By "nice", I mean fixing that cliché sterile solid state amp sound it has when taking digital reverb/delay and distortion pedals at low volumes. It's not a problem whenever I'm playing with a full band, and can just crank the volume to 6+. In fact, it sounds amazing as it's allowed to break up a bit there. But with the volume at a 1 or 2 it sounds awful. Just metallic and yucky. At least with my setup for this particular band, which involves a Gretsch with TV Jones classics and a Wampler Ego compressor.
Just wondering if anyone has some interesting ideas. I thought about just sticking a Joyo American Sound on there somewhere, but that's made for PAs/recording direct, so maybe it would sound dreadful with a solid state amp—I dunno.
Alternatively, if anyone in the Trondheim area wants to either trade a JC-120 for a Twin Reverb, or a JC-40 for a Princeton Reverb, let me know, hah.
Suggestions for making a JC-120 sound nice at low volumes?
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Suggestions for making a JC-120 sound nice at low volumes?
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Re: Suggestions for making a JC-120 sound nice at low volume
do you have the bright switch turned on? it just enables/disables a bright cap on the volume control. you probably know already, but bright caps have a greater effect the lower the volume is set, which often ruins the sound of an amp at lowest settings (especially when pedals are involved).
that said, throwing some kind of drive pedal at the end of the chain is a good call. Joyo American Sound could certainly work, but doesn't it have some speaker emulation too? maybe you could turn up the treble on the pedal to compensate though.
personally i'd try a ~transparent~ soft clipping overdrive at low gain. i know it's a boring answer, but the timmy is really good at that.
or if you have a simple mosfet boost with gain and volume, you can crank the gain to where it clips just a tad then turn down the volume. a zvex super duper 2 in 1 is great for that. pretty expensive obviously, but pretty easy to clone if you've got time.
that said, throwing some kind of drive pedal at the end of the chain is a good call. Joyo American Sound could certainly work, but doesn't it have some speaker emulation too? maybe you could turn up the treble on the pedal to compensate though.
personally i'd try a ~transparent~ soft clipping overdrive at low gain. i know it's a boring answer, but the timmy is really good at that.
or if you have a simple mosfet boost with gain and volume, you can crank the gain to where it clips just a tad then turn down the volume. a zvex super duper 2 in 1 is great for that. pretty expensive obviously, but pretty easy to clone if you've got time.