Marshalls , esp 800 , are made to be played loud . At decent volume the magic happens . Note clarity at volume is what they are all about . Normal that at low volume they sound bright/thin . People should not buy these amps to play at bedroom levels , its useless to do so , then complain about a thin sound . Marshalls are all about cutting through in a band mix . Best results are obtained with decent amount of volume and with proper cab and speakers . Must get the power amp tubes cooking in harmony with the pre amp . Its a good well known proven recipe when in the right hands . Still , appreciate and enjoyed the informative video .
Yes tbh I'm unsure what level this amp is normally used at. However my guiding principle is to do what the customer wants me to do. I would never tell a customer he "shouldn;t use this amp at bedroom levels". It's his amp, he can have the sound/tone/level he wants. Thanks for the appreciation.
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 Of course . I have no problem with your position on the matter of modding the amp for the owner . Also agree that the earlier models were nice and easy to work on compared to the modern ones which are not at all .
Couldn’t agree more. The JCM 800 is a great sounding no frills amp. I’m lucky enough to enjoy mine while playing it loud (vol 5-6) for 4x12 speakers breakup while the power tubes bolden the sound…all while in my house.
@StuartUK So if the customer wanted the amp to sound like a Fender Twin Reverb you would gut the whole amp and build a Fender circuit in there for him ???
The best recipe for taming a JMP or jcm is to stay away from the bright caps and just put a 10 band eq pedal in front of it or a booster with tone control if you want to keep it simple. Your bright cap contributes a lot to the preamp gain as well so you will affect gain as well by snipping the bright cap. If you want to change caps just change the bright tonestack cap from 220 pf to 1nf to shift the mids or make it switchable
Hello Stuart, when measuring and tuning the frequency response, how was the setting of the presence-control and how does it affect the scope-measurement?
Hi Stuart, I enjoy your videos alot and always watch for new ones. I have two observations: 1.Testing an amps tone is very complicated. Your proceedure was looking at what happens to the treble boost when you made the mod but that was not showing what was happening to the rest of the freq band when you changed the potential divider. Surely the lower tones were also increased. You were not seeing that as you were just testing higher frequencies. I am thinking you need to test a complete sweep of the whole range using a spectrum analyser so you can see the effect across the whole range. 2. Having said that, I totally agree with other comments about this amp needing to be played at volume to see how it really performs (I have one in my collection and its a firm favorite for lead work). Suggestion: Why didn't your customer use an equalizer pedal at the front of the amp so they can shape the tone for lower volumes as they like. At least that way they wouldn't be screwing up the tone of one of the best lead amps responsible for so much great rock music in the 80s and beyond. Then if they want to play loud they can switch the pedal off which is better than a mod you can't switch in and out.
Hi Stuart! First let me say I really enjoy watching your stuff and I learn a lot from it. In case of this amp I think it would have been a good idea to just remove the bright cap from the gain pot and leave the treble peakers alone. The gain bright cap is especially effective in lower gain settings (as seen in the video) and removing it doesn’t mess that much with the higher gain tones. I assume with your mods the amp might get a little muddy at higher gain. A way to give it more bass response might be a „fixed depth circuit“ in the negative feedback. Greetings from Berlin, Roman
Stuart, this is a thought provoking video. I didn't really comprehend much of what you were saying about frequency. This will cause me to do some study of tone stacks and how they function. The tool you were using seems quite complicated as well. I am appreciative of the video you did on schematics and it has helped me greatly. I'm wondering if you might be able to do something that would teach us more about your tools as far as how and why you use them. Thank you for this as it does give much to think about. Mike
@stuartukguitarampguy5830 yes, the scope and any others you might use. I see you use them throughout different videos and it might be beneficial to have them all in one.
Hi Stuart. Thanks again for another great and informative video. I was wondering, where exactly in your dummy load do you have the probe tip and ground cable connected to ? Is it just at the input jack ? Thanks
An odd design flaw with this combo. The play through at the end was very pleasant; very Marshall-"esque." That mod indeed tamed the ice pick to the eardrum treble. The owner should enjoy the new voicing of this JCM 800. Well done, Stuart. Cheers!
Interesting way to do some mods. Easy to see the effect of what you're doing with the oscilloscope. Sometimes I find that square wave testing can be helpful as well... very easy to see/hear treble boost, bass cut, etc. but it's not well suited to seeing it in terms of dB.
I've never seen this done the way you demonstrate it Stuart, Very interesting indeed. When I was playing around with a Fender Twin I used a Tone Stack Calculator which is a free download .. The idea is it takes all the common commercial amps (Fender, Marshal, Vox etc) and you can play around with the responses of Treble, Mid & bass curves. One of the issues with guitar sounds is it's 'subjective' as there are so many elements in the chain that can alter the end result. It'll be interesting to know what your customer's thoughts are with the altered, but still good sound from the JCM-800 .
You really got me screaming there and pulling my hair. Butchering such a nice amp! My thoughts: - the speaker is wrong and/or too small - bigger cabinet with proper speaker could immediatelly give you more "greasy" sound - there is a small value cap just after the phase splitter to prevent oscillation - upping it in value would automatically cancel higher tones (with the spectrum sweep you show here I would actually suspect it is broken or missing in this case) - this is an amp made for lead tones, so it is made to be bright - the customer should have bought himself some modeler and butcher it to his taste To get fuller spectrum you could: up all the stage coupling caps (to 104 eg.), up the cathode coupling caps (where they are, to 50uF), up the coupling after the phase splitter (104), maybe add some filtering capacitance. - To bleed off some highs you could install some small value caps (250pF) from signal to ground (or over the plate resistor) on some points. The "mod" customer demanded is beyond stupid and you should not have done it, at least not for the camera. It shows customer's ignorance about the basic principles of electronics. Plus, at least it could be done the way it would be easy to redo it afterwards (properly desoldering the components and not unrepairably snipping them off). Such a shame!
The mod worked just fine in making the amp flatter in response. There are many other ways to change the frequency response of this amp. BTW the cathode decoupling caps made almost zero difference to the response, I did have a play. Yes it's not 'supposed' to sound like that, but this is what the customer wanted and it's his amp. The mods I made are easily reversible so the amp has certainly not been 'butchered'. I even left a note inside telling a future tech what had been done. Your note is full of 'shoulds'. This amp belongs to my customer, not you. He can do exactly what he wants with it, surely? For my part, I do exactly what the customer wantes me to do. As courtesy to future techs I often leave a note to say what has been done. In that way a future owner could, if they wanted to, fully restore the amp to original, so no harm done.
Hi Stuart,indeed, the bass control doestn't give much tonal change. You could change the 22nF(at baspot) to a 47nf or 100nf. This gives much more Bass control. Greatings Guus.
Amazing to see how people flip out if you clip a 15 cents worth simple condensator in an amp from the '80. 😂😂😂 Can be put back in place anytime if you have a solder iron. No big deal. JCM800 are sold for around 1000 euros over here in spain. It's not an super rare crazy money amp.
STUART, I think you did this wrong. You set the function Signal generator to 10Khz and leave it there don't touch the dial while you're altering the capacitor values per each stage, this process is called TUNING. You alter all the capacitors values per each stage by using multiple capacitor selector boxes or piggyback parallel capacitors while keeping the function signal generator at 10K You going back to 1K as a reference is only to compared the dB levels again the 5Khz, 10Khz, 20kHz. Altering the resistors values will change the dB Roll off to be either 3dB or 6dB. Try to make a video lesson about this approach I think you will save a lot more time and it will teach others how to TUNE an amplifiers frequency response better.
Hi Wayne thanks for the input but I can;t agree. I wasn;t looking for a particular dB reduction at, say, 10Khz. Rather I was preteneding to be a spectrum analyser - which is really the tool for this job. So - change a cap value (yes I have the decade boxes) then sweep the amp to see what the change is. That's what I was doing, tediously, by hand. All the best.
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 yes you were trying to roll off the high end in general but I would have just kept the signal generator at 10Khz and used 3 or 4 capacitor decade boxes and adjusted them while watching the 10khz Rolling off. Isn't this a better approach than to alter only ONE capacitor at a time? because its a domino effect of all the capacitors in each preamp gain stage if you alter one capacitor its a domino effect that it will roll off the high end so that is why you need 3 or 4 capacitor decade boxes to tweak and adjust in real time at the gain stages in the preamp to see the high end rolling off.
Marshalls , esp 800 , are made to be played loud . At decent volume the magic happens . Note clarity at volume is what they are all about . Normal that at low volume they sound bright/thin . People should not buy these amps to play at bedroom levels , its useless to do so , then complain about a thin sound . Marshalls are all about cutting through in a band mix . Best results are obtained with decent amount of volume and with proper cab and speakers . Must get the power amp tubes cooking in harmony with the pre amp . Its a good well known proven recipe when in the right hands . Still , appreciate and enjoyed the informative video .
Yes tbh I'm unsure what level this amp is normally used at. However my guiding principle is to do what the customer wants me to do. I would never tell a customer he "shouldn;t use this amp at bedroom levels". It's his amp, he can have the sound/tone/level he wants. Thanks for the appreciation.
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 Of course . I have no problem with your position on the matter of modding the amp for the owner . Also agree that the earlier models were nice and easy to work on compared to the modern ones which are not at all .
Couldn’t agree more. The JCM 800 is a great sounding no frills amp. I’m lucky enough to enjoy mine while playing it loud (vol 5-6) for 4x12 speakers breakup while the power tubes bolden the sound…all while in my house.
@StuartUK So if the customer wanted the amp to sound like a Fender Twin Reverb you would gut the whole amp and build a Fender circuit in there for him ???
Of course!! I do exactly what the customer wants. It's his amp ffs!
The best recipe for taming a JMP or jcm is to stay away from the bright caps and just put a 10 band eq pedal in front of it or a booster with tone control if you want to keep it simple. Your bright cap contributes a lot to the preamp gain as well so you will affect gain as well by snipping the bright cap. If you want to change caps just change the bright tonestack cap from 220 pf to 1nf to shift the mids or make it switchable
Hello Stuart, when measuring and tuning the frequency response, how was the setting of the presence-control and how does it affect the scope-measurement?
Hi Stuart, I enjoy your videos alot and always watch for new ones. I have two observations: 1.Testing an amps tone is very complicated. Your proceedure was looking at what happens to the treble boost when you made the mod but that was not showing what was happening to the rest of the freq band when you changed the potential divider. Surely the lower tones were also increased. You were not seeing that as you were just testing higher frequencies. I am thinking you need to test a complete sweep of the whole range using a spectrum analyser so you can see the effect across the whole range. 2. Having said that, I totally agree with other comments about this amp needing to be played at volume to see how it really performs (I have one in my collection and its a firm favorite for lead work). Suggestion: Why didn't your customer use an equalizer pedal at the front of the amp so they can shape the tone for lower volumes as they like. At least that way they wouldn't be screwing up the tone of one of the best lead amps responsible for so much great rock music in the 80s and beyond. Then if they want to play loud they can switch the pedal off which is better than a mod you can't switch in and out.
Try injecting a signal on the grid of v1b and see how it responds. Thanks for making these videos.
you should only remove that 1nF cap on the 1M pot and if that doesn't help, than you should remove the 470pF cap
Excelent!👏👏👏
FYI: All factory sweeps are done with the tone stack and volumes at maximum and the signal generator used to set the level for clipping 😉
Ok interesting, thanks. I didn't know that.
Hi Stuart! First let me say I really enjoy watching your stuff and I learn a lot from it. In case of this amp I think it would have been a good idea to just remove the bright cap from the gain pot and leave the treble peakers alone. The gain bright cap is especially effective in lower gain settings (as seen in the video) and removing it doesn’t mess that much with the higher gain tones. I assume with your mods the amp might get a little muddy at higher gain. A way to give it more bass response might be a „fixed depth circuit“ in the negative feedback. Greetings from Berlin, Roman
Stuart, this is a thought provoking video. I didn't really comprehend much of what you were saying about frequency. This will cause me to do some study of tone stacks and how they function. The tool you were using seems quite complicated as well. I am appreciative of the video you did on schematics and it has helped me greatly. I'm wondering if you might be able to do something that would teach us more about your tools as far as how and why you use them.
Thank you for this as it does give much to think about.
Mike
Thanks Mike. WHich tools were you thinking about? Do you mean the scope?
@stuartukguitarampguy5830 yes, the scope and any others you might use. I see you use them throughout different videos and it might be beneficial to have them all in one.
Thanks Michael but I prob won't do that. There are plenty of RUclips vids on how to use an oscilloscope etc. But please keep the suggestions coming!
Hi Stuart. Thanks again for another great and informative video. I was wondering, where exactly in your dummy load do you have the probe tip and ground cable connected to ? Is it just at the input jack ? Thanks
Hi Paul. Yes I should have shown that. I have an external 8ohm 100W resistor on a heatsink. I just connect the scope across that.
An odd design flaw with this combo. The play through at the end was very pleasant; very Marshall-"esque." That mod indeed tamed the ice pick to the eardrum treble. The owner should enjoy the new voicing of this JCM 800. Well done, Stuart. Cheers!
Thanks Alex, yes the amp sounds a lot sweeter now, pkus there is room for change via the tone controls.
Interesting way to do some mods. Easy to see the effect of what you're doing with the oscilloscope. Sometimes I find that square wave testing can be helpful as well... very easy to see/hear treble boost, bass cut, etc. but it's not well suited to seeing it in terms of dB.
I guess even nicer woud be a spectrum analyser but I can;t really justify the cost.
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 I would love to have one too but don’t for same reasons
I've never seen this done the way you demonstrate it Stuart, Very interesting indeed. When I was playing around with a Fender Twin I used a Tone Stack Calculator which is a free download .. The idea is it takes all the common commercial amps (Fender, Marshal, Vox etc) and you can play around with the responses of Treble, Mid & bass curves. One of the issues with guitar sounds is it's 'subjective' as there are so many elements in the chain that can alter the end result. It'll be interesting to know what your customer's thoughts are with the altered, but still good sound from the JCM-800 .
Yes agreed, totally subjective!
Seeing as both resistors are 470K - i was wondering what would happen if you replaced them with a 1Meg linear pot.
Yes that might be interesting. Actually, this amp came back and we did a ton more work tarting around with various values!
You really got me screaming there and pulling my hair.
Butchering such a nice amp!
My thoughts:
- the speaker is wrong and/or too small - bigger cabinet with proper speaker could immediatelly give you more "greasy" sound
- there is a small value cap just after the phase splitter to prevent oscillation - upping it in value would automatically cancel higher tones (with the spectrum sweep you show here I would actually suspect it is broken or missing in this case)
- this is an amp made for lead tones, so it is made to be bright - the customer should have bought himself some modeler and butcher it to his taste
To get fuller spectrum you could: up all the stage coupling caps (to 104 eg.), up the cathode coupling caps (where they are, to 50uF), up the coupling after the phase splitter (104), maybe add some filtering capacitance.
- To bleed off some highs you could install some small value caps (250pF) from signal to ground (or over the plate resistor) on some points.
The "mod" customer demanded is beyond stupid and you should not have done it, at least not for the camera. It shows customer's ignorance about the basic principles of electronics. Plus, at least it could be done the way it would be easy to redo it afterwards (properly desoldering the components and not unrepairably snipping them off). Such a shame!
The mod worked just fine in making the amp flatter in response. There are many other ways to change the frequency response of this amp. BTW the cathode decoupling caps made almost zero difference to the response, I did have a play. Yes it's not 'supposed' to sound like that, but this is what the customer wanted and it's his amp. The mods I made are easily reversible so the amp has certainly not been 'butchered'. I even left a note inside telling a future tech what had been done. Your note is full of 'shoulds'. This amp belongs to my customer, not you. He can do exactly what he wants with it, surely? For my part, I do exactly what the customer wantes me to do. As courtesy to future techs I often leave a note to say what has been done. In that way a future owner could, if they wanted to, fully restore the amp to original, so no harm done.
They were voiced for les paul type guitars hence the rolled off bass and boosted treble
My 100 watt marshall 2203 will vibrate my house thru a 4x12. i dont do it often but when I do it still intimidates me.
Yes scary!
Nice one Stuart!
Thanks Zac
watching so many of your videos from usa i am picking up your british accent. :).
That's odd because I got an american accent watching Uncle Doug and others... :)
Hi Stuart,indeed, the bass control doestn't give much tonal change. You could change the 22nF(at baspot) to a 47nf or 100nf. This gives much more Bass control. Greatings Guus.
Thanks Guus. As it happens he's bringing it back to have another go so I'll do that.
Sounds a bit buzzing when the guitars not being played ?
That's just the lights etc on my bench.
Amazing to see how people flip out if you clip a 15 cents worth simple condensator in an amp from the '80. 😂😂😂 Can be put back in place anytime if you have a solder iron. No big deal. JCM800 are sold for around 1000 euros over here in spain. It's not an super rare crazy money amp.
Yes people get very precious about things!
STUART, I think you did this wrong. You set the function Signal generator to 10Khz and leave it there don't touch the dial while you're altering the capacitor values per each stage, this process is called TUNING. You alter all the capacitors values per each stage by using multiple capacitor selector boxes or piggyback parallel capacitors while keeping the function signal generator at 10K You going back to 1K as a reference is only to compared the dB levels again the 5Khz, 10Khz, 20kHz. Altering the resistors values will change the dB Roll off to be either 3dB or 6dB. Try to make a video lesson about this approach I think you will save a lot more time and it will teach others how to TUNE an amplifiers frequency response better.
Hi Wayne thanks for the input but I can;t agree. I wasn;t looking for a particular dB reduction at, say, 10Khz. Rather I was preteneding to be a spectrum analyser - which is really the tool for this job. So - change a cap value (yes I have the decade boxes) then sweep the amp to see what the change is. That's what I was doing, tediously, by hand. All the best.
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 I thought you were trying to Roll off the 10Khz frequency to a lower dB reduction or what were you trying to do?
Hi Wayne No I wasn't trying to roll off 10KHz specifically. Just the 'high end' in general.
@@stuartukguitarampguy5830 yes you were trying to roll off the high end in general but I would have just kept the signal generator at 10Khz and used 3 or 4 capacitor decade boxes and adjusted them while watching the 10khz Rolling off. Isn't this a better approach than to alter only ONE capacitor at a time? because its a domino effect of all the capacitors in each preamp gain stage if you alter one capacitor its a domino effect that it will roll off the high end so that is why you need 3 or 4 capacitor decade boxes to tweak and adjust in real time at the gain stages in the preamp to see the high end rolling off.
There are lots of different ways of doing this. I certainly don't have 4 decade boxes! Ayway thanks for the input.
mullard i63 at v1 problem solved!
I Don't know that valve?
Classic amp needs to be modded because owner can't figure out how to use the tone knob on his guitar or the controls on the amp. Sigh...
Customer wants his amp tone changed. I do it. Amps are for playing not museum pieces. Very simply reversible and documented mod.