Suggestions for guitar jazz amp

[merlin el mago]

Suggestions for jazz guitar amp about 20W for a friend, I have on hand 3 tubes E34L Tesla & several ECC81, ECC82 & ECC88 that I want to use, any idea will welcome.

[MrCurwen]

What kind of sound is he looking for?

Fender Blackface could be a good place to start. If he's in the market for a fat, softer sound, the 50's Fenders are great. I use a Fender Super (the first model) for jazzy playing, with 6V6GT power section.

http://www.webphix.com/schematic%20h...5b4_LAYOUT.pdf

[merlin el mago]

I will ask him, thanks for the link.

[MrCurwen]

I might have expressed myself a bit hastily. To clarify:

I meant that if he likes a clear, chimy clean tone, then the 1960's Blackfaces are a good place to start. This is to most the archetypal clean sound.

Then the older models, say the 5B4 Super I linked, give a bit fatter, softer and many would argue a bit more soulful tone.

I wouldn't turn my back on a Fender Tweed Champ for clean sounds, if he would be happy with just 5 watts. There's a lot of character there, with minimal parts count and cost. People mic their amps often now, anyways.

[rongon]

Being a jazz guitarist who is also a tube audio hobbyist, maybe I can help.

"Jazz guitar" means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

If by "jazz guitar" you mean the 1950s sound of Barney Kessel or Jim Hall, then you mean a really old Gibson amp, like the GA-50 Gibson GA50 - Gibson Photo Album - Topix

schematic: http://www.6v6power.ru/inf/Amplifier...on%20GA-50.jpg

That's a beautiful, and unique sounding guitar amplifier.

If by "jazz guitar" you mean a Kenny Burrell or Wes Montgomery type of sound, then a blackface Fender is what they used in the mid to late 1960s.
George Benson used to play through a Fender Twin Reverb, into the 1970s. When I saw Kenny Burrell play at the Village Vanguard in about 1995, he was playing his Gibson Super 400 into a Fender Twin Reverb with twin JBL 12-inchers (HEAVY!).

In the late 1950s to early 1960s, those Blue Note records with Grant Green or Kenny Burrell on guitar were made with a tweed Deluxe amp. I find that amp to be very nice but too easy to distort when played at gigs. Something like a blackface or silverface Fender Vibrolux Reverb is just about perfect (35W output, 2X 10" speakers, weighs about 45 pounds). I used to have a Fender Deluxe Reverb (silverface, but that's pretty close to blackface IMO) which I adored (1-12" speaker, 20W output).

If by "jazz guitar" you mean a Pat Metheny sort of sound, then that's completely different. Pat uses a huge stack of electronics, which I really don't know much about. Back in the mid-1970s, he used a pair of Acoustic 1X12" solid-state amps with an analog delay to make a chorus effect. It was considered a bold new sound at the time .

If by "jazz guitar" you mean John Scofield, then that's a more distorted sound, using a combination of Fender-style tube amp distortion, a bit of chorus/digital delay, and a distortion pedal (I think he still uses a ProCo RAT pedal).

If by "jazz guitar" you mean the more 1980s to 1990s Joe Pass or George Benson sound, then that was a Polytone Mini-Brute type of amplifier, which was a small solid-state amp with a sealed cabinet (usually a 12" speaker).

One of my own favorites is the old Ampeg Reverberocket (1960s, 7591A output tubes, about 30W, 1-12" spkr).

So you see, that's a complicated question there. I hope my post helps narrow things down for you.

-=|=-

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by merlin el mago

Suggestions for jazz guitar amp about 20W for a friend, I have on hand 3 tubes E34L Tesla & several ECC81, ECC82 & ECC88 that I want to use, any idea will welcome.

I'd gues you'd be wanting to build a 50's or 60's vintage Fender amp. I think you'd want to build a Fender Princeton designs. Some have reverb and trem. See here for descriptions
The Amp Guide » Fender

Fender used 6V6 tubes in this kind of amp, Some larger amps had 6L6. The EL34 tubes are more associated with a Marshal amp and British rock bands but I think the sound has more to do with the size of the caps used in the tone stack and for preamp cathode bypass, the amount of feedback All these "details" are I think more important then the brand of tube but to swap a tube type like an EL34 into a Fender design you's have to understand a lot about amp design and how component value effect the tone. If you don't understand this you shown follow the Fender schematic EXACTLY.

Then you have to decide if you want to build the reverb and/trem into the amp or if a pendel wil be used for this. I think nothing beats the spring reverb and tube trem sond. But this depends on the player and his taste, no on mine or yours

How much do you save by trying to use the tubes you have? the price of a pair of 6V6 tubes is just $30. a small part of the price of an amp. The two transformers, chassis and caps together cost 5 times more than a pair of 6V6 tubes. If you are building a copy of a Fender amp you really need to either use the same tubes or understand exactly how to design an amp so it sounds the way you'd like it to.

Save the EL34 tubes for some guy who's in a Led Zeppelin cover band and build a Fender style amp for the jazz player. Also it is actually cheaper to buy new 6V6 tubes because the transformers required for the larger EL34 cost more than the transformers you put into a 6V6 powered Prinston. The savings in transformer cost will pay for the new tubes The 12AX7 and 12AU7 will go into any Fender or Marshal type amp

[rongon]

BTW, I totally agree with

I wouldn't turn my back on a Fender Tweed Champ for clean sounds, if he would be happy with just 5 watts. There's a lot of character there, with minimal parts count and cost.

A little Champ with a good speaker can sound ridiculously nice. Even silverface Champs sound great.

FWIW, I never liked Princeton amps. But I think that was because of the tiny cabinet and 10" speaker. I'll bet a Princeton driving a 12" in a Deluxe Reverb cabinet would sound really nice. My fave was the Deluxe Reverb, though -- I think because of its high gain and so very "rich" sound (always on the brink of distortion, though). Maybe the Deluxe Reverb had more 2nd harmonic distortion in its output than Princeton or the bigger amps. I dunno...

[M Gregg]

Just for fun,

You could look at the trainwreck amps. A few interestig designs.

Link:
pictures of trainwreck amps - Google Search

I agree with the ideas of Fender Tweed amps!

Lots of schematics here:

http://www.drtube.com/guitamp.htm#MesaBoogie

If you build with high adjustable fixed bias you could try different output tubes and compare the tone.

I must admit I also like the Mesa Boogie amps.

Link:
pictures mesa boogie triple rectifier - Google Search

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...w=1259&bih=628

Boogie schematics:
http://tubefreak.com/cal50pow.gif

http://tubefreak.com/cal50pre.gif

Ahhh the smell of old amps with warm air drifting out of the vents...hopefully with no smoke effects..LOL

Regards
M. Gregg

[MrCurwen]

I'm into the TW thing a whole lot, but I must say it wouldn't be my first choice for a jazz amp! But like it's been said in this thread, there's a lot of different sounds for jazz.

[M Gregg]

Originally Posted by MrCurwen

I'm into the TW thing a whole lot, but I must say it wouldn't be my first choice for a jazz amp! But like it's been said in this thread, there's a lot of different sounds for jazz.

OK I just like the sound works for me..LOL

Can't resist these clips just click play on each one:

Glen Kuykendall | Free Music, Tour Dates, Photos, Videos

Linked from TW site.

Regards
M. Gregg