Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

L

lank81

New member
Ok, so I know what Jack uses (pedal wise and amp wise) but lets be honest, we can't crank our Twins and we aren't going to get a 6x10 silvertone cab with amp anytime soon. Well, most of us at least. I've been eyeing up Silvertone 1482s and what not but was wondering, are there any modern amps that can do a sound near to the Silvertone line? As much as I enjoy my DRRI and Big Muff at times I'd rather have a nice amp that gets Jack's crunch and then use a mammoth or muff as needed.

Anyone find something similar to that territory?
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

just experiment with cool weird tube amps... whatever you can find. Jack didn't find his tone by asking dudes on a forum... he plugged his guitar into amplifiers and picked ones he liked the sounds of.
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

THATS RIGHT!!!

That said, I will try and offer some help...

Jacks 6x10 Silvertone is more or less the same as the 2x12 and 1x15 Silvertones but because he didn't make those models famous they go for less $$...get one of those.

As for the Twin, Jack doesn't crank it...it; set clean and used mostly for it's reverb...
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

Jack White tone on a budget = Epiphone Casino -->(big red Whammy / optional) -->big box Big Muff -->MXR MicroAmp -->Fender Excelsior.

And you are not going to blow your ear-drums to hell and gone with this one either.

IMHO, the above rig WILL get you very, very close to his tone.

My 2cents
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

SirJackdeFuzz said:
Jack White tone on a budget = Epiphone Casino -->(big red Whammy / optional) -->big box Big Muff -->MXR MicroAmp -->Fender Excelsior.

And you are not going to blow your ear-drums to hell and gone with this one either.

IMHO, the above rig WILL get you very, very close to his tone.

My 2cents
Click to expand...

Ya know...I could sort of see that!
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

Reverbs on some of those old Silvertones are insane. A friend, who I bought my '66 Jag from, had a Silvertone combo that you could swim in the reverb. THe wildest surf/garage verb Ive heard still to this day and I was 15 at the time. It sort of stuck with me as a high watermark.

Look for some of the old Danelectro amps as well. Some of the older Gibson tube combos get some crazy cool sounds and aren't ridiculous $$$.

The joy of finding something off the radar is tripping over it
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

Wattage said:
Reverbs on some of those old Silvertones are insane. A friend, who I bought my '66 Jag from, had a Silvertone combo that you could swim in the reverb. THe wildest surf/garage verb Ive heard still to this day and I was 15 at the time. It sort of stuck with me as a high watermark.

Look for some of the old Danelectro amps as well. Some of the older Gibson tube combos get some crazy cool sounds and aren't ridiculous $$$.

The joy of finding something off the radar is tripping over it
Click to expand...

That's the key!

Kev is the master of the art of odd...my dad does it too!

I used to use a lot of those old funky/odd ball amps (and guitars too for that matter!) but sort of moved on to a different sound I guess.
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

You know how I get a pretty convincing JW tone : I take my 339, plug it into my old Big Muff (russian big box version), then into an LPB1, and into a Fender Excelsior. The big speaker gives me a different type of breakup, and the LPB1 dirties up the mix in an interesting way.
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

SirJackdeFuzz said:
Jack White tone on a budget = Epiphone Casino -->(big red Whammy / optional) -->big box Big Muff -->MXR MicroAmp -->Fender Excelsior.

And you are not going to blow your ear-drums to hell and gone with this one either.

IMHO, the above rig WILL get you very, very close to his tone.

My 2cents
Click to expand...

I would expand this to "any vintage-style guitar" and "any vintage-style tube amp"... I get close with my Les Paul Special, or the P90 in my Strat... hear people get there with Jags and Teles.... and he mostly uses clean amps with the Muff so my Univox and Bassman work fine. Maybe you just need a bigger amp? :smokin:
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

One common thread here is the Big Muff...

I used to be VERY into Big Muffs and have owned a dozen or more of them over the years...originals, rams heads, Russians, reissues,. clones etc...

And I'll say this...the very first time I heard the White Stripes I remember thinking "I don't know who this is but that guy has a Big Muff"!
 
Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

I recently watched, "It Might Get Loud" and JW explained that he plays crappy department store guitars on purpose so that he has to fight the guitar. I believe the same is true for his amps - anything oddball and would have been considered cheap or lousy back in its day.
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

Powdered Toast Man said:
I recently watched, "It Might Get Loud" and JW explained that he plays crappy department store guitars on purpose so that he has to fight the guitar. I believe the same is true for his amps - anything oddball and would have been considered cheap or lousy back in its day.
Click to expand...

Those Silvertone amps are quite easy to play...they have limited headroom and loads of natural compression...makes it easy to crunch 'em up and lead playing is a breeze because they just surround the notes in a warm sustain.

Now, the hard part is keeping them on the road...they were never meant for road travel...cheap bent chassis, junk handles and pressed paper cabs make for a ton of breakdowns!!!
 
Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

the guy who invented fire said:
Those Silvertone amps are quite easy to play...they have limited headroom and loads of natural compression...makes it easy to crunch 'em up and lead playing is a breeze because they just surround the notes in a warm sustain.

Now, the hard part is keeping them on the road...they were never meant for road travel...cheap bent chassis, junk handles and pressed paper cabs make for a ton of breakdowns!!!
Click to expand...

Well sure. They weren't designed for pro musicians. They were cheap department store instruments that students or kids playing in their garage would get. Back in the day I'm sure the kid who owned a Silvertone probably drooled at the sight of the real Fender amps in the window of the local guitar shop.
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

lank81 said:
Ok, so I know what Jack uses (pedal wise and amp wise) but lets be honest, we can't crank our Twins and we aren't going to get a 6x10 silvertone cab with amp anytime soon. Well, most of us at least. I've been eyeing up Silvertone 1482s and what not but was wondering, are there any modern amps that can do a sound near to the Silvertone line? As much as I enjoy my DRRI and Big Muff at times I'd rather have a nice amp that gets Jack's crunch and then use a mammoth or muff as needed.

Anyone find something similar to that territory?
Click to expand...


So, how is your gear hunting comming along then ?
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

Man I used to own a '74 (maybe '72) Silvertone 1474 Twin 12 combo. I know what you mean about not being able to crank it. Anyway, the stock, tube-driven piezo reverb truly blows. Soooo.... What I did is mod the pre-amp a little to use the reverb tube as an extra gain stage. HOLY CRAP!!!! Full on Jack White tone at low volumes when you crank the "reverb" knob.
 
Re: Rinse, Recycle, Repeat - Another Jack White Tone Thread

to the op.
fender twin and the appropriate muff pedal is the obvious choice right?
The problem is that you cant crank a twin.
The answer is that you don't need to crank a twin to sound good - the trick is to make a twin sound fat at lower volume levels. Easy done: swap out the .47uf bass cap in the tone stack section and replace it with a .22uf. This changes the tone stack to the same spec as a super reverb. It increases some low end, and fattens the lows and mids considerably. You can get epic fat and warm sounds at much lower volumes than usual. Its a simple, easy, cheap and reversible modification.
I love DR's, but being 22watts it is simply not possible to move the amount of air needed to get the kind of fat low end that you crave. The only way to get fat low end is headroom, and wattage =headroom. This stuff is surprisingly simple. Jack uses a twin - so use a twin. Just a small tweak and you'll get the fat sound you crave at low volume.
Below is a graphic representation of a fender twin's tone stack. The green curve is how the amp sounds with all controls on 5. The blue curve is the same settings with the small .22uf modification.
modified twin.jpg
 
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