Sometimes a Les Paul through a solid state amp isn't the worst sound in the world...

[Mark Wein]

A little bit of a song that I wrote for my CSUF Jazz Combo class - an extended blues influenced by Theloniuous Monk - our sax player missed the downbeat (actually wasn't in the room - he plays great once he's on stage at the end of the clip) so the head at the front is a little tentative but you hear the full sound with him after my solo on the way out...I'm playing my 2004 Les Paul Standard through a DV Jazz 12

 

Click on the link for video:

 

https://www.facebook.com/mwein/videos/10154847948012425/?l=2911296579699568755

[soundcreation]

nice! smooooth. and great work on the solo.

 

A little further with regards to your title.....

 

I'm a total tube amp snob for sure....but I'll admit when I came across this video I had to at least realize that there are solid state options that get it done....

 

[YOUTUBE]L-5IaYOvmjQ[/YOUTUBE]

 

This guy makes great videos.

[Chris Loeffler]

Sounds fantastic! My Quilter 101 is no slouch when it comes to jazz and rock, is loud as heck, and probably weighs as much as some of my pedals!

[Mark Wein]

Sounds fantastic! My Quilter 101 is no slouch when it comes to jazz and rock' date=' is loud as heck, and probably weighs as much as some of my pedals! [/quote']

 

Thanks!

 

 

Quilter is the most popular name in solid state around here since their headquarters are just a town over from me but for some reason I've been resisting. They make good stuff though.

[badpenguin]

You know, I actually took offense at the title. I am one of those that really love the sound of a decent SS amp.

 

Roland JC and BC series. Let's face it, the dirty channels of the JC120 and it's derivatives, always sounded broken. But the CLEAN! I mean, it sparkles, and with a proper pedal and EQing, can sound as good as any tube amp.

 

Polytone from the 70's. there's a reason all the jazzers had one, and refuse to give them up.

 

Peavey. Don't laugh ok? Some, not all, have a wonderful tone. And what other amp can you think of, that can be dragged to the gig behind the van, plugged in, and play perfectly?

 

Give SS amps their place, ok?

 

 

[gardo]

My go to amp is a Fender Princeton Chorus SS.I was a tube snob until I got to know this amp .I love the clean channel with a touch of reverb. Sometimes I wonder if tubes are even worth the bother

[Brian Krashpad]

Marshall Lead 20 (UK '80's) 20W solid state 80's 1x10 combo

Marshall 5210 (UK '80's) 50W solid state 80's 1x12 combo

[WRGKMC]

Its not that many SS amps sound bad, its a matter of string touch. Tubes have more dynamic range then a transistors do so you have a different feel when picking strings. SS tends to max out dynamically within a narrow range pick attack. You have to maintain consistent picking pressure and accuracy to maintain even string volume levels. Tubes have a wider dynamic range because of how tubes work. This dynamic range isn't linear like SS is either, it becomes more compressed the more you dig in.

 

Because of this, tubes tend to be more forgiving on the players picking hand so its a matter of feel more then tone. You can set the dynamic range to produce clean notes when picked lightly and produce saturated tones when picked hard which gives the player what I call an increased dynamic emotional response range from clean to aggressive without having to manually dial up those sounds.

 

With SS, when you dial up a clean tone it will tend to get louder when you dig in, or only saturate when you dial in a driven tone. Getting a SS amp to go from clean to driven using only pick attack is very difficult but they have gotten allot better. My Marshall Valvestate for example uses a preamp tube which emulates the pick attack you'd get in a regular tube amp. The Mosfet power transistors are the closest thing made in SS to match tube responses as well.

 

Vox does something nifty by using a preamp tube in the power amp. Its used to produce power tube saturation and dynamic responses and simply gets amplified to higher levels by power transistors. Some others like my old Sunn Concert Lead used a multi tapped transformer in the power amp. It has transformer coils wired in between the power transistors to add inductance which produces compression to the sound. This helps emulate power tube compression and considering the amp was built back in the 70's it was well ahead of its time.

[Mark Wein]

You know, I actually took offense at the title. I am one of those that really love the sound of a decent SS amp.

 

I actually own a ton of solid state amps and many of my lesson were done with a Frontman 25r but I usually don't play them on stage but most of the music I play (blues and cover band rock) usually doesn't work so well with a solid state amp at stage volume. For Jazz though, it definitely works for me!

[Ancient Mariner]

SS can be fine, provided the amp is designed appropriately. Some amps seem to have missed out however - SS amps from Vox and Marshall in the 70s were simply lousy designs that sounded bad, even compared to some of the less desirable valve amps that were about then (like the grey-face AC30). Of course that changed with Tech21, Polytone, Roland and a bunch of others.

[Danhedonia]

Love my JC-120 and JC-77. The latter is one of two "go to" amps I have; I actually prefer it to some nice old Fender tube amps I have.