Peavey JSX Mini Colossal review

[gonzo]

Peavey JSX Mini Colossal review

(2) mp3's for you to consider….

yousendit downloads:
(good for 7 days from jul 14 07)

miniC-Clean-mas.mp3
http://download.yousendit.com/5CF58BDB1EFFEB16


miniC-dirty-mas.mp3
http://download.yousendit.com/2479BCAB0839418A



The Gear:

the Mini C and Yamaha DG stomp

the clean and dirty guitar.... clean sunburst, dirty cream


1st, i have to say, i'm goofy, and i play goofy... especially on this recording!

i basically threw the gear together, got levels, panned the direct hard to the left, and the miced track hard to the right, tweaked the amp a bit, and just slapped it down. The volume off the Cab, was truely bedroom volume... if you listen carefully, you can hear me stomping my feet, and hear the pick noise on the strings- coming thru the cab mic.

i couldn't figure out a better way to quickly do it, except to just hard pan em.... if you can, you can solo left and right seperately, to hear them apart from each other...
or you can pan your balance hard left or right, depending on what you're listening through...
point is, i didn't care about comparing the direct to the miced sound... i just wanted to hear how the amp sounded recorded.

when i get down to it, to record for real, i'll spend time tweaking everything anyway, so this is just the amp sound flat, no eq'ing on mixdown. all effects are the Yamaha DG stomp in the FX loop.

guitar signal: (Barber Tone Press, Barber Direct Drive SS, and boss NS-1 used off and on- see mp3 notes)

direct: out XLR>>A Designs Audio MP-1 mic pre>>DBX MC6>>ART DPS convertor (only)>>Maudio 2496>>Sonar.
miced cab: roland 1x12 with celestion greenback, miced with ADK Hamburg>>ART DPS preamp>>convertor out>>soundcard>>sonar.



The mp3's:

Clean
--uses the williams custom electric (the sunburst one) for all clean tracks. Bill lawrence L-280 pickups.

1. No pedals, straight amp, no. 2 position-- then switches to neck pickup 0:00-0:46
2. same as above, but add tremelo on amp, subtle setting. 0:46-1:10
3. add tone press, yamaha DG stomp in loop, a bit more drive (vol) 1:11-1:37
4. a little more drive, same as above different pickup config 1:38-end.

Dirty
--uses the cream strat, starts out with humbucker (lawrence L500L)

1. straight into the MiniC, with gain about noon, and 'sponge' set at about 1/3 full. 0:00-0:58
2. straight into the MiniC, but with dimed vol, sponge at about 1/4 full, 0:59-1:41
3. Gain at about noon, but ADD the barber direct drive pedal and NS-1; add FX loop 1:42-2:22
4. gain at noon, Add tone press (no drive pedal), neck pickup. 2:23-3:11
5. pos. #4 on guitar, settings same as above 3:12-3:40
6. straight into the MiniC, humbucker bridge, w/FX loop, with gain about 11, and 'sponge' set at about 1/3 full. 3:41-end

 

[Spirithunter]

The more i listen to your clips the more i am warming up to this little amp...I'm digging it.
It might be cool to have this sitting around here to jam on.
I'll have to check it out...

Thanks for the clips gonzo!8) Nicely done...

 

[gonzo]

well, my clips really suck!!
LOL

but when i get a chance to really record with it, really spend some time setting up 'my' sound on it, and mixing it with a proper recording, i'll decide then, whether it's a keeper or not...

it does sound a bit small...

not like my mesa, even at bedroom volume!!

yeah, sounding small, i think, can be overcome with judicious eq tweaking, certain compression, and correct placement in a 'bigger' sounding mix..

of course, looking at the history of zeppelin recordings, for example, page used small amps to great affect...

once i get a chance to record some guitars with this, on a proper recording, i'll revisit this for you guys...

the 8" speaker, like i said, was never a consideration for the idea of getting this amp...
i'll mic it eventually, just for fun...

but i always intended on using it with an external cab, so that part's no biggy.

it makes perfect sense to me, not to have included reverb on this.


think about it..

the whole idea, is to push the POWER section of this sucker....

where does reverb go?

well, AFTER the preamp, BEFORE the power..

so if you take a nice reverb sound, and run it through a distorted, saturated power secton, what do you get?



MUD.

the trem, on the other hand, works wonderfully, both at clean and grunge, and is an intergral part of the sound going into the power section....

more like a pedal, than anything else.

there's no place for reverb in a 'higher gain' amp with no headroom!!!
LOL

it's always best for recording (what this is geared for, i believe) to add reverb after the fact, on mixdown, and concentrate on getting a great pure amp tone first.

i added the effects from my yamaha just to see how the fx loop would work, and it works fine, but i wont be recording any more delays or reverbs thru it!


thanks for checking this out.

i didn't do it for myself, i did it for anyone who's hunting for an amp like this.

 

[gonzo]

well, as i said in the original post, this is a combination of the direct out, and an external 1x12 cab....

i use that 1x12 cab with the greenback in it, for recording the boogie thru...

of course, the boogie's got much more influence on the speaker, with tone stacks and eq available, so getting a big sound out of the 1x12 and the boogie, is pretty easy..

used the same cab on the mini.

the thing about it is, it's not supposed to sound BIG, per se....

in a crowded mix, i would think the last thing you'd want would be a 'big' sounding cab anyway....

and to be fair, with it sitting all by it's lonesome, it does sound rather small, but it'd never be recorded that way anyway...

i love moving air...
and to me, that's the sound that is always best.

the direct out on this, is not bad.... it had to be voiced in SOME manner, and i guess satriani had the final say so on how it'd be voiced....

i'm sure, it's very similar to the voicing of a Palmer attenuator.....

in fact, i'll get to a/b it against a Palmer PDI-09 soon......
and that'll tell me a lot more.

i find in mixing, that the bigger guitar sound i get (the mark IIb thru a THD 4x12 for example), i start having to roll the low end off to get chunk clarity...

maybe, with this sound, i work the opposite, dial in some low end with high Q's and find the sweetspot in the low end via Parametric eq on mixdown.....?

plus, with a medium condenser mic on the center of the grille, i didn't get much room sound from the cab, and normally i pull it off axis near the edge of the cab, and get much more smoother chunk....
and i didn't do that on this recording..

man, so many variables, it's really hard for me to tell one thing or the other.