Which preamp tubes, 12ax7, 12at7, 12au7, 5751 ? do you think you would have found ? Which type of power tubes 6L6 , 6V6, EL34, EL84 and so on, do you think you would have found ? What sort of speaker do you think he would have been using, alnico, or other types ? legendary tone from a legendary player
Well, for a lot of his career (live), he used a Standel. You wouldn't have found any tubes at all... Recordings? Whatever was at Rudy Van Gelders. Deluxe, Twin.
I've been told this is wrong, that his original STandel was tube! Don't know myself, but the guy who told me is pretty knowledgeable...
He also used several Fenders...some of his live stuff is actually kind of over driven because it may have only been a Deluxe Reverb. The Standel may have been a tube model, but I will say that when I listen to Wes (my all time #1), the last thing I think about is gear.
AFAIK, Wes didn't use any of the first (tube) Standel amps. He made a switch in 1965 from a Fender Super Reverb to a Standel 70L15 Super Custom XV, which was solid-state. Rumour is he also was never satisfied with any of the amps he had.
He used whatever was around but preferred Fenders, and I believe he owned a Super Reverb. Like Teemuk said around '65 he got the Standel thing going, and those were definitely the solid state models. One thing I know he was specific about was that he liked JBL speakers. I understand the point of the OP (at least I think I do), but I'll answer anyway- if I was making what I think his ideal amp would be, it'd be based around a bf Fender with 6L6s and have a 15" JBL D-130.
One site I found indicates he used a Super Reverb and then a Standel. Here's a link on the Standel http://www.thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=358788
Like so many of us, I'm a huge Wes fan and I like your recipe for Wes's ideal amp as I just got a 1964 Fender Pro with the 15" speaker. Now I just need to find a D-130 and practice a heck of a lot more.
Well that's another bone of contention. But yeah, I think it's funny when people talk about this stuff, like he had one amp. He used whatever was there, like most guys at the time.
"If you could have peeked inside Wes Montgomery's amp..." the part that would help you understand his sound the best would be the input jack--actually, the cord plugged into the input jack, especially the other end of that cord plugged into a guitar Wes Montgomery happened to be playing at the time.
Nothing special, various Bassmans, Bandmasters, Standells. Of course he had access to great tubes! NOS was the present day. RCA, GE, Bugleboy, Sylvania, Mullard, and they were all cheap. Gibson did add the plastic heart thing to the Wes Montgomery model, so his middle fingers wouldn't wear out the top. Good idea for him.
I was doing some looking around and came across this thread. The title "If you could have peeked inside Wes Montgomery`s amp?" caught my eye. When my uncle passed away several years ago, at the age of 81, he left me all of his musical instruments and equipment. Among the items left me was an amp that he had owned since 1968. The story he had told me for years was that the amp had been built for Wes Montgomery, but he never took delivery on it. The amp is a Standel Super Custom XII, model C12V. I of course have no proof that this amp was in fact built for Wes. I recently wrote to the current president of Standel and sent him some photos and asked for any information he might have on it. He wrote back and said that Wes had used a Super Custom 15, but that my uncle's story could have been entirely true. That Wes may have wanted a smaller model to make traveling a little easier. Anyway, if any of you on this thread are still interested in what the inside of Wes Montgomery's amp "might" have looked like, I haven't written down any specifics as far as the actual components, but here are a few photos, though only one is of the "inside". http://www.juliemckown.com/images/Stand1.JPG http://www.juliemckown.com/images/Stand2.JPG http://www.juliemckown.com/images/Stand3.JPG
You can look inside of Wes' amps and guitars all you want - the secret to Wes' sound is his brain and his thumb.
Cool, thanks for sharing. A friend of mine knew Wes pretty well, he's the one that told me about the JBLs.
For not much $... Pignose G60VR...some good tubes and a good pine cab w 1 or 2 rwbs will nail the tone. Providing you and your guitar are 'appropriate'... There is also a G60VR combo that they made. These are proletarian but they drip with the jazz tone! Mine was custom retubed by my amp tech...not sure what he used but he said they would be a little cleaner and bigger sounding than the cheap stock imports...
Ha, ha, ha, ha. I'm not laughing at the OP at all- good question in fact. But your statement here is so accurate that it's funny. ha ha ha My favorite Wes solo is the very slow thing in the middle of 'A Day in the Life'. That man has rhythmic sense, best noticed in my opinion, when he plays slow. I've liked Wes since the 60's.
Also funny is "jazz guitar has to be pristine clean like a polytone (or name your favorite solid state amp)" when all the recordings of their heroes, or hero's heroes, were done on low powered tube amps, because there was nothing else available.
