Ever want to get professional sound out of affordable equipment?  Want to blast the roof off like Zakk Wylde from Black Label Society (formerly Ozzy Osbourne's lead guitarist)?  Want to melt faces with bleeding sounds like Eddie Van Halen?  Since I know your answer is yes! yes! yes!, I am going to provide you with advice on getting inexpensive gear for the ultimate home guitar rig. 

      First and foremost, everything can be obtained through eBay's wonderful services.  You only need to browse and search around for a really good deal that suits your needs.  Things you will need obviously are a computer, and a decent set of computer speakers.  Logitech, Harmon Kardon, and Soundblaster all make affordable room rockers!

    Now for the guitar, it doesn't have to be a studio Les Paul, or a Fender Stratocaster!  You just want to have very good pickups!  I recommend EMG-81's and EMG-85's!  But these can be a little pricey!  A cheaper alternative is to look for some Seymour Duncan pickups.  You can go either way, especially if you find a sweet deal. I saw a pair of EMG's go for 80 dollars yesterday!!  They usually run about 180-200 dollars!

    Now the strings should be good quality strings! Ernie Ball makes great strings, or I would go with some Gibson strings.  So far, a decent set of speakers (100-200 dollars), pickups (75-200 dollars) and strings (10 dollars), is not breaking the bank!

   Now you need a preamp to play your guitar through the computer!  Yes!  You can do this and it sounds great, especially if you have a great sound card already.  Line 6 is one of today's leading digital sound modelers for electric guitars.  They make an amp and effect modeler called the POD.  This little bad boy can sit right on your desktop and give you an endless world of sounds.  It has multiple amp models (all very real sounding), several effects you can mix and match and tweak to your liking. The real beauty is you can get on the internet and download patches!  The patches are the storage banks that combine all the parameters (amp, cabinet, effects, gain, reverb....etc.) and give you your final sound output, like Eddie Van Halen.  The Pod can save several patches on itself, and you can also save them on your computer, and swap them in and out via USB MIDI connector (50 dollars at music store).  These PODS have different versions and updates, even the oldest version still ROCKS! and can be obtained for less than 100 dollars in some cases!

   So now all you need is a track editor, or some sort of sound program that excepts VST plug ins (synths that give you full control over editing and more sounds).  You can find a multitude of sound editing programs at kvraudio website .  Information on the line6 POD and other line6 products can be found at line6 website . 

   To get set up, you simply plug the guitar into the input of the POD.  Now the output of the POD will be plugged into the back of the computer using a MONO jack adapter, to convert the 1/4 inch jack size down to an 1/8th.  Download the POD parameters software and manual right from line6 website , which you will need if you get your POD from an eBay seller more than likely.  Don't worry it's free from the website! Then you are ready to rock!  When looking for patches from the line6 tone library found on the website, type in Eddie Van Halen, there are several for many famous guitarists.  The great part is they are song specific and usually highly accurate!!! So Plug in and Rock ON!!