The first piece is the Amplifier itself, and there's a LOT to consider here. Transistor vs. tube vs. modeling. Should I want to consolidate all my effects (or as many as possible at least) into the Amplifier to save space and make travel easier, or should I focus more on the joy of modularity so should something fail, I can just bypass it until I replace it. Do I want to abuse my arms with a large combo, or use a halfhstack? Do I want to have a fight with the band over moving towards the "Future" and using modeling direct into the PA? A lot of questions.

Another thing I consider is how many channels I intend to use and how would I use them. Does the amp offer any form of "solo boost" feature or can the FX loop be utilized for that function? How many cabinets can I push if it's a head, and do I want to be scalar about it and use a 1x12 in a tiny club, and then switch to a full stack for an outdoor festival. Does it have enough gain? Do I want 2 channels and live with lower gain on my single coil guitars and allow a more unique, less aggressive character through, or do I want it to be roughly the same across the board despite the pickups, and let all the pickups sound sizzling mean with the character just being the natural EQ of hte pickups themselves.

Does the amp have any footswitch capabilities, and what are they? Are those something that can allow me to omit stompboxes from my pedalboard, and how many can I offload on the amplifier's capabilities. Are the corner protectors on the amplifier metal? What kind of cabs can I get, and what speakers do they have, and how well do they project, and do they sound muddy, or midrangey? Do they sound like an ice cream truck speaker, or a dying hot tub? Can I change the wattage and have things thing in the house full time? Or do I need to treat it kind of like a high performance racecar and keep it off the road until it's track time? Does the cabinet have 4 castors, or two? Is the salesman trying to snow me on the idea that it's portable because it has two stationary wheels on one side?

Even I myself come into the question. What do I want to spend, is it apropriate what I'm planning to spend for this endeavor, and when I do, is the amplifier going to wreck my aging back, or is it going to be light enough I don't mind dragging this thing to a dive bar 1-5 times a week after 8 hours at work? Aesthetics are just the icing on the cake, and if I'm going to be honest, I really don't care that much. Except I find Tweed and some lighter forms of tolex are not as sturdy as the heavy grain stuff Peavey used to use in 1970's - now there's some Tolex! I want some in Pac-Man Yellow and Miami Blue!

For the last 15-20 years my #1 main guitars to use live have been my Japanese Jag-Stang, and Japanese Jaguar. They are reliable, they have the sound I like, they have a lot of variation, the Jaguar takes drop-tunings well with minimal effort. Remember, were not talking about a famous rich guy here with a bloody roadie, we're talking a middle-class working stiff weekend warrior with guitars he bought years ago and favors because he knows them well at this point and they are the ones that set the standard for everything else that came after. They are also MODIFIED.

Let's talk modifications. When you are first starting out with your rig, and don't have the money or resources to be focusing on mods, the more important it's going to be that you acquire or use guitars that you are familiar with that get as close to the sound you want, as you want. After all, it's better you know how to playt the Strat you have, than spend all your time trying to turn yourself into the next Leo Fender trying to learn Pickup technologies. But most of my giutars ARE modified, because I built a skillset around that after I could at least play well enough to be in a Nirvana cover band and not suck at it - so I could learn both in tandem.

The most important modification of all would be pickups. This is a "to each his own" sort of thing. Some people like the spank and sparkle of a low output single coil, guys like me like things in the moderate output range - that happy zone between 6.4K ohms and 17.5K Ohms (high output) where things can be nice and gainy, but tight and defined. Some guys want a humbucker in their guitar that makes it sound like a bomb about to detonate in the amplifier - like I said, to each his own.

The second most important would be wax potting the pickups, especially if you play with high gain like I do. Encasing the coils of the pickups in wax is probably one of the best things I've ever done, and I've developed my own personal technique that involves a L'oreal Wax Bath, tape, and a Freezer. Most of my guitars at stage volume can come within 2" of the amplifier speakers, and not squeal at all, but instead, feed-back very harmonically with the amplifier. So having well potted pickups for high gain or even mid-gain is really useful if you like playing with feedback, which I obviously do.

The whammy/tremolo/vibrato/wang-bar/twang-bar/vibrato-bar/whateveryoudliketocallit is another big thing for me. A lot of guys don't like em', and I understand why. It makes setting up, and playing the guitar, a lot less of a hassle, especially if you're not into taking up yet another instrument in order to use the whammy bar. Because that's basically what it is, a additional instrument built into your instrument, that allows you to get more variety of sounds out of your instrument. But like any "instrument", you need to PRACTICE with the bar to get good at it. And every vibrato has it's own feel, it's own reactivity, it's own touch, it's own sound. They also all require something different to setup to be effective, and it takes some scientific understanding of basic phyics and friction to understand what to do, and what not to do. BUt if you get it all together, it's going to be great, and it won't feel like a "challenge" anymore.

Electronics expansion is one of my specialties, and every so often I come across something I think is neat enough to add to may main guitars I use live. For example, phase switches are a favorite of mine because of the Mustang, and even some rhythm parts I've heard from 1970's band (when a phase switch was really an in-vogue thing to have on your guitar). I like coil splits, especially my weird variation of them, because I can eek up to 3 different basic sounds from a single pickup guitar and have it sound amazing (and at time,s quite confusing).

For me, the basics are chorus, reverb, and delay. THis is the whole package of what makes me have a "post-punk" or "new wave" or usually just "80's" sound. But no two of any of those effects are created equal, and in some scenarios, I needed more than one variation to fit the bill.

At the least extreme, we'd be talking a chorus that adds a tiny bit of movement to the sound that makes the base-level guitar tone "interesting" while a spring or plate reverb in the back gives a little sonic "space" to the sound. Live, this becomes less important, so a lot of times, I'll keep the chorus, ditch the reverb, and at times, ditch the chorus as well. That's the beauty of pedals, you can switch em' off.

But at the most extreme, we're talking a thick, watery chorus but with a low sweep to it, think something bordering on a Flanger without a really obvious modulation going on, it jujst feels...well...watery. Then we throw on a THICK plate reverb that sounds like a scene from a 80's European spy movie where we're interrogating someone under a lone lightbulb in a room with no obvious walls. Then, just to give even more intrigue - slap some 530ms delay on that in the background - think what Paul Dean does on "Gangs in the Street" by Loverboy - it's not obvious, but it's there, and it makes a difference. - there's my kinda' sound.

But that's not all I use though....

You want to leave SOME room for expansion, either on your board, or your digital effects processor, so that as you playu around, and discover more new sounds - because you never know where you might want or need them - you have space to SAVE them, or ADD them to your setup. When I started in Smokin' 66, I was running with just a chorus, distortion, wah, and a little later, a whammy. By the end I had 2 pitch shifters, one being the whammy, a fuzz, a wah, a phaser, a flanger, a delay, and a chorus. By the time I left Murderock, I was running with 2 fuzzes added to the cacuphony of noise - so much so I had to swap the whammy for a PitchFork to make more room on the board, and now I had a second Noise Gate as well.

Again, Smokin' 66' era, I designed that whole rig with the Bugera to be ultra-portable. The idea was, I could park 3 blocks from the Seattle Central Saloon - and shove my whole rig down the sidewalk to the club, and then do the same on the way back, and load in in a pay parking lot if I had to. This worked GRAT for a 23-32 year old young man who walks every weekend and eats once a day, playing clubs with stages big enough to look pretty nice on early YouTube, like an old concert video from the eighties. This is NOT so great though when you're 42, have back pain, and your average stage is smaller than a townhouse unit's front yard space.

So then comes in the thoughts of weight reduction, and leveraging modern technologies to make transport easier.