I keep seeing and hearing about the legendary clean tones from these amps and when I watch old ska and reggae players on you tube I see a lot of the JC120's being used... so my question is is the jc40 gutsy enough to gig in a 9 piece ska band and be heard.
We do generally mic everything up so I know that in most situations it'll be fine but ocasionally.( last Saturday being an example ) the sound engineer doesn't mic the guitar amp up.
Also I've read that on these amps that one speaker is dry and the other wet and that is how you get the chorus sound...?... so where would you place the mic to get the best sound.. I wouldn't want to mic up each speaker seperately.
cheers guys
- “To play a wrong note is insignificant; to play without passion is inexcusable.”
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Given that that’s my only experience, I obviously can’t say if it would be gutsy enough to gig with - and anyway, as usual, it all depends on the gigging set up. My expectation would be only to gig it in a fairly quiet “coffee bar” type band, and I’d be very confident of it that that context. In fact the other guitarist in that band used a JC-22 (the tiny version with 8” speakers) the other week, and he was audible just fine even with that, albeit he said it lacked bass (unsurprisingly!).
So, anyway, I can’t say anything with authority, beyond my confidence that it woukd be fine to gig in my circs, and probably fine in yours also.
Good point, BTW, about the challenge of micing it with the wet and dry speakers - but it has built in DI (mono or stereo) so I’d use that.
I didn't know there was a 77... need to look into this..cheers
I'm based in East/Central London and could meet up at a London station if needed, or you could collect and drink my tea whilst testing it.
Prob looking at around £350 if collected, which is less than I coughed up for it :-)
What are your thoughts on it's gigging capabilities..?
Wish I could be more helpful with this question but I don't want to mislead. The upside is that it's very portable and if you can mic it you'll be golden.
If you need the amp on its own to overpower 9 bits of brass whilst staying sparkly clean I just don't know...
I absolutely love it! Lovely clean clarity and really lets the character of different guitars shine through. Not better or worse than the Princeton, just really complementary.
I’ll post later, prob in a few days, when I have more experience with it. (I need to give my left wrist a break - been playing so much today that I’m getting twinges. :-()
I can confirm that the amp has built in “line out” jacks which might be a viable alternative to micing up - again, will check over the next few days. On my Princeton I use a passive Palmer “the junction” DI box which works very well for clean, so I expect I’ll try that on the JC too (although the JC has no extension speaker jack, which is what I use to connect the Palmer to the Princeton, so I’d need to wire the Palmer directly to a speaker on the JC). More later...
this may be a stupid question but when you use the line out to the PA does that then bypass the speakers or as well as the sound coming from the speakers...because when miced up at gigs I basically use my amp as my monitor so would need it to be as well as..not instead of if you know what I mean..?
One wrinkle though is that if you want the Chorus sound in the PA, you have to send ouput from both line out jacks (i.e. the L/mono one and R one). If you send just L/mono you only get the dry signal that goes to the JC40s L speaker. I guess this is because of Roland’s thing is that the chorus effect is something that takes place “in the air” between stereo speakers. You do still get reverb, though, if you only use the L/mono jack.
The need to mic both speakers if you're using the stereo chorus is a known characteristic of these amps, but it is exactly because the chorus happens in the air that's why it's so big and natural-sounding.
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I'd love to try one at band level, the JC120 is definitely the sound of The Beat especially as they got into Afro pop.
I presume the Jamaican artists in the 60s were using the American valve combos of the day. Ernest Ranglin was using quite smart US guitars in the sixties so I guess he had matching amps. He's used a JC120 since the 70s though.
@skaguitar do you use flatwounds? When I'm listening to stuff like Jimmy Cliff l,and that very percussive guitar, in my head that's flatwounds ( and that was almost certainly what they were using).
It *is* clear on the matter of not muting the speakers.
I have flatwounds on my 335 but not in my strat or tele.... I seem to be able to get that percussive sound from either but have been told that flats cut down fret noise too... I need to try one of these amps before buying though
The Beat, Talking Heads or even Vampire Weekend.
Apparently Junior Marvin used a JC120 with Bob Marley.
Anyway, rambling on...