Marshall-in-a-box?

mike_l

meltedbuzzbox said:

Marshall guvnor? They can be had on eBay for fairly cheap. 

There was a big plexiglass shootout on the pedal show the other week. Might be worth a look

Careful, the Guvnor Mk1 and Mk2 are different beasts. The Mk1 will set you back roughly £100 depending on condition, the Mk2 £25-£35.

The Distortron or Hardwire CM-2 should put you in the ball park.

Jonathanthomas83

worth looking at a Mooer guvnor clone if you want to go cheap.

But I'd highly recommend the Ramble Marvel Drive v3 and the Thorpy Gunshot if you have the change.

Trotter

simonbeckwith said:

Ramble FX Marvel Drive all day long, especially the V3 that has the charge pump switch jobbie up to 18v on the outside

this. bonkers good 

Maynehead

I think it's between the SL drive and the Guv'nor 2 at the moment.

There have been some other great suggestions but a lot of them are over my league. Like I say I'm not a big pedal guy and I'll only be using it for 4 or 5 songs, so as long as it sounds half decent then I'd rather save some money.

pintspiller said:

Almost any boost pedal on your "classic rock" sound should be Marshally? The likes of Boss SD-1 would probably do, or even HM with low gain. Or cough a Metal Zone.

I'm currently using a Soul Food through the clean channel for the classic rock sound, but it's not really designed for the purpose. Before that I used a Joyo Vintage Overdrive (a TS808 clone) which wasn't ideal either. They're both boost pedals really whereas I need a distortion pedal that changes my clean amp into a roaring Marshall.

nick79

The Guvnor 2 will definatly do that. 

Dave_Mc

ICBM said:

Also to be fair it's not the only 'sounds like an amp' pedal I've ever heard of which doesn't, unless it's already going through a similar amp in the first place...

Not to derail the thread, but I always get annoyed when there's a demo of an MIAB pedal run through a marshall... that's cheating, surely, if it sounds like a marshall through a fender twin, then i might be interested. a lot of the sound is in the amp and the speakers/cabinet. I mean, I know about maybe someone with a superloud non-master volume marshall wanting that sound at lower volumes, but I'd imagine that they're in the minority and more people will want something that sounds like a marshall when plugged into an amp which definitely isn't a marshall.

mike_l said:

The... Hardwire CM-2 should put you in the ball park.

I'm not convinced it will. The one I have is like a more versatile, higher headroom tubescreamer. the hardwire distortion (while quite nice) isn't that marshally either- it sounds to me a bit like a better ds1. (Which is not miles away from a marshall, but there are more marshally-sounding pedals to my ears.)

vasselmeyer

Or you could just watch That Pedal Show's "Do you Think I'm Plexi?"

zepp76

Maynehead said:

I think it's between the SL drive and the Guv'nor 2 at the moment.

There have been some other great suggestions but a lot of them are over my league. Like I say I'm not a big pedal guy and I'll only be using it for 4 or 5 songs, so as long as it sounds half decent then I'd rather save some money.

pintspiller said:

Almost any boost pedal on your "classic rock" sound should be Marshally? The likes of Boss SD-1 would probably do, or even HM with low gain. Or cough a Metal Zone.

I'm currently using a Soul Food through the clean channel for the classic rock sound, but it's not really designed for the purpose. Before that I used a Joyo Vintage Overdrive (a TS808 clone) which wasn't ideal either. They're both boost pedals really whereas I need a distortion pedal that changes my clean amp into a roaring Marshall.

I have the SL Drive and couldn't recommend it enough it's a great pedal and a good price used. The internal dip switches give you plenty of sound choices too.

professorben

Boss PowerStack, cheap s/h and very good. 

hugbot

Boss combo drive is supposed to be an ac30 but it gives a good British ey crunch too

peteri

I know a lot of people like the SL drive, but to be honest I really didn't get on with it.

And I intensely dislike the dip switches, same reason why I've finally given up and sold the SP compressor from the same range.

It's a massive faff to change them, and the tone control on it's own didn't work for me - I found there was a 'fizz' I didn't like.

I'm sure you'll get on great, but it really disappointed me

TTBZ

I've had a Crunch Box mk1, Guvnor Plus and a Distortron. Out of those the Crunch Box was the best but the GV2 wasn't that bad tbh. Just didn't have enough volume when kicked in making it quieter than the clean, at least on my amp at the time (fender hrdx). I'd like to try an original/clone to see how it compares. Apparently the super crunch box is good but can lack low end on some setups. 

I got the distortron to try to get more of a plexi ish sound out of my laney. It had something weird and fuzzy going on in the low end to my ears, I was never quite happy with it. Just felt weird but maybe that's how a jtm45 is meant to be. I'd like to give the SL Drive a go but I think I've given up on MIAB for now when my amp does it close enough. 

ICBM

TTBZ said:

I got the distortron to try to get more of a plexi ish sound out of my laney. It had something weird and fuzzy going on in the low end to my ears, I was never quite happy with it. Just felt weird but maybe that's how a jtm45 is meant to be.

No it isn't. Nor does it have the metallic upper-mid overtone that the Distortron has.

Glad it's not just me!

MPH

Rothwell Hellbender or Heartbreaker.

Maynehead

Well, after watching countless youtube clips and reading up on the net, I've now narrowed it down to the Xotic SL Drive or the JHS Charlie Brown. It's funny how you start off wanting something cheap to use for a few songs and end up wanting the best-in-class (I know there may be better ones but not for my budget).

So, anyone with experience of those two, or even have one lying around they want to get rid of?

P.s. the Marshall Guv'nor mk1 sounds good but I'm very paranoid about tone suck as it's not true bypass. The new GV-2 sounds a bit too dark with a rather harsh distortion in the clips I've seen.

Sassafras

I wouldn't buy anything from JHS on principle.
I draw the line at funding, homophobic, Islamophobic, hate filled religious nutters.
And his business ethics aren't dissimilar to Mr Vertex's.

Maynehead

Ah well, lucky I just bought an SL Drive off our very own @Norwegian_Blue then isn't it!

Laurie

Sassafras said:

I wouldn't buy anything from JHS on principle.
I draw the line at funding, homophobic, Islamophobic, hate filled religious nutters.
And his business ethics aren't dissimilar to Mr Vertex's.

I hear ya. Wise call;)

The guy's a religious nutjob who rips off generic schematics, tweaks 'em a tad and then palms them off as being his own designs.  You couldn't pay me to lob a JHS piece of tripe anywhere near my rig.  Complete and utter shite!!

johnhe

Laurie said:

Sassafras said:

I wouldn't buy anything from JHS on principle.
I draw the line at funding, homophobic, Islamophobic, hate filled religious nutters.
And his business ethics aren't dissimilar to Mr Vertex's.

I hear ya. Wise call;)

The guy's a religious nutjob who rips off generic schematics, tweaks 'em a tad and then palms them off as being his own designs.  You couldn't pay me to lob a JHS piece of tripe anywhere near my rig.  Complete and utter shite!!

Sorry, but that's total bollocks. I know all of the stories about his plagiarism, but I'm not sure that most of his pedals at less plagiarised than the ones they're supposed to have copied. JHS seem to be very open about which pedals their stuff is based on and inspired by (like the original Bluesbreaker or governor etc).

Also, as far as business ethics go, I've been able to avail of their lifetime warranty for a new footswitch in a pedal which was well outside warranty. So I've personally found their after sales support to be exemplary.

if there are cases where Josh's Christianity crosses into "religious nut job" territory, then please tell us about them factually. Otherwise, your anti religious bias sounds just as bigoted as anything I've seen from any fanatic Christians or any other religion. Just disguised as secularism.

i thought that forums such as this were suppose to be above this kind of thing, so I'm surprised to see posts like yours.

Just to be clear - I've investigated the anti JHS thing a little and satisfied myself that they had not done anything that I was unhappy with. I am genuinely interested to know if they have demonstrated anti Islam or unfairly-anti-anything-else statements.

Edit: if you're interested, I found this post quite informative on the subject of JHS and their business practices. I don't know the writer at all, but the post seems reasonably objectively written to me.

https://realworldworship.org/2014/02/25/the-people-vs-jhs-pedals/

monquixote

Crunchbox or guvnor is much more jcm tone so don't get them.

I'd go distortron personally.