OD into a Jazz Chorus ?

EricTheWeary

I still harbour the idea of buying a used Jazz Chorus combo at some point, although something like a 77 or 85 and not the full on 120 ( if only because I doubt I could lift it into the boot of my car). I

Their distortion channel is an acquired taste. Using an OD pedal in front of the clean channel wont drive it into creamy ( sorry) overdrive I know. Nonetheless it would need to do service as a base for distorted sounds ( ball park of crunch/ bluesy tones for me) in addition to the lush clean tones it would be bought for.

So, has anyone used overdrive or distortion into a JC? Does it crap out? Does it have all sorts of weird overtones? Do you need something with decent onboard eq? Amp in a box type pedal rather than a traditional OD? Unworkable and I should day dream about something else?

But, y'know, when I get that call for depping with The Specials I've got to be ready...

Ta :-)

dano

A mate of mine gigs  / gigged with one, he uses a Electro Harmonix Hot Tubes and prior to that a English muff'n. The pedals generates it's own really nice slightly overdriven sound which the clean channel on the Roland took really well.

EricTheWeary

dano said:

A mate of mine gigs  / gigged with one, he uses a Electro Harmonix Hot Tubes and prior to that a English muff'n. The pedals generates it's own really nice slightly overdriven sound which the clean channel on the Roland took really well.

Ta. I think one of the things I was looking at about the amps had someone using tube (sic) based pedals into it.

Beexter

Not the same I know, but I run an assortment of drive pedals into the "JC Clean" side of the Roland Cubes (I've got a 60 and an 80XL). Sounds great to me so I would be confident it would work on a real JC. My current faves are an Xotic SL Drive and a TREX Moller. I've had success with all sorts though.

monquixote

You would probably be looking at lower gain "amp in a can" type distortions rather than overdrive/boosts designed to push something that's going to break up in a nice way. 

I used to use one at a practice room with a Marshall Guvnor+ and I seem to recall is sounding pretty good.

noisepolluter

I had a JC50 and it sounded alright with (medium to low gain) pedals - you just needed to keep the amp's treble/presence under control. I'm not sure I'd buy one specifically as an OD pedal platform, but it did the job. 

EricTheWeary

noisepolluter said:

I had a JC50 and it sounded alright with (medium to low gain) pedals - you just needed to keep the amp's treble/presence under control. I'm not sure I'd buy one specifically as an OD pedal platform, but it did the job. 

mmm, no probably not. I've just fancied a JC for 20 years and the smaller ones aren't silly money.

Fretwired

I saw Phil Manzanera use two in Roxy Music and he got some lovely overdriven tones via his pedal board. The amp also takes modelling floorboards quite well ... some annoying Americans .. ;-)

noisepolluter

EricTheWeary said:

noisepolluter said:

I had a JC50 and it sounded alright with (medium to low gain) pedals - you just needed to keep the amp's treble/presence under control. I'm not sure I'd buy one specifically as an OD pedal platform, but it did the job. 

mmm, no probably not. I've just fancied a JC for 20 years and the smaller ones aren't silly money.

Equally I might have been suffering from the whole valve/transistor brainwashing thing. Although I've found that OD pedals tend to sound better with an amp with slightly more prominent mids - which tends to be valve amps, with the exception of the scooped fender clean sound.  

EricTheWeary

I've seen JC120s used for keyboards ( John Mayall for a start) so I guess they are quite full range/ neutral as guitar amps go so modellers probably make sense into them. Well, I might start looking for a JC77 or similar, and a fake £50 invoice for MrsTheWeary.

RocknRollDave

She's worth more than £50, surely?

EricTheWeary

To me she's priceless :-*

EricTheWeary

...but very mean with money ( on my stuff anyway). (

JohnPerry

I have a JC77, currently in the loft, but not long ago ran a Tech 21 Liverpool into it and it was great. I agree with @monquixote, amp-in-a-box types will work better than an ordinary OD or distortion.

xSkarloey

Never had the pleasure of playing one but Robert Smith and Billy Duffy always sounded good.

I also saw one of my all time faves Inxs during the glory years (91) and Tim Fariss had a (relatively) odd gear set up. He had two Marshall cabs but instead of two matching heads he had two JC120s sitting on top of them.

For dirt sounds he always used a Rat pedal.

JDE

Rats, and varients thereof, and DS-1's, and varients thereof, all sound great through JC for higher gain. I personally love a TS-type into them - you will need to run the gain higher than you probably would with a valve amp, though. Amp's-in-boxes are also a good bet, but try and get ones with multi-band EQ's. The JC is a great, great amp - remember that Boss voice their pedals using the JC series and the Cube series using them as their base tone. Also, any drive that sounds better into a totally clean amp (Zendrive, for example), tends to sound pretty rad through them.

From my experience of using SS amps for ages and ages.... Basically, more compression is good, as SS amps don't really musically compress. More gain is good, as SS amps don't musically distort. A wide EQ range is always handy, as SS amps can get a bit shrill if they're flat-voiced, or too boomy if they're bass or "jazz" voiced.

p90fool

I tend to favour low gain TS -type tones and could never get them to sound convincing through my old JC120.
It was ok for rhythm but always sounded too indistinct for solos, in fact it felt very much like playing through a SS bass combo with a 15 in it. If you've ever done that you'll know what I mean.

This was years ago however, and I've no doubt some of the pedals i have now would work fine, either a modeller or maybe something like a Joyo AC Tone if you want to stay analog.