MrDan666
Active member
Hey guys,
Several months back i started working on a project to completely rebuild and modify my JCM800 2204. I got in touch with Mike Fortin in December and became good friends, he shares a lot of the same interests in tone and players as myself. Just before Christmas, after various emails back and forth, we decided to work on a Jose inspired mod design together and the plan was for me to try it out in my JCM800.
I had tried a handful of different mods and ideas over the years, but i never felt the amp ever sounded good enough to me. It was always very stiff in the feel and the amp lacked gain, sustain, and the kind of mids i like. The kind of sound i was aiming for was more of a souped up Marshall sound, similar to the old Jose mods. Plenty of gain, feel, saturation and those trademark upper mids that are usually associated with hotrodded Marshalls.
During February i completely gutted the JCM800 and rebuilt it from scratch. Mike and myself designed the mod and Mike helped me out with advising me along the way, when i was tweaking components inside and trying new ideas. After trying almost a dozen various different revisions of the mod circuit over the last few months, we spoke about it over the phone and decided that it was sounding pretty much spot on to how we wanted it to sound.
A big thanks to Mike Fortin for constantly taking the time to join in and help out, even though he's a busy guy running his own Amp business!
Now the amp has a LOT more gain on tap than a stock JCM800. It can go from more old school hard rock tones, into the higher gain stuff ala Sykes and Aldrich, but it doesn't sound or feel super compressed in anyway. Its got just the right amount of compression in there to make it feel enjoyable to play through, and the tone controls and switches allow for a wide variety of tones. There are 2 gain controls now and also voicing switches for each gain control. The amp also has a Depth/Bass boost control on the back, which gives you the choice of adding a thicker low end/low mids if you like that.
Out of all the amps i have had in the past, this is by far my favorite one.
I made a very short clip of the amp using a cheap video camera, so the sound in the video isn't exactly how I'd like, but I'm sure everyone can appreciate the fact that this stuff sounds better in the room in person, than it does on camera.
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl-qarMyG40
Original file (uncompressed, full audio quality
http://www.mediafire.com/?mulmwzwtyqg
The settings used in the clip are as follows:
Both Gain's set to 1 o clock,
Both Gain voicing switches set to position 2 (out of 5 positions)
Master volume at 0.5
Bass/Middle/Treble at 1 o clock
Presence at 11 o clock
Depth at 9 o clock
The cab used was an original 1978 Marshall 4x12 loaded with G12H30 Blackbacks.
I have pasted both the YouTube link and also a link to Mediafire so you also can download the file and listen to it without the YouTube compression messing with the sound.
Let me know what you guys think More clips will be coming soon to show more of what the amp can do!
Cheers,
Dan
Several months back i started working on a project to completely rebuild and modify my JCM800 2204. I got in touch with Mike Fortin in December and became good friends, he shares a lot of the same interests in tone and players as myself. Just before Christmas, after various emails back and forth, we decided to work on a Jose inspired mod design together and the plan was for me to try it out in my JCM800.
I had tried a handful of different mods and ideas over the years, but i never felt the amp ever sounded good enough to me. It was always very stiff in the feel and the amp lacked gain, sustain, and the kind of mids i like. The kind of sound i was aiming for was more of a souped up Marshall sound, similar to the old Jose mods. Plenty of gain, feel, saturation and those trademark upper mids that are usually associated with hotrodded Marshalls.
During February i completely gutted the JCM800 and rebuilt it from scratch. Mike and myself designed the mod and Mike helped me out with advising me along the way, when i was tweaking components inside and trying new ideas. After trying almost a dozen various different revisions of the mod circuit over the last few months, we spoke about it over the phone and decided that it was sounding pretty much spot on to how we wanted it to sound.
A big thanks to Mike Fortin for constantly taking the time to join in and help out, even though he's a busy guy running his own Amp business!
Now the amp has a LOT more gain on tap than a stock JCM800. It can go from more old school hard rock tones, into the higher gain stuff ala Sykes and Aldrich, but it doesn't sound or feel super compressed in anyway. Its got just the right amount of compression in there to make it feel enjoyable to play through, and the tone controls and switches allow for a wide variety of tones. There are 2 gain controls now and also voicing switches for each gain control. The amp also has a Depth/Bass boost control on the back, which gives you the choice of adding a thicker low end/low mids if you like that.
Out of all the amps i have had in the past, this is by far my favorite one.
I made a very short clip of the amp using a cheap video camera, so the sound in the video isn't exactly how I'd like, but I'm sure everyone can appreciate the fact that this stuff sounds better in the room in person, than it does on camera.
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xl-qarMyG40
Original file (uncompressed, full audio quality
http://www.mediafire.com/?mulmwzwtyqg
The settings used in the clip are as follows:
Both Gain's set to 1 o clock,
Both Gain voicing switches set to position 2 (out of 5 positions)
Master volume at 0.5
Bass/Middle/Treble at 1 o clock
Presence at 11 o clock
Depth at 9 o clock
The cab used was an original 1978 Marshall 4x12 loaded with G12H30 Blackbacks.
I have pasted both the YouTube link and also a link to Mediafire so you also can download the file and listen to it without the YouTube compression messing with the sound.
Let me know what you guys think
More clips will be coming soon to show more of what the amp can do!Cheers,
Dan
