Favorite amp for Jam

[Heady Jam Fan]

I was reading through some past threads about amps - obviously two of Trey's favorites are the Deluxe Reverb and the MKIII Red Stripe - and it seems Fender's might be the most popular or common here, but I was wondering what everyone's favorite is and why?

I noticed there was some diversity, mostly other Fender's (Blues Junior or Princeton IIRC) and other Mesa's (Blue Stripe or Nomad), I think I saw a few D-Style fans (which has Fender-esce cleans), I also believe we have one Vox phan.?.

I love my '65 Bassman with the Eminence Red Fang, but it is certainly different than a Deluxe (or an MKIII) and I was thinking of testing out a few other amps - not necessarily to buy, but for fun.

[ColForbin]

My 1972 Fender Twin, is hands down, the best sounding amp I've ever played.  I just knew that I dug the tone with the twin, but we decided at our last show to do a Down w/ Disease sound check, and I felt my tone was very close to the Trey/Phish vibe.  I kind of don't attempt on a regular basis with my band to be trying to nail Trey's tone down, but it sounded stupendous.

[Brian27]

Right now until i get my Traynor YCV80 I am borrowing a friends Peavey Valveking 1x12 and its awesome sounding. It takes pedals great and has a nice amount of gain. I just need more headroom with a 2 channel amp with separete EQ for both channels and would like a Master Volume.

[picture_of_nectar]

I rehearse with my BF Princeton Reverb (w/band and in the living room)

Smaller gigs I use my Tone King Metropolitan (40w scalable) very sweet Fender tone.

Bigger Rooms I use my Carol Ann OD2r 1x12" (35w) Sick punchy amp with a lot of balls and great cleans too.

I love them all for different reasons and it just depends.

I Have a Fender Twin head + 4x12" cab that I rarely use. Just too big and boomy for most situations in our band.

Buying a 1967 Deluxe Reverb tomorrow locally off craigslist!

[fulltone1989]

I like my DRRI for many different applications but I may pick up a Fender 75 for bigger rooms. It has a mid knob!

[Happyorange27]

My BJ has a mid knob but it doesn't actually raise mids. It controls all frequencies.

[manicstarseed]

See my signature
I have a modified Mesa Nomad that does a pretty good Fender, once I strip the NFB.
The Express has excellent cleans too.

My point is that I only have Mesa's so it's what I have to work with.

When it comes to "coping tone" I have never really looked at it from the "I am mimicking tone". My approach is I like this or that element of the tone... how is that achieved? I mix and match different qualities. I have a SD-1 for Jerry  OD and stacked TS9s for Trey OD. This is all on top of the killer tones inherent in the Mesas.  I figure this way I can be influenced  without copying exactly.

[sour d]

My favorite is my '64 deluxe. What I have been using lately is a '93 fender concert amp. While we speak of amps I just want to mention that I have a hrd with amp case for sale if anyone is interested.

[Heady Jam Fan]

Cool guys, keep em coming!

I saw there was a Mesa MKIII at the guitar center about 45 min from me and I was thinking of trying it out, though I love my Bassman - has a thicker, chunkier rock thing going on that a other Fenders and sounds pretty cool with a TS or two, but sometimes sounds a bit different than the stereotypical jam tone.

I feel like there is always one frequency that I am looking for an struggling to get, not sure how to explain it, but it is that upper midrange slap/spank that Trey seems to get regardless of his other settings. Does anyone know what I mean, or am I sounding crazy?

[Happyorange27]

I feel like there is always one frequency that I am looking for an struggling to get, not sure how to explain it, but it is that upper midrange slap/spank that Trey seems to get regardless of his other settings. Does anyone know what I mean, or am I sounding crazy?

You sure it's not the frequencies of the Whammy being left on?  I'm telling you that this is his major weapon in my opinion.  He even totes it around when he only brings 5 pedals to a gig.  It's all over Round Room and Joy.  Sorry to digress, but lately hear it everywhere that he soars and sears.

[Heady Jam Fan]

I don't know, I never really got into whammy, so you could be right, but it is across 95% of the music, so I never though of the whammy. The only time I don't notice it really is those darker, thicker leads...

[ColForbin]

This may be completely crazy, but one thing we don't talk about, that I've heard with regard to Trey is the tone knobs on his guitar.  I have mine rolled way back on my AO and I feel I'm getting a very nice sort of "Trey like" tone on straight chords.  I am not using a hollowbody or ts9's either.  It was just kind of a happy accident.  But I'm thinking, that he maybe has his tone rolled back signigicantly, especially in the late 90's tones that we all love.

Just a thought......

[Heady Jam Fan]

When I play classic rock with a solid body guitar, I usually roll the tone knob about halfway back, turn the treble all the way up on the amp and the bass completely off - it results in more upper-midrange pop - I guess the treble knob on the amp adds some upper mids and rolling back the tone knob tames the harsh top end focusing the overall tone on those mids (presence). Use the middle pickup and your close to a Garcia tone, use a les Paul and your closer to Page (they are the two musicians I can remember reading about doing that). However, I don't get a great result doing this with my Hollowbody with TS9s.

[fulltone1989]

My BJ has a mid knob but it doesn't actually raise mids. It controls all frequencies.

Right, I remembered you bringing that info up a few months ago. I'm curious if that's the same with all fender amps...

[IamWILSON]

I gotta say, I think it's hard to pigeon-hole any one certain amp that will deliver "the" jam tone.  Just all the different genres involved in jam band music require different tones, and I'm not talking about how Phish crosses many genres.  Moreso, the difference between Trey's, Jimmy Herring, Jake Cinnenger, Warren Haynes, or even Jerry's tone are all comprised of such different guitars, amps, and speakers and serve the music in the way the artist desires.  And if they all played through the exact same gear, I bet they'd still sound very different.  I guess all I'm saying is what does it matter that its for jam music?  Bluegrass, Rock, Southern rock, Prog rock, Jazz, Funk, Soul, Indie can all be jam, but in my opinion once it's labeled as jam, it just becomes some stereotyped bullshit.  Like is the tone for the Black Key's guitarist, Jack White, or even the Avenged Sevenfold guitarists not gonna be any good for jam?  And no, I'm not exactly saying that they have great tones, or are better or worse than any jamband.

Sorry for the rant, as I'm probably out of line, but that's just kind of how I'm feeling about jambands these days. End Cynicism.

But anyway, to join in the conversation and not be a total a-hole... I think my Egnater Rebel 20 and Mesa Boogie mkIII (blue) are great for me finding my tone as far as live performance goes.  I gotta say that I've been mostly disappointed with my Blues Jr Humboldt, just as I was with the Fender Hot Rod DeVille (4x10) I sold once I got my Egnater.  Doesn't say much about modern Fender amps for my own uses.  I've been going through some soul searching/tone experimentation, and as soon as I stopped thinking in "jam band" I feel like I've found some other amazing effects pedals and amps that are really serving me well for different tones I want to attain for an album that I hope to begin recording by the end of the year.  I got myself a '67 (or maybe '68) Fender Vibro Champ (silverface/drip-edge) that I'm really enjoying, and I recently traded an extra effects pedal to a tgp'er who built a hand-wired, 5w, single ended, class A amp head that he says is "loosely modeled after a plexi, with some mods inspired from Dr. Z and BadCat mini amps."  And I personally think that it may be my favorite!  It is ridiculously loud for 5 watts - uber-chimey w/ a really tight bottom end.  Just a gain and tone knob (12ax7 and a EL84, SS rectifier as plexi's are built that way), and plugged into my 1x12 Egnater cab w/ a Celestion Elite 80 spkr.  With the gain knob at 12 o'clock, there's so much volume and the gain blows away any overdrive pedal, although I'm thinking one of these days I may have to plug one of my old tubescreamers and/or the Timmy into it to see what happens.  In the future I may even consider trying to gig with an amp switcher using the "plexi" for overdrive/gain and vibro champ for cleans.