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It's because amps are rectangular and squared boxes and don't lend themselves to retarded levels of fetish the way a guitar does so materialistic types have tunnel vision thinking that next six string will be the "one". For a minute with the dumble clone obsession I thought amps might go the same route but I think the hysteria has died down as people found paying 5k for a modified knock off of a cheap and available Twin Reverb was getting a little carried away.
Originally Posted by James Haze
What about the amp? Personally, I think the focus so damn much in just the guitar is somewhat misplaced. Your pickups (though also important) generate this tiny signal that you could actually barely hear, then the amp takes that, amplifies it to line level, adds some TONE shaping enhancements to it, and then amplifies it to bedroom or earth shaking stage volumes. It's putting in a lot of work, yet gets taken for granted far too often. Those amazing amps must really feel slighted.
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03-20-2023 09:38 AM
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- Technique helps. Being a better guitar player helps. But I think there's a threshold. Being good enough to enjoy good tone doesn't require being good enough to be a proper, competent jazz player. The latter being a rather high bar.
- There are a variety of good tones for different kinds of music. You will like some guitar tones better than others. This is an area where you are not required to embrace diversity though keeping an open mind will yield better long term enjoyment. Gear is fun and it only takes a bit of being objective and listening over time.
- All guitars are not created equal. Expensive guitars (usually) have a consistency and reputation backed by materials and a production process. That makes them a good bet. Some have come to love these guitars and will pay a premium. As it should be. But the guitars had to be quite good to start the trend.
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I play both archtops and planks (if anyone thinks "plank" is a pejoritive term, go seek help, you are "triggered" far too easily). And I use both on jazz gigs.
A few thoughts:
I can get a pretty good tone on both, but no plank sounds like an archtop. Maybe a compressed internet video or a recording could make them sound alike, but in your hands, no way. For jazz, if you gave me a dose of truth serum, I would say that the archtop sounds better.
If you are using light strings (10's or lighter), the planks will get a thicker tone due to their sustain. Archtops need (IMO) 11's or greater to sound "right".
Electric archtops will have a different sound than acoustic archtops and carved electric archtops will have a different sound than laminate electric archtops. Why anyone would make or choose a laminate acoustic archtop is beyond me.
For rhythm guitar, planks suck. They have zero acoustic crunch. An electric archtop works in that regard OK, but an acoustic archtop (or Gypsy guitar) works best. Flattop guitars and classical guitars can work in this application, but not as well as the others that I mentioned.
You can play jazz on any guitar. I would bet that my friend Bruce Forman would sound better playing jazz on a $100 Chinese made Dreadnaught or SG copy than anyone of us would playing one of my vintage D'Angelicos. It really is the mechanic, not the tool. And buying a more expensive tool will only help if it inspires you to play more. But remember, playing great jazz guitar (and getting great tone) is 99 percent perspiration and only 1 percent inspiration. There is no substitute for hard work, which is true in most endeavors in this life.
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Toan!
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I don't think the amp crazyness on the Dumbles has gone away. It will only probably get worse after his death. Originally Posted by DawgBone
1983 Dumble ODS Overdrive Special | Reverb
But I'll agree jazzers don't tend to obsess over amps as they do other over guitars, most are fine with a "jazz amp" that is mostly a bass amp.Last edited by jorgemg1984; 03-20-2023 at 06:12 PM.
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Fender Hot Rod is fine
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Peter Farrell playing a Gibson Barney Kessel (with a spruce top). Beautiful, deep tone.
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I don't think it's a good idea to compare guitar sounds on youtube. These are mostly marketing tricks.
The right way to test a guitar's sound is when you have it in your hands...
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Ideally at least for 6 months. Originally Posted by kris
The right way to test a guitar's sound is when you have it in your hands...
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+1 Originally Posted by Tal_175
Yes, 6 months, but 12 months would be better.
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That being the point. Originally Posted by Stringswinger
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Spook410 - My sentiments as well. Originally Posted by Spook410
AKA
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Wouldn’t that be less woke? Originally Posted by Spook410
AKA
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True that. Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
I too have the tendency to sound the same on no matter what guitar I play. I now participate in studio sessions that sometimes really call for a specific guitar sound and I am working really hard to really make my guitars (ES-125, ES-333, Telecaster, Strat) sound like the guitar that they are! It's an art!
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We're all different - I've been playing archtops for so long I don't even know how I sound on a solid body. Some people tend to sound more like the guitar being played (a necessity for session players) others tend to sound more uniform across all guitars. Nothing wrong with that, unless you decide to make a video where you extrapolate your own experience as an universal truth. (as a side note, another big difference is adaptation - it's really hard for me to change guitars but I have friends who can switch an archtop with 13s for a strat with 9s without any problem) Originally Posted by Little Jay
My comment was more against this clickbait mentality that has invaded youtube, where you seem to present an "unexpected fact" (like all guitars sound the same) as a new gospel, when simple knowledge of guitar history contradicts his very premise. As someone pointed out, no one thinks Julian Lage sounds the same on a Tele or on a Manzer. Or Mike Moreno on a 335 or a Marchione (here it's even the same type of guitar). Even Jim Hall/Wes on a P90 or an humbucker, for that matter. If you listen to most guitarist's discography chronologically their sound tends to change over the years - part of it is the evolution of the player or different studios or improvement on recording techniques but a part of it is gear too.
My only question is if he's deliberately fooling his 400k subscribers (and I guess most don't have the knowledge to question him) or if he is clueless himself. I'll bet on the second. It's the victory of mediocrity.
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The YouTuber in the OP is The Godfather of “jazz guitar” clickbait. Worst of all is that it’s clickbait marketing applied mostly to pedagogy. These people benefit from their ability to mystify music education while purporting to simplify and teach. To me it’s truly sick and antithetical to education. But to each their own. I guess some people get off thinking they’re actually improving by watching these clips and learning some sound bytes about theory so they can argue in forums without ever learning to play… Originally Posted by jorgemg1984
Oh shit I just got triggered. Excuse me.
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The harmonics ( timbre ) of a middle C (or any other note) are vastly different when played on different strings (1st fret on B, 5th on G, 10th on D etc.) on the same guitar and you can clearly hear the difference. Originally Posted by eh6794-2.0
My comment was more against this clickbait mentality that has invaded youtube, where you seem to present an "unexpected fact" (like all guitars sound the same) as a new gospel, when simple knowledge of guitar history contradicts his very premise. As someone pointed out, no one thinks Julian Lage sounds the same on a Tele or on a Manzer. Or Mike Moreno on a 335 or a Marchione (here it's even the same type of guitar). Even Jim Hall/Wes on a P90 or an humbucker, for that matter. If you listen to most guitarist's discography chronologically their sound tends to change over the years - part of it is the evolution of the player or different studios or improvement on recording techniques but a part of it is gear too.
My only question is if he's deliberately fooling his 400k subscribers (and I guess most don't have the knowledge to question him) or if he is clueless himself. I'll bet on the second. It's the victory of mediocrity.
I think Jens has been quite open with it in his videos that he does use clickbait titles and thumbnails and he does give in to playing the game of the algorithms.
But he does also upload a lot of great content and information.
I at least really appreciate the content he uploads.
The premise of this video is that some viewers saw his 175 on his wall and speculated he could get "better jazz tone" with it than his 335 style guitar.
So Jens tried to see if he could use his 175 to get a better version of his personal conception of "jazz tone" for his style of jazz guitar playing.
He comes to the conclusion that he is most satisfied with the results for what he is trying to achieve when he uses the 335 style guitar.
He makes the claim that they sound very similar but he explains why he prefers the 335 style and what makes it different to him.
This is different from Julian Lage picking two different guitars on two different days because he is (I assume) aiming for achieving different things with different guitars. They give different kind of inspiration, feel, influence your playing in different ways etc.
I somewhat suspect that Julian Lage, Jim Hall and Wes could also get very similar results with different guitars (perhaps not vastly different) if they were aiming for similar results. But they weren't aiming for it, and Jens was. That's a big difference.
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Ah, sorry to trigger you, Juan. If it's of any consolation, I agree with you 100%. I've devoted enough of my own time to reach a level that is still too far from what I would like - and it really pisses me off when people sell "jazz shortcuts". It's not easy (at all) to play jazz, it takes a lot of hard work and there's no single uniformised path to greatness - anyone telling otherwise is lying. Anyway, for the character in question, I thought listening to his playing would solve the question but 400k people think differently. Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
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I disagree with the "great content and information" part but I respect people enjoy his videos, of course. Originally Posted by orri
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I have to agree with orri - I've gotten an enormous amount of benefit from Jens' videos. He certainly doesn't sell jazz shortcuts. I'm not sure what gave you that impression.
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I generally find very little to disagree with in Jens's videos which I think are getting better and better at distilling good advice into bite size and entertaining chunks (YT attention spans peak at 5m according to my figures). I would unhesitatingly describe Jens as a force for good on the interwebz.
YT has very specific constraints of form, and I also think people have no idea of the amount of work that goes into tight videos like Jens's. There's easier ways to grift on YouTube than making high effort jazz guitar content lol.
Anyway he did another video where he pointed out that he needed a semi-hollow to suit his style of playing (sustain), as opposed to his lovely old ES175? Disclaimer, I was cited as a thunk consultant. So make of that what you will.Last edited by Christian Miller; 03-23-2023 at 10:38 AM.
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Deleted two comments. I feel over exposed and self conscious. Jens and other social media influencers are fine.
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NB: I suspect a lot of YouTubers use the platform to motivate their practice. It might be worth bearing in mind that what benefits the creator to post (licks, lines, transcriptions etc) may not benefit the student.
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Well, this is a public forum. OTOH people say all sort of stuff behind each other's backs. What's better? Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
I do feel that sentiment I often see of perceiving YouTubers as necessarily being grifters or charlatans - or narcissists - is unfair given my experiences.
OTOH it is a genre of rant among experienced musicians to rail against the social media people. I always feel as a small time YouTuber myself that people are probably saying the same things behind my back even though 7K subs gives me pocket money at best and I have after ten years of doing this literally zero idea of what would get me to Jen's level subs wise (it wouldn't be by copying his format either even if I wanted to - it isn't that simple).... I would defend the form. It's hard to make good, punchy YouTube videos. My aim, and I am certain Jens's aim, is to put stuff out there that is helpful and interesting to people.
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For the record Christian, I do actually appreciate your online content quite a bit from what I've briefly checked out. Even with 7k subscribers (a lot by my book) you don't treat it as a popularity contest and it shows in the format (in a positive way). You invest time in depth and rigor and your content doesn't focus on shortcuts. Imagine all the time some others could be spending practicing rather than working on gimmicky editing of their videos. My negative sentiments are not directed at all YTers. Hell, even I have YT/and IG (with like 4 followers or something). I spend zero time editing. I don't even do any post-processing of the audio. Not my interest.
But you know who is the absolute best YTer? Barry Harris. The voyeuristic aspect of his online materials guarantees its rigor and authenticity. He clearly dgaf that his videos are up on youtube. He's just there deep in the hole with his students, hammering out ideas for the sake of educating the students directly in the room with him and also working out his curiosities. The fact that his videos are online and getting millions of views is(/was) obviously totally irrelevant to him.
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Tailpiece of an old Tellson 10s
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