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Post by eivindaugust on Oct 8, 2007 8:11:17 GMT -7
Oi!
First thread here. So the question should be obvious by now: Can it do jazz? I play things like Wes Montgomery, Soulive, Pat Metheny, John Scofield... Well, you get the picture... My main issue is clean headroom, what do you think? Should I wait for the Evan?
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Post by galaxie1 on Oct 8, 2007 15:38:38 GMT -7
To answer yourquestion in a word, YES. I just bought my galaxie Friday and that was my first prerequisite. Now, should you wait for the Evan? That is subjective, I plan on owning one of those too. A few questions to ask yourself. What kind of guitar are you plugging in? When I owned Buscarinos, and Ungers, there were few tube amps suited to playing straight ahead jazz. Theres the Allesandro-Comins Jazz amp, and some of the Fenders. Have fun lugging those Fenders around. Now if you want the best jazz sound for a solid body or 335 type of instrument your options are endless. The Galaxie delivers in spades, but do check out all possible speaker configurations. You will prob. want to go with the 1x12 if you want more clean headroom. Another question do you need a dedicated overdrive channel? This is a two channel amp and if your doing Fusion as well this amp breathes fire. Now as far as Wes, Pat, Sco, and the like, that is a challenge. You need 3 different amps, and 3 different guitars. Sco has used alot of the boogie stuff when I have hung out with him, Pat will plug into anything, you could only improve upon his sound, He used the Roland JC 120 religiously back in the day, and Wes used an old Blackface Twin and Super. So, check a Galaxie out, very lush warm sound, if you use reverb you will need a reverb pedal, check out the Trex Roomate you will flip. If you can afford both an Evan and a Galaxie get them both Im gonna and I can't afford either. If not buy the Evan. That being said the Galaxie is in my Computer Room as we speak. R
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Post by eivindaugust on Oct 9, 2007 13:44:35 GMT -7
Thanks for a very good answer! I'm very unsure about my need for two channels, I don't actually use overdrive/distortion that much. I've looked at Fender's, Mesa's and Victoria's too... Oh, so many amps, so little time Well, I'd better get out and try a few, then ;D As far as I've understood, the Galaxie is like a Tweed Twin, while the Evan will be more like a Blackface Twin. Am I correct? Would be a lot easier for me to try out the Fender's to get a general idea then... Few Z dealers around here I'll probably wind up with a tweed and a blackface in the end... Do you feel that the dist. channel compromise the clean in any way? To better define my style: I play fifties style jazz, like Wes Montgomery etc, but also like "new" people, like Vince Gill on one hand, and I play bluesy fusion style like Soulive, Scofield and Charlie Parker on the other. (By the way, you've hung out with Sco? That's really cool, mate!!!) Edit: Yeah, the guitars, of course! Well I plan on using a PRS guitar with humbuckers, quite similar a Les Paul, only better (IMO), a ES-175 model and maybe an ES-335 down the line.
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Post by Phil (aka Phil) on Oct 12, 2007 7:45:50 GMT -7
I was at z-fest and heard the Evan prototype. I was definitely "Fendery" but in the Z camp; great mids and a tight bottom. However, if you're going to compare it to a Fender it's more Super Reverb/Pro Reverb than Twin. At least that's how I heard it.
Phil
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Post by skydog958 on Oct 12, 2007 11:35:39 GMT -7
I really wish I heard it cranked through a Z 4x10!
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Post by zgrip on Oct 12, 2007 13:45:22 GMT -7
Sco's been playing ac30s for the last several years so if going for that tone, I would think one of the el84 amps with celestion blues would get you closer to Sco's tone. For Wes, one of the 6l6 designs. All the Z's I've heard have nice, rich clean tones so I think any would work well for jazz. My Ghia with a 12bh7 in V2 is a killer jazz amp.
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Post by eliot1025 on Oct 15, 2007 23:59:13 GMT -7
If you're looking for clean headroom I recommend the KT-45. I've heard it said many times that it has the most clean headroom of all the Z amps. The tube rectifier version will give you more warmth with less headroom but the KT has so much headroom to start with it shouldn't be a problem for you unless you need to very loud. It's very rich and warm sounding and versatile. Works great for country and rock, too. The tone it's famous for (The Who, Live at Leeds) is there but only when cranked - otherwise it has a wide variety of beautiful clean sounds. It's a low gain, single channel amp. To realize it's potential, you have to play with the three controls; they're interactive. It can get a fender-like sound with the right speaker. From what I've heard of the Galaxie I think it would make an excellent jazz amp tonally: it's the headroom I wonder about. The Route 66 is very rich but it's quite dark. I've always thought it had potential as a jazz amp. Like anything else, it will come down to how you use these amps and how you combine components. (Sommer makes a great cable for clean tones called the Stratos.) You might try the KT with a Tone Tubby alnico speaker, a Weber alnico Blue Dog, or a Celestion Gold. These speakers may round out the punch that's inherent in the amp.
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Post by billyguitar on Oct 16, 2007 8:55:45 GMT -7
I recently put a 12AY7 in the phase inverter position on my Route 66. That cleaned it up a lot. I also tried a 5751 and the 12 AY7 was cleaner. I know people say they don't like a 12AY7 in that position but it sounds pretty good to me. I'm not a jazz guy but I do fake it a lot with my band. We plays 40s jump stuff like Louie Jordan and some jazz standards so I need to be pretty clean but I also want a little drive on the blusey stuff. I've been using my Maz jr with reverb head and a 1x15 cab with a JBL. It's a great sound if you don't need a lot of volume. Our drummer can get a little loud but I keep up with him easily. He plays just loud enough to not make your ears ring, if that's helpful for a volume comparison.
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Post by billyguitar on Oct 16, 2007 15:34:33 GMT -7
the Stang Ray can also do jazz.
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