What's your favourite Clean Amps?

ICBM

Skarloey said:

Skarloey said:

Session Sessionette.

Who loled that? 

They're great. Just be careful with the treble. Never liked the drive section much, but those cleans are absolutely fine. 

Come on, 'fess up and we can have it out. 

Me .

Surprised you didn't guess - I'm well-known for my hatred of these boxy, nasal-sounding horrors that epitomise bad solid-state tone .

I do admit the clean channel isn't as bad as the overdrive, but you still need to turn the bass full up, the mid off and the treble to somewhere above halfway to get anything remotely tolerable out of them, and they never have any of that depth and 'give' than a decent valve amp does even running clean.

Give me a solid-state Peavey any day. In fact, someone on here did a while back .

Gassage

Some weird interpretions of clean Amps here...LJ20? AC30? Both crunch machines to me. My fave cleans are a DR103. It just is.

ICBM

Gassage said:

Some weird interpretions of clean Amps here...LJ20? AC30? Both crunch machines to me. My fave cleans are a DR103. It just is.

The AC30 has beautiful cleans if you don't turn it up too much. At the point it starts to crunch it's really quite loud, probably above the level most people can gig with these days.

ChuckManual

Fender '65 Twin Custom 15

Roland Jazz Chorus JC77
Two Rock Coral 50

shaunm

Phil_aka_Pip;984366" said:

shaunm said:

Marshall 100w plexi





for certain values of "clean". tbh I've never thought any plexi amp was that clean - they may sound like it on stage in the context of being backed off so not so dirty, but when recording at home they've never seemed clean enough ...

its the 60's plexi heads that I mean. I find them clean up to a point and it's that sound I love. Really glassy

crunchman

Lazy J 20 - has a great warm clean tone

If you want something a bit more "blackface" with slightly less mids then Princeton Reverb just ahead of Deluxe Reverb.

xSkarloey

@icbm I suspected as much, you cheeky rascal.

I don't think you're being entirely fair though.  The tone may be bad IN SOME HANDS, but let's face it you can say that about anything. Give some blokes 5k's worth of amp and they'll still sound like a wasp farting into an empty coke can. 

Either way, I'm no tone snob, but I'm not an ignoramus either. I simply know what works for me. What I heard in the Session is an amp that is as quirky as all hell but which- and this is the crucial thing- once set up right I think really worked well in a band mix. I think it's got the most sensitive controls of any amp I know though, and does require work, but once I got the clean sound I wanted I was all set and very happy. I heard plenty of depth and clarity for my liking too. 

ICBM

Yes, that's fair. I do really detest them, but on the other hand I can get sounds I like out of Peavey solid-state amps - and I know a lot of people feel the exact opposite.

Neither of them have that complex depth and 'give' that you get from a nice big valve amp like a Fender Twin running clean though - nor does any solid-state amp I've ever heard. Of course it isn't always what you want, either.

57Deluxe

65 Super Reverb

ESchap

My favourite is my Silver Face Twin reverb with JBL's ... a fine clean sound, to window breaking levels.

Always surprises me what a fantastically detailed clean tone, (up to around 40% volume) my 1968 JMP50 has, even through a same year 4 x 12. 

Bucket

Deluxe Reverb, Carr Rambler.

Wazmeister

Gassage said:

Some weird interpretions of clean Amps here...LJ20? AC30? Both crunch machines to me. My fave cleans are a DR103. It just is.

Ive often wondered how we use our Lazy Js differently mate... Rarely do I hit crunch. Instead very warm slightly break up sounds

Gassage

Wazmeister said:

Gassage said:

Some weird interpretions of clean Amps here...LJ20? AC30? Both crunch machines to me. My fave cleans are a DR103. It just is.

Ive often wondered how we use our Lazy Js differently mate... Rarely do I hit crunch. Instead very warm slightly break up sounds

...exactly...so not clean!

hywelg

BF Super, love the way the 10's behave.
DrZ EZG
DrZ Maz
TR MS Sig

Phil_aka_Pip

shaunm said:

Phil_aka_Pip;984366" said:

shaunm said:

Marshall 100w plexi





for certain values of "clean". tbh I've never thought any plexi amp was that clean - they may sound like it on stage in the context of being backed off so not so dirty, but when recording at home they've never seemed clean enough ...

its the 60's plexi heads that I mean. I find them clean up to a point and it's that sound I love. Really glassy

Yes, I've got two. I have to use the lower right i/p with the vol pot backed well off to get it anything like as clean as I can with an AC30.

shaunm

Phil_aka_Pip;984833" said:

shaunm said:

Phil_aka_Pip;984366" said:shaunm said:



Marshall 100w plexi











for certain values of "clean". tbh I've never thought any plexi amp was that clean - they may sound like it on stage in the context of being backed off so not so dirty, but when recording at home they've never seemed clean enough ...

its the 60's plexi heads that I mean. I find them clean up to a point and it's that sound I love. Really glassy





Yes, I've got two. I have to use the lower right i/p with the vol pot backed well off to get it anything like as clean as I can with an AC30.

And that's the thing with the OP's question. Our own interpretation of what clean is.

Funk players clean is unusable to me for example. Jazz clean? Love the sound but I can't use it in my band. Jimi clean tones, perfect!

ICBM

To me clean means no audible clipping at all - no more, no less. Any amp will do that provided it's below the volume where picking transients don't exceed the headroom of any stage. For larger non-MV amps, even ones famous for their dirty sound, this can be pretty loud.

This is not strictly clean in a hi-fi sense since 'harmonic distortion' is not clean, and a lot of clean guitar amps have quite a lot of it - eg Marshalls, Voxes, Tweed Fenders etc. But they will all certainly do clean sounds in the sense of no clipping.

Drew_TNBD

ICBM said:

To me clean means no audible clipping at all - no more, no less. Any amp will do that provided it's below the volume where picking transients don't exceed the headroom of any stage. For larger non-MV amps, even ones famous for their dirty sound, this can be pretty loud.

This is not strictly clean in a hi-fi sense since 'harmonic distortion' is not clean, and a lot of clean guitar amps have quite a lot of it - eg Marshalls, Voxes, Tweed Fenders etc. But they will all certainly do clean sounds in the sense of no clipping.

That's kinda my preference too. The clean on the Sig X isn't quite there, particularly when compared with some other amps, but it is still nice enough. I think they're doing a revision of the amp to improve the cleans too.

crunchman

Gassage said:

Wazmeister said:

Gassage said:

Some weird interpretions of clean Amps here...LJ20? AC30? Both crunch machines to me. My fave cleans are a DR103. It just is.

Ive often wondered how we use our Lazy Js differently mate... Rarely do I hit crunch. Instead very warm slightly break up sounds

...exactly...so not clean!

If you have the Lazy J just at the point where it breaks up a bit when you hit the strings hard, you get the most lovely warm clean when you hit them softly.  I know it's probably not strictly speaking a genuine clean but it sounds amazing.  It takes pedals really well when set like that as well.

Wazmeister

crunchman said:

Gassage said:

Wazmeister said:

Gassage said:

Some weird interpretions of clean Amps here...LJ20? AC30? Both crunch machines to me. My fave cleans are a DR103. It just is.

Ive often wondered how we use our Lazy Js differently mate... Rarely do I hit crunch. Instead very warm slightly break up sounds

...exactly...so not clean!

If you have the Lazy J just at the point where it breaks up a bit when you hit the strings hard, you get the most lovely warm clean when you hit them softly.  I know it's probably not strictly speaking a genuine clean but it sounds amazing.  It takes pedals really well when set like that as well.

3 chords and the truth. Spot on.