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Title speaks for itself. TBH I got bored of a pristine clean guitar tone. Add to that hearing Wes Montgomery’s Live in Paris album where his amp is breaking up on chord solos it got me going on a rig with worked out, or is working out so far. I’m using a Joyo British Sound going into a M-Mave Cube Baby solely to use it for the IR loader to smooth out the overdrive of the Joyo British Sound. I think the speaker IR I’m using is a ribbon mic’d WGS Veteran 30 Speaker. This $40 Cube Baby pedal is one of the biggest bangs for the buck despite most of the effects being trash. It works as a headphone practice amp where the backing tracks don’t get colored by the guitar tone, a USB-C recording out and charge port, IR cable SIM loader and it’s pretty compact. I’ll test this rig through a small PA speaker when I get the chance, but this experiment seems to have worked!
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08-11-2025 09:07 PM
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For a smooth distortion you can also use a 1 watt tube amp into a good speaker, then use an eq to make it as fat as you want. The result is it's fat, smooth, and natural, but has a hint of break up, rather than harsh pedal distortion.
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It depends on the song , rarely for jazz, frequently for fusion .
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Yup, all the time. Not always audible, the tone is basically clean if I play soft or turn down. But I like a touch of breakup if I dig in. Whether it rises to the definition of distortion I dunno, but a little burl.
Whether it IS more dynamic or not, it FEELS more dynamic
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YES!! But just a touch- like Kenny Burrell on Midnight Blue or Charlie Christian at Minton's. It really needs to come from the amp, not a pedal.
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I believe this is the specific objective of the new Raezer’s Edge Eclipse combo.
https://raezers-edge.com/product/eclipse-112-combo/
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JazzerEU, if you ask me, that’s how it’s supposed to sound.
Nice playing too.
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Does anyone know who actually makes the amps for Raezer's Edge?
Originally Posted by Fusionshred
After Acoustic Image shutting down, I worry about these small boutique amp makers and the longevity of support.
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Yeah right now I’m about to move to a new city and have already sold my amp. If finances allow, I would love to get a princeton reverb and put a 5y3 tube in as the rectifier and bias the tubes on the hotter side and probably replace the speaker with a celestion one with more mids. For me it’s just a good change to pace, but I would really like to get genuine tube amp breakup with a super saggy amp. I like having that edge of breakup tone where digging in gives you some dirt and playing lighter cleans things up.
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Hi Jazzer. I like your way of thinking - I just sold an old serviced Princeton Reverb that did just that^^.
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I've gone through phases where I wanted quite a bit of crunch to now playing pretty much entirely clean. At home I'd run my amps (Victoria Club Deluxe, Tweed Deluxe Reissue, silver panel champ) through a Fryette power station to get them on the edge of break up.
I recently saw Kurt Rosenwinkel and Peter Bernstein doing a double guitar quartet. Bernstein was running his Zeidler into a black panel Vibroluxe reverb. When he would dig in on a chord solo the amp would get just a little bit of drive and it sounded incredible.
Part of it is that the guitar and amp have to play well together. If I play one of my darker guitars into my Tweed Deluxe Reissue it doesn't saturate the way I want it to, just a lot of low end distortion. I've had the best results with my L-7 with a Kent Armstrong floater into my champ. The KA is actually a pretty bright pickup without a huge bass response, and the champ is a pretty dark amp, so it distorts well but is still dark and fat sounding.
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Yes. Just a little. I don't like it to get crunchy for jazz but for some tunes I do want it to feel squishy when I dig in, if that makes sense.
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Hi Jesse! Good to hear and see you in action - great stuff! I use this opportunity to point out that one of Quilter SuperBlock's (US version at least) great features is the way it subtly grows hair on the sound when adding gain past 11 o'clock. The sound becomes more three-dimensional, not dirty.
Cheers,
Markku
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I don"t like dirty sound...on hollow guitar.
However, I love the sound of John Scofield on Semi Hollow...He uses this dirty sound the way I like it.
best
kris
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Small heads do the job nicely, through one's choice of cabs.
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I believe all RE amps use the proven IcePower power supply/power amp module. My communications with Geoff Felsher a few years ago suggest that the rest is an in-house operation. Of course, the preamp circuitry, unless point-to-point, must also come from an electronics supplier. That's where the "soul" of a Class D amp resides. The way the RE Luna head enclosures are made, with simple engraved script on the front panel, no flashy logos or "health warning" stickers that other manufactures slap all over the product, also point to a low-volume boutique operation, i.e. people, not robots. Originally Posted by Freddels
Many previous threads have dealt with the longevity, reliability and repairability of solid-state products vs. tube technology. Yes, when a chip-laden, integrated PCB gadget dies, it's often not worth repairing. OTOH, keeping a tube amp alive for decades happens all the time, but not without cost and effort. Class D amps have taken over the bass amp market almost exclusively, and their share of the guitar amp market has grown tremendously following the introduction of great micro-amps by Quilter, DV Mark and others starting a decade ago. Time will tell.
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I did all that on my first Princeton The Celestion Greenback 10 sounded great, my favorite speaker for that amp- smoky/jazzier tones. I biased hot which definitely Italy helps "warm up" the amp, but the 5Y3 didn't make much difference, if anything it made the amp a little too saggy for me. But the speaker does 90% of the work- put a Celestion in there and you're golden. The less efficient (like a Greenback), the better. Originally Posted by JazzerEU
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Burrell’s tone is IT. Like most really great clean tones it isn’t actually clean. Robert Cray, now that’s clean. I disagree about pedals though. I use this and it’s magical. Originally Posted by ruger9
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I have a clone of that, great pedal. The best I've ever had. I would also highly recommend a Rockett Blue Note as the used pricing on them has hit rock bottom recently and they can be had for about a hundred bucks. They are VERY similar. Almost identical. The nice thing about both of these, especially the Blue Note, is the wide range of gain settings you can get. The Blue Note can be set to add some warm, very mild gain, or it has a hot switch that sends you towards rock guitar territory. Originally Posted by Oscar67
Burrell’s tone is IT. Like most really great clean tones it isn’t actually clean. Robert Cray, now that’s clean. I disagree about pedals though. I use this and it’s magical.
I am an anti-collector but I can't bring myself to get rid of the Blue Note cause it's so good so I kept it for lower volume gigs since it has a wide range of adjustment. I just found for higher volume levels i.e cranked Twin the Gladio is just a little fatter tone in the bottom so that's been my go-to loud gig pedal.
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Well, I should clarify... I use dirt pedals all the time. There are some very good ones, the Gladio and Blue Note are two. I've just never found a pedal that was quite as touch-repsonsive as a good tube amp (turned up little). Controlling clean-to-dirty with pick attack.
Actually, there is ONE: it's the one I'm using now. The Kingsley Page (tube boost). It's really a tube preamp in a pedal, it's like adding another gain stage to a tube amp. It reacts like a tube amp because it is one.
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Vintage 47 is cool but don't get that Oahu. The speaker and cab are so tiny it will be extremely boxy sounding. You can actually buy a vintage octal valco amp for not too much more.
as for pedals. here's my board. I don't use it often but sometimes I do and I love it for jazz with a bit of squish and dirt. There's a klon on the board, which I use for solos when i play funk but not for jazz
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Gotta ask you about a couple of those. How do you like that Bondi? I have heard a lot of good stuff about that box. Anything you can compare it to? The diamond comp. Is it transparent? I've been looking at the Empress v2, has a lot of parameter controls and is supposed to be transparent but the Diamond gets mentioned alot. Also looked at the Crazy Tube Circuits golden ratio phi2 and Cali 76 Deluxe but those are supposed to offer warmth and I think I have enough "warm" on the board already.... Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
Vintage 47 is cool but don't get that Oahu. The speaker and cab are so tiny it will be extremely boxy sounding. You can actually buy a vintage octal valco amp for not too much more.
as for pedals. here's my board. I don't use it often but sometimes I do and I love it for jazz with a bit of squish and dirt. There's a klon on the board, which I use for solos when i play funk but not for jazz
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The new diamond comp is my favorite compressor. It's very transparent. I know a lot of people like a blend control, but I think you don't need it. Just keep the settings subtle and you're fine. I LOVE the embedded EQ. A tilt tone knob plus a mid knob is perfect. The tilt knob adds bass and reduces treble as you go counter clockwise and adds treble and reduces bass clockwise. Best user interface for an EQ.
I also have an empress compressor. It's much more adjustable, but for me a well designed interface with fewer knobs is way better. I found the cali76 overhyped. Some people really like it but I thought it colored my sound. My favorite is definitely the Diamond, especially this re-release with the eq controls.
The Bondi is wonderful. I tried out a million Klones and this and the j rockett are my favorites. I have a j rockett with germanium diodes. It sounds great but sometimes it's lacking bass (which is the same on a Klon - or so I've heard). The bass knob on the bondi is great, so I can use it with a strat and get a really fat tone.
The benson germanium preamp really colors your sound, but that is instant kenny burrell. the barbershop has a similar function but different overdrive character. I keep both always on but the benson gets into fuzz territory if you crank it.
So far I like this reverb. Nothing mindblowing but it sounds nice and stays out of the way.
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Thanks for the compressor feedback but you don't make it any easier, haha! Not sure I need an EQ on a comp cause I just bought a clone of a spaceman equinox, which is a pultec EQ in a box. Yours isn't the first post I read about users liking the tilt EQ. I was kinda leaning empress but optical circuits seem to be thought of as the most transparent so I dunno. I had bought a Keeley comp plus a few years ago, man, that thing was awful. Noisy and anytime I dialed out the blend so it didn't sound squashed it didn't seem to net me anything but more floor noise so I sold it. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
Guess I'll do some more research. Not in a rush, I just bought a couple pedals and tapped out my gear budget so I got plenty of time to think about it.
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