Hi all, I am a brand new electric guitar player trying to get started. I want to play metal. My favorite guitar players are John Petrucci, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai. I want to eventually learn to shred.

I have a Rocktron Rampage R10 amp, I can't seem to get any decent sound out of this, but then it may be because I am just beginning. Is there anything that I can do to get big sound out of this amp, or am I going to have to go get a new amp when I can afford it. What about adding fx peddles?

Also, my guitar is a Washburn X-10/MC is this a decent enough guitar to learn on? I ask because it was given to me, and I really don't know anything about electric guitars either.

Also, where should I start here. I know some chords from a long time back when I started to learn on an acoustic guitar. I suppose House of the Rising Sun was the first song I ever learned. I can play some bar chords so power chords might not be to hard for me to master rather quickly, in fact I am starting to learn some scales as well.