The Watering Hole

Well, I spent an hour or so yesterday with the Pod XTL in front of the JC-120. Sounded like ass. Tried it in the "Main Inputs" (older model, before they put "Effects Loop" in). Still sounded like shit. Kind of blew my high on the amp because I wanted it for just that purpose.

But, today, I spent a good two hours playing my C1 Classic through it. I set the pickup switch on neck/coil tap, roll a little jigj off the tone knob, turn the guitar's volume down to about half, and man what a sweet jazz tone. I can't stop playing it. Sounds so good, so musical. I wish I could get this kind of clean tone with my Vetta.

I have had 4 or 5 of these amps in my life, the first few at a time when all I wanted wa a boogie and the idea of a dedicated clean amp seemed stupid (ahh the folley of youth). Then a couple years ago I bought a pair of them to use with a GT-8, ended up ditching the setup to go with the Tonelab and tube power amp.

But today, as I sit playing straight through the amp, I find I am really enjoying playing. I was just telling my son that with this amp, I can just play notes and chords and arpeggios all day and not worry about dialing sounds in, patches, presets, tubes, etc... Just play. It is quite a liberating amplifier. Now, I really want a good hollow body and a good electric nylon. Sounds stupid but I think the sound of this amp has inspired me to finally start working on the Joe Pass style playing so that I can do what I have always wanted: free myself of a band for gigging. Amps, FX, etc... are really fun to play with, but in the end it is just the joy of making music that matters, and I get so much more out of just improvising over changes or playing standards than I do performing the stuff my cover bands are playing.

Hell if I could get every Starbucks in the nation to book me one show a year, I could go on tour with a JC-120, a hollow body and a Real Book and be happy as a clam.

My JC-120 is old, according to an email from Roland, it is older than they have records for, all they could tell me is it is pre 1988. The chorus is broken, and the reverb is too. The reverb makes noise if turned up, like if you move the amp you can tell there is a reverb tank in there, so I think just a lead to the verb is broken, going to take the amp apart soem thime in the next few days and see what I can find out. Even without the chorus and verb, this amp is a shredders dream. I can just sit and spit notes out for hours with a big grin on my face.

Soem of you have mentioned that this amp works well with various OD pedals. That kind  of surprises me bacause as I understand, what makes a great OD is not necessarily the tone it produces alone, but the way it works on the tubes of a good tube amp. the way it overdrives a signal through the pre and power amp tubes. But, I think I may try and get a Damage Control Womanizer and Glass Nexus to put in front of this amp and hear the results.

I still plan on getting a GT-10 (3rd time's the charm right?) or even GT-8 to try with it too. If nothing else, for what I paid for the thing, I may as well keep it around just to play jazz on, which I guess is the amp's purpose by design anyhow.

One idea about the chorus Shaun. I had the same thing with a Rivera I borrowed a while back. Turned out the reverb tank was plugged in the wrong way round. One end of the lead to the tank should have red and black phono jacks on them. Swap 'em round and see if that cures the problem.

Glad your liking it for what it is.

Ever played through an older Polytone?  That, to me, is the perfect jazz guitar amp.  Not much high end, that nice, warm, round tone, and way more portable than a JC-120.

cool find, but yeah, I'd be getting that chorus looked into.  The chorus on them is one of the things that makes them special.  Of course, unlike some people (cough "charger"cough)  I likes me some nice lush fat chorus.  

I bet EVEN CHARGER might like my Fulltone Choral Flanger if he heard it in stereo!  VERY cool into the High Octane and Rebel.  

Worked a bit with just the OD models in the Pod going into the JC-120.

What I did do today is set the Pod up with only stomp models running, no fx, no amp, cab, mic, etc... just cycled through various OD's. Mixed results. What I have noticed is that the JC-120, even with the bright switch disengaged, is just very harsh and trebly with any kind of high gain from the Pod running through it. I ended up taming it a bit by dialing down the treble. The best high gain sound I got yet was running into both channels of the amp simultaneously, pumping the bass up to around 2-3 oclock, the middle around 12-1oclock and the treble all the way down on both channels. Also I found running ino the "Low" inputs, and dialing down the Pod's output and pumping up the amp's volume, gets me the most useable hi gain tone yet. I am seeing that I can gig with this setup, not as nice as the Vetta, but doable.

I am predicting that my results with the GT-10 will be much, much better. With the GT-10's extensive EQ options, I should be able to dial the shrill right out of the whole setup.

I am thinking that the JC-120 speakers might not be the best for hi gain sounds either. I am going o experiment on this tomorrow, going to try running my Carvin 4x12 with it, then I may even pop two of the speakers out and replace the stock speakers (as an experiment only). If it turns the amp into a more high gain friendly beast (which it just might) then I may look into dropping some Hellatone or Celestions, or even the fabled EV12L. Or, an EV and a Celestion, what a pair that would be.

But, what makes this amp such a beautiful jazz amp must at least in part be the speakers, so I would keep the stock ones on hand if I did switch them out. who knows how it will all end up, at this point it is all experimentation. It just occured to me that tomorrow with the Pod i may want to try the cab sims, even though I am not using the amp sims, to see if it helps roll off some of the piercing highs. I suspect that the JC-120 speakers have a bit of a borader frequency range (in both directions) than typical guitar speakers.

This has me curious about the Line 6 M13 pedal now, seems it would be a good match for the JC-120

spaivxx — Feb 04, 2009Worked a bit with just the OD models in the Pod going into the JC-120.
I am thinking that the JC-120 speakers might not be the best for hi gain sounds either. I am going o experiment on this tomorrow, going to try running my Carvin 4x12 with it, then I may even pop two of the speakers out and replace the stock speakers (as an experiment only). If it turns the amp into a more high gain friendly beast (which it just might) then I may look into dropping some Hellatone or Celestions, or even the fabled EV12L. Or, an EV and a Celestion, what a pair that would be.

But, what makes this amp such a beautiful jazz amp must at least in part be the speakers, so I would keep the stock ones on hand if I did switch them out. who knows how it will all end up, at this point it is all experimentation. It just occured to me that tomorrow with the Pod i may want to try the cab sims, even though I am not using the amp sims, to see if it helps roll off some of the piercing highs. I suspect that the JC-120 speakers have a bit of a borader frequency range (in both directions) than typical guitar speakers.

Hello, Dr Frankenstein !!   ;D ;D

When I had a Pod XT, the one thing I found while playing through a solid state system was to turn the presence all the way off, and way lower the trebles and fatten up the sound with bass and mids. I don't know if this will work with a Jazz Chorus amp, but it sure worked with getting a better simulation of the tube sound in the recording process. I tweaked and tweaked the thing endlessly until I got the right sound. http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=143231&content=music Meandering around in G Minor was the last thing I recorded with the XT. That was direct in to my Layla 24/96 box, nothing between. I recorded dry of effects and lightly effected it in Sonar, which is the hardest way to record because the thing sounded like crap mostly without the effects. That is why I always tweaked the patches dry, then added effects later, even with my live patches, I would always program my sounds from scratch dry of effects, save them as "recording" patches, then I would add effects in the XT and save as "live" patches.

I know it's not tube, but I wonder what that thing would sound like with a Zendrive in front of it...  

It may be that you should create the patches in your XTL while hooked up to the JC just for that amp. I had to do that when I owned my XT. I had patches for my Solid State amps and recording purposes at the time, and I had patches for the Hot Rod Deluxe at the time, most of the settings were the same except for the EQ'ing in the XT.

dbm, that's what I did. As a rule I *ALWAYS* tweak patches at the volume and through the type of rig I expect to play them through. Also, 90% of my patches have no fx other than amp and cab, I love fx, but not for my basic sounds. On my Vetta for instance, I have a rhythm patch which is suitable for Godsmack, System of a Down, etc..., then a clean with just enough chorus to liven it up, but not enough to hear "swoosh" or any of that crap, then I have a lead patch which is just my rhythm patch with a stomp OD model in front and some boosted mids (I use a lit of mids anyhow, but the lead channel has even more). Then I have a specialized lead patch which is lower gain and lower volume with some delay, ducking delay so you dont actually hear the delay while I am playing notes.

Those are my 4 all purpose workhorse patches for the Vetta, I have used a similar setup with the Pod, GT-10 and TLSE/TLLE. But I also have several patches that take advantage of the quirky cool features of the Vetta. I have some synthy stuff I use in the background of songs like "Hey Man Nice Shot", a lead synth which I use in another band for Journey's "Seperate Ways" (funny to watch people pointing at me while I play that like "Hey, that's not a keyboard!!") I have a few other "fun" patches, but overall, I am a very meat and potatos kind of player when it comes to sounds.

On a different note, I put a guitar on Craigslist and a guy emailed offering a MIM Fender Telecaster and an Ibanez Artcore hollowbody in trade. Thought about it overnight, just emailed him back and told him to contact me so we can make the deal. If nothing else I will keep the hollowbody for playing "real" jazz and sell the Tele to recoup some of the investment. The guitar I am selling only cost me $150 at a pawn shop (Ibanez SZ520QM).

spaivxx — Feb 05, 2009 ...a guy emailed offering a MIM Fender Telecaster and an Ibanez Artcore hollowbody in trade.

I bet you could have a lot of fun with those two guitars and the JC-120. :)

+1 on the fun!!

Well, dude responded saying he mistyped, instead of "and" he meant to type "or", neither guitar is worth trading for. So, I won't be getting a hollowbody today. But, I sense one coming in the near future.

Hey spai,

On the PodXTL, what do you have the "what are plugging into?" setting on? The choices should be...

1. STUDIO/DIRECT
2. FRONT OF COMBO
3. POWERAMP & CAB
4. ?????

I'm not sure of the other settings, but it makes a HUGE difference in the sound. All you do is hit the TUNER and when it's active, use the button on the left of the LED screen (bean style, not sure on the LIVE) to scroll down and you'll see the choices depending on the version you have loaded in it. The FRONT OF COMBO even has an EQ compensation for lows and highs.

cgtrox  8-)