Jerry always used tubes. Never didn't. Except for when he sat in on someone else's gear... It's the only way to make a pleasant clean tone, at least for the Jerry, lead guitar kind of thing. The only thing that comes close in my opinion is the modern digital tube modeling that can do a fairly acceptable job of faking it. But nothing like the real thing. A Roland JC amp for lead guitar will leave you with a brutal earache and headache after a long gig. There'a a dynamic transient compression factor as well as a harmonic content factor that also makes tubes rule and makes the guitar more warm, sweet, and audible thru a loud, dense stage mix. The JC series amps use FET transistors in the preamp to do that attempt at faking tubes, but it just never wins, never. The tone just won't easily sit in a big mix without trying to slice thru with power and bite, and that fatigues the ears and just doesn't feel right to the picking hand. Those are nice amps and they are sweeter than bipolar transistor equipped solid state preamp circuits, but it just doesn't cut it in my opinion. Tubes, tubes, tubes... Every time...
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... and it's just like any other day that's ever been...
