First gig with JJ-100...... :(

2

2ninety

Member
Just did my first gig (cover gig) with the JJ-100 and was pretty disappointed with the "amp in the room" sound on stage i was getting at stage volume. It sounded thin (heavily upper mid/highs focused), lacked body and felt like there was really nothing happening below 700-ish Hz. Bottom/body was weak and not assertive at all.

I was doing nothing strange with the channel settings (not scooping mids or any excessive settings:) JBE on, Master around 11 o'clock, bass varied between 3 o'clock up to max, presence varied between 11 o'clock/noon, mids pretty much noon maybe slightly under, same with treble, channel master about noon as well (set to drive the effects i had in the loop), Gain 1-2 o'clock maybe.....

Going through a Mesa 4x12 with Vintage 30's. A cab that tends to be on the darker side, yet low range authority was non-existent.....all upper mids and highs. Even maxing out the bass (following the manual sample setting) seemed to do very little in terms of giving it low-mid/low fullness or even balancing out the upper-mids/highs. It sounded more full in a bedroom/basement type setting, but at the club/venue setting....that bottom/body was just no where to be found and what was there seemed easily overpowered by the upper mids/highs.

I'm coming from the Mesa world and i know Mesa's are lower focused and have a ton of bottom....so much so bass it's typically very hard to control/dial out (not looking for that) but this seems like my JJ really has no authority at all in the lower frequencies. Almost felt like it with the bass maxed, it needed maybe 1-ish or maybe 2 more stops to help even out the overpowering mids/highs.

I'm not slamming this amp by any means so please no one take it that way or act as if i'm railing on Friedman amps and trying to glorify mesa or something.....cause i'm not. The clarity this amp has is nothing short of great and something i definitely can't get with my Mesa rig (Triaxis/2:90) which is why i'm amp shopping to begin with, but i'm starting to wonder , is there something wrong with the JJ i have? I'm not getting any weird crackles or noises (even with extreme gain settings it's still pretty damn quiet) so my first thought of tubes doesn't jump out at me as being an issue.....but if the bias was off could that cause this ? It's got the TAD branded tubes in it. The cab/speakers seem fine as well, since when i hook up my other rig everything sounds as expected....

So what i'm asking is.....and any other JJ owners who have played LIVE in a CLUB setting with one PLEASE chime in (no offense to bedroom/basement players, but everything really does sound different in a club/venue setting than at home in my experience).....is what i'm describing pretty much just the way this amp sounds? It just seems like it has this un-tamable upper mids/highs that overpower everything and the bottom isn't really that low or authoritative (or perhaps just being drowned out by the mids/highs). Do Mesa cabs and the JJ not get a long at all? (currently i only have access to Mesa cabs for pairing with the JJ) OR is NONE OF THIS the typical experience with the JJ and something might be wrong with mine? if so, what?? The one i got was a store demo, so there is always a possibility of something being wrong i guess.....

Thanks in advance for any helpful comments/suggestions etc...

Ugh.... :(
 
I sold mine 3 weeks after I bought for some of the same reasons.. I wanted to love it but I never did. The search for me ended with the EVH line
 
How long have you been playing this JJ? Should sound heavy, thick, and mean...not thin. Maybe double check everything then contact Friedman
 
I've had it for just under 2 weeks. It's easier to manage in the basement setting by scooping some of the mids out and dumping some of the high end, but you can't do that in a live setting. It would just sound horrible, clarity goes to hell and so does your cut in the mix.

Even running it through my Two-notes Live cab simulator, i have to choose dark sounding cabs to even out that mid/high spike.....which makes it somewhat better to my ears, but i play a fair amount of "amp in the room" kind of gigs so thats not really a solution....

Lol....maybe I've been playing mid-deficient amps for so long I've developed an "allergy" to strong mid focused amps (joke....)...
 
I'm a bedroom/home recording guy but I'll chime in anyway.

I'm using an MXR 10 band in the loop to fatten up the bottom end a bit. There is a resonance or depth mod available that may help you. Dave mentioned the circuit is set to 1/4 of the way up with a resistor and cap from the factory but a pot can be installed. A few here have the mod I'm pretty sure but I don't have the time to dig for it right now.
 
I've done some recording with the Two-Notes Live and gotten some decent heavy tones. Grabbed some isolated tracks (vox, bass, drums) of a Disturbed tune (Stricken) off youtube and got fairly/moderately close to the original guitar tones, but took a bit of post EQ to get there.

I just hate the idea of running an EQ on an amp this expensive to get me where I'd like to be......i guess it is an option as i do have an MXR laying around....and honestly hadn't thought of trying that yet...

The depth mod sounds promising though. I had already decided if i were to keep the amp that i was going to have the JBE gain/vol mod done so its essentially a 3rd channel.
 
Most people think my amps have to much low end. Funny. Jerry doesn't even run the bass at 10. Maybe something is wrong, Never had this complaint especially at gig volume. What's in your loop? Couldn't really tell you much about the cab since I have never heard it. Could easily make it have more low end..
Also what throws me is a lot of people think my amps are dark. Would be happy to check it out or even tweak it for free. Please let me know Dave Friedmanamps@gmail.com
 
Mine has been crushing live. Too much bass if anything. I have to roll it off a bit once the room heats up. Sounds killer live through either my old Jubilee cabs or a new Friedman 4x12. I much prefer the Friedman cab though.
 
OK. This may sound odd to many, but this is my finding with Mesa Oversized cabs (not sure if yours is oversized or traditional. It could be the same thing with the traditional) and Marshall style amps. I have seen this happen to a couple people actually and I have determined (IMO of course) from the comparisons that the Oversized Mesa cab (perhaps traditional size as well) just does not react well to a Marshall'esque low end frequencies.

One example is my former band-mate got a 2203KK to replace his 5150. He used 2 oversized Mesa cabs. My old 2203 was just crushing him in terms of power and "oomph" no matter how we set his amp. I was using 2 old JCM800 1960's with G12-65's at the time. I had tons of low end and his 2203KK sounded really weak and anemic. I switched to one cab and let him use my other cab. Instant power. Instant low end. It was night and day. He sold the Mesa's and got 2 new 1960's and he's happy again.

Another buddy told me the same issue with his DSL and I recommended trying his other guitar players cab (not sure what it was). He ended up selling his Mesa oversized and replaced it with a Bogner if i remember correctly.

I honestly believe it's just that combo of oversized/speakers/head that doesn't work.

FWIW, my BE-100 has the bass on 4 or 5 max. It has tons of rumble. I'm using a Friedman cab these days.
 
bass on 4 and you should have a thick crushing tone...what you are describing is basically the opposite of how my JJ sounds... especially on stage. i would have it looked over by a good tech...
 
Thanks for the replies.....really making me suspicious now it could all be pointing back to my cab. Especially what atrox described because my Mesa cab is one of the older oversized ones. I wonder if there is some sort of phase cancelation/amplification going on inside that cab. Canceling out a lot of the bottom and giving me this REALLY pronounced upper-mid/low-high spike that seems to dominate. But what was described by atrox is pretty much spot on with what i'm hearing.....weak/anemic bottom and no "oomph" when i was at gig volume.

I do have a Marshall 1960b cab i haven't played on in years loaded with V30's (added in the mid-90's replacing the stock GT75's), but that cab had been used/abused since the early 90's and i'm skeptical those speakers are in really good shape. The JJ sounds about the same through that as it does thru the Mesa.....but again not sure those speakers are in any condition to be a good comparison.

Based on what everyone has said here, I have a couple friends letting me try their cabs over the next couple days. Another Oversize Mesa (but with some new V30's from Mesa in it) and couple 2x12 V30 Marshalls. Just sounds like this low-end issue should NOT be an issue.....
 
"How long have you been playing this JJ? Should sound heavy, thick, and mean...not thin."

"Jerry doesn't even run the bass at 10. Maybe something is wrong"

I tend to think the same thing and SOMETHING is wrong...

What is your signal path both direct in and what is in your loop. You already identified the cab and speakers but something could be wrong there. There as always could be something wrong with a tube. Are you the original owner or 2nd, 3rd, etc owner. Maybe a previous owner fucked with it?

Out of all the amps I've heard and played through, personally I like the Double JJ the best and is tighter/stiffer due to the choke and B+ line. The resonance is fixed. Throw in a pot as someone else suggested and make it variable then fuck with the cap value. however you need to see if anything is wrong up-front. Again, let Dave know the signal chain and worst case, send to him to evaluate and fix if need be.
 
Never played JJ, but on my Smallbox I found out something like that.
At low volumes the SB has more Bass, and I like some home recordings with Presence in 10, and Treble on 7.
On stage I need to decrease the Presence and Treble.

But it really sounds awesome at any volumes, just need to make some EQ adjustment.
And actually, it is the BEST amp I ever played at low volumes.
 
Well after playing some other cabs and then inspecting mine closely, it currently appears the root of the problem is/was 1 of the speakers in my Mesa 4x12. It was still working but there was something strange going on with it that just wasn't "right". It's a stereo cab so in testing i ran each side by itself (so only 2 at a time). When i ran that side the issue with the speaker was much more apparent. It wasn't very obvious when all 4 were firing that there was a speaker issue. Somehow that 1 speaker apparently caused some kind of strange phase issues that was canceling out a lot of the low end, causing some strange mid-range spike and killing the overall projection of the cab in general. I had a spare laying around and swapped it out......then bam.....tons of clear low end, no more strange mid-range spike and huge room-filling projection. The issue was apparently not as noticeable with my Mesa amp (triaxis/2:90) i'm assuming because it has so much low end with the "deep extend" (as well as different mid frequencies), it was more easily compensated for by just turning up the bass a notch or two. The 2:90 is so freakin loud the projection issue wasn't a problem either. Having that thing 10 o'clock (on only 1 side, it's stereo) is equivalent to having the JJ master close to 1 o'clock.

So i'm pretty happy now and getting some really incredible/versatile and usable sounds.

Never knew just 1 malfunctioning speaker could wreak such havoc with a 4x12 cabinet. So for anyone out there that has a cab with a known bad speaker.....it's probably messing up a lot more frequency-wise than just having only 3 good speakers etc...

Thanks for all the troubleshooting suggestions!
 
Was that one speaker just wired backwards somehow?. That's what it sounds like from your description.

Glad you got it sorted out
 
Oh cool, nice that you got it sorted out. I have a JJ and was gonna say that I have the depth mod on mine. I prefer the amp with the mod but it sounds great either way. I will say that for me I was wanting a bit more low/sub low avialible and the mod did the trick. I can actually back off the bass knob a little and raise the depth up for a nice sub low girth while still retaining a really tight response. Killer amp !
 
"You already identified the cab and speakers but something could be wrong there."

Told ya! Glad ya got it working buddy!! :)
 
i find my jj really picky with cabs.

mesa recto and mills cabs didnt thump like my hiwatt, or marshall , lynchback, kerry wright cabs.

even with the same identical speaker combos. in fact all of em sound quite different.

another thing that i would like to add is that you can never pass judgement on speakers at bedroom volume. to get speakers and cabs to open up you need a certain amount of volume beforre u start to get some sympathetic cab resonance.

until you hit that point, u really havent heard what the cab and speakers really sound like.

last thing to mention is you have to eq and set up the amp at the volume that u will play and record at. low volume settings simply do not translate well to just cranking up the master.

imo of course.....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top