jazz amps

[olectric]

Any of you guys have experience with Roland or Polytone amps? Any other recommendations for jazz amps? My Soul-O has got the clean headroom I need for jazz gigs, but it weighs a LOT, especially for a 112 combo amp. What I'm looking for in an amp:

1. small
2. great tone
3. lots of headroom

Whatcha got?

[olectric]

This is probably the wrong forum for this question. Ah well...

[tom]

couldn't you just put a heavy blanket over any decent amp ;)

[bud]

couldn't you just put a heavy blanket over any decent amp

Hey, jazzers are people too :D

This is a very good question. The head room part of the equation tends to conflict with the size one. I think you need 35 to 40 watts minimum in a tube amp to make it work at most club volumes.

I love the sound of my ES 175 straight into a Deluxe Reverb. I can keep it clean to about 3 or 3.5. Past that you start to break up. I have a Bandmaster head that is louder than the deluxe and sounds great too.

I have a friend who is a very fine jazz guitarist and went through this excercise. He tried a lot of amps and ended up with a Lonestar Classic Head and 2 1X12 Cabs, plenty o' head room and gorgeous clean tones. Unfortunately if you want a combo the 1X12 Lonestar is the same footprint as the 2X12.

I really think that if you want a warm tube sound in a smallish package the head and small cab route is the way to go. There seem to be a lot more choices.

If you find something that works for you please let us, well at least me, know. "Blanket guy" probably won't be interested as he seems to have his rig pretty dialed these days. :)

[tom]

hey! i resemble that remark!

[guitarzan]

I just saw Joe Jewell at a little jazz bistro not too long ago and he was getting great tones out of a Vomit Tyler straight into a Fuchs combo. I know it sounds like a rock rig, but it sounded great.


mmmmm, liquidy.

[olectric]

A better solution than the blanket (I resemble THAT remark :) ) would definitely be the Polytone from what I've read elsewhere. Warm, clean tones from something the size of a lunchbox that puts out 100W.

The crucial factor is that I'm going to be toting this around campus.

[harrellab]

Olectric,

As a recent jazz guitar performance graduate I can relate to the "toting equipment around campus" factor! I played my Hollow T through a Polytone Minibrute II for my entire 4 years of college. I am always pretty happy with the "traditional" jazz tones I can get out of the amp...not to mention it's easy to lug around. Since it's a clean amp with lots of headroom, it also takes pedals pretty well...you'd be surprised with the variety of sounds you can get with some good pedals. One very annoying thing about the Polytone however: it's incredibly bass-heavy. That's typically good for jazz, but annoying when trying to cop certain other styles...I always have to really cut the bass on the amp and really over-emphasize the highs on my amp/pedals whenever I play country, pop or whatever. I now am in the market for a great tube amp that can cover a lot of ground stylistically...but it's still nice to have the Polytone for my big band and jazz trio gigs, for instance.

To sum up...if you need a portable amp that sounds good for jazz and has lots of headroom, that is passable for other styles of music, you should dig the Polytone. If you need an amp to cover a lot of different styles very well then the Polytone will seem too one-dimensional and the "bass-heavyness" will frequently annoy you.

Hope that helps!

[Rhys]

i've had a polytone for 8 or so years and i agree w/ what harrrelab said. it's nice and compact and is great for jazz gigs. but i haven't played much jazz in the past few years and the polytone sits unused. nice little amp though, for what it does.

[olectric]

Hope that helps!


Very much! Thanks!

[harrellab]

Glad I could help...let me know what you end up getting and what you think of the Polytone if you try it out. Remember, they make a variety of models: the one I was speaking for is the Minibrute II. I've heard some of the lower-wattage ones and they paled in comparison.

Let me know if you have anymore questions and remember...Joe Pass played a Polytone!

[jeepster]

Good advice above.

I have Evans, Polytone, Roland jazz chorus and many others - 99% of the time I grab the Polytone for jazz gigs. (Mini-Brute)

Small, light, dependable and predictable. Only broke down once in 20 years....very reliable. The classic jazz tone.

I suppose some other amps might sound a bit better - in close listening - but the nuances are lost in most live band situations.

For recording - tone becomes more critical.....my first choice for that is the Evans.

I really appreciate the lightness of the Mini-Brute - I have to carry my own stuff.

[tomsalvojazz]

I've had many, many amps and I have found the Polytone combos to be very effective jazz combos. Evans are great amps too. But I think I might like the Polytones even better for the warmer tones. As far as being too bassy, I think that has a lot to do with speaker. I have a Mega Brute that has an 8" speaker and it sounds great at least for small to moderate sized gigs.

[MikesTech]

This may be more amp than you're looking for, but have you considered any of the Diaz amps ( http://www.diazmusicalproducts.com/ )?

Hand down these amps have the most remarkable clean tone (distorted is no sluch either ~wink~) I have ever heard... as in ever, ever!! They are as consistant from one to the next as the instruments you read about here, and the full clean tone is as glassy and rich as you could ever expect to hear.

Really remarkable amps.

They are frightfully expensive (reference to lugging around college campus), worth every penny, and even sound good with a blanket over them (reference to Tom "you can't play that loud in church can you?" Anderson) ~grin~

Seriously, if any of you have not heard these amps, you should listen to one. You won't believe it... sort of like playing an Anderson Guitar...

Bobby
Mikestech