RE: Delurk, intro and a couple of questions.

["Hartung, Kris" <kris.hartung@hp.com>]

 > A lot of bands -- especially in the heavier end of the musical
spectrum -- seem to have the impression that more is better, but I
usually try to play as little as possible to get the effect, contrast
and dialogue I'm looking for. That's my jazz influece showing, I guess.

Although, having lurked around on the jazz news and discussion groups
for for the last 10 years, I think jazz guitarists are the pickiest SOBs
around when it comes to tone....seriously, I've never seen so many
threads on the topic of tone, the definition of "clean" (for which there
doesn't seem to be a single agreed upon one), and how to get it with
different configurations of speakers, wattage, amps, types of guitars,
etc.   The best tone I ever had for jazz was my big Epiphone Emperor
Regent hollow-body through two original Polytone amps...not the new
ones, but the original black waffle-grill versions. I had three
Polytones...the 2X12 George Benson model, the 1X15 Mega Brute, and the
1X10 Teeny Brute. Selling my Teeny Brute was the biggest mistake I EVER
made!  I cringe every time I think of doing that.  That thing was like a
12 inch cube, 90 watts, and clean as hell.  I love those little
Polytones...one day I'll get a few Teeny Brutes back in my gear pile,
but these days they run about $400 US for a used one in good shape.  My
ideal recipe for tone ended up being a the use of 1X12 200 watt EV
speakers (original OEM versions...not the force series) in sealed and
front ported cabs, solid-state preamp, and tube poweramp.   I'd be happy
if I could find a box or VST plugin that emulated  that!  I'm also
fairly content w/ the clean amp simulations on my Boss VF-1 right
now.....and half the time, I like the tone of my PRS McCartey archtop so
much that I can plug directly into the mixer board and right out into
the PA, and the tone is beautiful.  My opinion and preference is to let
the natural tone of a fine jazz box do the work, and then build on that.
I feel it is the crap in, crap out syndrome when one starts w/ the
sterile & lifeless tone of a solid body guitar, and then try to fix it
with tone simulation effects.   The Polytones were great at not
butchering the tone of a decent jazz hollowbody guitar, as thy had a
relatively flat frequency response.   Just my ideal cup of tea.

K-