Affordable tube amp to emulate Django's Electric Sound with Archtop guitar

John Gill

Hello
I use a Fender Champ, a Fender Excelsior, The Lunch Box and a Fishman Loudbox Mini. For me however the best sound is acoustic. I know it's harder to achieve and most venues are very loud and that people are in general unsympathetic to an acoustic guitarist. Not to mention bass players and drummers, sax sections and brass sections. BUT, it can work sometimes and I always try to leave the amp at home when I can. There's no reason to pay thousands of dollars for a fine acoustic guitar and then have to stick a pickup on it and plug in. You might as well be using a Strat or a Tele. And they are also great for playing jazz and most music and very affordable.
REGARDS
John Gill

p.s. my go to instrument when things are loud is a banjo. See my picture.

jeffmatz

Another vote for a Champ, or the afforementioned Exelsoir (great amp nobody seemed to notice)

Pickup choice might get in the way, though...if you want that "electric django" sound, a Gibson styled neck humbucker i's just going to be too warm and wooly. What's the arch top in question, anyway?

jonpowl

I've owned a Champ and a couple of Gretsch G5222s, and they sound nice, but seem to lack something (volume, quality of sound). I usually end up selling them after a couple of months. Some kind of mod or a larger speaker might bring out the best in them. I have an Epiphone Valve Junior tube amp that sounds good, but am running it through a 2x12" Fender cab. My Fender Blues Junior sounds good with a little overdrive, and was in perfect condition when I bought it for $300 several years ago. I have been curious about the Fender Pro Junior as it is around 20 lbs., but doesn't have a master volume, so may not give the Django sound at a low volume. I really like my Roland Street Cube 5W amp that delivers a variety of sounds for my GJ guitar, and operates on batteries. I've only tried these amps with my Krivo Nuevo pickup.

ChrisMartin

John Gill wrote: »

Hello
I use a Fender Champ, a Fender Excelsior, The Lunch Box and a Fishman Loudbox Mini. For me however the best sound is acoustic. I know it's harder to achieve and most venues are very loud and that people are in general unsympathetic to an acoustic guitarist. Not to mention bass players and drummers, sax sections and brass sections. BUT, it can work sometimes and I always try to leave the amp at home when I can. There's no reason to pay thousands of dollars for a fine acoustic guitar and then have to stick a pickup on it and plug in. You might as well be using a Strat or a Tele. And they are also great for playing jazz and most music and very affordable.
REGARDS
John Gill

p.s. my go to instrument when things are loud is a banjo. See my picture.

Acoustic may be best in YOUR opinion, but surely that is rather missing the point of the question.
It is not about volume but a certain tone.
The late electric Django sound is a product of the equipment available at the time and for anyone wanting to achieve that tone pure acoustic whether mic'd or not is not an option.
There are many electric Django recordings with different tones but his basic sound whether on a Selmer/Stimer combination, or an archtop with pickup is surely as much to do with his attack as any variations in equipment.
Many jazz players of that time, from Charlie Christian on, used good (often expensive) archtops with various accessory pickups but it sounds to me like most of Django's tone on the electric recordings, particularly Rome late '40s, is due to overloading whatever amp he was using.
Probably experimenting with any small tube amp might get you close or maybe an overdrive pedal coupled with a noise gate set to simulate the clipping of the pick attack might do it too.
Yes, Tele's do make great jazz guitars too, but it would not be my first choice to try to get the tone in question.
Of course as Django died the year the Strat was invented we were denied an interesting 'what if?'

jeffmatz

It is an interesting "what if?"

Django's electric tone was raw, unbridled...he was playing the guitar differently too, with amplification...slurring more notes, playing with the added sustain...

I wonder where Django would have gone...certainly would have laughed at a lot of electric jazz players' muted tones and lack of vibrato/bending...

I bet he would have dug Bill Frisell.

dm7b5

-just a thought re: overdrive pedals...
suggesting the electro-harmonix germanium od if using with a solid state amp.
I’ve used this with the rig I mentioned above but soon realized that I didn’t need it.
Ultimately removed it from the signal chain as I found just increasing the vol of my stimer drives a tube amp to a nice breakup / bark / bite.
-two more centavos re: fender excelsior...
13 tube watts is loud. In my experience, pound for pound, this little amp has no problem standing up to loud horn players, crowd noise, etc.
-last thing... also suggest checking out the peavey delta blues amp and the peavey classic 30 amp.
—Cheers

Jim Kaznosky

If you're looking at using an overdrive, check out Lisa Liu's videos:

Pro Jr. is a good option, too.

constantine

Thanks everyone for the great feedback (no pun intended!)

vanmalmsteen

You might want to try out a fender Blues junior
Love mine. Gets similar tone to what you want

Jazzaferri

I have a Deluxe reverb......more flexibility of sound IMO as the 12 inch speaker can emphasize lows.

Best thing IMO is to go to a shop that has lots to try and play around with different amps til you get the sound you want.

Even using the same guitars and setup the OP and I would sound different. No matter how hard I listen I have never heard my guitar on its own, only when someone is playing it.