My experience owning my (frankly wonderful) JCM800 reissue has been eye-opening in many ways.
The glorious clean, the revelation of how different it is using pedals with such a high headroom amp, and the genuinely ravaging tone of a boosted JCM in front of you (even with attenuation - it's the rawness - it's quite visceral)
I've surprised myself by using the clean (well, not 'channel', but the low input) base and adding pedals (or indeed not) more often than not (having a couple lovely pedals helps no doubt - couple of Thorpys, Carpe Diem, Guv'nor, Flux Drive)
So (here it comes at last) this has me wondering if that's how I do settle, can I get that kind of action, not in a full size head? Indeed in a combo perhaps? What kind of thing would I look at?
Thanks for any thoughts, comments, or interesting tangents :-)
Tim
Red ones are better.
Comments
I believe somebody mentioned a JCM-in-a-combo a week or so ago. Marshall 4210 or something? I believe that's the 50w JCM800 2204 in combo version. I think.
50w 1x12
single channel loveliness
@icbm will back me up on this.
Btw I used it exactly as you do, lie input, pedals in the front ( no fx loop anyway)
The 4010 usually comes with either a G12M-70 or a G12T-75, neither of which are ideal, so budget for a Creamback to replace it. If you're lucky and it's an early one with a G12-65 you won't need to.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I hate how big Marshall heads are - you need a full size cab so the head doesn't overlap and look stupid....... (jtm 45 excepted)
I also don't think the combos sound as good as the head + cab. Mainly as the cabs are always closed back and the combos usually seem to be open backed.
Tim - you're more than welcome to borrow my little jet city jca20hv for a while if you like (assuming you're still in Swindon?) not sure how close it'll go to low input jcm800, but it does the whole 2061x thing surprisingly well!
http://i211.photobucket.com/albums/bb102/flanging_fred/Music/my guitars/0a14c1ab67782b71236bbd23e026e635_zpsbsz8yxe9.jpg
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
If I wanted to keep a loop, what are other pedal platforms? High power is fine - I'm all attenuated up
From memory the 65 was used up to around early '83, the 70 only briefly, possibly in only '83 or into early '84, and the 75 from '84 onwards.
The interesting thing about the 70 is that although it's one of my least favourite Celestions in valve amps, I heard one in a 5210 'solid state JCM800' recently and it sounded great. It seems to be the most common speaker in that model, so possibly someone at Marshall thought so too.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein