Another amp bargain and distoriton pedal suggestions

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:37 am

In the absence of my Marshall as luck would have it i got a call from the old Dogs singer asking me if i was interested in an amp for Â£50.
A 'Bass Beasty'. I lolled at him but then he said "oh, its Carlsbro.." so i went round and got this...

A real score! They retail at about Â£400 and i think it is something like 300w output.

Anyways, i used the Korg Toneworks last night and was'nt impressed with the pedal. I know quite a bit about distortion/overdrive pedals but i am open to suggestions as to what i should get. I do like the traditional Marshall sound and considered a cheap n cheerfull JH-1 Jackhammer. Or maybe a Digitech modelling distortion.. any better suggestions or anyone got owt for sale?

Post by **Mike** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:48 am

You came to the right place.

I have demo'd three of the Marshall Dirt boxes. My favourites are the Guv'nor 2 (Marshall Crunch, great versatile EQ) and the Bluesbreaker II (which just sounds great without much work). The Jackhammer is OK as an Overdrive but sucks as a Distortion IMO and the Contour control is a joke:

Marshall BB-2 Bluesbreaker II
[youtube][/youtube]

Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer
[youtube][/youtube]

Marshall GV-2 Guv'nor Plus
[youtube][/youtube]

Amp looks cool, my bass player J has a similar spec Laney one and it's brilliant. Here it is, the Laney R4, they've updated the Richter series now with the prefix RB and there's more models and they're lower power. The R4 is 300W with a 15" driver and a horn for the highs, Graphic EQ, compressor etc. It also has a high quality built in DI out.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:35 pm

Thanks mike. I never thought to check your demos

I totally forgot about the BB-II, i had one years ago and was impressed, the Guvnor is quite impressive as is the JH-1 (except for that fizzling high end setting).
To my ears the JH-1 has the low end over the other two, would you say i am right?
Brilliant demos, i can see why you are pro- Tele/crunch. You got a good sound going on there, very defined playing style.

Post by **Mike** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 12:50 pm

Fran wrote:Thanks mike. I never thought to check your demos
I totally forgot about the BB-II, i had one years ago and was impressed, the Guvnor is quite impressive as is the JH-1 (except for that fizzling high end setting).
To my ears the JH-1 has the low end over the other two, would you say i am right?
Brilliant demos, i can see why you are pro- Tele/crunch. You got a good sound going on there, very defined playing style.

hahah thanks. That's my style anyway, I'm a one trick pony!

You can dial in a lot more bass than I was using on the Guv'nor with the Bass and Deep controls but the BB-2 was about as much as you'll get as it only has a tone control...

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 9:49 pm

I'm currently playing my friend's Peavey Mark III Series 260C (I think that's the model name, there's about three or four different pieces of text that could be it. It looks pretty similar to both the amps above. It's fucking class.

Here's a really poor picture of one:

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 10:42 pm

Forgive my dumbness but is it a bass amp?

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:25 pm

It's a bass amp. It doesn't have the proper, fully parametric EQ like yours, but it does have a slighty parametric mid, in that you can define the "Q", the frequency, and the cut/boost. That, and pre and post gains, and Peavey's compression, which I've been told is very good, but I can't hear it doing anything at bedroom levels.

The thing's a fucking monster, and has a 15" Black Widow speaker, which is awesome.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Fri Feb 22, 2008 11:37 pm

Do you play guitar or bass through it? That may seem like an odd question but i play guitar through mine coz i'm tight and wont buy another guitar amp whilst the Marshall is broke. If so what pedals do you use with it?

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Sat Feb 23, 2008 12:01 am

I play bass through it. I'm not really a bassist, but really enjoy playing bass every so often. This amp and one of his basses was lying in Derry, and my friend lives in Belfast (as do I, except at weekends), so I offered to pu new strings on the bass and set it up for him if he gave it me for a while.

I also play my A-aritone through it. It's an LTD superstrat I got off Nick that I've put a set of 072's on, and tuned to A, like the fifth fret on a bass. I then duct taped an epiphone humbucker to it, and it sounds fucking class.

I don't use any pedals, as with the pre/post gain as well as the flexible EQ, I can get more or less all the sounds I like.