ampage Tube Amps / Music Electronics	For current discussions, please visit Music Electronics Forum.	New: view Recent Searches. New: visit Schematic Hell! The sunn still shines online!

Listen to great tunes streaming live right now!

ampage archive

Vintage threads from the first ten years

previous: SLObrain Aloha folks,I have ... -- 1140411614	View Thread

Re: Whats the best JCM800 circuit out there?

2/20/2006 6:34 AM
Matt	Re: Whats the best JCM800 circuit out there? Based on your name, I'm sure you already know this but the Atomic 16 is very similar to the JCM800 circuit. Just tweaked. Maybe look there for some ideas. You already know how to tweak a tone stack and the gain-stage/cathode-follower pair is pretty standard. That just leaves the first two stages to tweak. IMO/IME, the challenge is to tweak these two stages to get the amount of gain you need/want but still have the distortion sound good. IMO, you can only get so much 'good' distortion out of that circuit and if you try to wring too much out of it it won't sound as good. One thing worth considering is to have both the regular JCM800 pre-PI Master Volume and a post-PI MV. That way you can come closer to a 'cranked JCM800' tone at reasonable volumes.

2/20/2006 6:34 AM

Matt

Re: Whats the best JCM800 circuit out there?

Based on your name, I'm sure you already know this but the Atomic 16 is very similar to the JCM800 circuit. Just tweaked. Maybe look there for some ideas.

You already know how to tweak a tone stack and the gain-stage/cathode-follower pair is pretty standard. That just leaves the first two stages to tweak. IMO/IME, the challenge is to tweak these two stages to get the amount of gain you need/want but still have the distortion sound good. IMO, you can only get so much 'good' distortion out of that circuit and if you try to wring too much out of it it won't sound as good.

One thing worth considering is to have both the regular JCM800 pre-PI Master Volume and a post-PI MV. That way you can come closer to a 'cranked JCM800' tone at reasonable volumes.