"I think Musicman guitars are a perfect match with (which?) amps..."

[davidclayson]

The title says it all, which amps (model or brands) do you think are a perfect match for your Musicman guitars?

I use a couple of Axis guitars in both the Basswood/Maple and Ash bodied versions, humbuckers and single coils but am still struggling to find an amp that I am happy with in sound and features, that I can just use, set it, forget it to get on with some good playing!

The sounds I am wanting to use most of the time are a hot rodded JCM 800 type crunch and big 6L6 type cleans. I am happy to use pedals on a clean sound to achieve Tweed and Dumble type tones when needed.

I am quite familiar with most of what's on the market and have decided (at least for the moment) that a Mesa Mark V head is probably where I need to go. Individual channel EQ's and effects loop are quite essential for me, and it seems it provides all the sounds I'm after too.

Whilst I am a long way off from being able to afford one, I would love to hear some words about this amp as I know many here use them or similar Mesa amps. Must be in part due to the JP connection?

I haven't got an amp at all at the moment, so am considering a JCM 2000 DSL for something cheaper in the mean time as for something to be used for recording, practise and gigging. I have owned a variety of amps over the years but I need something that ticks all the boxes and helps make these guitars sound as great as they are.

In short, recommend me something and tell me, which amps do you think are a great match for your Musicman guitars?

 

[joe web]

i love my mesa amps and the combination with the ebmm guitars sounds great.
the mk v is awesome, a lot of features, great sounds - but never owned one of these.
i use and still love my roadster head - no other amp in the last 8 years sounded better for my taste.
and i had a lot amps come and go for testings....6505+, 6534, 5150III (mini), jcm800 2205, diezel herbert, VH4, d-moll....mesa rectoverb, dual rectos....and so on.....the only other amp i use is a mesa DC-5 which delivers great cleans and great crunch tones and by activating the 5band eq, it's getting brutal!
if you have the chance to get your hands on a dc5 - do it!

 

[Rachmaninoff]

I personally use my JP6 with a Fender amp.
The 1+2 pickup position on the clean channel delivers a lot of twang.

 

[ozzyrules]

Egnater Renegade 65. Or Rebel 30.

 

[sixstrings]

i love my mesa amps

+1

None of my axes never sounded so good with any amp before.
Express 5:50 made a huge change to my playing even tho it's not top of Boogie range.

 

[Craiguitar]

I've played my EBMM guitars through lots of great amps, but nothing comes remotely close to the Axe-Fx II for me. Well it's about 200 of the worlds best amps in one box. I only use a handful of them, but that's all I need to get the job done.

 

[guitvai1]

I've played my EBMM guitars through lots of great amps, but nothing comes remotely close to the Axe-Fx II for me. Well it's about 200 of the worlds best amps in one box. I only use a handful of them, but that's all I need to get the job done.

Same here.

 

[Eric O'Reilly]

I love a peavey 5150 or 6505 and also I was at GC and tried a Hughs and Kettner 100 watt head, cant think of the name but it had 3 channels and 3 settings for each of the 3 channels and went from clean to crunch to ridiculous gain like a 5150, i think it sounded better than the 6505 that was next to it! But im a peavey fanboy to the fullest. And an Eddie fanboy as well, but that HK amp was GREAT! It better be at $2299!!!

 

[Benji Peterson]

Depends on the EBMM. I have an Axe FX II and love it, but prefer my real amps, whenever possible.
Orange Rockerverb 100 Mk II w/DIVO- awesome amp with huge, rowdy sound- great for vintage stuff, stoner metal, foo fighters, etc.
Orange OR100- super underrated amp! Great with vintage tones, classic rock, and jam band stuff but shines with hair metal, heavy metal, and even djenty stuff
Marshall JVM410H- does everything and does it exceptionally well
Randall Satan- need I say more?

 

[xjbebop]

another vote for Mesa.... Currently I have a TA30, which covers a -lot- of vintage ground.
The next one on my want list is a mini-rectoverb (I'm not playing out, so house friendly works for me...)
That said, my go-to is a Blackstar HT40 that I got when they came out a few years ago. Jangly clean to scream...can't say enough good things about this amp, and priced right too.
Mrs. Bebop loves the Orange sound, which is another winner.....

Good luck!

 

[ksandvik]

A Mesa Mini Rectifier or RectoVerb if you don't need crazy levels of volume on-stage.

I play my Music Mans with a Bogner Shiva as I need crazy good cleans and crazy good crunch back and forth in many songs. Another throw-in-the-car amp is a JCM900 combo that was gathering dust in my storage for many years and when taken out actually sounds really good, it's the MK III versions which were built just after JCM800s, basically a JCM800 with an additional gain stage.

 

[Rockguitarzan]

JP Majesty with Kemper and Axe FX 2 is awesome!

 

[wolfbone07]

THD Flexi 50

 

[Mordimer]

I used to have Blackstar HT60 and it played awesome with my JP7. Now I have Blackstar S1-100 and it's even better So, yeah, Blackstar amps sound great with EBMM guitars. (Ask Jamie Humphries)

 

[davidclayson]

Thanks for the reply's everyone! I thought there would be a few votes for Axe FX and the like, as I have noticed they are a popular choice here - just as an main 'amp' solution, they are not for me. Modern day modellers have certainly comes leaps and bounds ahead of capturing more of the feel of a real amp I must say, compared to the earlier Line 6 stuff - I can see why they make complete sense for a lot of people.

I suppose just Musicman guitars in general is a bit of a broad term, as the sort of sound a JP user would be after would differ from an Albert Lee I'm sure. Since I own both humbucker and single coil Axis guitars and play a variety of styles, an amp as versatile as my guitars is an essential, sometimes difficult, thing to find.

Am I right in thinking a good way to generalise would be that most (bar the Rectifier's and a few others) of the Mesa/Boogie's are likened to hot rodded Fender's? and Bogner as hod rodded Marshall types? With most Boogie's using 6L6's, can they do the Marshall thing (to a degree) quite convincingly too?

Nice to see that going for a Mesa seems to be a tried and tested combination with a lot of the users here - will make the saving up worth it in the end I hope!

 

[T- Bone]

Depends on the guitar, style and the player. But most of all, tone is in the fingers my friend

FWIW I play Splawn amps and ebmm guitars. Check'm out!

 

[Tollywood]

Depends on the guitar, style and the player. But most of all, tone is in the fingers my friend

FWIW I play Splawn amps and ebmm guitars. Check'm out!

Any good quality amp should do the trick. I recommend a tube amp. There are so many good choices out there nowadays.

 

[Siddius]

I am liking the ENGL Fireball profile I have for the SM Neptune PDN, and my Soldano SLO-100 profile for my Rosewood Silhouette and other guitars.

 

[ksandvik]

Rectifiers are basically a hot-rodded pre-amp hitting really hard the back-end power tube section, 6L6 (or EL34s if you want those) or EL84s in the mini Rectifier design. It's really it's own thing, that modern rock sound. Mark IV/Vs are tweaker amps where you could get a lot of variety of sounds. Bogners, many of them, are basically hot-rodded JCM800 constructs with variations (Shiva, amazing clean channel for a EL34 based design and extremely high voltage back-end, Extacy even more tweaking with high end gain, Helios a hot-rodded Marshall basic design and so on...

Kind of hard to talk about amp sounds, like dancing about architecture. If possible, best to try things out.

 

[Spudmurphy]

... ... ... ... a Music Man amp of course