Guitars... what you've got / what you want

Ums have you looked into/played a fender hot rod deluxe amp? Pretty basic but still quality, good pedal platform.

Hot Rod series are great in my opinion. The clean sound is quite decent, they are CERTAINLY loud enough (at least from the Deluxe and up) they are everywhere and they are cheap. They are backline at a lot of places. They do have a few spots where the construction is not the best and if you gig them hard they will need some little things here and there, but they're workhorses. We should stop using the word workhorse and instead use hot rod deville.

Lower wattage tube amps... might not be for every situation. If you want to play loud and clean, they can't. They overdrive early. If you don't super clean 70s country / 80s anything tones, no problem. Playing with loud drummers is a big problem for anything other than a twin and up. Some of these little amps (I had an 18 watt marshall which I really really tried to love) have such a pronounced inherent overdrive tone that they get funky with dirt pedals. They'll mic it up you say.... well, alright, except now you're at the mercy of some random sound guy, some random monitoring situation, possibly none or very little soundcheck time. I'm just saying that I need, bare minimum, enough amp behind me to be heard over a drummer... and I need the sound to be clean/cleanish in most situations. I'm way too old for halfstacks anymore, so I settled for the worlds heaviest 1x12 combo.

that should say if you don't NEED super clean.... no problem.

This is where I plug Ampeg's Jet and Reverberocket amps. Some of the 90s reissues (when Mackie did their best to mess up the Ampeg brand), are really good and still undervalued. I'm annoyed that I never picked up a J-20 when Sam Ash was fire saleing them for $299 each - a steal for what essentially is handwired 20W Hot Rod 1x12

xxxxp it’s pretty much an exact Classic 30 clone made in China for the Australian company Strauss, who used to do stage amps of their own manufacture back in the 70s.
I fired it up on the weekend and it has some gnarly intermittent crackles so I will need to go over the solder joints on the PCB (after discharging the caps of course).

if only there were some kind of...Holy Grail of Tone within driving radius

lol perfect tone was within my grasp

thanks for all these recommendations - i would say clean tone is definitely a priority for this band, will check out the Hot Rod Deluxe and the Ampegs

I have a knockoff clone of a Peavey Classic 30 and it’s everything I need (apart from slightly flaky wiring). Similar EL34/spring reverb magic of a Fender Deluxe, with an effect loop in the preamp.

― assert (matttkkkk), Friday, August 11, 2023 3:23 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'm a big fan of peavey - but they do tend to be so frickin heavy - how is the classic 30 in that regard?

oh was gonna ask - how about the Roland Jazz Chorus? any thoughts?

My college band was very dependent on a JC120; we put everything through it. Utterly perfect solid-state clean.

Too much amp for most contexts I play in, but I did have access to a JC90 for a while and that was perfect.

The JC is almost too clean imho. Serious hearing damage with the wrong tone

interesting, sounds like one you'd want to try with your own guitar before buying

i'm a big fan of peavey - but they do tend to be so frickin heavy - how is the classic 30 in that regard?
well my clone is appallingly heavy for a 1x12 combo. Apparently the original is 17kg/39lb which sounds about right.

In overly heavy 1x12 combo land, the Orange Tremlord 30 is cool - very clean but more '50s Harmony/Supro style EQ over Fender Blackface clean (ie it has mids), dual tremolo and spring reverb, 30/15/2/1 watt settings. Expensive new but the one my friend bought off Craigslist was $600 because the guy didn't want to ship it. 40 pounds sounds about right for weight.

My amps now are two Electronic Audio pedals going into the line in on a Fryette Power Station - the Model FeT that's sort of Sunn Model T-y and the Citadel that's sort of an idealized Marshall JMP. Due to volume issues I always had to reamp my real amp through the Fryette anyway so I decided to try these and really couldn't tell a difference from an amp head.

Milo, that is intriguing. I have often lusted after the Tech 21 Power Engine (not really a standalone amp, rather a speaker that you can use with a Sansamp).

I use Sansamps frequently (indeed, daily). So the idea of a device that just takes a tone you already like and just makes it loud? That is appealing.

I will have to look into the Fryette. Even though it sounds like a kitchen appliance.

I happened to have the Power Station already, otherwise there are a lot of cheaper options for clean power amps. Supposedly there's something about the interaction of a tube amp like the Fryette (even ultra clean) with a speaker that's more pleasing than a solid state amp but that gets into borderline audiophile weeds for me.

You guys know I'm a compulsive idiot, right? tha's why this mf is on its way from Shinjuku after some negotiation
https://i.imgur.com/I68i33L.jpg

I have a JC-120 I bought from The Church when they unloaded a bunch of their US gear in the late 1990s. Marty Willson-Piper paired it with an AC30 and that combo sounds great if you're in a really big club. Yup, it's extremely clean but with the right pedal combo you can shoegaze the fuck out of it, but fundamentally it's only going to make whatever you have louder. I've always used mine with keyboards - it sounds fab with a Farfisa.

OTOH, I once saw David Lindley play through JC-120 and he sounded exactly like himself. YMMV

xpost beautiful bass

- #1 thanks to everyone for all the great and thoughtful advice, i love this thread. i'm really glad i didn't rush out and buy a boss katana haha so you talked me off the ledge.

committed to taking my time and going to local shops and trying things out with my guitar instead of impulse buying like i always do

last night after work I went to a Music Go Round in the burbs and played an amp not mentioned here and REALLY liked it, will definitely be considering it, though it's more than I want to (it will be there for a while, they are getting the reverb tank replaced/fixed later this week so it's going to a shop)

It's a Music Man 210 Seventy Five...late 70s likely...definitely is LOUD and has a ton of clean headroom. Reverb was on the blink but it has a sort or weirdly cool built-in phaser for some reasons which is nice because it's fun and not a pedal I would probably spend money on.

sounded really good, really high quality. Not too familiar with Music Man amps but apparently Leo Fender designed this one. It's definitely a "Fender" type amp. Smaller than a Twin Reverb but in that zone.

https://www.musicgoround.com/product/woodbury-mn/41123-S000105350/used-musicman-210-tube-guitar-amps

Oh, Music Man is a great choice for clean headroom.

I sometimes forget about them because most music stores are Fender Fender Marshall Fender Vox Marshall Marshall Fender.

(Insert Brady Bunch "Marcia Marcia Marcia" meme here)

That amp looks great

agreed! i was reading a bit about them, interesting hybrid design with a solid state preamp and a tube power amp. lots of random forum dudes seem to like them.

and fwiw if i saw a guy show up to a gig with a semi-obscure 70s combo amp i would assume that guy knew what he was doing.

haha I must admit part of the appeal was it looked like a Cool Amp

totally valid, everyone who plays guitar wants to look cool according to their own definition

Except for people who buy headless guitars and basses.

Still see people playing Music Mans out all the time, they must be really well made. They sound great, very clean but not antiseptic. They cut through a mix, boy

that is one cool looking amp (and bass mkkkk)

Call me shallow but I have always wanted a Hard Puncher for the name alone

yeah worth it for the name, the rest is gravy

this new mike kerr sig bass looks fun
https://www.fender.com/en-US/electric-basses/jaguar-bass/limited-edition-mike-kerr-jaguar-bass/0149460382.html

The Twin is basically the best amp ever made; the few times I’ve gigged through one I felt like a goddamn guitar hero, and it’s my go-to recording amp.

But WAY too much amp for 99.9% of the places I play, and unless you can turn it up past 2 (LOUD) it’s gonna sound dinky. And I wouldn’t wanna be lugging one up & down the fire escape stairs of a shitty old club.

I’ve got a wee little Tex that’s an absolute delight to cart around. It’s pretty much on the opposite end of the spectrum than a Twin in terms of sound (inherently gritty) but it sounds good in a small room & it weighs about the same as a medium-sized housecat.

The Music Man logo guys always make me think of the Beatles in Yellow Submarine, both in terms of their trousers and posture

Hardcore, you are correct about the Twin but the Deluxe Reverb is a close second.

AC30 and JC120 are also in the toppermost of the poppermost.

But for everyday use in shitty clubs, I want the smaller, lighter versions. AC15, JC90, and BJr.

I'm kinda obsessing over the AC15TB2. It's a 2x10" AC15 that Marshall built for Vox when Korg owned both companies.

I went back to my ferociously crackling Classic 30 clone and cleaned the tube sockets - fired right up without any nasty behaviour at all. Win!
The mid tone control has a busted pot though, so I have more adventures in store. But man it's just the right amp for me.

I've casually kept an eye out for an Ibanez Jet King and one showed up at the local fancy guitar shop while I was out of town. They wanted $275 for it which is way cheaper than I usually see them on Reverb for so I figured if it was still available when I got back I would probably pick it up.

It was in their "as-is" section stored in the back room meaning they don't really bother giving them any sort of setup, but the neck was straight and everything else was good enough that I bought it. When I was at the counter there were three store employees and all of them were like "wtf is that thing?" barbecue they had never seen one before.

It's 2nd version which is what I wanted - 6 inline headstock vs a 3 and 3 - and someone had replaced the neck humbucker with a SD phat cat HB sized P90 (which is on reverb now). I put a set of four conductor HBs in and used the built in switch for coil splitting.

It sounds and plays really good, better than I expected. I thought it was an off white pickguard til I took it off and realized its just legit yellowing from smoke (of which there is only the faintest smell).

https://i.imgur.com/C2rklVU.jpg

"because" not barbecue obviously, who knows where that came from

Also it's heavy as shit which is the only real drawback

ooh nice

Joygoat, that Jet King is way cool. Great deal.

Wait, these guys run a boutique guitar shop and they didn't know what a Jet King was?

Anyway, wonderful score!

For whatever reason, none of them had seen one before and apparently didn't realize they had one in stock. I'd never actually seen one in person before this one though, only online.

nice score!

xxp the name is literally written on it as well!
That’s a great price too.

the guy making the Danelectro-style Vs has gotten a cease and desist letter from the good folks at Gibson:

https://www.instagram.com/p/CwfOiX1uV8n/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

gibson sucks so much

I repeat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd7ySopIwog

just wow. there's plenty of V knockoffs, and have been since the 70s.

Vintera II Bass VI in Lake Placid Blue please. Probably the only way I'll ever afford one.

never thought I'd lust after a Gene Simmons bass but here we are

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/EB0GSEb--gibson-custom-limited-edition-gene-simmons-eb-0-electric-bass-ebony-vos

Elvis there are very good Squier VI options - received this during the week:
https://i.imgur.com/mGmYxaH.jpg
and in the same package, the needed Mustang for my "offset trilogy":
https://i.imgur.com/hEyJqfa.jpg