The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #376

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    Quote Originally Posted by MaxTwang
    What profile are you using for a warm jazz tone? I had a Kemper for a couple years and warm jazz wasn't something I found easy with it, then again I had a hard time bonding with FRFR monitors which could have been the real issue for me.
    I'm using FRFR monitors and it sounds great. I think the whole todo about FRFR speakers is much ado about nothing and I was one of the biggest voices against using them in the beginning. I use the ampfactory vibroverb amp model with the gain at 0, treble, bass, mid and presence at around -3.0 and a graphic eq pulling down 80hz and 120hz by 2-3db.

    IMO, it sounds vastly superior to *ANY* jazz amp on the market including AI, Mambo, Quilter, Evans, etc. I also A/B'd that particular amp model with a $2000 gries 35 tube amp which was previously my favorite fender style tube amp ever made. The kemper smoked it.

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  3. #377

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    I've tried Kemper and Axe a couple times but I was so enthralled with the technology and possibilities I spent all my time fiddling with them instead of playing. Then there's the gear buying to get profiles, tone matches, IRs, etc. For me it was one big rabbit hole!

    I do miss a few of the Jim Kelley profiles I made, maybe someday I'll try the Kemper again (I should have kept a copy of those profiles!).
    Last edited by MaxTwang; 08-13-2015 at 02:35 AM.

  4. #378

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    Quote Originally Posted by MaxTwang
    I've tried Kemper and Axe a couple times but I was so enthralled with the technology and possibilities I spent all my time fiddling with them instead of playing. Then there's the gear buying to get profiles, tone matches, IRs, etc. For me it was one big rabbit hole!

    I do miss a few of the Jim Kelley profiles I made, maybe someday I'll try the Kemper again (I should have kept a copy of those profiles!).
    i did that too and bought over 200 profiles. Now I use a single profile 90% but when I need it (like the fusion tune I played over the weekend) it sure is nice to have the ultimate dumble and the ultimate jazz tone in one box

  5. #379

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    Personally, the best I have found is Mambo for jazz. I'm a jazz player so rock or blues tones mean nothing to me. Jazz tones can vary, and I find the Mambo can cover all jazz bases and is easy to dial in. Hard to get a bad sound out of a Mambo no matter the guitar.

    Of course, the "perfect" cabinet depends on the gig. My solution is a Mambo head which I can use with different cabs, but it took me a long time to finally settle on this.

  6. #380

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    I have a Peavey Bandito, it's a good amp but lacks that 'Burrell sound', the controls are confusing to me.

  7. #381

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    It's old Fenders for me too..

  8. #382

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    If I had to name one ultimate amp it would be my Quilter Aviator 1x8" amp. It does everything incredibly well,sans distortion tones.
    100 watts, 20 lbs super portable and can even handle a microphone if need be with a high impedance adaptor.

  9. #383

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    As a former owner of several Twins I'm very happy with the Fender Custom 15.


  10. #384

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    Hi, I’m new to this forum

    On topic: Personally I really like dry solid state sounds with various amounts of chorus/modulation and reverb. Today I mostly playing through a Hiwatt Maxwatt G20R which is the ultimate amp for me

  11. #385

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    My (imaginary) perfect guitar amp would be a 30W Deluxe Reverb with a separate mic channel and a speaker-emulated line-out, that weighed less than 30 lbs and cost less than a thousand dollars. Or a Katana 100 that sounded good.

  12. #386

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    Got my first electirc guitar in 1954,,, Owned all the Holy Grail fenders as well as many others...I am now using Quilter Avaitor and The Bud plus a Cube and an early Little Jazz,,,The best tone of all time IMHO is a 1959 Gibson GA 200 , Nothing I have ever used sounded quite this good ... Also heavy and a nightmare to repair... Mickmac

  13. #387

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    Quote Originally Posted by jzucker
    the ultimate guitar amp (for me) is still the Kemper profiler going through an Alto TS110A powered speaker. 600w of clean power. I used a fender vibroverb model for 90% of the jam... The kemper is just ?THAT GOOD.
    This my experience too. If I had one profile I use most (excluding one's I made myself), it may be Boogiem's Vibroverb or John Tyler's Blonde Bassman (used clean).

    I played through a 1980s Ampeg VT40 (65 watts) for decades
    The Ultimate Guitar Amp-ampeg-vt-40-jpg
    Great cleans, great spring reverb. Sort of Ampeg's answer to a Super Reverb with more midrange and more ability to control it.

    Totally a beast to move around. A Super is nothing compared to moving it. A Twin far less awkward. - You had to bear hug it in and out of places.

    Loved that amp but it got old and I let someone else pay to whip it back into shape.

    Got into the modelling stuff (Line 6, Amplitube, Scuffham S-gear and was enamoured by the flexibility and variety of sounds ... and the lightweight packages. - I also had never played through many vintage amps and the models educated me as to what stuff I liked. I mostly gravitate toward brownface amps pushed cleans and Dumblish stuff for dirty.

    Then I got a Kemper and it really does everything I need an amp to do ... and tons of stuff I will never touch.

    I remember with my old gear I would often feel my set up sounded awesome one day and crap another. Since I started playing with the Kemper my set up always seems to sound great.

    ... even when my playing doesn't.

    There is a real consistency to it, I was lacking in my old tube - effects pedal based set up. I do think that the weather and humidity and stuff effected my old school set up more.

    I still think I will eventually build a Tweed amp kit just to do it, but there are really no sounds I want to get that I am not getting.

    - But the thing with the Kemper is that your sounds are only as good as your profiles and you have wade through quite a few before you find the ones which work for you.

    Or you profile your own.

    My most used profile is pretty idiosyncratic and pretty heavily tweaked. I don't think it would work for most others but it works for me. I could other people finding the same.

  14. #388

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    Hmm? The ideal jazz amp would be able to sound like a Twin Reverb or an Ampeg Super Echo Twin, possibly by just selecting a toggle switch position. However, all this would fit inside a cabinet the size of a Henriksen Blu.

    And, because I just can't stand more knobs than are necessary, the amp would lack an equalizer panel. It would have reverb as lush as a Fender or an Ampeg. As far as tone controls go, no more than bass, mid, and treble, for me.

    It would be so reliable that I could use it as a wheel chock on my truck, then play several sets.

    Oh, well. Until Prometheus brings that down from Olympus, I will limp along with small Fenders and Polytones (they cover the Ampeg scene, for me).

  15. #389

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    The super echo twin is two reverberockets in one case. The Reverberocket was my all time favorite amp until very recently when I discovered that my Little Jazz sounded quite like it, but was smaller, lighter and less fragile. I also played through a Fender HRD that sounded amazing. My Boogie Mark III is a terrific sounding amp, but somebody apparently bolted it to the floor.

  16. #390

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    Quote Originally Posted by rpjazzguitar
    The super echo twin is two reverberockets in one case. The Reverberocket was my all time favorite amp until very recently when I discovered that my Little Jazz sounded quite like it, but was smaller, lighter and less fragile. I also played through a Fender HRD that sounded amazing. My Boogie Mark III is a terrific sounding amp, but somebody apparently bolted it to the floor.
    I have a Mesa Boogie mrk 2.
    I switched the heavy magnet speaker to a 12 jensen neodyne 8 ohm. Now it weighs around 18 kg coming from over 30 kg as I recall
    Maybe that could unbolt it for you ? ;-)

  17. #391

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    The "ultimate" "jazz" amp is the one that is already on stage or in the studio. Honestly, as long as it is not broken and has a decent clean tone and enough volume for the gig you can get a "jazz tone" out of most backline amps. Over the years I used Roland Jazz Chorus, Fender Twins, Hotrods, Deluxe, Blues jr. etc, Mesa Boogies, Sessionettes, Polytone, Peavey, Fame (local store's brand) – I did not like every amp as much as the others ... but I could play the job with each of these. Unfortunately less and less clubs have backline amps.

    My favorites among the amps I owned over the years are:
    Fender Blues jr. – for small gigs, studio and home use. I used to own a Polytone when our bassist brought this little amp for me to a small gig and I liked it a lot. Small, light, no hiss, brilliant tone. Later we did recordings and compared it with the Polytone and all of us liked the humble tiny fender better than the legendary "Jazz" amp. The Polytone is a good amp as well, we just liked the Fender better. Later it got me through a Blues phase – after all it is made for that. Though it is only 15 watts it has enough headroom, volume for small gigs – for bigger gigs and reahearsals I use a vibrolux (which my band loves better) btw.

    Mesa Boogie 50 Caliber – I used to play everything in the late 80s/90s (I was a professional musician back then) with this amp: Jazz gigs, top 40 jobs, indie Rock, theatres etc. It was the only amp I owned. Some of the best recordings of my "stage tone" are done with a humble Ibanez AG75 and the Boogie. The clean tone is very "HiFi" which suits an archtop guitar very well. It can get louder than you'll ever need. I think I never used the gain channel much but the clean tone is one of the best.

    My current situation (less and smaller gigs to which I mostly travel on the train / subway – also I'm not getting younger and stronger) made me look for something even smaller than the blues jr. – not only because of the weight but also for dimensions – not to bother the other passengers so much. I found a Tech 21 fly rig preamp that I can plug directly into the PA. It's not the same as playing through an amp, but I get a decent tone that way and it fits into the gig bag. That works fine – if there is a PA.
    Last edited by guavajelly; 07-22-2019 at 04:33 PM.

  18. #392

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    I'm kind of shocked to see the Fender Blues Jr. on the top spot, wow.

  19. #393

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    I think everybody owns a Blues Jr. I do...I just never, never use it. It's honestly the amp I never use. But I bet it's the "most owned" amplifier out there.

  20. #394

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    Blues Jr. amps can be made to sound (and look) pretty darned good...if you throw enough money at them. (BillM mods; AlNico Speaker; Custom Cab; etc.)
    Mine has been modded and re-cab'd many years ago, into a decent sounding jazz or blues amp. Not my smartest investment, but hey, it was a fun project.


  21. #395

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    That looks really good man! BTW, I just discovered something with Fender Amps. I got this idea from an app on my iPad that works with the iRig. For the jazz tone on Fender Amps, they set all tone controls to 0. I tried it on my Fender Deluxe with my Eastman archtop. It works great. Set all tone controls to 0 and add a little bit of treble. It makes for a really nice clean archtop sound like that of Herb Ellis or Joe Pass. Of course, for the Joe Pass sound, add some mid range. Control your bass and treble from your guitar. This 0 tone control setting allows for the acoustical properties of your archtop to really shine.

    Brad

  22. #396

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    I'm surprised to find my new favorite for archtop's is a Roland Blues Cube Artist with a Sparkle Clean tone capsule. Ran it side by side (literally) with my Rivera era Fender Concert with an E/V in it. The Roland is better.

  23. #397

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    Quote Originally Posted by Spook410
    I'm surprised to find my new favorite for archtop's is a Roland Blues Cube Artist with a Sparkle Clean tone capsule. Ran it side by side (literally) with my Rivera era Fender Concert with an E/V in it. The Roland is better.
    And your Roland is certainly MUCH lighter than the EV loaded Concert.
    I have that exact (Concert II) amp and love the tone...hate the weight. It's currently for sale.

  24. #398

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    Light is the ticket, these days.

    40-50 years ago, I and everyone else thought nothing of showing up with a Fender Twin Reverb, or even a half stack. Of course, in that era, the "stock" PA was typically a Shure VocalMaster, with two to four cabinets. You didn't want to mic instruments through a system like that--you kicked it out to the house right from your amps.

    30-40 years ago, PA systems got much more powerful, even for non-touring bands. Cabinet technology progressed to the point that you could mic more than just vocals/drums. This freed the instrument players to shift to smaller amps. Predictably, we all did. My Twin Reverb became a Pro Reverb, then either a Polytone MiniBrute or a Deluxe Reverb--depending on what the gig was (jazz or everything else).

    20-30 years ago, this trend continued. The MiniBrute became a BabyBrute and the Deluxe Reverb became a 12-15 watt tweed Deluxe.

    Now, even the Polytones seem "big." I still love their sound, of course, but the Henriksen Blu sure is seductive. More seductive, still, is a Polytone pedal straight into the house PA. I'm gigging more and more right into the house.

    +10 years??? We'll be playing into a silent house, just the sound of knives and forks clanking. Everyone will be wearing Bluetooth ear systems--their own, or provided by the venue, a la theaters' 3D glasses. The band will show up with a great preamp/computer that Bluetooths the signal to what people are listening with.

  25. #399

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    This:

    The Ultimate Guitar Amp-6bcd05c2-4df5-4ed0-9d2c-66f7b33696ad-jpg

    My new 40years old Princeton, last series, with the old AB1270 circuit, completely handwired in California. Honestly the best sounding amp I‘ve ever played. Loud, versatile and crystal clear cleans. Loves pedals and every guitar. Wonderful smooth reverb and the best tremolo ever. Who wants more?

  26. #400

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    The Ultimate Guitar Amp-img_9911-jpg
    I like the size and power of my hand-wired tube amp head by VVT. 40 watts RMS and weighs 25 pounds...in a package the size of "half" a princeton!! Mid-shift and bright switches...reverb dwell....middle....it is a princeton head for larger venues.