JCM800 head + which pedal(s) for 80's Thrash?

[toejam]

I thought the 5150 was supposed to be based off of a Soldano SLO100

[jgcable]

I thought the 5150 was supposed to be based off of a Soldano SLO100

It is... and the SLO100 is based off a highly modified Marshall JCM800. I have owned all of these amps. I play live almost every weekend LOUD. The 5150 is the best user friendly high gain Marshall tone you can get. Every time I gig I get compliments on my sound. We do everything from Ted Nugent to Black Crowes to Ratt to Ozzy to Aerosmith to AIC to Pearl Jam. My 5150-II does everything great. Great clean channel, fantastic heavy rhythm channel that has plenty of gain for solo's and a crazy lead channel. I typically have the gain on my lead channel around 5 or 6 and that's plenty for any genre of rock or metal.

[Newc]

Got the Rat (newer Chinee version, not the old one), SD-1 (Taiwan), and GE-7 (Taiwan) today. The M13 will be here later today (Out For Delivery).

Got a few minutes to play around with them at a decent volume (MV=3, into the High Sens), using my KV2T (think I put a JB in the bridge?) tuned to E and my Trans Red WRXT-M (PATB1 in the bridge) tuned to D standard.

The GE-7 alone, flat with the Level maxed, definitely does give it the extra push this head needs to get the Gain on 10 up to something better than Hendrix/Page.
Tried the hard-V shape and a more curved "smiley" - 100Hz at the top, 1kHz at the bottom, 6k at the top, others just above/below center - and found it unpleasant. A KV2T sounded like a really hot Strat in the neck. Very "glassy". I coulda ripped out some SRV had I backed the Gain down. This is just plain wrong IMO

The Rat is a picky bitch. I remember trying one back in the 80s with my Gorilla, and didn't like it then. By itself, with the head Gain on 10, I don't like it at all. Fiddled with the Rat's knobs and could not get a good rhythm tone from it. At least nothing I'm used to, and nothing I recall hearing from anything considered "Metal". Palm mutes were farty, power chords were muddy, Major chords were more like noise, solos were dirty in a bad way. Not sure what the "Filter" knob is supposed to be doing, but it doesn't seem to do much. Full-on is like the Tone down. Full-off is like the Tone up. Whatever it's "filtering" is beyond me. Tonal quality? Maybe I'm doing something wrong?

The SD-1, by itself, set for max Level, Tone on about 10-11 o'clock, Drive on about 8 o'clock, head Gain on 10, was as good as the GE-7. Not as tonally-tweakable as the GE, but that's a given.

Running the SD into the GE, both set as before, head Gain still on 10, I could see where the SD could be used for rhythm and kick on the GE for solos. Maybe a slight boost in the upper-mids to separate from the rhythm better. Going to need a noise gate, definitely.

Running the Rat into the GE, the *only* setting I found that I liked was the Rat's knobs on 10 o'clock (3rd line in the ring), with the GE engaged and set flat, except for a full-cut on the 3.2k slider.

Haven't tried the SD and Rat together. I just don't imagine that will sound anywhere near "good", even for "art-rock" noise.

Out of these 3, I got better - and faster - results with the Boss pedals, whether alone or together.
If Hetfield used a Rat, it wasn't for rhythms on Ride The Lightning through a Marshall. Maybe for leads, maybe through a Mesa/Boogie, or something else entirely.

[jgcable]

Metallica is full of myths when it comes to recording on all of their albums. I am convinced that nobody ever used a RAT pedal because I know a hundred guitar players that own them and you will NEVER see them use one... ever. Regarding the GE-7... it barely helps in the gain department and adds a lot of noise. The SD-1 doesn't do squat either. The M13 will do a lot of stuff for you.. the biggest thing is make your JCM800 sound like a Solid State amp. The best way to get great metal tone out of that amp is to mod it and buy an attenuator and turn that sucka way the frig up. You also need to run Vintage 30's because you need as much sizzle and break up as possible. I had fairly good results using a TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer set on the turbo mode. I also had fairly good results using a stock Metal Zone. The HM-2 works decently too. The problem is they all have their weak points and those weaknesses are too blatant to ignore.

[Cygnus X1]

Yes the Rat is very touchy.
Use the Filter to tweak it.

[Newc]

Addendum to the Rat review:
Spending a bit more time with it, I've gotten better sounds from it. Nothing that would make me say "wow, that's great", but something I can live with.
Distortion on about 2 o'clock (not quite to the line), Filter on just-past-Noon, and Volume still on 10-11 o'clock.

Running it into the GE7, and set for a mild scooped profile (100Hz and 6kHz flat, everything else one notch down, 1kHz 2 notches down, Level just above center) I'm getting something close to how the Ride The Lightning CD sounds through my speakers (although, as I've often said to people asking how to get such-and-such tone, what you hear on a CD is not what their amps sounded like when it was being recorded due to the processing, doubling, mixing, etc etc, not to mention the drastic difference between their cabs and your speakers).

I'm not able to run out today and do a full band setup, so I can only speculate as to whether I'd get buried in the mix, but for right here right now (cue Van Hagar), it's a lot better than it was an hour ago. Of course I could also be going deaf, as I'm in a 20x20 room with a f'n Marshall

Still haven't quite figured out what the Filter knob is allegedly filtering. Seems to have a slight effect on the Distortion character when the Dist is turned down, but must be readjusted when the Dist is turned up. Seems to have been over-engineered. Still, it's been around almost as long as I have, so it must have something. Or that many people have bad taste

[Hellbat]

The filter control on the Rat is to set the cut off frequency of a variable low pass filter. Think of it as a Vox tone control. It doesn't add anything, it's just a high frequency cut.

Because of their design the rat would get more 'snarly' when pushing the front end. For example with hotter pickup it would get hairier.Set your amp gain to 12:00 and run the rat at 12-2 on the distortion. Try boosting the overall signal with a bit of a hump in the highs with the ge7 in front of the rat and use the filter to dial the fizz back. The low pass filter in the Rat is after the distortion stage of the circuit.

And they are tough as hell to dial in. Anyone I knew that had one would cut you if you even looked at the knobs.

[Newc]

Metallica is full of myths when it comes to recording on all of their albums. I am convinced that nobody ever used a RAT pedal because I know a hundred guitar players that own them and you will NEVER see them use one... ever. Regarding the GE-7... it barely helps in the gain department and adds a lot of noise. The SD-1 doesn't do squat either. The M13 will do a lot of stuff for you.. the biggest thing is make your JCM800 sound like a Solid State amp. The best way to get great metal tone out of that amp is to mod it and buy an attenuator and turn that sucka way the frig up. You also need to run Vintage 30's because you need as much sizzle and break up as possible. I had fairly good results using a TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer set on the turbo mode. I also had fairly good results using a stock Metal Zone. The HM-2 works decently too. The problem is they all have their weak points and those weaknesses are too blatant to ignore.

That was the problem that led me to racks 20 years ago. I had pedals out the ass, but for all their variety they were incredibly mediocre.
At least with a rack unit, I could have a wider variety of moediocrity

Gonna go through the motions and fight this thing tooth and nail before I render a final verdict on the "almighty JCM800 of myth and legend". I've heard for years how great this amp is/was for "Metal", but once you start peeling back the layers it's starting to seem more like doe-eyed fanboyism "becuz so-and-so used it to record such-and-such!", never mind the fact that it was the only "rock oriented" amp brand readily available back in 1980.

Still, if I decide to puss-out and do Southern Rock or AC/DC covers, it's perfect for that.

[Newc]

The filter control on the Rat is to set the cut off frequency of a variable low pass filter. Think of it as a Vox tone control. It doesn't add anything, it's just a high frequency cut.

Because of their design the rat would get more 'snarly' when pushing the front end. For example with hotter pickup it would get hairier.Set your amp gain to 12:00 and run the rat at 12-2 on the distortion. Try boosting the overall signal with a bit of a hump in the highs with the ge7 in front of the rat and use the filter to dial the fizz back. The low pass filter in the Rat is after the distortion stage of the circuit.

And they are tough as hell to dial in. Anyone I knew that had one would cut you if you even looked at the knobs.

Lack of numbers doesn't help. Did they design this in their sleep? Was it the unexpected results of someone just haphazardly soldering various bits of other pedals together? Someone lose a bet?

I noticed it's always "Rat2" - wtf happened to the first one?

[Hellbat]

Wikipedia is your friend.

The later versions had some circuitry changes and newer reproductions often use a different op amp in the circuit. The original used an lm308.

[Newc]

I'd say the newer model was better. At least I can get it to sound somewhat decent. Spent an hour in a store tweaking one way back in ye olden days and came up empty. Even the guys at the store (30-something longhairs who actually played and kept up with the times) said they had no idea how to make it sound "good".

Like JG said - this appears to be a running gag - everybody has one, no one uses it

[VitaminG]

when you say the amp gain is on 10, do you mean it is maxed? How does it sound when you back off some of the head gain & increase the pedal gain?

[Newc]

Yes, it only goes to 10. Might do the Spinal Tap mod, though

Backing off the head gain and increasing the Distortion of the Rat sounds about the same since I'm balancing it out. The Rat Distortion knob does not need to go to max, unless you're playing through something that's clean-only. Otherwise it just sounds like absolute ass.

[VitaminG]

Wasn't sure if you meant the gain was cranked or if it was at 10 o'clock. How does the amp sound by itself with the gain on 10? Flubby? I've never had the chance to really crank up an 800 but I would have thought they'd sound pretty shitty with the gain above 8. Last 800 I messed about with was the Kerry King sig. Quite a bit of gain on that one and pushing it with a clean boost gave it a good, sharp attack.

I've found not too many amps have usable gain all the way up. A lot of pedals too, for that matter. And when you cascaded too much pedal gain into an already gainy amp, it can turn to undefined shit pretty quickly. That's why I was wondering if it would sound better if you dialled it back to get a good crunchy tone and then slam the frontend with one of your new toys, maybe add a touch of gain on the pedal if you needed more.

[Newc]

Ah, I see.

By itself, with the Head Gain on 10 (full) running into the High Sens input, it's very good for AC/DC rhythms (Highway To Hell, Back in Black, Shook Me All Night Long, etc) and Creedence solos. Can't even do the intro to Heading Out To The Highway with it. It's not flubby (with the EQ knobs set at 50%), it's just not overdriven enough. With the Master Volume above 3, it's really kicking the shit out of the speakers, but not adding to the distortion. It's actually less distorted and more like a really over-powering clean tone. That's the only way I can describe it - like you're running a really loud clean amp through a pair of speakers that are struggling to keep from exploding from the force.

Of course the High Sensitivity input is where you get the built-in distortion from (and where "everyone" suggests running the external boost pedals to slam the front end), but the Low Sensitivity is all/mostly clean, even with both Gain and Volume maxed. That's where you'd run pedals that were providing all the distortion, such as the Rat, at least for what I'm trying to accomplish. There's no "rules" to tone (as it says in the head's manual), but running the pedals I have into both Inputs, I think it's safe to say which setup does and does not work.

Setting it up so the head Gain is on about 7 or 8, the built-in distortion's just starting to appear. Back off the guitar volume and it's a useable clean, even strumming Major chords with a Jazz III.
-Using the SD1 with the Level maxed and a touch more Drive than before (maybe 10 o'clock), it's about the same as having the head Gain maxed and the SD1 Drive set about 8 or 9 o'clock (since Off is 7 o'clock, "just kicking in" is about 8:30/9 o'clock).
-Swapping the SD for the Rat with the same head settings, I can get the Distortion knob up to 1 or 2 o'clock, and the Filter knob goes with it and still get a tolerable tone.
-Using the GE7 alone with the head set the same way pushes it up to match the head by itself with the Gain on 10/max.

I will say the GE7 really helps the Rat, especially with notched tones, or cutting the excess fizz, or taming the farty bass it generates.


I did get to do a little bit with the Line6 M13 yesterday. I do like the effects section (found a Chorus effect for the intro to Welcome Home Sanitarium right off the bat). Based on the literally few minutes of time I had to really crank the amp (Gain on max/10, Master on 5), the OD stuff does not appear to work as well as the stand-alone pedals do in regards to pushing the front end of the amp through the High input. The literature claims that it models the Rat, but I got a more useable tone from it than the real pedal, in less time, so it's all hype

My MetalZone should come today, which is another one the M13 claims to model. We'll see.

Doesn't do the SD1, though, so I can't compare them. It does claim to do the Chandler TubeDriver pedal. I heard one through a Marshall head back in '87/'88 that a friend had, and it sounded great. Dunno what the settings were on it, though. He did get good cleans as well (since he was a Dokken/Lynch fan) so I'm assuming the pedal did all the work. It was balls-loud, too, so again I'm assuming he ran into the High input.

Anyway, my Dad's heading out for a few hours this morning, which means I'll get to play loud