Best amp for clean sounds

[petejt]

I honestly think the cleans on the JC-120 are just a tad overated. First, when you turn on the amp, you will hear a nice static white noise floor. And the eq kinda sucks on that amp. I did however love the stereo fx return as well as having a stereo chorus, but I would take a tube amp over it pretty much any day. I ran pedals into a JC-120 for a bit, and I could never get rid of a certain sterileness.

Running both of its channels at once with different EQ settings will get rid of any sterility.

 

[the rossness]

Randall MTS series amp with a Salvation Matchvox module.

 

[Wagster]

Twin= sterile and dull
120= sterile as well

The lonestar will be your best bet imo... if you want to drop over the 1000 on a used combo. you'll have perfect cleans and an amazing drive side as well. it's heavy as crap though... so steroids will have to play into the budget somewhere.

My 2 and 3 choices would be the fender hot rod deville 4/10 and the peavey classic 50. the clean is a little better on the hrd but the drive sucks terribly. the peavey is the best all around budget amp imo.

a used mesa dc3 or 5 would also be a good choice. the 3 will give you less headroom so if you need more volume i'd search out a 5 or 10.

Nope!

 

[glpg80]

laney gh100TI = smoothe and silky cleans.

frenzel FM800 preamp = 3d sounding and both channels sound great setup as clean or crunch.

played an original late 60's era fender.....was not impressed to be honest.

check out aiken amplifiers.

 

[Hard&Heavy]

With the amps on your list I would go with the electra dyne. I loved it over the lonestar, but thats me.

 

[JTyson]

First post . So I'm looking for an amp to get me some sweet cleans. Here is a short list I have so far.What other amps should I look into to? If you guys could point me in the right directions I would be very thankful. Oh yea I would really like to be under $1000 so I would have to look for used Mesa amps.This thread on TGP also looking for as much input as possible.

On to the list. All amps considered.
Roland JC-120...Garbage
Fender Blues Jr....Garbage
Vox AC15C1...Garbage
Mesa Boogie Lone Star...Beyond Garbage
Mesa Boogie Electra Dyne

....Worse than Garbage
Fender Blackface clean tones 1960's Pro Reverb,
Modern, Engl 520 Preamp modded by John Landgraff,
Best Clean tone ever, Landgraff D'Lux with winged =C= 6L6 tubes...Played EVERYTHING, and they doin't come close. 4500.00 for a Combo...5000.00 with a 4 year wait for the combo. THE best made, period. THE new Trainwreck/Dumble. ALWAYS going up in value for the real deal. Nothing else compares, not even close.

Although its way over the given price point, I have to agree with this. Smokes even the best Matchless amps I've heard. The wait is a big thorn though But they are worth it. I would not say some of the others listed were garbage though, but they wont touch that Landgraff on their best day, with the wind to their back

 

[TheEternal]

First post . So I'm looking for an amp to get me some sweet cleans. Here is a short list I have so far.What other amps should I look into to? If you guys could point me in the right directions I would be very thankful. Oh yea I would really like to be under $1000 so I would have to look for used Mesa amps.This thread on TGP also looking for as much input as possible.

On to the list. All amps considered.
Roland JC-120...Garbage
Fender Blues Jr....Garbage
Vox AC15C1...Garbage
Mesa Boogie Lone Star...Beyond Garbage
Mesa Boogie Electra Dyne

....Worse than Garbage
Fender Blackface clean tones 1960's Pro Reverb,
Modern, Engl 520 Preamp modded by John Landgraff,
Best Clean tone ever, Landgraff D'Lux with winged =C= 6L6 tubes...Played EVERYTHING, and they doin't come close. 4500.00 for a Combo...5000.00 with a 4 year wait for the combo. THE best made, period. THE new Trainwreck/Dumble. ALWAYS going up in value for the real deal. Nothing else compares, not even close.

I thought you were gonna say "Bugera V22".....

 

[NITROHOLIC]

original sunn model T

 

[FUZZboat]

score a 90's Fender Super 60 = poormans twin

(even says in the onwers manual that the clean channel is based on the twins clean channel)

Beautiful Clean Channel
Fuzzy & Sterile Drive Channel

usually go for around $250

 

[MARK1970]

Fender BF, Silverface, or Twin

 

[Joeytpg]

give these a try:

Fender Princeton Reverb (awesome blackface cleans on a small portable combo)
Egnater Renegade: just like FastRedPony said, the cleans on this amp are mind blowing......... they're very "bassman like"
Lonestar: amazing... I love that amp.......

 

[stephen sawall]

original sunn model T

I wish I did not sell my old Model T .... the cleans and everything else were huge. That thing made a Herbert sound small.

 

[AngryGoldfish]

I think it depends what kind of clean tone you're looking for. HiWatt, Orange and Matamp make some of the most dark and woolly clean tones around. But they'll still take your head off, just as a Fender Twin would or something similar.

If you're looking for a classic, "high gain amp with a kick-ass clean tone", the Bogner XTC or Framus Dragon are nice. Very nice, in fact. You've also got Fryette & Diezel who both making excellent clean tones.

Personally I'm quite fond of a vintage Vox AC30 (find them on ebay). They're incredibly warm and senstive. They're not quite as thick and "fuzzy" as an Orange, or as bright and prestine as a Fender, so it's a nice balance.

 

[Little B]

I will say for me anyways, out of everything you see in the avatar and attach. pic,my best "clean" tone hands down is from the badcat blackcat x amp.

 

[Motorpud]

The best clean (and reverb) I've ever heard in my life came out of a Traynor YCV80Q. It was a 4x10 combo and the cleans were just downright awesome

 

[brain21]

Oh yea I would really like to be under $1000

Played EVERYTHING, and they doin't come close. 4500.00 for a Combo...5000.00 with a 4 year wait for the combo.
THE best made, period. THE new Trainwreck/Dumble. ALWAYS going up in value for the real deal. Nothing else compares, not even close.

If I told you I wanted a sporty car and I only had $25k to spend, so I was looking at a used BMW or G35, would your answer be "Those suck. You need to get a Bugatti Veyron! Thats the BEST ever! Those others are garbage in comparison!" ?????

I mean no matter how great a Veyron is, even if its the best car ever made by any one ever in the history of man, its still not gonna change the fact that theres no way I can afford to buy a $1.2 million dollar car for $25k.


Back to the original question - what exactly are you looking for in a clean tone? The 3 kinda "standards" are the JC-120, Blackface Fenders (Twin), and VOX (AC30).

The JC-120 is solid state. It does NOT have that tube warmth at all, really. However it has awesome chorus, the cleans stay clean even if you crank it, and it's just perfect for a bunch of different sounds (its very tight, as you would expect from a SS amp) - you can dial back the treble and get a great jazz sound out of it w/ a hollow body. If you like piling on effects and don't want them to get lost in the warmth and squishiness of a tube amp, then the JC-120 is perfect. Its GREAT for funk. Its great for those old REM (w/ a Rickenbacker) and Smith's and Cure type stuff too. I've had a couple of these, and I still have one.

The Blackface is very warm, and it's pretty soft too, w/o being too soft (as opposed to tight - loose just isn't the right word). Tighter bottom end, softer mids & highs. A very versatile amp too. Think "Little Wing" type tones from a strat. Definitely more organic sounding than the JC-120.

The Vox has (to me) tighter highs and mids than the blackface amps. A little better note definition. In my experience a little harder to find your tone with. I don't know about now, but at least in the past, the VOXes didn't have a great rep for reliability (and that created the market for Matchess). Newer ones might. Think Edge's delay tones (w/o the delay) for the VOX clean sound. Tight mids and highs tend to give it a little more snap too which is why some country guys prefer the Vox-a-likes (Matchess, etc.)

I don't know what kind of music you play, but one of my favs is actually the brownface fenders. They don't get a lot of love (which means the price is right for a vintage), but I love 'em. THe cleans resemble the blackfaces, but not quite as bold, I guess - a little warmer. The amps sit between the tweed and the blackfaces overall, with the cleans leaning heavily towards the blackface cleans. But crank 'em up and MAN! Tweeds just don't have enough balls, and the blackfaces have too much (and a little too harsh too, for me). The brown faces are just perfect. And throw a good, higher gain OD pedal in front of a Brownface, and you start getting into those SLO-100 lead tones (think of what Clapton gets w/ his SLO rather than metal rhythms). Just really nice tones outta this thing. If you've ever seen the movie "Sunset Strip" the scenes where Nick Stahl plays his guitar to an unseen guitarist out in the canyon. Thats the brownface tone, to me (don't know if it was a tween, brown, or twin actually used to record the music though).

In order, from tightest, bell-like chimey cleans to the softest, more rounded and organic cleans you have:

JC-120 - Vox AC 15/30 - Blackface Fender - Brownface Fender

 

[thiswaythatway]

The Lonestars have a great clean channel. Anyone trashing them is talking nonsense.

But i thought the Bruno Cowtipper was popular for it's clean? I've always like the clean channel on Bogner amps like the SHiva and XTC.

 

[thegame]

Can someone give me a rundown of the classic Fender clean tones, with an example (famous recording) to match ?

Names I'm familiar with, but not sure of the tonal aspects, are :

Tweed, Blackface, Twin, Super Reverb, etc.

Also, I'm quite familar with the cleans of a Mesa MK2C+. Which Fender style is it most similar to ?