
Kapo_Polenton
Well-known member
Been messing around with making my JCM800 into a three channel amp.. Classic Rock, Hot Rodded, Liquid Leads. The key I feel is not overdoing the volume on the OD (75%) and leaving the gain fairly low (2-3). For me, the el cheapo bad monkey rains supreme. It's got the mojo. So much so that I think i should go get another in case this one ever craps out. I've tried lots of high end pedals and this one just has the tightness i like and is relatively (meaning enough) "transparent".
I had bought the koko boost to serve both functions but i found the boosts sat too much on top of the tone and fattened the tone too much making it splatty at higher levels. The winning combo however is the Koko boost set no higher than 2 ( I know, this really means i am not using the pedal to it's fullest extent) pushing the bad monkey when i need Sykes or Vai or Aldrich levels of gain. I'm talking barely needing to touch the strings and effortless alternate picking.
I consider myself a med gain guy but at the end of the day if you want those harmonics and fast runs, ya need some gain. Piling gain on gain ends up sounding like $hit. So the key for me, was slight gain increases through each stage/pedal and a good med output pup or hot pup (SD or JB). Lovin the tones. Helping however, is that beastly 800 or 800 type circuit sitting in the background. Allows you to cover a lot of ground in a pinch and with a les paul type, you can roll back your volume on the neck pup and go from clean to crunch where required.
I know this is no brainer but just had to say that OD into boost is what I was looking for. The clean boost thickens the mids i am getting with the monkey. A perfect combo. OD into OD squashed signal a bit more I found and cranking the gain on a TS type or SD-1 compressed the tone too much when I went back to rythms. Glad I tried it. You guys should too!
I had bought the koko boost to serve both functions but i found the boosts sat too much on top of the tone and fattened the tone too much making it splatty at higher levels. The winning combo however is the Koko boost set no higher than 2 ( I know, this really means i am not using the pedal to it's fullest extent) pushing the bad monkey when i need Sykes or Vai or Aldrich levels of gain. I'm talking barely needing to touch the strings and effortless alternate picking.
I consider myself a med gain guy but at the end of the day if you want those harmonics and fast runs, ya need some gain. Piling gain on gain ends up sounding like $hit. So the key for me, was slight gain increases through each stage/pedal and a good med output pup or hot pup (SD or JB). Lovin the tones. Helping however, is that beastly 800 or 800 type circuit sitting in the background. Allows you to cover a lot of ground in a pinch and with a les paul type, you can roll back your volume on the neck pup and go from clean to crunch where required.
I know this is no brainer but just had to say that OD into boost is what I was looking for. The clean boost thickens the mids i am getting with the monkey. A perfect combo. OD into OD squashed signal a bit more I found and cranking the gain on a TS type or SD-1 compressed the tone too much when I went back to rythms. Glad I tried it. You guys should too!