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Hi, I wanna know what's the best clean tone amp for a jazz guitar? Recently, I read about Luarie Morvan, a female blues guitar player and she had this Toneking amps and the sound clip was good, unfortunately, there isn't a distributor in my country for this amp.
Last edited by jazzy rosettes; 05-11-2010 at 07:21 AM.
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03-10-2009 05:53 AM
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I like 3 Roland JC series, Evans RE200 hybrid and Rivera Jazz Suprema.
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The one that sounds best with your guitar. I've gotten great sounds with Polytone, Fender Twins, Acoustic Image, Mesa/Boogie, and Krank. And yes, the last two were definitely screaming rock beasts, but they had huge warm clean channels.
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clean is too broad a definition. which players have a "to die for" tone in your opinion.
that said, i'm totally hooked on this polytone that's been sitting around my house for a few weeks.
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I had a used polytone mini something or other in 1988 that I bought for $80. And I made a huge mistake and sold it to a bass player friend who still has it!! Boy am I pissed at mysellf for letting that one get away.
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Offer him $100, in today's economy there's no way he can turn down a 25% return on his investment!
Originally Posted by JohnW400
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Me too....Fender Twin (vintage if you can afford it)....and Polytone....
I play through a Poytone Mini Brute II...had since 1988............
Those who desire less are happier (or something like that)...I think old Plato said that.....
time on the instrument..pierre
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Hi, I'm jazz guitar player (beginner) from Italy.This is my first post.
I play a ES175 by a DeVille 410. Good clean sound on the clear channel, but no sustain in the high notes. Sometime I need to play with a bit "dirty" on the drive-channel but I have a little problem with feedback. Maybe I need to change hollow-body with a solid-body.
Sorry for my bad english........
McArthur
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Hehe. A Boogie I can understand (Fender on steriods), but a Krank? Dude, if you show up at a jazz gig with that beast, the jazz police may very well pay you a visit and ask for your membership card back. Originally Posted by mydoglikessalsa
Anyone who plays thru a Twin these days should automatically be referred for a mental health and lumbar assessment.
Loads of cool amps to play thru these days. Both ss and tube. However, the Hot Rod Fender series is not one I would suggest, as they are designed to break up early, and don't get as clean as most of us would expect from a Fender when turned up above living room volume.
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Derek, I'm telling you, the Krank sounded great! And this from a guy who buys wood Dugain picks for jazz gigs and bone or bronze for rock! The subsequent arrest by the jazz police is a great story though.
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true, but even the blues junior stays clean loud enough for most jazz applications. something like an deluxe will have more than enough headroom...my biggest beef with that amp is that it really doesn't have much character until it's turned up louder than you'll usually ever get to play jazz with! Originally Posted by derek
guys, i am so ridiculously hooked on this polytone, it's sad. I can't wait to get home from work so i can drag it out to the living room, crank it up a little, and enjoy the natural ambiance from the hardwood floors in there a bit before my wife gets home from work and wants to watch american idol...
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Have you ever played with a Jazzcat?
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hi all and thanks for the great info on good clean amps for a jazz guitar, and yes I have heard a mesa boogie is quite a good amp.
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Long time ago I heard this Mesa Boogy Mark IV which had a stunning jazz tone. But for weight.....GRMMMMBLFFFFF!!!
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hi and thanks for the info, I hope to get that mesa boogie oneday
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hi....jazzcat amp! how do I get a sound clip of this amp
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you can get sound clips from there website+Foulds music in the uk has a video on you tube.
cheers tom
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Shoulda gotta Twin.
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+1 on Evans RE200 (non hybrid - haven't played thru the hybrid) Originally Posted by trtjazz
Last edited by Bill C; 05-14-2010 at 02:15 AM. Reason: clarification
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Bit of an understatement there Originally Posted by jazzy rosettes
Boogie's are the best amps you can get and probably the costliest
Friend of mine has one of the early ones and what a sound he gets from it.
Makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up
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GuitaRoland, Tone King makes some exceptional amps. Right before I stopped using tube amps, I was strongly tempted to buy a Tone King Meteor II. But, man, they're expensive! Mind you, I had the budget to cover it, but what I was looking for at the time was a great-sounding clean amp *under 30 pounds* to replace my Fender Vibro-King. (Which, BTW, is another great-sounding clean amp at typical jazz playing volume. 72 pounds, though...) At any rate, the Meteor II is one of the best-sounding 1x12 tube amps I've ever played.
I've played a lot of Mesa/Boogie amps. I actually transitioned from M/Bs to Fenders after having owned about eight different models of M/B amps and having played many more. The thing that finally got to me about M/Bs is that they tend to be very stiff at lower volumes, and they lack the kind of shimmer and sparkle that you can get from a good Fender amp. On the other hand, the extra headroom and muted highs might be just the thing you'd like for jazz guitar.
I'd certainly recommend trying a few Boogies (avoiding, for the most part, those with the chromed armor plating - they're really not suitable for jazz or even classic rock, IMO) if you can find them. Check out, in particular, any of the Mark-series amps, the Lone Star, the Dual Caliber (DC) series, the Subway series and the Blue Angel. Before you make a decision, though, carry it the length of the store a couple times. Plan on moving your Boogie with a hand truck or going to the gym a lot more frequently to work on your upper body strength.
As I suggested above, I've transitioned away from tube amps. Yes, they can sound great under the right conditions. But they tend to perform best at a very specific volume, which is almost always the wrong volume for the venue. More specifically, larger tube amps tend to be far too loud and smaller tube amps tend to distort before you can extract enough clean headroom. Don't ask me why, but there's rarely a happy medium. Don't bother with attenuators (the Hot Plate, for example); they have an extremely limited effective range better suited for knocking the edge off of just-barely too loud amp than for throttling a big tube amp down to dinner jazz levels.
Tube amps also suffer from high maintenance frequency and cost. (Boogies are actually less expensive to maintain than Fenders for a couple of reasons I won't get into here unless someone really cares.) Tube maintenance is the proverbial double-edged sword. On the plus side, the only thing that tends to go wrong with a tube amp is that a tube fails. Given a tiny bit of knowledge and advanced preparation, you can handle the maintenance yourself. On the minus side, tubes - especially those of modern manufacture - fail way too often under normal use. I'm not talking about catastrophic failures (although those do occur as well) but rather the gradual onset of hiss, popcorn noise, hum, or rattle. Expect to invest $10 to $100 each time a tube goes bad.
Tubes also suffer from inconsistency. Look for some reviews by tube amp users who have just changed tubes. Without fail, they'll blather on about the *incredible* new tubes and attribute the resurrection of their amp's former glory to the particular brand of tube. The truth is, tubes slowly degrade as soon as you start using them. The brand doesn't matter. After a while, those brand-new tubes turn old and your amp doesn't sound as good. But the change is extremely gradual; you won't notice any difference until you put in *another* set of fresh tubes. Trust me, it gets expensive.
I've switched to using either a good DI straight to the sound board, or a modeling processor between the guitar and the sound board. If I have to play somewhere that doesn't have a good PA (which is rare around here), I have a nice powered speaker or two that I can use to set up my own PA in any room I'm ever likely to play.
You can't beat the smaller solid-state amps for convenience, reliability and portability, but their small cabinets and speakers tend to make them sound a bit congested compared to a good PA or powered speaker.
The Fender Jazzmaster Ultralight is a nice all-in-one solution that combines Fender's take on amp modeling with built-in effects and a small, lightweight enclosure. It still sounds a bit boxy, but - like the other smaller SS amps - the sound will fit an ensemble just fine. I don't particularly care for that midrange-focussed sound for my own needs as a solo guitarist, but I can imagine it working quite well for many other styles.
The AER Compact 60 packs an amazing wallop in an 18-pound package. Given its small cabinet and speaker, it's weak in the low end. But then again, a guitarist shouldn't really be putting out much low-end energy in an ensemble; that's the bassist's territory. The C60 has tons of high-end sparkle (which may or may not be appropriate to your playing style) and a decent digital reverb.
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Nice, TDD ! You've been away too long
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Sorry TDD, I don't know why you refer to me in this post, I never made any comment in this thread, were you thinking of someone else? Originally Posted by TieDyedDevil
/R
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Good, informative post TieDyedDevil.
I'm talking to a harp (of the Blues variety) player about swapping my Laney tube combo for a guitar he doesn't play for the very reasons you cite.
Which powered speaker/s would you recommend for use with a preamp/modeler?
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+1 on the Evans RE200 hybrid
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