The Tone Thread

[JD01]

Ok here's the 800...at like gig loudness. Not quite as loud as my usual loudness, but still pretty friggin loud.

Gibson Les Paul Traditional - Burstbucker 3 bridge pickup
Marshall JCM 800 2203
Pres - 5
Bass - 7
Mid - 7
Treb - 5
Master vol - 4
Preamp vol - 7
Marshall 1960A 4x12 - Celestion Greenbacks
Audix i5 on axis, 1" off grill, dustcap/cone - Shure SM57 on axis, 1" off grill, cone halfway to edge
50/50 blend
No EQ or FX

LP800GBi557.mp3

That sounds great. Particularly on the muted section.

[Greg_L]

(i replied to this last night? i think the post got eaten)

Whats the riff? You write that? I like the way it starts out.

Tone actually sounded a little darker for you. but it could have just been my ears after playing with that cabinet? Was this after the retubing and stuff? is there an A/B ? liek a before and after retubing. that might have been cool? Or maybe i didn't go back far enough?

Thanks dude. This was after retubing and there is no A/B. I just banged it out. It's pretty thick and that comes from the two mics fully blended. It's like a wallop of midrange. In a real mix I'd tailor the blend a little better.

It's not my riff. I wish it was. It's a Dictators song called "Avenue A".

That sounds great. Particularly on the muted section.

Thanks man. JCM 800 - the perfect punk rock amp.

[JD01]

Thanks man. JCM 800 - the perfect punk rock amp.

I think you need to qualify that... its perfect if you have a 1960A and the space/neighbours to crank it!

I've been looking on eBay today. There's Dual Recs on there that are in my budget... but they're just too loud and impractical for me.

[Greg_L]

I think you need to qualify that... its perfect if you have a 1960A and the space/neighbours to crank it!

Yeah maybe. But it's not the amp's fault that sometimes the situation is imperfect for it.

I've been looking on eBay today. There's Dual Recs on there that are in my budget... but they're just too loud and impractical for me.

Yeah you don't want a full size Dual Rec. See any minis on there?

[JD01]

I think you need to qualify that... its perfect if you have a 1960A and the space/neighbours to crank it!

Yeah maybe. But it's not the amp's fault that sometimes the situation is imperfect for it.

I've been looking on eBay today. There's Dual Recs on there that are in my budget... but they're just too loud and impractical for me.

Yeah you don't want a full size Dual Rec. See any minis on there?

Yeah, there are a few minis and Marks but they're well over a grand still - holding their value much better.

[Greg_L]

Hey minerman, it's baaaaaack!

jube.jpg

Actually, it's got a problem. It blew the HT fuse last night. We were having bad weather so maybe there was a voltage spike or something. I replaced the fuse and then it worked again, but it makes this intermittent pop-pop-pop-pop low frequency helicopter sound at idle. So I'm gonna try to figure it out. Not that I know anything about anything.

[Minerman]

Hey minerman, it's baaaaaack!
Actually, it's got a problem. It blew the HT fuse last night. We were having bad weather so maybe there was a voltage spike or something. I replaced the fuse and then it worked again, but it makes this intermittent pop-pop-pop-pop low frequency helicopter sound at idle. So I'm gonna try to figure it out. Not that I know anything about anything.

That sucks about the amp having issues, but it will give us some insight if you figure out the problem & fix it...

I've been under the weather over here for a day or two & still feel kinda shitty, but I'm working on the JCM800/Mini Jube comparison clips...I had a look in the "Gerg" folder, & I found 10 other clips of your JCM800...Some are using different speakers instead of the Greenback, but I have those too (G12-65, G12H, V30), but won't make any clips on my end with those because of the bottom/low end loss using the ISO cab (plus I'd have to put the speakers back in the Bastard cab)...

There's nothing confirmed or "official", but I may be moving to another place before too long & when that finally does happen, I may end up keeping my 4x12's instead of going with 2x12's like I keep yapping about...I'm not really sure about it because I don't want my tones to suffer due to a smaller cab...I've even been thinking of selling my EVH cab, while it does sound great I'm not sure it gives me anything the "Bastard" cab & older Greenback didn't...If I could sell it, I'd have a big chunk of the $$$ to buy a couple of those 2061x 2x12 cabs from Sour Mash...


The new EL34 amps that are popping up are making me really pay attention to 'em...If the new 50w Marshall Origin heads sound good like the Mini Jube does (IMO anyway), I'm probably gonna end up with one...I just realized the power scaling on those amps have 3 positions instead of 2 like the Mini Jube...The 50w Origin's front panel says "50/10/1w" next to the toggle switch & that amp has a few features I've been looking for (EL34's, power scaling, plexi-ish sound)...On top of that, the 50w head is a lot cheaper than I expected at $650...

[Greg_L]

That sucks about the amp having issues, but it will give us some insight if you figure out the problem & fix it...

I'm not 100% sure there even is an issue. I played it a bunch this afternoon with no problems.

I'm wondering if the combination of thunderstorm and dirty power in an overloaded garage made the amp pop the fuse and make weird noises.

Also, this big Jubilee does get weird when you pull the rhythm clip on the lead channel. It drops a little volume and thins out. Not a good sound. The lead channel is good on it's own, and the rhythm clip apparently needs to just stay with the clean channel.

[Minerman]

That sucks about the amp having issues, but it will give us some insight if you figure out the problem & fix it...

I'm not 100% sure there even is an issue. I played it a bunch this afternoon with no problems.

I'm wondering if the combination of thunderstorm and dirty power in an overloaded garage made the amp pop the fuse and make weird noises.

Also, this big Jubilee does get weird when you pull the rhythm clip on the lead channel. It drops a little volume and thins out. Not a good sound. The lead channel is good on it's own, and the rhythm clip apparently needs to just stay with the clean channel.

That might be a good thing if it was just the weather & power causing the issues...

The way you describe the volume drop/thin thing sounds exactly what I was talking about with my amp...If I didn't pay attention, I might not have even noticed it, but there's definitely something going on with the rhythm clip knob...I wouldn't say it sounded bad, but I will say it sounds better on the lead channel with the rhythm clip turned off...

[Greg_L]

Well look at this.

20180128_184212 - Copy.jpg

That's a blowed up capacitor. I don't know what it is because this modern Jubilee amp is fucking untraceable inside, but it's gonna need to be changed.

20180128_200943 - Copy.jpg

This is the guts of the Jubilee reissue. It doesn't even look like a fucking amp. It's a goddamn computer with tubes.

[Lt. Bob]

that's kinda how my Marshall 6101 POS is although it's even more HAL inspired than that.

Mine has multiple stacked PCBs and a HUGE chip in the center of everything.

It's a total POS and I'm tired of fixing it .... just a PIA to take apart.

I'm not gonna sell it because it WILL quickly breakdown on whoever gets it and I don't want to have to deal with the bullshit that would follow. Regardless of how thoroughly I explain to them that it's gonna break down you just know you're gonna hear a buncha shit about it ..... so I'm stuck with it.

I'm considering yanking the guts out and sticking some other kinda amp in there or cutting it down to just a 12" speaker cab.

Apparently they've got that PCB thing figured out because I don't hear stuff about newer Marshall's breaking down.

But mine was the blue tolex so it was made in that first run and I've had a lot of amps and this thing is the biggest, most unreliable, WILL breakdown in the middle of a gig POS I ever have even heard of.
Just terrible .....

lol ........ I was so excited to get it too!

[Greg_L]

that's kinda how my Marshall 6101 POS is although it's even more HAL inspired than that.

Mine has multiple stacked PCBs and a HUGE chip in the center of everything.

It's a total POS and I'm tired of fixing it .... just a PIA to take apart.

I'm not gonna sell it because it WILL quickly breakdown on whoever gets it and I don't want to have to deal with the bullshit that would follow. Regardless of how thoroughly I explain to them that it's gonna break down you just know you're gonna hear a buncha shit about it ..... so I'm stuck with it.

I'm considering yanking the guts out and sticking some other kinda amp in there or cutting it down to just a 12" speaker cab.

Apparently they've got that PCB thing figured out because I don't hear stuff about newer Marshall's breaking down.

But mine was the blue tolex so it was made in that first run and I've had a lot of amps and this thing is the biggest, most unreliable, WILL breakdown in the middle of a gig POS I ever have even heard of.
Just terrible .....

lol ........ I was so excited to get it too!

Lol. You still have that thing? You need to sell it. Fuck em. There is a weird cult of Marshall fanboys that love those amps. I haven't seen many, but the ones I have seen have all had broken push-buttons or wobbly pots.

They sound pretty decent though when they work.

I'm pretty disappointed with the guts of this Jubilee. I wasn't expecting this kind of IBM PC construction in a classic reissue. I'm fine with the normal green PCBs where you can still see the traces and plot things out, but this is just wtf. I have no idea what any of this stuff is or does. It's all painted black! I have no idea what that blown cap does and I can't find a schematic anywhere. It's a 10uf 160V. I'm guessing it's something with the filaments or bias supply. Fuck if I know. All I know is that it's clearly blown and I'm gonna swap it out. On the plus side, this thing looks like it comes apart pretty easily. All of the wiring is spade connectors or those molex connectors. It looks like I can probably remove the entire board without even heating up a soldering iron. I'm gonna have to take a thousand pics and label these wires.

[Lt. Bob]

I'm pretty disappointed with the guts of this Jubilee. I wasn't expecting this kind of IBM PC construction in a classic reissue. I'm fine with the normal green PCBs where you can still see the traces and plot things out, but this is just wtf. I have no idea what any of this stuff is or does. It's all painted black! I have no idea what that blown cap does and I can't find a schematic anywhere. It's a 10uf 160V. I'm guessing it's something with the filaments or bias supply. Fuck if I know. All I know is that it's clearly blown and I'm gonna swap it out. On the plus side, this thing looks like it comes apart pretty easily. All of the wiring is spade connectors or those molex connectors. It looks like I can probably remove the entire board without even heating up a soldering iron. I'm gonna have to take a thousand pics and label these wires.

yeah .... where are those things made?
They have to lay out circuits for mass production purposes.

What a LOT of modern mass produced amps do is replicate the old circuitry but using a newly designed version .... Fenders have been like that for a while.
The amps sound pretty much the same because the function of everything in the circuitry IS replicated but the actual circuitry that's doing it is layed out completely differently and even the components might be changed.

It's so stupid now ..... get this, true current on-going story.

I needed a powered PA speaker so I bought a Fender Fighter 12" powered for a New Years eve gig.
Pretty decent unit actually for around 300 bucks.

The third gig I did the screws that held on the plastic polemount fitting popped thru the plastic and it was wobbling all over the place.
So since it's new I didn't want to open it up and run some good bolts in because it might void the warranty so I took it to the Gold Rated Fender tech Fender themselves said to take it to.
He calls me the next day and says they have to replace the entire unit!
There ARE no replacement parts for it at all and the same is true of anything else they sell that's around $300 or less.
It's cheaper for them to simply give me a new unit because they prolly only cost Fender 30-40 bucks to make and not having a parts inventory saves a ton of money!
That's fucking crazy!

They didn't even give me the option of just fixing it myself ..... he even told me he couldn't give me back my unit!
He's lucky I'm old and don't give a shit or I'd be down there with the cops making sure he knew he damned well could give me my unit back.

So because of a plastic part that a couple of washers would fix, they destroy the old one and give me a new one ..... stupid.

I'm gonna by an aluminum mount and keep it handy 'cause it will do it again.

So the more these things are stamped out by the giant amp-stamping machine in China, the more that under-the-hood they will all look like computers that've been made to the specs of whomever.

[Greg_L]

yeah .... where are those things made?

Jolly ol England. This is not one of the cheaper Vietnam made Marshalls. This is a legit Brit-made Marshall....built like a computer.

They have to lay out circuits for mass production purposes.

What a LOT of modern mass produced amps do is replicate the old circuitry but using a newly designed version .... Fenders have been like that for a while.
The amps sound pretty much the same because the function of everything in the circuitry IS replicated but the actual circuitry that's doing it is layed out completely differently and even the components might be changed.

I get all that. A lot of it is new electrical manufacturing standards that they have to comply with. But I look inside a JCM 800 reissue and it's pretty much exactly like the originals. The board is the same, the components are the same. The layout is exactly the same. I can print off a schematic for a 1981 2203 and it will still correlate to a 2018 reissue. I've been reverse-engineering my 50w Plexi reissue. It's exactly as the 1970 schematic says it should be. Every component is what it should be and it's laid out on the board from preamp, to tone stack, to phase inverter, to bias supply, to power section, just like it should be. It's dead-nuts exact. The 800 and various Plexi reissues have actual wires and tube sockets and pots and things that you'd expect to see inside a tube amp. This Jubilee resissue...I don't even know wtf is going on in there. Original Jubilees are not like this at all. Not even a little. They look like regular amps inside. This thing has no rhyme or reason. It seems very random. I can't trace the signal flow out at all.

It's so stupid now ..... get this, true current on-going story.

I needed a powered PA speaker so I bought a Fender Fighter 12" powered for a New Years eve gig.
Pretty decent unit actually for around 300 bucks.

The third gig I did the screws that held on the plastic polemount fitting popped thru the plastic and it was wobbling all over the place.
So since it's new I didn't want to open it up and run some good bolts in because it might void the warranty so I took it to the Gold Rated Fender tech Fender themselves said to take it to.
He calls me the next day and says they have to replace the entire unit!
There ARE no replacement parts for it at all and the same is true of anything else they sell that's around $300 or less.
It's cheaper for them to simply give me a new unit because they prolly only cost Fender 30-40 bucks to make and not having a parts inventory saves a ton of money!
That's fucking crazy!

They didn't even give me the option of just fixing it myself ..... he even told me he couldn't give me back my unit!
He's lucky I'm old and don't give a shit or I'd be down there with the cops making sure he knew he damned well could give me my unit back.

So because of a plastic part that a couple of washers would fix, they destroy the old one and give me a new one ..... stupid.

I'm gonna by an aluminum mount and keep it handy 'cause it will do it again.

Wow, that's fucked up. It's really weird that they'd confiscate it. Lol. It's just a speaker, not a plutonium warhead.

[Lt. Bob]

Wow, that's fucked up. It's really weird that they'd confiscate it. Lol. It's just a speaker, not a plutonium warhead.

I guarantee that if I wasn't so busy I'd disabuse him of that notion.

No freakin' way a warranty gives them any legal rights over my piece of property.
ALL it gives them is the right to void my warranty if I don't want to follow their procedures.

lol ..... a little of the old me is still there though ..... I came within an inch of calling the police and reporting it stolen!

[Greg_L]

I guarantee that if I wasn't so busy I'd disabuse him of that notion.

No freakin' way a warranty gives them any legal rights over my piece of property.
ALL it gives them is the right to void my warranty if I don't want to follow their procedures.

lol ..... a little of the old me is still there though ..... I came within an inch of calling the police and reporting it stolen!

Lol. When I was working on cars, there used to be an obscure bit of municipal legislation that stated that if we, the shop, deemed a customer's car unsafe, and they refused to make the minimum repairs to get the car safe, we could "quarantine" the car until it was made safe to drive. Now we absolutely never enacted this law, and I've never heard of anyone that has, but supposedly we could if we needed to. That's an actual public safety issue. Yours is a fucking speaker.

[Minerman]

I thought that was an original Jubilee & I thought the original Jubilee's had those black boards in 'em for some reason...FWIW, my mini looks just like that, black pcb & all:


Whenever you get it fixed, be sure to let us know what all was involved...

Bob: I've thought about asking if you would sell the 6100 man, once it got here it wouldn't be moved much...But, if you're that convinced it'd take another crap, I dunno...Just curious, what would you want for that thing???

[rayc]

AND AGAIN,
Here's a sample of my modded amp.
I popped the cab up on a crate.
57 at edge of dust cap & coil but about 10" away (in phase) with 609 placed as if it was beside the 57.
I recorded a simple chord progression, (3 or 4 chords in F shape) into a looper.
I did tune the guitar thrice prior to doing the loop.
Presence - 5
Bass - 5
Mids - 6
Treble - 5.5
MV - 2
Input I Vol 2 then 5 then 8 then max
Input II Vol 2 then 5 then 8 then max
then
MV5
Input I Vol 2 then 5 then 8 then max
Input II Vol 2 then 5 then 8 then max

Modded Marshall V7.mp3

I've not yet contacted the tech with the question as it was a long weekend Downunder
I'll ask later this week after I've confirmed he's at work.
I'll also have to read about/experiment regarding MV versus V I suppose.

[JD01]

The lower volume ones on that sound good to me but as you get higher in volume you start to get really boomy.

Have you got a really high pickup or something like that?

[Greg_L]

I thought that was an original Jubilee & I thought the original Jubilee's had those black boards in 'em for some reason...FWIW, my mini looks just like that, black pcb & all:


Whenever you get it fixed, be sure to let us know what all was involved...

No I don't have access to that original Jubilee anymore. The guy sold it. Actually, he had two of them and sold both of them. This is a different guy and a reissue. But I know for an indisputable fact that the original Jubilees are not blacked out and computerized like the new ones. And frankly, I think this reissue sounds better than those originals did - when it works.

This is the inside of the original Jubilees:


Pretty standard normal stuff.