Old School Steve
Member
My Helios JB45 just arrived via UPS and I've set it up and played through its various settings for an hour (guitars: Gibson LP R9, PRS Custom 24 35th anniversary; cabinet: Bogner Goldfinger semi-open back 2x12).
Initial thoughts & settings:
Back of Amp
* Excursion setting: I like Vintage Focus most but will experiment with the other two settings in the future (Extended Loose increases the volume significantly)
* Variac: made no noticeable difference in the volume level or tone
Front of Amp
Tone Controls
I've found the following to work well across all 3 channels given my guitars & cabinet:
* Presence - 8
* Bass - 6
* Middle - 5
* Treble - 6
Green Channel (cleans up incredibly well)
* Voicing: Beano (Hugh is my second favorite, as "Bright" is too thin for my taste)
* Shizo I - 8 (more Shizo = more warm/forward tonal goodness)
* Loudness - 5
Purple Channel (this is my "Billy Gibbons" channel)
* Voicing: Classic
* Shizo II - 8 (more Shizo = more fat/woody tonal swell & immersiveness)
Red Channel
* Voicing: Brown (more sizzle)
* Shizo II - 8 (it's shared with the Purple channel)
Overall, the sound variations are awesome (compliments of the Shizo + voicing options). No buyer's remorse so far, and I'm eager to insert my new Universal Audio & Strymon pedals in the FX loop in the coming days. (I plan to pick up a Strymon Cloudburst in the coming days and run it through the JB45 clean channel and that will tell me everything I need to know about how "livable" the JB45 Green channel really is for ambient stuff.)
For those thinking about the JB45, it seems to be really versatile in terms of tone options and the clean channel is so clean that I think it will take an overdrive/gain pedal such as my Orange Bax Bangeetar if I want to tune to Drop D and bang out some Ty Tabor (King's X) tones. I can definitely understand how jazz or instrumental purists will say the Goldfinger SuperLead might be preferable for them, but given that I don't play clean guitar instrumentals much -- I think the JB45 is a better fit for my desire for thick/rich tone Plexi-style tone.
Initial thoughts & settings:
Back of Amp
* Excursion setting: I like Vintage Focus most but will experiment with the other two settings in the future (Extended Loose increases the volume significantly)
* Variac: made no noticeable difference in the volume level or tone
Front of Amp
Tone Controls
I've found the following to work well across all 3 channels given my guitars & cabinet:
* Presence - 8
* Bass - 6
* Middle - 5
* Treble - 6
Green Channel (cleans up incredibly well)
* Voicing: Beano (Hugh is my second favorite, as "Bright" is too thin for my taste)
* Shizo I - 8 (more Shizo = more warm/forward tonal goodness)
* Loudness - 5
Purple Channel (this is my "Billy Gibbons" channel)
* Voicing: Classic
* Shizo II - 8 (more Shizo = more fat/woody tonal swell & immersiveness)
Red Channel
* Voicing: Brown (more sizzle)
* Shizo II - 8 (it's shared with the Purple channel)
Overall, the sound variations are awesome (compliments of the Shizo + voicing options). No buyer's remorse so far, and I'm eager to insert my new Universal Audio & Strymon pedals in the FX loop in the coming days. (I plan to pick up a Strymon Cloudburst in the coming days and run it through the JB45 clean channel and that will tell me everything I need to know about how "livable" the JB45 Green channel really is for ambient stuff.)
For those thinking about the JB45, it seems to be really versatile in terms of tone options and the clean channel is so clean that I think it will take an overdrive/gain pedal such as my Orange Bax Bangeetar if I want to tune to Drop D and bang out some Ty Tabor (King's X) tones. I can definitely understand how jazz or instrumental purists will say the Goldfinger SuperLead might be preferable for them, but given that I don't play clean guitar instrumentals much -- I think the JB45 is a better fit for my desire for thick/rich tone Plexi-style tone.
