Instances of solid state amps being used well

Some if not all of the later Beatles records used solid state amps if I'm not mistaken. At the time they were kind of all the rage. (Let the Beatles fans in the know correct if needed.)

I don't know, man. They're using Fenders on Let It Be.

i recall reading andy gill chose solid state to meet his needs

(the Beatles used some solid state Vox and Selmer gear... definitely for part of the mid-60s. they were using stock Fenders- Showmans, Twins- by the time of Let it Be/Abbey Road).

greg ginn used a solid state PA system as a guitar rig.

david pajo used a hyper-obscure bass head in Slint, pretty sure it was solid state.

kevin shields used little solid state fender practice amps on Isn't Anything.

much of the guitar on Wilco's Summerteeth is a Line 6 Flextone.

much of the lead guitar on the last Dungen is a Pod.

Tom Scholz, most of the Boston records past the first one. Def Leppard and Mutt Lange with a pile of Rockman's. Lots of stuff from ZZ Top "dance" period.

Don't know who used old Gallien-Krueger RL guitar amps, back when they still made them, but they were used by many. Iron Maiden was an endorser.

Whoever used Randall Warhead's. I think Kiss copped to using some solid state Randalls at one point, although maybe they were paid to admit it.

"Don't know who used old Gallien-Krueger RL guitar amps, back when they still made them, but they were used by many."

Alex Lifeson used them during Rush's Miami Vice phase.

Dimebag Darrell used Randall solid state amps. I think his tone was way too mushy, but there are plenty who disagree.

Roland's Jazz Chorus solid state amps are popular for their clean sound and are popular with many jazz guitarists. There is an amp called Tapco or something like that seems to be pop

I don't keep tabs on who uses Tech21 Sansamps but plenty of artists have used them in a variety of situations. I have one of the old Classic boxes and there's a lot in it for everyone.

George, I thought Tom Scholz still used his old Marshall heads! He probably at least uses solid state preamps, though.

Yeah - most shoegazers had at least one Jazz Chorus for the crystalline parts, and a tube amp for the feedback, a tradition continued by eg Jonny Greenwood.

Tim, there's a website devoted to documenting Scholz stage gear on the web. Can't remember the name offhand but a search for Scholz R&D should come up with it. It shows Scholz' gear, as well as Gary Pihl's, for various tours. Scholz did indeed use the elaborate Rockman stacks for stage work. They're pretty impressive looking -- the Scholz rock modules mounted in stage heads feeding stereo full range power amps out to full range speakers in a stack. They're pretty impressive looking.

Ah yeah, here it is. Rockmancentral.com, which is closed. But through the magic of the wayback machine:

http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://rockmancentral.com

Jason Pierce used a solid state H+H amp throughout Spacemen 3 and Spiritualized.

bdmulvey

I'm amazed to learn that a Pod was used for lead guitar on the last Dungen record. Where did you learn of this? I'm assuming it was the Pod XT, which is vastly superior to earlier Pods.

I have learned quickly that guitars tracked through a Pod can fool a lot of ears.

I'm not a huge fan of the Pod myself, but it's worth pointing out that most people recording with a Pod don't have fine preamps and other tools at their disposal the way a good studio does. A plain old Pod 2.0 can sound pretty amazing when you run it through a vintage Neve or an Avalon.

"I'm amazed to learn that a Pod was used for lead guitar on the last Dungen record. "

seconded

Andy Summers of te Police used a jazz chorus, as did the lady from slowdive

yeah, pretty shocking. i read it in one of the supermarket guitar mags, either Guitar World or Guitar Player. apparently it was recorded in an old barn onto a dinky-shit Korg digital 8 or 12 track, dumped to protools, and then mixed through a Neve (with extra help from an Echoplex ... which is why the songs have a faint haze to em, i guess).