Another option is to get a Two Notes Torpedo Captor. This lets you DI your regular amp at full tilt straight into your recording setup (you can even unplug your speaker cabinet for quiet recording). The only thing you then need is a speaker cabinet IR via Wall of Sound VST (free with the Captor) or your DAW (e.g. Ableton Cabinet). I’m using this setup to record my Mesa Boogie Mark III and it sounds awesome - cranked tube gain through headphones without needing to mess around with mic placement.
It didn’t change much since I have my Lapstick, 10 years ago. Can’t be worse than Audiofanzine!
Ah cool, sorry I read that wrong! That’s a beauty!!! Thanks for the info!
Having outgrown my less mature self that called this type of a guitar a “hipster’s guitar” - being accused of being a hipster myself helped that maturation process - and realized this might be a great fit for my music, I finally got a Jazzmaster - this one, specifically.
They let me take it home for quite a bit less than the posted price. I think not playing Hairway to Steven, Eruption, or badly executed blues licks helped me get that better deal.
While that Miami Blue color pops in the Reverb photo, it’s more a subdued blue under more subdued lighting.
The pickups hum like the single coils of my other guitars - not including the Am. Elite Tele which has noiseless pickups - but otherwise sound quite nice. The series-parallel switch w/ separate tone and volume thumbwheels, and the push-push pot add a nice range of tonal versatility to the pickups without being too confusing. When it’s time to get worked on by a tech for fret replacement, truss rod adjustment - that sort of thing - I’ll ask the tech to look into shielding the cavity and other electronic upgrades to reduce the hum.
The neck feels really good. It’s a comfortable shape. It doesn’t feel too narrow for playing the fingerstyle pieces I’ve been working on. I just read some discussion posts on flatter vs. more rounded fingerboard radius necks - one post that cracked me up was “rounder is better for chords, but flatter is better for jazz chords”. Uh, what? Anyway the 9.5" radius is theoretically more round than those of my Eric Johnson Thinline Strat and my DAngelico Deluxe SS, but in actual playing the difference in feel is not that dramatic. I do find it easier to cleanly barre the 10th fret for a Dmin7 chord with my index on this guitar than my other guitars. On those other guitars, because of my index finger not having a continuous surface, some notes in that chord tend to sound more muted than others unless the finger is pressed pretty good as close to the fret as possible.
My only issue with the guitar in the store was the action from 10th fret up was a bit high. The store had a tech lower it for free. Now it’s just right for what I like.
Now it’s put away in its case on 3-day quarantine, because after all, as a display model it’s been in contact with an unknown number of people during the covid era, though I do credit the store for trying to screen customers by checking their temperature before letting them in. I think I set a personal record for number of times I smeared sanitizer all over my hands in one day. Really looking forward to playing it more!
Hope you love it. Jazzmasters are my favorite fender guitars, and from what I’ve heard online, this whole American Pro II line is as good as it gets.
I grew up as a fan of the Strat sound more than any other. Lately though I’ve gotten more and more interested in getting a Jazzmaster. Sonic Youth got me thinking about picking behind the bridge which of course certain offset guitars are built for. I like the potential for sampling, looping, etc.
Puisheen says that bridge height affects what harmonics/notes are accessible. If forced to choose between a nice low action from the 10th to 15th fret like on my Strat and Tele, and whatever harmonics/notes were available when the action was higher, I’d still choose the low action.
I don’t know if I’ll end up with a stable of offset guitars, one for each particular set of behind-the-bridge notes, like Puisheen. It’ll be fun though to explore what behind-the-bridge sounds are available on this particular guitar.
I wonder if the new bridge design on the AmPro II affects that or behaves differently to the old one, or to the Mastery that everyone uses.
Congrats on the new guitar, I’ve been eyeing one of those (in Dark Night) since they were launched.
Check them… both are very good, but I prefer the yellow one a little bit more…
There’s also old Tech21 SansAmp which is 2x cheaper and works quite good too
Obviously.
I was set to get one too, but had a serious reality check regarding my serious excess of gear. May try to shift off my AmPro mk1 Jazzmaster for this one. The mk1 isn’t your typical Jazzmaster, has its own sound altogether.
Every time I see these beautiful guitars (eg the Jazzmaster) I get excited about buying the next guitar that will finally deliver that amazing sound…but then I remember that at this point, no guitar will improve my sound — I just have to practice, play, discover and grow on the instrument.
I envy those of you who can play the guitar with confidence sounding good and actually can make the most of a new guitar
I have a friend who’s a world class flamenco guitarist…we were hanging out at mine one day and I was noodling around on my cheap classical guitar when I told him “man I have to get a proper guitar one day” — he asked me to see it, looked at it for a moment, then started playing some sick Flamenco, stopped mid way, gave it back to me and said: “Nah, I think this one is fine.” Lol
No shortcuts to good fingers I guess.
Less is definitely more. After selling 30to40 pedals I had so much more time to play, instead of wasting time looking for “the” sound.
I feel a bit better about my pedal habit now…
I would recommend the DSM Simplifier. An all-analog amp sim pedal which feels like playing a proper amp, with plenty of controls and a super usable effects loop. I have the version for guitar (there’s one for bass too) but I use it on bass as well. Sounds awesome. I know there are some other guys on here playing Simplifiers, I actually found out about it through here.
I just got this the other day. Haven’t had a chance to rewire my board with it yet, but I’m excited.
29 Pedals EUNA
I played guitar for years in my school era. I never was very good, but I had a lot of fun. About it, I experienced that this sentence is true:
“guitar is the easiest instrument to be played bad”
@toddzilla Thanks a lot man! These sound awesome (both guitar and bass versions). Definitely going with Simplifiers.
Thanks!
I hope Puisheen will do a video with an AmPro II, and use his behind the bridge skills on it. I’m sure other people have questions about the differences between the AmPro II’s bridge and those of other Jazzmasters, with and without Mastery bridge.
When I was a beginner, I fantasized about someday getting the One Guitar - the guitar that will give me all the sounds I want, and also be built to enable the full flowering of my latent guitar talent.
I am not a world-class guitarist, but my perspectives have changed after gaining more experience in playing guitar, musicianship, and production - if putting together multitrack recordings in Ableton Live or other multlitrack recording software - without using any of the tools that DAW power users love like mastering plugins - counts as “production”.
I now view guitars like I view synths. While all guitars sounds like, well, guitars, each guitar has its specific combination of features and tonal character. Thus I got this Jazzmaster to let me play and do things that I can’t do with my other guitars - eg. Kevin Shields warble chords, behind the bridge playing techniques, etc…
I don’t expect any guitar that I just bought to deliver an amazing sound - for better or worse, whether I can get a sound of if that satisfies me is all up to what I can do with my hands on the guitar, as well as proper usage of connected gear such as the amp, pedals, etc.
Thanks haven’t heard about it before. Sounds good!
Would b nice to hear some opinions from someone who had experience with Simplifier and Iridium / Sansamp / ASM1 and/or Kemper / Fractal.
I think some of them could work better than others in different situations and in combination with different guitars/pedals, so it’s not a bad idea to have a few of them.
Im new to electric guitars. I’m struggling with Barres. The capo helps a lot here. But would a low action on the strings really help here?