The closing of 2010 may signal the end of a rather turbulent decade, but it’s certainly a time to celebrate the state of the independent guitar-building industry, which, despite uncertain economic times, has been fruitful and innovative over the last decade. Small builders are not an entirely new phenomenon, but the popularity of the internet really helps small outfits get the attention they deserve. And playing a superb guitar like the JET Caldera reminds me how wonderful it is to be a player in a time when such outfits can thrive.
Force of Nature
You can tell the Caldera is a special guitar by just opening the case. It’s a stunning instrument in every sense of the word. From headstock to strap button, the guitar revealed no finish or structural blemishes, no matter how hard I looked for them. The Caldera weighs just 7 1/2 pounds and was perfectly balanced when I stood and let it sit across my shoulder with my strap set waist high. The gorgeous transparent black korina body is capped with a quilted maple top and finished in a three-tone Caribbean Burst paint scheme with exquisite natural wood binding.
JET uses a unique process to join their body and top pieces, which involves carving the body wood to a peaked center in the middle, routing carefully placed tone chambers, then finally gluing the top on with an extremely strong polyurethane- based adhesive. According to JET, this makes the guitar tremendously resonant and lively. The entire body is encased in a polyester finish that exhibits a strong sheen and transparency.
I was taken aback by how closely JET paid attention to minor details, such as using exotic wood pieces to surround the pickup screw cavities and installing a recessed, angled jack on the back of the guitar. It’s a practical and aesthetically pleasing design touch that’s typical of JET’s work. A string-through bridge, two custom-wound Seymour Duncan humbucking pickups (which are screwed directly into the body for better resonance and sustain), two Volume, and two Tone knobs (with a push-pull coil-tap switch in the neck pickup’s tone control) make up the rest of the Caldera’s hardware. Except for the pickup bobbins, there’s not a trace of plastic on this instrument.
Neck Over Heels in Love
As lovely as the Caldera’s body looks and feels, its neck was the real source of joy for me. Made of three pieces of quartersawn hard maple with a 25"-scale, the ebony-stained, 24-fret neck felt like a piece of finished marble in my palm. And with the perfectly smooth slab of ebony used for its fretboard, the Caldera’s neck was one of the best I’ve felt in years. The joy didn’t stop there, though. The Caldera’s highly sculpted neck joint fit my hand like a glove, giving me effortless access to the higher frets. All that reach can feel a little strange if you’re accustomed to the chunkier neck joints of a Stratocaster or Les Paul. But with its enhanced playability, the joint is a true design improvement that’s easy to get used to.
Born to Burn
It’s pretty evident that the Caldera has its roots in the hardrocking tones of a choice Les Paul, so I was eager to test the Caldera’s mettle with a rig known for its LP friendliness—a 1981 Marshall JCM800 2204 half stack, set with the gain up about halfway. Starting right into some tight, blues-rock riffing, I was treated to clarity, sustain, and tonal bite that were off the charts. The highs were clear and present, but pleasantly rounded. The Caldera has a solid, defined low end, but I was struck by the guitar’s pronounced high-midrange tones. Far from annoying or nasal, they work exceptionally well in exactly the way you’d want a humbucker to interact with a great British tube amp.
The dual custom-wound Seymour Duncan pickups are, in general, quite hot, but they possess a juicy bounce and sweetness that feels natural and easy to control. By comparison, the Caldera’s coil-tapped sounds are a little disappointing and seemed a bit weak and thin, even when I ran just the neck pickup into a Fender Twin Reverb. Obviously I wasn’t expecting the guitar to exhibit the same amount of force and punch as it had in full humbucking mode, but the chime-like quality of the high end was noticeably deadened when the tapped mode was engaged. That said, it’s a tone that could work for jazz or blues players who require a little less muscle and high-mid kick in front of their amp.
The Verdict
The JET Caldera is an outstanding guitar. It offers many familiar Les Paul design motifs with refinements that alleviate some of the most common complains of that time-honored axe. I was hard-pressed to find anything involving the tone that was not top notch, except for an arguably weak coil-tap mode. Thanks to its great neck and super-resonant, lightweight body, playing the Caldera is almost as effortless as pulling it out of the case. Traditionalists should have no problem gravitating towards its impeccable build, though they might be turned off by how brazen and hot the pickups are. For modern rockers, however, the Caldera is a great choice, especially if you crave a guitar that stands out from the pack.
Watch the video review:
Buy if...
you’re looking for a great-sounding, hot-rodded rock machine that’s distinctiv eand magnificently playable.
Skip if...
you rely primarily on single-coil guitar tones.
Rating...
Street $6350 - JET Guitars - jetguitars.com |
Vox’s Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
I spent a day workshopping ideas in my studio using just the Vox Valvenergy Smooth Impact compressor and Tone Sculptor EQ, and a dash of amp tremolo and reverb to taste. In the process, I produced more arresting sounds than I had heard from my guitars in many days. There were radical direct-to-desk-style Jimmy Page/Beatles distortion tones, sun-sized, cosmic electric 12-string, Bakersfield twang that could burn through crude, and many other sweet and nasty colors. Most decent EQ and compressor combinations can achieve variations on all those themes. But the Smooth Impact and Tone Sculptor also reveal interesting personalities in unexpected places.
The individuality and energy in the Vox Valvenergy pedals is attributable, in part, to the Nutube vacuum tube used in the circuit. Though it looks little like a vacuum tube as most guitarists know them, the thin, wafer-like Nutube is, in fact, a real vacuum tube like those used in fluorescent displays. Fluorescent display tubes have limitations. A maximum operating voltage of around 40 volts means they aren’t useful for bigger power tube applications like a 6L6, which has an operating voltage of about 400 volts. But it can work quite well as a preamp tube in concert with an op amp power section, which is how the Nutube is used in the new Valvenergy pedals, as well as older Vox products like the Vox MV50 and Superbeetle amps.
Valvenergy Tone Sculptor
When you think about “cinematic” effects, you likely imagine big reverb or modulation sounds that create a vivid picture and feeling of space or motion. But narrow, hyper-focused EQ profiles can evoke very different and equally powerful images. Radical EQ settings can add aggression, claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts more evocative of Hitchcock’s Psycho than Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner.
Any of these moods can be summoned from the Valvenergy Tone Sculptor. Six sliders cut or boost 10 dB frequency bands spanning 100 Hz to 5.6 kHz. A seventh slider cuts or boosts the master output by 12 dB. This platter of options might not sound like much. But you can use these seven controls together to very specific ends.
“Radical EQ settings can add aggression, near-claustrophobic intimacy, and stark, explosive dark-and-light contrasts.”
For example, bumping the high-midrange and the master output produces narrow cocked-wah-like filter sounds with enough push to produce extra amp overdrive—effectively turning the Tone Sculptor into a buzzy, almost fuzz-like filter effect. But unlike a wah, you can carefully scoop high end or add a spoonful of bass to blunt harsh frequencies or give the tone a bit more weight. You can also broaden the palette of an amp/guitar pairing. I matched a particularly trebly Jazzmaster bridge pickup with a very hot and toppy Vox AC15-flavored amp for this test—a recipe that can be spiky on the best days. But with the Tone Sculptor in the line, I could utilize the same sharp, fuzzy, and filtered Mick Ronson wah tones while shaving some of the most piercing frequencies.
EQ pedals exist on many points along the cost spectrum. And at $219, the Tone Sculptor lives on the high side of the affordable range. Does it offer something less expensive models can’t deliver? Well, for one thing, I found it relatively quiet, which is nice whether you’re shaping toppy high-contrast effects or performing more surgical adjustments. And the sliders feel nuanced and nicely tapered rather than like a dull axe with a few basic frequency notches. But in many situations I also liked the color imparted by the circuit—generated, presumably, by the Nutube. “Color,” in audio terms, is a broad and subjective thing, and one should not necessarily expect the warm, tube-y glow of a vintage tube Pultec. Still, the Tone Sculptor has many forgiving, flattering qualities—typical of studio EQs—that enable fine tuning and experimentation with more radical and creative applications of the effect.
Valvenergy Smooth Impact
As with the Tone Sculptor, the Smooth Impact’s use of Nutube engenders certain expectations. It’s easy to surmise that because Smooth Impact has a vacuum tube in the circuit that it will behave like a little Teletronix LA-2A leveling amplifier. That’s a big ask for a $219 stompbox. On the other hand, the Smooth Impact exhibits some appealing characteristics of studio tube compression. At lower compression levels, it works well as a thickening agent—adding mass without much additional noise. And at higher compression levels it can sound snappy, crisp, and tight without feeling like you’ve bled every trace of overtone from your signal.
The Smooth Impact’s controls aren’t totally atypical. But because it lacks some familiar features like variable attack and release, yet is more complicated than a 1-knob DynaComp, you have to trust your ear to navigate interactions among the controls. The most unfamiliar of these is the 3-way vintage/natural/sag toggle. The first two are defined by preset attack and release settings: Vintage is slow attack and long release, and natural is the opposite. The sag mode’s compression is more like what you get from tube saturation, and it’s useful for adding thickness and complexity to a thin amp tone at modest compression levels.
Though the vintage and natural modes certainly have a different feel, they don’t always sound worlds apart. And like the sag mode, the thing they have in common is the way they enrich lifeless amp output at low to medium compression, with a bit of grind from the tube gain and a little extra makeup gain from the output. At the most aggressive settings, the tube gain can get a little crispy. And really crushing the compression can flatline your tone without adding much in the way of extra sustain. These are limitations common to many compressors with similar features. But unless I was chasing very ultra-snappy Prince and Nile Rodgers fast-funk caricatures, I enjoyed the Smooth Impact most in its in-between ranges, where mass, mild, harmonious drive, and low noise showcase the pedal’s sometimes studio-like personality.
Boss’ firstWaza Tube Amp Expander, built with an integrated power amp that enables boosted signal as well as attenuated sounds, was and remains the OX’s main competition. Both products have copious merits but, at $1,299 (Boss) and $1,499 (Universal Audio), each is expensive. And while both units are relatively compact, they aren’t gear most folks casually toss in a backpack on the way out the door. The new Waza Tube Expander Core, however, just might be. And though it sacrifices some refinements for smaller size, its much-more accessible price and strong, streamlined fundamental capabilities make it a load-box alternative that could sway skeptics.
Micro Manager
The TAE Core is around 7 1/2" wide, just over 7 " long, and fewer than 4 " tall, including the rubber feet. That’s about half the width of an original TAE or OX. The practical upside of this size reduction is obvious and will probably compel a lot of players to use the unit in situations in which they’d leave a full-size TAE at home. The streamlined design is another source of comfort. With just five knobs on its face, the TAE Core has fewer controls and is easier to use than many stompboxes. In fact, the most complicated part of integrating the TAE Core to your rig might be downloading the necessary drivers and related apps.
Connectivity is straightforward, though there are some limitations. You can use TAE Core wirelessly with an iOS or Windows tablet or smartphone, as long as you have the BT-DUAL adaptor (which is not included and sets you back around 40 bucks). However, while desktop computers recognize the TAE Core as a Bluetooth-enabled device, you cannot use the unit wirelessly with those machines. Instead, you have to connect the TAE Core via USB. In a perfectly ordered world, that’s not a big problem. But if you use the TAE Core in a small studio—where one less cable is one less headache—or you prefer to interface with the TAE Core app on a desktop where you can toggle fast and easily between large, multi-track sessions and the app, the inability to work wirelessly on a desktop can be a distraction. The upside is that the TAE Core app itself is, functionally and visually, almost identical in mobile and desktop versions, enabling you to select and drag and drop virtual microphones into position, add delay, reverb, compression, and EQ effects, choose various cabinets with different speaker configurations and sizes, and introduce new rigs and impulse responses to a tone recipe in a flash. And though the TAE Core app lacks some of the photorealistic panache and configuration options in the OX app, the TAE Core’s app is just as intuitive.Less Is More
One nice thing about the TAE Core’s more approachable $699 price is that you don’t have to feel too bad on nights that you “underutilize” the unit and employ it as an attenuator alone. In this role, the TAE Core excels. Even significantly attenuated sounds retain the color and essence of the source tone. Like any attenuator-type device, you will sacrifice touch sensitivity and dynamics at a certain volume level, yielding a sense of disconnection between fingers, gut, guitar, and amp. But if you’re tracking “big” sounds in a small space, you can generate massive-sounding ones without interfacing with an amp modeler and flat-response monitors, which is a joy in my book. And again, there’s the TAE Core’s ability to “expand” as well as attenuate, which means you can use the TAE Core’s 30-watt onboard power amp to amplify the signal from, say, a 5-watt Fender Champion 600 with a 6" speaker, route it to a 2x12, 4x12, or virtual equivalent in the app, and leave your bandmate with the Twin Reverb and bad attitude utterly perplexed.
The Verdict
Opting for the simpler, thriftier TAE Core requires a few sacrifices. Power users that grew accustomed to the original TAE’s super-tunable “resonance-Z” and “presence-Z” controls, which aped signal-chain impedance relationships with sharp precision, will have to make do with the simpler but still very effective stack and combo options and the “air feel level” spatial ambience control.The DC power jack is less robust. It features only MIDI-in rather than MIDI-in/-through/-out jacks, and, significantly, 70 watts less power in the onboard power amp. But from my perspective, the Core is no less “professional” in terms of what it can achieve on a stage or in a studio of any size. Its more modest feature set and dimensions are, in my estimation, utility enhancements as much as limitations. If greater power and MIDI connectivity are essentials, then the extra 600 bones for the original TAE will be worth the price. For many of us, though, the mix of value, operational efficiencies, and the less-encumbered path to sound creation built into the TAE Core will represent a welcome sweet spot that makes dabbling in this very useful technology an appealing, practical proposition.
