Roccaforte Jenelle

The Jenelle is the Roccaforte flagship amplifier. It has two independent channels, one is the preamp from the Custom 80 and the other is the preamp from the HiGain 100. This is an all tube amplifier and, like all of Doug's amps, it is quite loud. The controls are a master presence knob followed by two rows of identical knobs: Bass, Mid, Treble, Master, and Gain.

UTILIZATION

Setting the knobs to the middle setting, "noon" as most guitar players refer to it, will yield an instantly rewarding tone. There are very few bad sounds to be found in this amp. The response of the amp is a little stiff, but that just means that you need to focus on your playing. Every note rings loud and clear.

SOUNDS

I played a '77 Les Paul and a 2009 Charvel So-Cal through this amp and both guitars sounded excellent. You could really tell that the guitars had changed, but they still sounded excellent. The main cabinet that I was running at this time is a Mojo Musical Supply 4x12 with 2 Hellatone 60L's and 2 VHT P50E's. The amplifier sounded great through this set up, very clear on the clean tones and simply scorching on the dirty tones. One could easily take the Roccaforte Jenelle and play classic rock style and simply turn a knob and reach most modern metal.

OVERALL OPINION

The Jenelle is the merging of two excellent amps from one excellent amp builder. Personally, I like the way that the amp does not cover the playing of the player. One needs to be clean and articulate. The brand new price is a little high for most people, but these can be found on the used market occasionally.