Metropoulos Forum

Watching Joe B on Palladia... back line included a Friedman amp. Cheers! Very cool. Sounded stellar! Any details on the amp and setup would be interesting to hear about.?????

rgalpin wrote:Watching Joe B on Palladia... back line included a Friedman amp. Cheers! Very cool. Sounded stellar! Any details on the amp and setup would be interesting to hear about.?????

In a live setting I'll bet you couldn't hear the difference between his using one 50-watt vintage Marshall with a Diaz Vibramaster for reverb on the inside cabs, and a Marshall JCM 2000 Dual Super Lead, a second 50-watt Marshall, a Suhr SL68, plus the Friedman Dirty Shirley prototype.

Even hearing the difference between these amps:

Joe's favorite equipment is ALL of his equipment as can be seen here:


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This excerpt was taken from this link (http://www.joebonamassagear.com/amps/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)

And if you’re still not into getting multiple heads and cabinets and hauling them around, there are also some great smaller combo amps that Joe has personally recommended to do the trick. Thanks Joe!

Again, remember that the foundation of the Bonamassa tone is blending a Marshall and a Fender (or Dumble). Joe described his “low volume” home rig recently, saying it was a good approximation of his live rig:

” I live in LA at a condo complex. Very Hollywood types live here.. They have no interest in hearing the bluesboy crank up the jams late at night so I devised a rig for my house. (1) 1987 Marshall Silver series Marshall 50 watt 1X12 combo. (2) 1965 Fender Princeton Reverb or a 1957 Fender Vibrolux with a Kendrick reverb unit. (3) THD Hot Plate (for Princeton Only).”

He also includes some his pedals, which are discussed next on the Pedals page. In a recent forum post where someone asked what a cheap way to go would be, Joe replied:

“A twin and a tubescreamer run with a DSL-2000 on the crunch channel.. Avoid speakers that collapse or are two low wattage. That’ll get you close..”

So you can see that the theme of a Fender/Marshall combination remains constant. Most of his Fender recommendations have been Blackface-style amps such as the Princeton Reverb or Twin Reverb.

Joe Bonamassa, the BEST most UNORIGINAL guitarist. Its very funny, but in 'most' (not all) jamming situations, the guy's like Joe, who play in the styles (or VERY closely) of the original/style players (Clapton,Hendrix, Beck, Page, Santana,Blackmore,Schenker,EVH, Johnson, etc, etc) actually DO BETTER than the real deals in most situations.
At the end of the day you have to ask yourself,"Is it better to be original or just GOOD"

More on Topic, To me, Joe sounds about 85% Marshall Jubilee in most situations, especially his more 'Rock' tone/s.

Tone Slinger wrote:Joe Bonamassa, the BEST most UNORIGINAL guitarist. Its very funny, but in 'most' (not all) jamming situations, the guy's like Joe, who play in the styles (or VERY closely) of the original/style players (Clapton,Hendrix, Beck, Page, Santana,Blackmore,Schenker,EVH, Johnson, etc, etc) actually DO BETTER than the real deals in most situations.
At the end of the day you have to ask yourself,"Is it better to be original or just GOOD"

More on Topic, To me, Joe sounds about 85% Marshall Jubilee in most situations, especially his more 'Rock' tone/s.

I wholeheartedly agree, I like Joe BUT if I want to hear the greats then I'll listen to their CD's. I've always said that of all the great players, Joe sounds noticeably more like Eric Johnson. The trick is to interweave techniques/styles in such a way that people might still say, "that sounds familiar" but they still can't place their finger on it. When a person can say, "that's a lick done by so and so on --- album" then that musician has not yet arrived, I don't care who you are.

All of Joe's predecessors learned from their guitar heroes, but didn't borrow so heavily from said artists. Joe's written some good tunes, but none that bowl me over and make me feel like I've just been to a Gary Moore concert. For artists that predominantly use Les Paul guitars, I use Gary Moore as a measuring stick. It's a high standard but, Gary pushed and expected this from even himself. Not all great guitar players can be great songwriters and visa versa. Hopefully Joe will find his niche and really take off, when he does the whole world will know about it.

.

Back to topic,
Everytime I have seen Bonamassa,per Youtube clips or Vh1, etc, I've always pretty much SEEN and/or heard a Marshall Jubilee. Joe has 'that' sound to me, which is that chunky, fat, slightly 'darker' tone. Very updated 'British Blues' type tone. Jubilee's have that sound, and he is always seen with one.

Tone Slinger wrote:Back to topic,
Everytime I have seen Bonamassa,per Youtube clips or Vh1, etc, I've always pretty much SEEN and/or heard a Marshall Jubilee. Joe has 'that' sound to me, which is that chunky, fat, slightly 'darker' tone. Very updated 'British Blues' type tone. Jubilee's have that sound, and he is always seen with one.

Are these the Jubilees you're talking about @1:08 on this clip?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMZuvVGxp3Q[/youtube]

Sunday mornings as a kid with this blaring on the Tele, what a memory!

Boner should have stuck with his Metropoulos 45/100.... that now resides in MY music room.

Need to have it fumigated to get some soul back in it. I'm not a big fan of boner. Way overhyped and overated IMO. But at least he's carrying on the blues BASED guitar thing I guess. How did get so annoited anyway???

He also didn't think up the Marshall / Fender thing on his own either. SRV had a Major in his mix and I'm sure plenty of other did/do as well.

Agree with Lou, GM is (was) many levels above boner.

NY Chief wrote:Boner should have stuck with his Metropoulos 45/100.... that now resides in MY music room.

Need to have it fumigated to get some soul back in it. I'm not a big fan of boner. Way overhyped and overated IMO. But at least he's carrying on the blues BASED guitar thing I guess. How did get so anointed anyway???

"Oh Pointy Birds, Oh Pointy Pointy, Anoint My Head Anointy Nointy - Steve Martin quoting John Lilleth in "The Man With Two Brains"

NY Chief wrote:He also didn't think up the Marshall / Fender thing on his own either. SRV had a Major in his mix and I'm sure plenty of other did/do as well.

Agree with Lou, GM is (was) many levels above boner.

I love it Chief! His new name "Boner Massive" LOL.

There are many others that have used the Marshall/Fender combination in live settings, and Bonamassa isn't the first to set the trend for usage of high efficiency speakers in cabinets, that was Hendrix.

hahaha... He has an awesome voice and it makes his guitar work accessible beyond that of the simple dime a dozen "check out my guitar shananigans" dullards. Cheers to Joe B!

Here again, even his voice (vocal style) isnt original. I do think Bonamassa is a musical guy though, that would do equally well in a jam, studio,or by the camp fire. Bottom line, regardless of originality, he could hand many a guitarist/musician thier asses.

But......In the end, whether your talkin' guitar or vocals, You either sound like who you ARE, or who you are TRYING to be. I'm constantly at odds with that myself