The "other" Benson jazz tone...

CaligulaCuddles

CaligulaCuddles

Member
So I've been looking for a jazzier sound with a little more in the acoustic dynamics than people generalize as a "jazz tone" these days. I've tried a number of settings, especially with a focus on clean tones and a semi-hollow humbucking guitar. I've been aiming for Georgie boy's somewhat famous "The Shadow of Your Smile" tone he has in that live clip from '72 (below). Ironically, the closest I've gotten is with various tweed amps (partially because of their softer low-end response) and a tele neck pickup. I haven't found a particularly good speaker pairing yet, though There's a very unique, hollow mid scoop going on in that tone that's incredibly difficult to capture it seems.
Anyone else have success in approaching a jazz tone in that vein by using less conventional approaches? It's been driving me mad this past week...
 
Trying to get that tone out of a semi-hollow or solid body guitar is going to be a challenge. There's a reason those cats play big boxes, and it ain't because there easy to play. :lol I've got an ES-175, that, when played through my JC120 is the shit, and can't be replicated as far as I can tell. I've tried. I have a PRS Semi-hollow body that sounds nice, but it ain't the same thing. For playability, I love the PRS. The ES-175 is a PITA to play, but that tone...baby.
 
200man said:
Check out the tone match I offered up in the tone match category.
I have an L5 and the stock presets in the axe are Martian.
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Excellent. I'll check it out tonight when I get back home. Thanks!
Between this and that Jackson Browne Chelsea Girls-era tone, I've been on the hunt for something that balances warmth and clarity a little better, and man is that ever a tricky line to walk...
 
mrstrat said:
Trying to get that tone out of a semi-hollow or solid body guitar is going to be a challenge. There's a reason those cats play big boxes, and it ain't because there easy to play. :lol I've got an ES-175, that, when played through my JC120 is the shit, and can't be replicated as far as I can tell. I've tried. I have a PRS Semi-hollow body that sounds nice, but it ain't the same thing. For playability, I love the PRS. The ES-175 is a PITA to play, but that tone...baby.
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I never found the 175 to be too unique, honestly. It still has that familiar Gibson bucker tone to me, and beyond that, not much else. I feel like my Guild used to get me a little further off the beaten path.
Honestly, I used to have an old, old archtop—maybe a Silvertone or Harmony or something—and I never vibed with it because the neck was a beast and its pickups were kind of "papery" and super microphonic with my bigger amps. In hindsight, I really wish I'd kept it longer so I could take it in to my luthier friend and see if I couldn't make a players guitar out of it after all. Chances are that would've been more money than it was worth in the end, but still. It had those acoustic artifacts in spades, and some deft thumb-picking always had a nice attack character on it.
 
CaligulaCuddles said:
I never found the 175 to be too unique, honestly. It still has that familiar Gibson bucker tone to me, and beyond that, not much else. .
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I guess all I was trying to say by referring to the 175 is that it absolutely has an "acoustic" property to the tone. I've got a Gibson SG with the same "Gibson bucker" pickup in it as the 175, and they sound nothing alike. So, my blathering was just a long way of saying, there is acoustic content there that is probably unique to the guitar he's playing. :)
 
Without a doubt, the guitar is a huge part of that type of jazz sound. Trying to replicate it any other way is difficult at best.
 
Currently, the JC is the only solid state amp model in the Axe. I wonder whether Cliff has ever considered modeling a Polytone. I know it wouldn't be as much fun to make as a tube amp, but it might be a cool alternative for those of us who use a large batch of clean tones.

The closest I've gotten to the tone in the clip so far was playing my '59 Guild arch top (with flat wound 13s) through a patch based on the Shiver Clean model (hint--use the eq in the amp block).
 
mongoose_eyeball said:
Currently, the JC is the only solid state amp model in the Axe. I wonder whether Cliff has ever considered modeling a Polytone. I know it wouldn't be as much fun to make as a tube amp, but it might be a cool alternative for those of us who use a large batch of clean tones.
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Totally agree 250 amps and only one solid state devoted to jazz..
I know that some tube amps can do good clean sounds but there are traditional amps used in jazz not taken into account at all in the Axe units.
A little more attention to jazz musicians can not be that bad :D
 
First, have the correct guitar. George now has a signature Twin Reverb so I'd start with that. Lots to tweak and mucho speaker variety!!
 
lovejazz said:
Totally agree 250 amps and only one solid state devoted to jazz..
I know that some tube amps can do good clean sounds but there are traditional amps used in jazz not taken into account at all in the Axe units.
A little more attention to jazz musicians can not be that bad :D
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Speaking as a professional jazz guitarist, most guys use Fenders. The whole solid-state, Polytone thing is a very small niche of playing style. Even Benson typically runs a stereo rig with a JC and a Twin.

But as stated above, the guitar has a lot to do with it. I have a Gibson hollowbody, and none of my other guitars come close to that sound.
 
Poparad said:
Speaking as a professional jazz guitarist, most guys use Fenders. The whole solid-state, Polytone thing is a very small niche of playing style. Even Benson typically runs a stereo rig with a JC and a Twin.
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There are more than Polytone amps in the solid state jazz amp world, even more jazz guitar players than Benson (which I think is a giant). A lot of players use valve amps, yes its clear, but my question is: not room for a couple of specific solid state jazz amps in a herd of 250 amps, really? Well Im one that would love to have them, thats all.
And I have four full body jazz guitars (175, 2 bensons, dangelico) and many semi hollow ones, so thats not a problem fortunately.
 
lovejazz said:
There are more than Polytone amps in the solid state jazz amp world, even more jazz guitar players than Benson (which I think is a giant). A lot of players use valve amps, yes its clear, but my question is: not room for a couple of specific solid state jazz amps in a herd of 250 amps, really? Well Im one that would love to have them, thats all.
And I have four full body jazz guitars (175, 2 bensons, dangelico) and many semi hollow ones, so thats not a problem fortunately.
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Fenders naturally have a scooped mid tone, so that may get you close to what you're looking for. I found that bringing some of the low-mids down in the graphic EQ section of the amp block helped, too (like around 200-400). The right IR can do wonders, too. Ownhammer just released a Deluxe Reverb IR that's fantastic (the DR was my main amp that I've played nearly 1000 gigs on before going to the AxeFX, so I'm particularly keen on what a DR should sound like).
 
Thanks for your suggestion, its not that I cant dial a good jazz sound from some of the 250 amps (although no tried all!!) but that I used mainly, polytones and other solid state to play gigs and would love to have this sound available, thats all.
Im only 2 weeks with my AX8 but in general in order to get a totally clean sound I need to dial the input drive at a very very small amount, in some cases at less than 1 and if I recall well even at this point the sound was not really clean . So seems that there is a very tiny space where the amp is totally clean... probably not tried the adequate amps but my impression was that the clean area is very small. Proably my fault that i need to assume it.
I came from an Ultra which I love and still I have not been able to knock off because I can not replicate some of my favorite sounds.
The IR thing, oh yes, I need to explore that, but having 250 amps to check to introduce another factor to the equation may lead to my head explodes.
I would love to try some "good" IR to see if it is that revealing as people says.
 
You're totally right about the narrow range for a clean tone on a lot of amps. For the DR, I think I've got it at about 1.5 or even less than that. It varies from model to model, but on most Fenders in the Axe, in order to avoid any breakup, the input has to be pretty low. However, sometimes you don't get as fat of a tone with the input down really low, so I've found if you have a good tone but just a little bit of overdrive crackle on the loud notes or chords, turn the negative feedback up a little bit to compensate. It'll stiffen the tone up a little if you turn it up too much, though. However, in the latest Quantum firmwares, I'm finding myself not needing to do this as much.
 
To be fair to this topic, that gear during that period of George Benson's career is up to debate; the JC120 or Twin could easily be a red herring there...
 
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