lloydys's Reviews

Slightly dated looking but still brilliant!

I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that the Boss JS-10 eBand has had the most fundamental impact on my playing ability.

I bought this when I was busy with work and it was the perfect plug and play practice amp. An upgrade to the JS-8 (which had guitar effects lifted from the Boss GT10 multieffects,) the JS-10 has effects from the GT100. Although these sounds have been superceded by the plethora of multieffects on the market, now, they are still really good...and with 350+ backing songs and loops, recorded with real instruments, it is the perfect tool for practising or just jamming when you fancy to. I always found setting up to practice a complete pain (especially with a young family) but with the eBand you can just plug in and you've got a full band, always ready to back you in any number of styles.

Each backing loop has a preset guitar sound teed up, which you can easily change. You can build your own presets, with a comprehensive choice of amp models and effects and you can also download backing tracks into the unit from a PC as well as by inserting a thumb drive.

With two inputs that can have their own independent tones, you can run two guitar, guitar and bass, or guitar and mic. Perfect for jamming with a friend or learning new songs with a band mate.

It looks a bit like your mum's old upright CD player... but it sits neatly on a bookshelf and the 2.1 speaker system with sub woofer sounds pretty good. (It also takes headphones, of course.) Personally, I bypass the internal speakers (you can switch them on and off) and run it through my hi-fi, which has some hefty Mission speakers. Makes the JS-10 sound really great!

I've had (and still have) a ton of gear, since buying the eBand, with all sorts of amps, pedals, multieffects etc... but I think the eBand will always be part of my setup, purely because it allows me the luxury of picking up a guitar, plugging it in and immediately playing with a full backing band, whenever I want.

Great sound and versatile tone switching.

Having had a couple of other bass amps that were both heavier than something really, really heavy, I decided to try the Fender Rumble 500 and I haven't looked back!

The amp is really light but very well built, with 2x10 Eminence speakers. It puts out 350 watts at 8 Ohms... or you can plug in an extension cab for a thunderous 500 watts at 4 Ohms. Four band EQ and three preset tone switches (that can be used individually or in combination) gives you a really versatile tonal pallette; the preset buttons are named Bright, Contour and Vintage. (I tend to use Bright and Vintage together.) There is also a switchable overdrive with its own gain knob.

On the back it has a horn on/off switch (always off, for me) as well as fx send and return, aux in, phones and footswitch. All this makes it a tremendously versatile bass amp for home use...and it's perfect for rehearsals and gigs, because it has plenty of volume and load in and out is a breeze, due to the light weight. (Looks killer on-stage, too, with the silver grille and Fender logo.)

If you're in the market for a new bass amp, definitely check it out!

Sprinkles magic dust onto your amp!

I read a review that made the "magic dust" comment, some time ago...and it perfectly describes what this pedal does. When set low and always on, it just does something subtle and almost indefinable to your sound. It just gives you...more.

The pedal is based on the preamp of the legendary Echoplex Delay. Jimmy Page famously used one; not for the delays but because of the tone that he got from the unit's valve preamp.

I can't recommend the EP Booster highly enough. It's small, very solidly built...and one of only a couple of pedals that will never be leaving my board! (The other being an Analogman King Of Tone. )