Month: August 2016

JHS Angry Charlie v3

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_MG_8652A definitive “Marshall-in-a-box” pedal from JHS that faithfully recreates the sounds of the JCM800, the Angry Charlie has been a staple in the high gain arena for a while now. In its latest incarnation JHS has added a full Marshall tone stack with Bass, Mid and Treble controls that both cut and boost. Turn down the mids and bask in the joy that is 80’s scooped metal, boost it up and enjoy more classic rock sounds full of mid driven sustain. All of the controls here are powerful enough to get a good variety of tones, as well as voiced in just the right sweet spots so that just about any setting sounds good.

There’s not much else to say about the latest JHS Angry Charlie, it cleans up well but is all about the high gain. Plug it in, turn it up and enjoy.

JHS Morning Glory v4 and Red Switch

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_MG_8650The JHS Morning Glory is a low to medium gain pedal based on the Marshall Bluesbreaker, giving it a clear, smooth style that works great for both rhythm and lead playing. Version 4 has some reworked controls as well as the additional port to connect a Red Switch allowing you to switch between the gain settings using your foot during a live set. The difference in gain is not huge, so this isn’t going to give you the big step up an additional pedal or boost would provide, but more of a compressed thicker sound that is just enough to smooth out your tone when you don’t need the clarity and attack of the lower gain setting.

As you turn the gain up the Morning Glory provides a thick, smooth gain layer that retains a lot of your guitars original character. Meant to be a “transparent” overdrive, it accomplishes that character retention quite well up into the higher levels of compression.

All in all a great contender in the field of “transparent” overdrive pedals and with the newly added Red Switch functionality, a very nice tool to have on your board. JHS continue to put out some good products that capture some of the magic of the various vintage pedals they are based on, but with modern technological and function improvements that players demand these days. Gone are the days of diming the volume pot on a Mk1 Bluesbreaker pedal just to reach unity gain, as the JHS Morning Glory in it’s latest incarnation gives you all the sweetness with much more volume to spare.

Vox AC10C1

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I’ll be honest, I never really got along with Vox amplifiers, too often they sounded thin and boring. Sure there were some vintage AC30s that sounded mint when you dimed them and their well broken in speakers were barely staying together. But all the lower, more reasonable wattage version, and even the new AC30s just sounded terrible. Honestly I’d rather have a rack effects unit running an AC30 simulation than the real thing!

And then on a whim I clicked on some YouTube demo videos Vox put out, just over a minute each in length with a Custom Shop red sparkle Stratocaster going through the newer Custom series AC10. There were all the Vox tones I had heard, loved and was never able to find.

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The new Custom version is master volume with a gain knob, so you can crank the gain to get the sweet singing overdrive of a dimed Vox without the bleeding ears. The EQ on the new amp consists of a Treble and Bass knob with a perfectly sweet fixed mid. Both knobs at noon give you the chime and sweetness, while dropping both to the 9 0’clock position gives you a gorgeous pushed mid that breaks up beautifully as you turn up the gain. the on board reverb is a digital “studio quality” unit that sounds good enough and has enough range to give you more than enough. A foot switch to be able to turn it off remotely would be nice but not expected at this price range.

Gone is the vibrato channel of the vintage model, but the gain and eq that replaced it is a more usable and enjoyable alternate. Plus who uses a Vox for vibrato? Looks IMG_20160817_111253
have been brought up to date and are beyond the price point, in fact I’ve had a few mentions of how nice it looks, even as it sits nestled between my Mark III Boogie and Two Rock Studio Pro. Go figure.

All in all this is a killer amp that begs for a simple setup. It is not an amp that loves all pedals equally like the Two Rock, but prefers simple pedals like treble boosters, fuzzes and echo. All the things that bring back the thoughts of the simpler years where it’s the guitar and the amp with very little in the middle. Plug in, use that guitar volume knob, and kick on a germanium boost when you need a bit more, and bask in the lush vintage gain.