learn how to play. This includes the Squier Affinity Stratocastor® guitar, a gig bag, a Fender® Frontman 15G amplifier, strap, guitar picks, headphones, instruction book, strings, and a cable.
Ibanez Guitar Pack
Ibanez has two Jumpstart guitar packs, one for acoustic, one for electric. The Ibanez IJV50 Jumpstart Acoustic Guitar Pack comes with the Ibanez V50 acoustic guitar, an electric tuner, gig bag, and a guitar strap. The Ibanez IJS40 Jumpstart Electric Guitar Pack includes the GRX40 electric guitar, the IBZ10 amplifier, headphones, gig bag, tuner, cable, strap, a DVD, an instructional book, picks, and a chord chart.
Choosing a Guitar Pack
Each electric guitar pack comes with a guitar, amplifier, and other accessories that are needed to learn how to play. As someone who is searching for a Christmas gift for a loved one, this is perfect. The guitar requires an amplifier to generate the sound. If you get only the guitar, then you will need to make a separate buy. This is a simple way to get them started.

Learn how to use the various outputs and headphone jacks on your amplifier in this free online instructional video.

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