How to play electric guitar silently — anywhere!
Yes, it’s possible
Electric guitar has a reputation as being loud and antisocial, especially if you live with other people or have thin walls with your neighbours.
And, certainly, if you plug into a full Marshall stack and crank it to 11, you won’t be too popular.
You could play unplugged (something I do a lot), but you aren’t able to learn or practice dynamics this way, nor learn the ins and outs of how your guitar responds to the tone and volume knobs being adjusted. You also can’t test pedals, and let’s be honest sometimes you just want to hear those electric tones that only come from some amplification.
So what to do?
If your amp has a headphone socket, that’s one option. Some are okay, but other amps don’t sound very good this way. And whatever you do, don’t try to dial in your rehearsal or stage tone by using headphones — as soon as you turn the amp up, you’ll notice it sounds drastically different.
My preferred option
This genius little contraption is a headphone amp. There are other brands than Vox, but I use one of theirs and I’ve included the above image just to highlight how many options there are.
Here’s how it works:
Plug it directly into your guitar
Connect headphones to the amp
Rock out
The amps have various options including tone, volume, and gain, plus multiple gain stages so you can select clean, crunch, or higher gain (these specific options probably vary by model, but these are what mine offer).
It’s small enough to fit in a pocket, so you can literally take it with you anywhere rather than trying to carry a full amp with you.
To everyone around you it’s as though you’re playing an unplugged guitar, but in your ears you’re in Wembley Stadium.