Most tube amps work well for me. I'm currently favoring a Fender Pro Jr for the smaller venues and a Super Reverb for larger gigs.

No effects, just guitar into amp. I like the natural tube breakup.

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Being able to play and enjoy music is a gift that's often taken for granted.

Don't leave home without it!

Doc your right but my point is that theres a time to shine. Inbetween times a good guitarist is indistinct. Look at the majority of claptons live performance since leaving cream. Unless its solo time you struggle to hear him. Not because he's turned down but because he's playing a role to serve the song and band. If you zero'd his volume at that time you'd notice the gap but when he plays its like hes not playing. The mark of genius for sure.

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No no and no

Which is exactly the point I'm trying to make! As musicians we would probably be better served if we worry less about our tones and gear and more about our skills and style. (but don't tell the manufacturers that)

Excellent discussion guys.

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http://www.bluesrepublic.org/

2008 Fender American Stratocaster
2008 Fender Deluxe Telecaster
Fender Power Jazz Bass Special 1987 (MIJ)
Egnater Renegade Head
Egnater Tourmaster 2x12 cab

lomitis I may not be able to tell you what gear you are using but I have no doubt I could tell which I thought was the better sounding gear between A and B or combination of.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

blues deluxe and ts9

This has been a goodpost - enjoyed reading everyones input!

I use Fender and Marshall amps, everything sounds bluesy, its my style, not the amps or guitars

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"Wait a minute, somethings wrong here!"

But don't some sound more bluesy and better to you then others?

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

[quote="Miami Mike


That SuperReverb reminds me of my old Fender Concert. There comes a time in one's life when one begins to feel 'roady poor'. I wonder if anyone has had any experience with the Fender JazzMaster Ultralight. It's solid state, 250 watts, the head weighs seven pounds. The speaker enclosure weights 17 lbs. A lot less for the old pioneers to haul. Even 40 years ago it was still cumbersome.

Doc

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"Another day in paradise!"

SUPER REVERB RI

Bassman

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The blues ain't nothin but a good man feelin bad.

I sorta dig the ol Fender Blues DiVille.

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-Kc
"Payin' dues."

Just to note: the OP merely asked us what amp we use for our blues playing - which for many of us will be the same one we use for any other kind of music, too.

But there's some slightly curious thinking going on here. For absolute sure everyone has used different equipment to play blues - there's no such thing as a "blues amp". But to conclude from that that it doesn't matter what gear you use is an odd leap.

Eric Clapton played the Beano album on a very particular Marshall amp. The idea that it wouldn't have mattered at all to his sound if he'd been using a Fender from ten years earlier is peculiar. It was that amp that allowed him to get that particular sound at that time.

Over the years he's moved on to other guitars and amps. I sure as heck ain't gonna be the one to tell him he's been wasting his effort with all that!



This is based on a false premise.

To be sure, the history of guitar playing (and other kinds of music too) are full of instances where it turns out tracks were played on different gear than anyone thought. We can all list many famous cases: Jimmy Page on Stairway is a very obvious one.

But just because we can't tell what instrument was being used after the album is mixed together doesn't mean it didn't matter to the player at the time.

Again, there is a well known story of Clapton picking up someone else's guitar, plugging it in to a junky amp, making a couple of knob adjustments, and sounding... just like Eric Clapton. The fingers are the number one tool, for certain.

...So then why don't we go tell that to Clapton himself - perhaps he's too stupid to have realised? Explain to him that he's been wasting his time having his guitar necks made just so, and searching for pickups he likes, and working with that active boost system, and having his trem blocked rather than using a hardtail, and choosing this amp rather than that one.

Allow me to be present when you explain to him that the difference is meaningless and he might as well have used a Yamaha Pacifica into a practice amp all these years - because he could still sound like Clapton through it.

I suspect he won't waste much more of his time on that conversation, at any rate!

Cheers - C

I would like to have one of these.
http://chicagobluesbox.com/content/news ... egory=Amps

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Ok, then to look at things from that logic for a moment, what you are saying is that people like Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton, BB King, Jeff Beck and a host of others...what these people should do is put out two or three otherwise identical tracks with different amps so that people (or more specifically other guitar players) can choose which sound they like best?

Ok...that was perhaps a bit cynical...let me put this another way. When I recorded that tune in the studio (and that's me on all of the instruments including drums btw with my wife singing all the vocal tracks), it really would not have mattered which amp I used because by the time I was done mixing the tune it still would have sounded virtually the same. Yes, there was a specific sound that I was trying to create...that of mid 70's classic rock, but the tools used to make that sound were fairly irrelevant. As I've said before, when you're recording or when you are playing live, there are a great many other considerations than just the guitar players tone. The -only- person that tone really matters to is the guitar player. If a person is only going to play all by themselves in their own quiet little sanctuary, then sure that tone is important. To me part of the greatest joy of playing music comes from working with other musicians and working together to create a complete sound and my personal feelings about creating that "perfect tone as a guitar player" are simply irrelevant. It's not about "me", it's not about my guitar or my amp, it's about the mix. Live or studio, it wouldn't matter if I were using a vintage tube amp or a mid range solid state....Fender, Marshall, Crate, Laney, Peavey...it doesn't matter because it's all about the mix.

Just for the record...it was my '96 MIM Strat while it still had the VN pups and no amp at all. Ran thru my Digi RP pedal straight into the board (and no, I didn't even use a DI box) . The tracks were also never mastered and were not recorded on "high end" studio gear....all of that went in to a basic Pc thru the motherboard's built in sound card from a Behringer 2004A mixer. Of course, had the tracks of been mastered along with other tunes to create a compilation, the sound would have been even different still.

I'm sorry dude, but my opinion stands...there is no "right or wrong" when it comes to amps (or guitars), blues or otherwise and I believe in my own long winded way that I've provided plenty of facts to support this...it's not the tools, it's the person using them.

L8r,
Jim