Metaltronix distortion pedal

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guitarmike

guitarmike

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Does this sound good to you? :confused:

For some reason I want to like Lee Jackson's stuff but after 6-7 of his amps and one Marshall he modded, it never got better than ok. The only time I got a Metaltronix amp to sound good was when I stuffed a Friedman modded JCM 800 chassis into a Metaltronix cabinet. Stock, it was an insanely loud amp, too loud to be usable.

http://www.leejackson.com/Metaltronix_DG-1-LeeJackson_Demo.mov
 
Nope...
Clip sounds like ass..
A bias control with no tube in the circuit? :confused:
I had terrible luck with his amps. Gave new meaning to the phrase "up in flames" :lol: :LOL:
 
The guy can't even tune his guitar ..why would anyone trust his bees in a box mods? I've thought any of his amps I heard sounded horrible. ..unless of course you want a fuzz pedal built into your amp.
 
I have to agree. Even through decent monitors, it sounds bad.

I have met Lee a few times, and cannot say anything bad about the guy (super nice guy), but this pedal seems like a gimmick.
 
Well at least his pedal sounds more or less consistent with his amps so I'd say he did a good job making a replica pedal!
 
I don't know about his pedals but I have had a old lee Jackson mod jmp with xtra preamp tube and fx loop and 2nd master on front and it kicked ass. His metaltronix and crate stealth had quality problems.
 
Ditto to the rest of the opinions

theres alot of better pedals out there to be had

even the cheapies - joyo , biyang etc

fwiw, the CM plexitone I had was tone-wise leaps and bounds beyond any Lee Jackson gear I played

plus think resale value - for a LJ pedal you'll end up getting pennies
on the dollar :cry:
 
Kapo_Polenton":9bcu52c9 said:
Well at least his pedal sounds more or less consistent with his amps so I'd say he did a good job making a replica pedal!


theres alot of wisdom to this statement if you take it to the next level ..... :yes:
 
Kapo_Polenton":28duqgmt said:
The guy can't even tune his guitar ..why would anyone trust his bees in a box mods? I've thought any of his amps I heard sounded horrible. ..unless of course you want a fuzz pedal built into your amp.

OK, I've never personally played one I thought was great but a lot of people talk about Dokken ULAK tone and people associate it with Tim Casswell but the recording was made with a lee jackson modded marshall. Oh yeah and a rockman. :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL:

I've heard some internet clips that sounded good
 
Schaf":2cf4v9k0 said:
a lot of people talk about Dokken ULAK tone and people associate it with Tim Casswell but the recording was made with a lee jackson modded marshall.
Never heard that one before that I recall...what's your source?
 
Schaf":1ytu5jqr said:
Kapo_Polenton":1ytu5jqr said:
The guy can't even tune his guitar ..why would anyone trust his bees in a box mods? I've thought any of his amps I heard sounded horrible. ..unless of course you want a fuzz pedal built into your amp.

OK, I've never personally played one I thought was great but a lot of people talk about Dokken ULAK tone and people associate it with Tim Casswell but the recording was made with a lee jackson modded marshall. Oh yeah and a rockman. :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL:

I've heard some internet clips that sounded good
Never heard the Lee Jackson story associated with ULAK. I have heard of a Tascam and the Rockman, plus the infamous Caswell #39..

I have heard that Don has a Jose modded head that may have been used for part of his solo stuff (along with Marshalls pushed with a guv/nor pedal). Are you confusing teh 2 by any chance?

But tell me more about the Lee Jackson ULAK connection...
 
Schaf":1uamxtkx said:
OK, I've never personally played one I thought was great but a lot of people talk about Dokken ULAK tone .......the recording was made with a lee jackson modded marshall. Oh yeah and a rockman. :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL:


Where did you hear / read this ?
 
I thought that Lynch rented the SIR amp for the tour but that he recorded ULAK with a few different amps..I believe that Michael Wagener said that on a previous thread from a few years ago somewhere..up to that point I do believe he had some Lee Jackson Marshalls. But after touring with the Caswell, pretty sure Tim modded a few for George after SIR refused to give that amp up. Caswell lives about 20 minutes away from me in Wi..plays keys in a blues band. Maybe I could ask him....
 
rupe":qwzy4ay3 said:
Schaf":qwzy4ay3 said:
a lot of people talk about Dokken ULAK tone and people associate it with Tim Casswell but the recording was made with a lee jackson modded marshall.
Never heard that one before that I recall...what's your source?

It use to be on his website where it documented what he used on each album for the tour and in the studio. It's not on his website anymore. I wish it was because it gave a detailed account for each record and tour. He did use the SIR Marshall for the tour. It's well documented that came he across the SIR at rehearsals for the ULAK tour. And there's a lot of confusion over the purple Aspin Pittman Marshall too. Some say it was used on ULAK but he started using that on Back for the Attack. And he was closely associated with Lee's mods at the time of ULAK. He used him in all his ads. I saw several links to the spot on his website when I was looking that detailed the info but it was blank.

It's clear that he didn't use the SIR Marshall to record the album. And it's alway been interesting to me that the SIR Marshall gets credit for it.

But, I don't really care for Lee Jackson mods or his amps really. I have an Ampeg and my stock JCM800 with a tubescreamer eats it alive. And my friend had a XLS 500. Just really didn't sound that great to me on it's own. If you turned that gain down to like a JCM level and hit it with a TS, it sounded good but what's the sense of having the gain there if you can't use it. The thing was super stiff and hard to play too. I tried it with EL34's and 5881's just to experiment to see if that was the issue. Still the same. Muddy gain and super stiff to play unless you smooth it out with an OD. And that so called attenuater on them. I called that knob the suck knob. :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL: :lol: :LOL:
 
I owned 2 xls series amps that sounded decent with eq'ing in the loop. I think if you play his stuff at stadium levels they sound ok but who can do that or who even wants to do it any more. Might be interesting with a 2 notes live.
 
I had an XLS-500 for about a year. Really liked that amp. Had sellers remorse when I sold it to buy a 1983 4210 Marshall that ended up sounding like @$$. Had a Lee Jackson cab too that sounded great with the amp.

Never had problems with its reliability, etc. Liked it with a nice pair of 5881's in it.

Sold it because it wasn't punchy enough but it was smooth and sang pretty nice...
 
dirtyfunkg":3jxoelkh said:
I had an XLS-500 for about a year. Really liked that amp. Had sellers remorse when I sold it to buy a 1983 4210 Marshall that ended up sounding like @$$. Had a Lee Jackson cab too that sounded great with the amp.

Never had problems with its reliability, etc. Liked it with a nice pair of 5881's in it.

Sold it because it wasn't punchy enough but it was smooth and sang pretty nice...

Interesting, becuase I thought with enough volume it was very punchy. But the one I had never sounded smooth at all. Quite the opposite.
 
It remind me how bad my first setup was. He did a perfect emulation of a Ross amp with dod distortion in a single box. :lol: :LOL:
 
We look at it know 25 years later and for the most part, Lee Jackson's stuff sounds terrible. I do acknowledge that if you turn the amps up loud enough they can sound ok but I wonder if our taste in tone changed or did it suck back then too. The attenuator on those amps just turned whatever tone you had into mush, how could anyone think that was a good design? He kept using it on all 3 series of amps from the 80's through the xls series in the mid 90's.
 
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