Best all round rack mounted distortion ????

rxkevco

rxkevco

New member
Hi all,,,
Just wondering what you guys think is the best rack distortion effect for under £200 (used ).
Over the years i have used everthing from an old vox fuzz pedal,thru tubescreamers,,,,digitech and korg floor units,,, rack mounted gear,, zoom hyperleads,,,you name it,,i have probably used it.
Now,,, some of the units have been great,,,,,for instance, i should NEVER have sold my Tubescreamer,,, and i had this digitech once that,,,,,, you know what i mean.
Styles and tastes change,, as does the quality and price of new gear, so there is never going to be the definitive distortion around.
What i am looking for is the type of sound i get from my fender amps dirty channel,,, its been a bread and butter sound, and i have never heard anything similar.
Wondering if there is any such thing as a rack mounted distortion unit, with a variety of pre set sounds and also programmable settings.
I am sick of getting rack mounted effects proccesors that have a great variety of sounds, but when it comes to distortion,,, they are all crap.
Can anyone recommend a unit to me ????
My tastes go from blues to rock,,, but i also like to have a wide range of lead sounds , from hendrix to satriani,,,
A lot to ask ,,i know,,,,, but, there must be an industry standard.

PS,,, before anyone asks,,,, i buy most of my gear used,,,mainly from ebay
so trying gear out isnt possible. I ussually go on recommendations, or by reasearching the gear first.
I am still a fan of hardware and dont want to venture into the vst pluggins that are around at the moment,, regardless of what reveiws they get. All in good time.
Would appreciate any ideas.
I run everthing thru my mixer then into cubase sx3.
Cheers,,,,, kev.
 
I've had my digitech 2120 for about 2 years and still blows me away everytime i sit down with it. It just keeps getting better. Gotem on Ebay with foot controller from about $300 up worth every penny and runs in stereo.
 
ADA MP-1. Used by the cream of the '80's crop: Skid Row, Metallica, Paul Gilbert, also Smashing Pumpkins. Some good mods out there as well. Very hot-rod Marshall, in stock trim.

adadepot.com

voodooamps.com
 
goodbyebluesky said:
Marshall JMP-1 rack preamp. Tube-driven, and programmable. They're on Ebay all the time.
Click to expand...

I have been using one for 13 years now. (great peice of gear!!) Although as a stand alone it is a little dry, which is usually the case with any pre. But once you add a little reverb or your favorite spices it is awesome. IMO ;) Distortion is subjective...YOU be the judge of your sound!!
 
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Thanks for all the advice guys,,,,
Think i am gonna get hold of the JMP-1 ,seems to be the
most popular for the £200 ish price tag.
Cheers,,,,,, kev.
 
Willybomb said:
Sansamp PSA-1.
Click to expand...

What he said. That thing is a workhorse and sounds great for the genre of music you describe. [ebay search text "tech 21 psa"]

If you can find the JMP-1 for under £200, then that's a deal. They usually finish the auction over £300 here ($500).
 
ermghoti said:
ADA MP-1. Used by the cream of the '80's crop: Skid Row, Metallica, Paul Gilbert, also Smashing Pumpkins. Some good mods out there as well. Very hot-rod Marshall, in stock trim.

adadepot.com

voodooamps.com
Click to expand...

+1 on that. I own two modded units and nothing compares for the price and support received at adadepot.com. You can usually find one on eBay for under $200 US. Do the noise and effects loop mod and I guarantee you will not be disappointed. Not limited to 80's hair metal. Early Nuno (first two Extreme albums) and Paul Gilbert used them as well.
 
Hey guys,,,
Sorry ,,, i forgot to post back,,
well,,,,, tried a jmp,,,,,,very impressed. A mate of my brothers in liverpool had one, so i had to take a trip back home ( has it been so long ??), to scouse land to have a play around with his jmp.
As i say,,, very impressed,,,
However,,,cutting a long story short,,, i managed to get hold of a sansamp psa 1, for roughly the same as i was gonna pay for a jmp.

Jeeezzz,,, what a fuckin bargain,,,

jeeezzz,,,what a fantastic bit of kit,,,

I am so glad i didnt get a marshall in the end,,, the sansamp psa 1 is absalutly brilliant. After playing around with a marshall for the good part of a whole weekend,,, i can now catergorically say that the sansamp wins hands down.
There really is no competition,,, i am amazed at how vesatile this sansamp is, and the wide variety of presets is more than enough for a wide range of styles,, but you can knock up your own patches as welll, giving you more scope of variety.
I am sorry if i have offended any jmp owners who have kindly contributed to this thread,,, but ,,,sorry,,, the sansamp is the best peice of equipment i have bought in over 20 years. Its been the missing link in my set up.
If it got nicked, or bust tomorrow,,, i would beg , steal and borrow to get enough cash together to get another one.

Thanks for all the advice,, been very much appreceiated,,,its taken me so long to post back to this thread, cos i aint put my guitar down for the last 2 weeks.
Am completly and utterly happy with the sansamp, and my thanks go to those who advised me to search beyond the jmp.
cheers,,,, kev.
 
i got that sansamp but find mine a bit noisy,
isn't there a mod out there to fix that?
would be outstanding

i'm not a guitarist but use it for drums,vocals,fx,
sometimes for guitars :)

but do find it a bit hissy....or is mine maybe a bit old or so?
 
Mine isnt a new one either,, its about 3 or 4 yrs old.
Havent noticed any problems with hiss though
.
You are always going to get a certain amount of noise with any unit that provides distortion,, but one of the many endearing things i have found with my sansamp is that there is no noticable noise.
Even on a very distorted pre set,,,playing at high volume thru my amp,, or my mixer ( mainly thru the mixer ),,i have been amazed at how quiet it actually is.
 
earworm said:
i got that sansamp but find mine a bit noisy,
isn't there a mod out there to fix that?
would be outstanding

i'm not a guitarist but use it for drums,vocals,fx,
sometimes for guitars :)

but do find it a bit hissy....or is mine maybe a bit old or so?
Click to expand...

I used to have noise on mine, or so it seemed. Then I changed out the audio interface and voila...no more noise. It seemed, in my case atleast, that the preamp and interface didn't like each other for some reason. Now it's very quiet...even on really heavy distortion. I freak people out sometimes when it's hooked up to my amp...you can barely hear a hiss, but when I start playing, they quickly realize that it's cranked.
 
Here,, Here,,,
Suffer from the same problem,,,
When shes really cranked up, and i stop playing for a few secs,, i sometimes forget that i am plugged in at all.
Play out a screaming guitar solo,, and come to a few secs break in the solo, and its as quiet as a mouse,,,,
LIFES A BITCH SOMETIMES !!!!!
 
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