Question:
Hi. I just bought a JSX a few weeks ago and I'm having a tough time finding a tone the is pleasing to my ear. With alot of effort and adding some old Mesa 12ax7's (pre) I've finally nailed my clean ok. But my OD is just way to piercing. Will changing my power tubes from EL34's to JJ6L6's make a big difference and make it rounder and fuller? I'm wanting more of a tone I guess like Satriani "Cryin" off of the "Extremist" albumn or maybe a sound a bit closer to Steve Vai's "For the Love of God."
I'm so frustrated with the JSX right now I'm thinking about selling already. Anyone have any suggestions on the right tubes for me and where I can order them? Thanks. Matthew.
Answer:
I'm not sure that changing the output tubes to 6L6's will be a drastic enough change as far as eq content if its not acceptable to you now. Are you running it "wide open" to where the power tubes are reaching saturation/distortion? If so, I hope you are wearing ear protection because it is definitely in the ear damage SPL range. If you have the master turned down, your output tubes are in what I call "high fidelity" mode; i.e. they are pretty faithfully reproducing what is fed into them from the preamp, where the distortion you hear is being produced. Remember, all power tubes were designed for high fidelity reproduction, its just a quirk of their nature that when they are pushed outside of their clean reproduction specs that they distort in a pleasing way. Bottom line - IMO, different types of power tubes just don't sound that much different until they are pushed into distortion - that's where they differ. If your master volume is on like 4 or 5, no, changing power tubes will not make a significant change.
As far as recorded tones - those guys I'm sure use lots of processing themselves, and then there is a lot of studio processing; eq, compression, stereo imaging, etc that the engineer uses to get the parts right in the mix.
Answer:
Originally Posted by berean532000 Hi. I just bought a JSX a few weeks ago and I'm having a tough time finding a tone the is pleasing to my ear. With alot of effort and adding some old Mesa 12ax7's (pre) I've finally nailed my clean ok. But my OD is just way to piercing. Will changing my power tubes from EL34's to JJ6L6's make a big difference and make it rounder and fuller? I'm wanting more of a tone I guess like Satriani "Cryin" off of the "Extremist" albumn or maybe a sound a bit closer to Steve Vai's "For the Love of God."
I'm so frustrated with the JSX right now I'm thinking about selling already. Anyone have any suggestions on the right tubes for me and where I can order them? Thanks. Matthew.
What about an eq in the effects loop?
Answer:
something that would be helpful, is if you tell us your EQ settings on your distortion in addition to what distortion you are using.
Answer:
Originally Posted by Casey something that would be helpful, is if you tell us your EQ settings on your distortion in addition to what distortion you are using. Be patient, i took me about a month or two of tweaking my mesa to finally get the tone i was looking for.
Answer:
first of all, you've had this amp what...two or three weeks? give it a chance...play with your EQ alot. It took me a few months to realize that I prefered the clean channel on my HRDlx with the treble cut and the mids boosted.
Answer:
what kind of guitar are you using.