jimmarchi1's Reviews

This was once the height of technology.

When I got an MS-1 it was already a little dated, but it was affordable and portable. By modern standards it has become hopelessly primitive, but there was a certain lo-fi charm to this thing thatis sorely lacking in modern electronic music. I wish I knew where I stashed mine, I would start making music with it again just for the hell of it.

Secret sauce.

I don't usually use effects pedals, but when I do... ANYWAY! This looks like a 90s Russian big muff, right? WRONG DUDE. Inside is a J-Fet boost of my own devising. The 3 way switch voices it from bass boost to flat or my fave... TREBLE BOOST. The pedal is always on. The footswitch toggles between 2 different volume pots so you can set up a rhythm and lead sound. Volume 1 has a treble bleed network so it is brighter than volume 2 even at low settings. The internal gain is always max so that the J-Fet imparts lots of compression and is right on the edge of overdrive. Even in bass voicing this boost adds an enhanced sheen to your high end reminiscent of plugging your guitar straight into an 1176 compressor in the studio. Its a different flavor than a rangemaster or Brian May booster. No, you can't buy one, but if you're nice I'll tell you how to make one.

crappy in every way but 1... FREE!

I don't always play with a pick, but when I do I will usually drink dos equis. Wait, that's a lie, I don't care for XX that much. Nor do I care for Fender Heavies, but I got a free bag of them from Fender so I typically grab them when I need a pick, just to use them up. So I wound up getting used to the slippery little buggers. If I can't use one of these I grab one of the crappy picks guitar center or sam ash have out with their logo on them. Those are 'free' too. I always walk out with some and throw them in the bag of Fender Heavies.

2 trick pony!

I had a red and blue (more like pinkish orange on mine) version that was given to me by a close friend and collaborator. She had it for years after finding it at a yard sale for 5 bucks. It didn't work right, but it was easy stuff to fix. I used it on some unfinished recordings and enjoyed it thoroughly at the time, however its not a versatile pedal and the octave is hard to dial in right. Without getting the octave up effect its really a mediocre fuzz/distortion sound in either EQ setting. I forgot to mention there's a fuzz knob, an output knob and a tone switch that goes from flat to scooped mids.Flat its very retro and 60s, scooped its like smashing pumpkins' Rocket. This guy got sold in MD last year to my boys at Atomic Music (check 'em out on the web). Maybe I'll build a clone one day if I miss it.

Miss this one.

After I sold my Dual Showman to a friend I bought a really clean 1965 bandmaster with an unloaded matching 2x12 from a different friend. This was my favorite large BF amp ever. It had a 'cowboy crunch at pretty tolerable volumes and loaded with a set of vintage ceramic jensens pulled from a supro statesman it just had THE fender sound for 60s country or surf kinda stuff. Anything Americana and Retro! But it also had cool chicks if you jumped the channels (this is a rare BF where the channels are in phase). Try setting channel 1 up with the bright caps on and make it all hard and crunchy and then EQ channels 2 for all thump and lower mids, then blend to taste... great sounds outta the bandmaster. Sadly I had to sell her to pay for some elaborate dental work my soon-to-be-ex-wife needed. I turned a huge profit, but the money was spent before I cashed the check. Don't smoke crack, kids. Even after you kick, it effs your teeth up, leaves you crazy, and thins out your spouse's beautiful instrument collection. Do right by the guitarist in your family and honor Leo's memory, just say no to crack.

the cleaner showman

Single speaker Showman model, used 8 ohm iron versus the dual showman's 4 ohm twin output tranformer. This was my cleaner of the 2 showmans and it was pretty much stock versus the hacked one but I preferred the dual for some reason although when recording one particular album the single saw a whole lot of use on guitar while the dual did a lot of bass through an SVT 8x10. I feel like this one really only saw heavy use because with 2 tubes pulled it would overdrive at double impedance thus it could puh a vintage marshall cab at 16 ohms or soemthing like that. Live I really always used the older dual, I just thought it sounded better even though it wasn't as original.

I don't always play with a pick, but when I do....

My uncle makes these for me sometimes and I usually have a handful of different widths and species around for recording. My favorites are blood wood and snake wood. They sound as cool as they look.

Bang for buck.

Greco also made SA branded 335 clones and they are more accurate most of the time. With Greco the SA stood for semi-acoustic, but Yamaha asserts it stands for "Super Axe", a moniker boldly emblazoned on the headstock via a les paul script silkscreen. I intend to tell you what makes this axe so super, but first lets start with the differentiations from a legit 335.

Okay, these 335 clones run below the radar and can be had way cheap. The SA-1000 is from the 70s early series. They're built well with a long neck tennon. Neck is Mahogany and the block is typically maple however the plies in the back and sides can be birch, beach, Asian spruce, maybe maple or a combination of any of the above. The SA-1000 has nice A2 PAF copies (though they have Phillips pole pieces, WTF?) that sound pretty solid. The neck has a 70s volute. The necks are chunky but have more of a mid 60s nut width so not a great guitar for fat-fingered guys. The electronics are great. Still working and sounding right after 40 to 50 years. The fretboard appears to be ebonized though it was sold as ebony. The binding does not have nibs and is very thin. The bridge is like a giant, funky abr1 clone designed by a blind man based on a verbal description of a real abr1, but its serviceable and functional. I can't tell what they finished this guitar in. Feels like some kinda toxic lacquer and not polyesther resin, though later Yamaha literature asserts they use a proprietary poly formula. Regardless, its well applied and very thin. Sadly, the pickguard is attached like an LP, not a 335. What a cop out. She also sports an oversized headstock with a few extra curves (I guess designed to avoid the Gibson lawsuits Yamaha and other Jap builders suffered anyway) and it looks plain weird at certain angles. Oh! the tuners are all metal keystone-shaped grover style. They work adequately even after many moons.

These guitars are incredibly resonant. Like really resonant, pal! The neck set is at a really good angle to allow you to get the stop bar flush with the body causing every note to transmit into the block and hollow wings. Between the toneful stock electronics and the wonderful resonance and sustain you will have to pry this "super axe" from my cold dead hands. Buy one before they go over a grand. People will catch on soon. SA-700s are cool too (rosewood board, anyone?), but they have inferior electronics with weird/weak A3 buckers.

I have named this guitar Big Red and she voiced no objections.

Miss mine.

I had an '81 JCM800 2x12 and foolishly sold it to buy a nice van for my band to tour in. I turned a 200% profit but often miss that amp. This is the workhorse rock amp and the first really significant use of a master volume in a brit amp (apart from vampowers I guess). It doesn't sound like a plexi but its decidedly marshall. The 50 watt model is best for most musicians and that's what I had. My combo was loaded with amazing Marshall branded G1265 speakers with those large H dustcaps. Some have inferior 70 or 75 watt celestions. They sound okay though. Get 1 with vertical inputs if you can as the verticals are not board mounted and can be easily replaced if the plastic cliff jacks break (and they sometimes break). Other than that problem these amps are rock solid road warriors that rarely if ever crap out.

I give this combo 4 stars as she is entirely too heavy and the stock single handle is worthless. Yu will wanna add casters or at least additional handles (even if you have roadies and road cases). This is a lazy-man's set-and-forget marshall compared to what came before. A good crunch is not dependent on proper balance of EQ and Presence settings. It will do you right for any type of blues or rock and is the benchmark by which every mid-gain stage amplifier designed since the 70s should be judged.

Workhorse tour amp for large venues with THAT tone.

I had one of the '88 RI's as an integral part of my touring backline for years thru a tall cabinet with great old celestions in it. What a fine amp. I tweaked mine a little to sound better with a strat, but I recommend this amp stock for anyone who needs a lot of stage volume and plenty of treble on tap. She wasn't as reliable as a vintage blackface fender, but she never failed at a show and always sounded pretty solid unless the wall voltage was outta control high (I eventually started power conditioning or even running a variac). While I typically deplore working on PCBs, Marshall does a great job with their layouts and spacing. This amp was easy to repair, rebias and modify. Not the holy grail as some attest, but very very good

I have one more thing to say.... this amp will not be what you expect at less than theater-filling levels. If you do not tour then get a 50 watt JCM800 2204 or maybe an 18 watt. Still, this is THE Marshall sound you've always heard about. You may not find that sound easily, but its in there if to start in the right place. If you don't use overdrive or fuzz pedals, here is my advice:

Try setting the amp fairly flat (dime the mid and crank the treble to 10 or until it hurts your ears, add bass to suit your taste and cab) but keep the presence below 5. Don't jump channels like Hendrix, plug in the bright channel and dime it out, then add the normal channel to taste (there's crosstalk and subtle ghosting, but beware nosie and squeals at high presence settings). Then use your guitar volume control (yes, the knob next to the tone you don't use either) to vary between clean, crunch and lead. This amp does not respond like a hot rod deluxe or even the venerable tweed bassman that's in its DNA. I prefer an Amperex bugle boy ecc83 in V1 and an rca or ge 12ax7 in v2. The phase splitter sounds fine with ost any well made tube. In a pinch V1 sounds good with a well-tested tung-sol RI 12ax7. Alright, TMI

I miss my RI

I had a single cut Cadillac green 50s RI with dearmonds and that guitar was fab. I ahd 2 caveats...

1) I prefer guitars with 2 cutaways.

2) the dearmond pickups, even when the guitar was well-shielded, were unusabley noisey on any stage near a major metropolitan area.

I've got my eyes peeled for a 62 with filtertrons and 2 cutaways or even a later 60s Baldwin-era with the inferior burns UK trem. One day soon....

No clean sound? Who cares?!

I had a Gibson tweed titan for years, one of Gibson's takes on the 5C3 thru 5E3 circuit. Like an idiot, I sold it on a whim for way too little profit. I miss having a vintage tweed deluxe tone at my fingertips. Neil Young all day.

Everyone knows the trick about the interactive channels and the tone control also acting like a gain control right? You all know this amp is cathode biased like an ac30, right? Do I need to do an in-depth review or just send everyone to listen to Steely Dan's "Don't Take Me Alive" for an aural lesson from Mr 335 himself, Larry effing Carlton.

These things work.

The snark is so handy. Its small and light, works on acoustic and electric, no cables need. Its so small and convenient that I can't find mine because my toddler was playing with it and I can't figure out where he hid it. What else can I say for a tuner? I guess its pretty accurate, you can tune your guitar with it if you go out. Fits in a gig bag for acoustic shows.

My friend built me a knockoff with a footswitch but its the identical circuit with high quality parts, so here's my review.

Drives an ac30 normal channel 'Stone Cold Crazy'.... sorry, I had to.

Clones the tone for a fraction of the cost.

I can't afford a real HC30 (without parting with my vintage AC30 that is), wish I could. Nik at Ceriatone does an outstanding job with his copies. Despite being built on a turret and having inferior iron this amp really goes toe to toe with Samson era matchless and badcat amps. My 1 caveat is that some of the hardware isn't of great quality (a friend broke the stock fuse holder somehow, that shouldn't be possible) AND the aluminum chassis is not welded properly and is prone to bending if jostled in a van or in a trailer. Not a great road amp. Also, good luck getting a spare in Spokane if she goes down. Of course, at this price you can afford a backup. On to the gist... this is my favorite circuit ever for teles. The EF86 'click' channel is the jam. So much bandwidth. Lately I keep her loaded with 1 or 2 5y3 rectifiers (depending on whether I'm running full power) to brown the old girl out a bit, but with the stock 5ar4 in 30 watt she does the punchiest, tightest ac30 sound ever and with the small rectifiers she's skronky and mean even played clean. Maybe its apples and apples, but I like having this other take on the vox sound at my fingertips. I can hear it and feel it, so who cares if no one else does?

Sgt Pepper's Buzzy Stomp Box Friend

From rubber soul to sgt peppers and even yardbirds and early zep, the vox tonebender is a bright, nasty fuzz tone that has surprisingly smooth sustain. It does 1 thing really well and that is to split the difference between a fuzz face and a maestro fz1 (I have owned the latter and made clones of the former in both Ge and Si). These are readily available and regularly cloned. Highly recommend this circuit for guys who want mean fuzz tones as opposed to smooth hendrixy or gilmoury sounds. Its got lots of vintage fuzz quirks, but that's the fun of vintage fuzzes. This is the only fuzz pedal I have owned I would never get rid of. I ditched a 60s maestro, a script logo mxr blue box, a univox superfuzz, a tonebender mk3, a mosrite fuzzrite, many big muffs and variants thereof. The 4 star rating is because this is a one trick pony and that trick is so retro as to be cliché sometimes.

Mine's a 62

JMI ac30/36B with dealer rear top-boost module (currently removed, might not repair it and return it). She can be finicky and unreliable, but she has quite a sound. Mine's pretty similar to Brad Paisley's from what I understand. Got her around 2001 or 2. The pine cab is rebuilt and recovered and the previous owner loaded her with a pair of 16ohm pre-rola g12s speakers wired in parallel for 8 ohms, but all those little things coupled with her being the unusual bass voiced model just contribute to this particular ac30's unique voice. Unmistakably JMI, yet thicker and, dare I say it? YES! Gooier than your average grey panel. This amp gets HOT and has caught fire at times when in need of service. However, the danger is part of her charm. Did I mention she has the best sounding vib/trem channel ever? I'll put my ac30B against any other 6 input ac30 of any era any day of the week. This vox really rocks. UPDATE Currently loaded with vintage Blue and H30/55, fully serviced by yours truly and working as well as a new amp. Still 90+% original.

best new vox since the marshall-made ac30tb RI's in the 90s

I like everything about this amp. I don't miss the vib/trem channel, the bright switch on the normal channel brings the non-top-boost JMI brilliant channel sounds and the 'hot switch on the top boost channel is to die for. The master volume is pretty useable and the half-power switch is a huge help in these days of stage volume restrictions. What a well-though-out take on the classic design. Did I mention the gorgeous fawn Nubtex? Even the stock greenbacks sounded pretty solid, but she really came alive when I installed a G12 blue and an H30 55hz clone. That pair of speakers really makes for a larger than life vox tone, clean or dirty.

killer little devil

I can't say enough good things about Vox's current handwired series. Bang for buck. This little guy is the only single-ended amp I have ever loved. The stock g12m25 might go. Its not suited to producing optimal clean tone from such a low power amp in a compact box. It delivers nice overdrive of course. All in all a 5 star new amp.

Pretty solid stock guitar fr the buck.

This is a Mexi-made Esquire. Swamp-ash body, maple neck, etc. Pretty much a classic 50s telecaster with 1 pickup and the esquire's wonky wiring. But the wiring scheme is part of the charm of an esquire as is the reduced string pull from just 1 pickup that makes these guitars just a touch meaner than their big brothers. This guitar has a well-applied Polyurethane white-blonde finish that is too glossy for my taste. Feels weird under my forearm. The neck is finished in vintage tinted poly and is fairly glossy, but in a good way. I never seem to stick to it even when I get sweaty.

My 3 star review is based on how I got this esquire stock. Its really a 4.5 star after some tweaking. An Angeltone 1950B pickup went in the bridge and I switched the stock steel barrels for a set of Hipshot compensated brass saddles. That seemed to bring the guitar to life plugged in. I didn't feel that the stock parts put forward its midrangey voice unplugged.

She doesn't have an official name but I often refer to her as Mary (as in Mary Kaye cosmetics, even though she is not truly Mary Kaye) or the Deathsquire (mine has a black bakelite pickguard installed by the previous owner) because she wears more black than any of my other guitars. Tré funereal, Baron Samedi!