Lately I've noticed that one in three threads on this subforum seem to be along the lines of "can you recommend me a good amp, microphone, pedal, guitar, interface, whatever?" and thought to myself, hey, maybe it would be better to keep this all in one thread to avoid clutter? So here's my simple idea, a gear help thread. Whatever type of hardware you need, ask for recommendations in here.

I'll start off with a recommendation and a question.

Amp Recommendation: For anyone into black metal looking for a serviceable amp at really low price I'd recommend the Peavey Bandit. I had my 112 for ten years of convincingly playing classic second wave black metal songs, that is before it finally died on me. I should also add that I got mine used and it was old as hell looking back when I got it. Great reverb and nearly indestructible, I cant think of a better amp for the price range. I'm pretty sure Zodijackyl and others will agree with me on this amp.


Drum Question: What would everyone for someone first starting out with drumming? I know a basic kit should have a bass, snare, and hi-hat but what else? I am thinking that double bass pedal is probably essential for death/black metal, but its different to think about compared to other instruments because there is always the option of starting small and building up or trading up for better gear one piece at a time. I'd like to be able to play extreme metal but would be willing to start off with a smaller kit. What parts of the kit will cheap gear be most damaging to sound-wise? Lastly, what does everyone like for brands? I know some of these questions are broad but this is a new thread so it will probably be helpful to get that stuff out of the way with earlier.

Uhm how about some toms for the kit and more cymbals than just a hi-hat. Honestly starting out as small as you said wouldn't really be doing you any favors. Just look for cheap kits on craigslist or ebay. you can possibly find at least all the shells and maybe the stands for 100-200 depending on the circumstance of someone selling it. So at the very possibly least... snare, kick, at least one rack tom, floor tom, hi-hats, and a ride crash. You can get by with that and still play extreme metal. and yea if you plan on doing double bass you need a double bass pedal. there is no way around that. And to let you know ahead of time. there is nothing cheap about a drumkit. Everything will break everything will need periodic replacing. your heads will wear and you need new ones, your cymbals will crack and break and you will need new ones. your sticks will break and will they ever break. I know for awhile I was buying $20-40 worth of sticks a week. that is until I started using the thick ass logs I use now.

for brands are you talking about the drum kit itself? you can really make just about any kit sound good with proper heads and tuning. I use a Tama cause that's what I got for cheap.

Oh here's one:

If you need a first mic, buy an SM57. I don't care what you are using it for, just buy an SM57, it will work.

Thanks a bunch SLK. Basically I had a non-metal friend telling me that starting on a super small kit is important for establishing fundamentals, but I was more than a little suspicious as to why that would be the case - still don't understand the rationale. What kind of sticks are you using now? Also do most people break that many drumsticks? I've heard enough of your music for that kind of damage not to surprise me at all lol.

On the SM57, everyone should listen to infinitenexus, this is totally the standar mic out there - rarely hear anything bad said about it or someone recommend something else instead.

I'll throw in another rec:

Pedals: While amp distortion is the way to go, I have had good experiences with my Behringer HM300, here is a cool video of a guy comparing it to the HM2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mW4MGqn8uk8.

Your non-metal friend is right in you have to start with fundamentals first. Like when I started out for me I didn't have a double bass pedal till like 7 months after my kit.. and honestly it was easier for me to do double bass while playing. and I mainly just did blast beats. it wasn't probably till 3 years after I learned how to do play slower properly.

I use these sticks:
http://az58332.vo.msecnd.net/e88dd2e9ff ... 156902.jpg

I don't recommend them for everyone. They are huge and thick. To me they work perfectly. You should start with some 5B's and then adjust from there as you get more comfortable in gripping. Some people don't break as many sticks, also those people hit like pussies. I taught myself to be heard over the guitars and bass through my own power and not through amplification or being triggered out. So whenever we played live you can hear me just fine without a PA.

Agree about being heard from your own power, not more artificial volume. Even when it comes to guitar/bass, instead of maxing out your master volume, try tweaking the EQ a little or playing with more clarity, tightness and attack. No soundman likes a volume-happy fool anyway, ask any one.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that for new guitar players who want to pick an instrument, just pick something that feels good, worry less about the specs later. It always annoys me to no end when someone who hasn't ever touched a guitar before keeps harping on "which pickup configuration should I get, I want to play Blue Oyster Cult AND Bloodbath songs! I also want to downtune to play Nile but I want to strum chords for my worship band too"

For guitar upgrades like pickup changes and stuff, I'd like to point out that a pickup change doesn't always save a guitar. Getting $400 Bareknuckle Black Hawks will NOT save an Ibanez Gio or a Samick. A Schecter Diamond series with stock pickups CAN be saved with a $70 Duncan Invader.

EDIT: came in to affirm SLK liking it huge and thick

Damn right I do. Agree with somefella about getting a guitar that feels good. my first guitar was a Dorado. it has some single coil P90 that overall is shit. But I played the fuck out of it and I'll actually be finally replacing the pickups in it for something better cause I enjoyed playing on it.

Also sometimes one guitar can't be your everything to every possible thing you want to do, so there is never quite an answer all for that, but having the basic knowledge and chops to play all these styles will make your single guitar sound close enough to all those different styles you want. It all starts with you, not your guitar and set up.

Hello, thanks for your reply in my post.

I have a kit drum but i dont have the necessary gear to record many microphones, just one. Only have my PC with audacity and Fl Studio. So can you recommend a good mic to record drums? I bought a I-5 MICRO. AUDIX but sucks so badly. I hope you can help me.

Which Kick Drum Pedal Should I Get?

I'm new to playing drums and want to get a decent single kick drum pedal.

The two I'm considering are the DW 3000 and the Iron Cobra 600.

I think for a beginner - intermediate, either one looks good (judging by everything I've read), but I'm wondering if any experienced drummers here might have some recommendations or words of wisdom that might steer me one way or the other and help me finalize a decision. I'm not really sure what features to look for. They both have a double chain drive and I think only the Tama has a sprocket that can be easily switched out for a different feel/action ... or is that something that's standard? Once the descriptions go beyond drive chains and beater surfaces I'm a little lost. Feel free to recommend any other pedal too, as long as it's around $100 or less. I want something that's at least as good as the two I mentioned and I don't want to spend much more than what those two cost. I'll be using it with a Roland electronic kit if that matters.

I'm a big fan of the Iron Cobra, to the point where when I did get some axis, though they are shortboards... I went back to Iron Cobras instead.. the DW 3000 never really felt right to me. not as smooth a little too fluttery as I played.

Thanks for your input.
I was already starting to lean toward the Iron Cobra and it's definitely the front runner now.

Seconding the usefulness of this amp. I own a Special 112, which is the same preamp as the Bandit, but has 160w of headroom instead of 80w. Loud as fuck, and can get some pretty good 80's metal tones on the second channel. I run overdrive/distortion in front of the amp to push it into Heavy As Fuck™ territory.

I have a question. Last time I bought a Boss pedal it had a flyer with all their pedals, and one of them was an acoustic guitar simulator. I didn't even know such a thing existed, I am really excited about the idea! Question is, are those simulators any good in principle, and is the Boss one any good in particular?

I played one of those once, a long time ago. It doesn't really sound that much like a real acoustic guitar, to me, but is sort of interesting sounding nonetheless. I'd view it more as a sort of niche effect or something than a real replacement for actual acoustic guitars.

I have an acoustic simulator (albeit a good VST) and I agree with iamntbatman, it doesn't make it sound like an acoustic, but it helps a bit.

My cruddy old loop pedal finally kicked the bucket

What do you guys recommend as a replacement? I don't need something super high quality for live performance, just good enough for writing and solo practice. Something that'll last a while too.

That particular pedal will make your guitar sound like an acoustic...not a good one though. It's useful for creating a passable acoustic sound live but it won't cut it in the studio. Bottom line, if you're not going to make good use of it live (or are able to actually use an acoustic guitar) then don't bother.



I use looping a lot. I would recommend Boss and Zoom products for that. Even their lower priced pedals are good and their higher tier products are excellent. Line6's loop station is great but will probably have more than you need.

Hardwire Delay/Looper is just about useful. TC Electronic Flashback Delay/Looper is to be avoided for looping (turning down the volume of the loop will also turn down the dry signal).

Coolio, I'll check those out. Thanks.

This is a question for any rack enthusiasts out there:

I have a Peavey VK100 tube head and a Peavey 412 cab. I am considering investing in a Line 6 HD Pro X. I have VERY small knowledge on rack systems. What can I do in terms of a power amplifier for using the pod with this cab (it is a mono cab)? How will this affect my presence when performing with my live band?

Basically the goal would be to use the pod, power amp, and a power conditioner with the cab. Unless I am able to use the VK100 head to power the pod?

Edit: I answered my own question and am now awaiting arrival of my new gear!

Hi all,

I've recently joined the ranks of the 'Head and Cabinet' fraternity (yaaaay! Thank you, thank you. Just glad to be in the club), and I'm a little concerned about this whole 4/8/16 Ohm thing and the possibility of frying the head if I don't use one of the speaker outs if I were to use the effects loop out to go direct to my sound card. Can anyone quickly explain the Ohm deal?
As it happens, my head has 4 speaker outs (2xLeft and 2xR), which the manual says are "Connected in series. No chance of overloading the amplifier".
The manual also says I may "connect one 4 Ohm speaker, two 8 Ohm speakers, or four 16 Ohm speakers without overloading the output"
My cabinet has a switch that selects between 16 Ohm mono or 8 Ohm per side stereo/4 Ohm Mono. The person I bought the amp from suggested I use one each of the Left and Right outputs from the head going into the two inputs on the cabinet (8 Ohm per side), which seems logical even though I don't really understand it.
Thanks

If your amp is a tube head, you need some sort of load connected to the speaker outputs, or you'll blow it up. This is usually a cab, although you can get devices called loadboxes to simulate the way cabs work. If your head is solid state, you don't need to worry about that.

Basic way ohmage works:

It's always best to connect like to like, so 8 to 8, 4 to 4, 16 to 16. Do that, and you shouldn't run into any major problems (unless you try to run like, a 300W head into a cab that can only handle 100, but that would be silly).

In theory, it's safe-ish to connect to a higher ohmage than your output - so a 8 ohm output could theoretically go into a 16 ohm cab and it shouldn't affect things too badly, you'll just get a loss of power. The other way around (16 output -> 8 cab), however, would mean that you'd be trying to draw more power than the output can deliver, and then you'll blow it up. This is purely theoretical, however, and I wouldn't recommend ever doing this. If you do, be fully prepared for your amp to die. You generally don't want to fuck with the nice, simple matching.

There's also series and parallel cabs. If you run cabs in series (so you go out your amp, into cab 1, then out of cab 1 into cab 2), the ohmage adds together - if I have two 8 ohm cabs, that adds to make 16 ohms. So I'd take the 16 ohm output on the amp, run it into cab 1, then go from cab 1 to cab 2. Parallel (so amp -> cab 1, but also amp -> cab 2) the ohmage is halved. So if I have two 8 ohm cabs again, I'd take speaker cables from my two 4 ohm outputs and run them into each cabinet.

This says basically the same thing, but with diagrams: https://mesaboogie.zendesk.com/hc/en-us ... -cabinets-

You're probably best off running your cab in mono. Stereo's a little pointless with a single cab, you'll only really notice it if you've got a couple of cabs with some space in between them (personally, I'm also of the opinion that stereo effects on guitar are a bit pointless, but that's me...). 16 ohm mono on the cab, 16 ohm output on your amp, connect the two, job done.

SUPER IMPORTANT THING TO NOTE: Always, ALWAYS use a specific speaker cable between your amp and your cab. They're different to instrument cables, they use the same jack connecters, but speaker leads are usually a lot thicker. A speaker lead is designed to handle the much higher current flowing through it, and it won't then melt or cause your amp to fry.

Thanks for taking the time to reply with all that. Top stuff. Seems pretty simple with the way you've explained it. Thanks again.