Peavey JSX Mini Colossal review

[GONZO-X]

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

 

[marshall409]

wow

Sounds great man!

I'll definitely have to check this thing out next time i'm browsing the shops.

Thanks for the very thorough audio review.

Adam

 

[GONZO-X]

thanks for listening and checking it out...

i think it does sound 'small', compared to my boogie..

and that makes sense...

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-X]

RAN THE XLR....
out, into the fx return of the boogie...

rocks.

 

[BushmasterM4]

I plan on gettin one and sitting it next to its big brother. My JSX Head and 4/12 cab.

 

[ocnor]

Nice review Gonzo. I would really like to hear that amp through a 12" speaker.

 

[mikeh]

Thank for the review. When the Mini Colossus was first annouced I was very interested (I would run it to a 2x12") - but I have not found one in a local store to try out.

 

[GONZO-X]

BushmasterM4
it DOES sound different than the large JSX, for sure.... a lot of people think it sounds the same, but it does not.
this is good, cuz it allows for more textures and tones when blending tracks....


Ocnor-

I would really like to hear that amp through a 12" speaker.

well, that's what you ARE hearing!!
LOL

actually, it's the blended sound, of the direct out (left) and a miced 12" cab (right)

"miced cab: roland 1x12 with celestion greenback, miced with ADK Hamburg>>ART DPS preamp>>convertor out>>soundcard>>sonar."

mikeh
thru a 2x12, would be perfect.
i chose a cab with a closed back, and a greenback, just because i know it well...
but my buddy has a mini as well, and he runs it thru a THD 2x12, with vintage 30's, i believe, and he likes it thru that just fine!

 

[ocnor]

well, that's what you ARE hearing!!
LOL

actually, it's the blended sound, of the direct out (left) and a miced 12" cab (right)

LOL! maybe I'll learn to read some day. It just had such a small sound that I assumed it was an 8" or 10" speaker. It must be that it uses an EL84 power tube which I'm not very fond of [I dislike EL34s also] . Is it capable of running a 6L6 tube?

 

[GONZO-X]

no, it's only setup for the one tube set......it's a real simple pure design.....

i think it must have been inspired by satch's time playing with the Cornford Harlequin, which, of course, is a much more hardy (and expensive) design...

Class A single stage.... you gotta channel Vox's and the like....

el84, lots of classic amps that use that output tube, and i like the sound for a lot of things.....

but my boogie has 6L6's, and that's my preference as well.

i see this (as a recording tool) more for finding really differently voiced rhythms, and blending with other tracks....
it's almost as if it's already eq'd to sit in a track really well.

what sounds small by itself, sometimes sounds huge when mixed properly
(listen to 'whole lotta love', for example--Supro amplifier and a Telecaster guitar )

 

[whysman]

just got one

Hello all.. I'm a newbie to this website and actually only came across it about 4 or so days ago when I was looking for reviews on the Mini Colossal.

I recieved mine today and have been less than thrilled as when the volume is turned up (past 3-4) it is very muddy.

Now... the one caveat that I have here is that I have had to turn the power sponge down quite a bit due my infant son being asleep... I would say at about 5%. Now I am hoping this is the reason for the muddy-ness, but from everything I have read states that setting the power sponge should not have any affect on the overall sound set by the volume.

I have also read that JJs can sometimes sound muddy, but most reviews rave about the JJs.

I bought this amp for recording purposes...love the idea of an XLR line out!!

 

[GONZO-X]

good thing is....
and i've a/b'd this on my own...

is that the sponge setting doesnt really affect the xlr out...

so, if you're wanting to use it for recording..
you should be able to take the sponge way down... so the volume is do-able...

and just concentrate on gain settings via the xlr out into the recorder...

you can add effects on mixdown, which sound way better than anything in the loop..

and simply get the best setting out of the amp you can find, tweak the eq on the channel insert (or whatever processing you may have post-mic and pre-recorder)

my trial recordings, were just straight into recorder, with no processing whatsoever...
i found the cleans, to be almost identical to the miced cabs, and the dirty settings to be much darker via the xlr than the miced cab, but, with the tone all the way clockwise, to the right, it brightened up considerably, and actually, adding a bit of treble bite at the channel insert isn't a bad thing.

also, it takes my pedals really well...
i've found that if i use my barber direct drive, set up for more treble than i use with the boogie, it actually tailors the bass, or 'mud', back a bit...
so if you have a treble booster, or any overdrive that has a tone knob, you could very well tweak it that way as well...
i like to use less distortion, and then add overdrive via pedal, on this particular amp.