JAM Pedals
That Tremolo Show Ah good ol' TPS (That Pedal Show), if you're not familiar with their YouTube channel ... well you should be. Between the two presenters Dan & Mick they have are huge wealth of knowledge around all things music gear and quite specifically pedals. This isn't the first signature pedal they've produced in connection with a great pedal manufacturer but the Harmonious Monk definitely has the best name. Designed in conjunction with one of our favourite pedal companies JAM , this pedal encapsulates their shared love of tremolo and in particular Harmonic Tremolo! Firstly the pedal has some interesting controls designed around the basis of live performance, the mix control and in conjunction with the overall volume allows for precise control of effect and level, the double speed footswitch is perfect for on the fly changes which can easily become a hook for a song.
Why Aren't All Vibe's Purple? Happy accidents, Penicillin, Stainless Steel, Viagra and Vibe are all there in the best human kind has stumbled upon. The circuit which we now recognise as Vibe was originally designed to replicate a leslie rotary speaker and that's fairly obvious when you think about the tones however it offers soooo much more. As with all things classic pedal circuits we tend to migrate towards the originals which players normally agree sound the best. With this mindset JAM Pedals created the Rotovibe Mk.2 and people all over the world agree this is one of the best recreations of the greatest vibe circuits from history such as the Shin-Ei Uni-vib.The switch will push the circuit more towards vibrato or chorus tones but the vibe is always still the dominant sound. This often confuses players new to vibe as it sounds closer to a phaser, here you can use tonepedia to here the difference between the four different effect types!
The Trouble With Tremolo Ahh sweet sweet tremolo, so good the very first individual effect was a tremolo way back in the 1940's (yes that's right not long until 100 years of stomp boxes). Arguably the very best tremolo tones are those found in amps and specifically older Fender amps and that's why our friend from sunny Greece, Jam Pedals have designed the Chill Tremolo to sound like these early Fender tremolos.The trouble with tremolo is perceived volume loss, this is due to half of what we're hearing being removed. The highest volumes are the same but it sure doesn't feel like it! What the very best Tremolo's do to combat this it add more volume to the output which behaves like a boost and allowing the tremolo effect to come in at unity gain. Jam pedals of course added this feature but they've taken it one step further.By reducing the tremolo effect (depth at 0) and pushing the volume you get a very pleasant sounding boost from your analog trem pedal! All in all this pedal gives the user everything needed from a trem plus a boost feature and it looks amazing just like the entire Jam range.
Fat Bottom Fuzz Fuzz pedals are normally quite a nasally sounding things often with very little low or mid frequencies. Muffs are slightly different in this though many would argue muffs sit more in distortion territory than fuzz. Then we have germanium fuzzes which are are little more delicate, dynamic but still roar in a way to tear ones face off when pushed hard enough. The dilemma comes when we want all of the features as there wasn't much out there allowing this. And that's why Jam named their fuzz ... Eureka! What they created is a germanium sounding muff style fuzz with 3 switchable low end options and the ability to push it hard in the lightening bolt setting for gated spluttery tones. This is one pedal which behaves very differently through different rigs and it just so happens that's exactly what Tonepedia provides. Go ahead and see how it behaves differently with single coils into a fender amp compared to humbukers through an AC30.
Wet Wet BassIf you're new to chorus take a moment to go listen to the 80's because that's what that sound is! There are a few revered choruses from the 80's such as the Boss pedals (CE-1, CE-2, Dimension C etc) which many would argue are the quintessential chorus tones. So Jam went in another direction. Jam have created an analog chorus pedal which sounds modern ... this is clearly a double negative but somehow they've done it. Even long time chorus haters have been turned onto this pedal such as Greg Koch who would only use chorus as a faux Lesley sound and now loves the Jam Waterfall. In fact this pedal is so well received that even the mighty Steve Lukather has one as a mainstay on his board.Enough name dropping, lets talk about the controls. We have Depth and speed, an extra switch for a different flavour of Chorus giving a more 3D sound. The right switch kills the dry signal and therefore provides us with a vibrato tone.Yes that's right you get two effects in one pedal! Being the bass version this pedal is tweaked for bass frequencies and sounds great!
An authentic recreation of a legendary pedal. When people talk about overdrive and distortion pedals there are a few which normally tend to pop up in conversation. Tubescreamers are the obvious name drop as is Klons and even the infamous Boss Metalzone MT-2 and rightly so as these are all massively influential pedals that have inspired numerous drive pedals since. There is another pedal sitting with the greats which may be seen as the underdog in sales terms but for many including most in the TonePedia team, the Pro Co RAT is one of the best. Edging on distortion/fuzz territory with a totally non-smooth breakup when playing chords, RAT style pedals can sound very amp-like. That changes massively when playing lead notes as RAT style pedals sing sweetly in what feels to be a juxtaposition to gritty aforementioned chords. So JAM knows a thing or two about classic pedals, especially the original RATâs featuring the elusive LM308N chip which they have found a source of NOS (new old stock) parts for. This has resulted in the RATTLER, a near faithful recreation of the best RATs ever made, and what has changed is all for the better such as featuring an LED on/off indicator. What's amazing for you is we have an original first version small box RAT on TonePedia and now we have the Rattler too so you can now experience both pedals side by side. Enjoy
The Funk Side Of The Phaser Phasers come in all shapes and sizes, some are optical, some have fancy feedback loops and others have more "stages" than you can count on both hands. The Ripple from JAM Pedals has none of those things. In fact the Ripple is about as simple as Phasers come and all the better for it. You see, as you increase the number of "stage" on a phaser it becomes more spacey with a lot more going on. To maintain the prominent phasing sound, 2 stages reacting with one-another without any further interruption will produce you the tones you'll recognise from classic Van-Halen, Pink Floyd and many others. The single control leaves no room for mistakes, turn it up and it gets faster, turn it down and ... yeah you get the idea. Sometimes, simple is good.
The Tubedreamer Went To The Gym It's fair to say the Lucydreamer is related to the Tubedreamer in the same way we're related to Baboons.Where-as the Tubedreamer tightens up the low end and pushes the mid range in that familiar way which suits strat players and high gain players alike, the Lucydreamer works in the opposite manner. The low end is accentuated allowing greater dynamics, the mid range hump is moved slightly to a more amp friendly frequency and reduced down just a little allowing the characteristics of your guitar and amp to stay true while adding a harder clipping bite. A/B the Lucydreamer against the the Tubedreamer and you'll hear this clearly for yourself. If you think this mean "transparency" you would be right and added clarity comes courtesy of the clean blend control which allows you to add just the right amount of drive to your tone. BUT WAIT what if you want to go from a light crunch to full on driven power chords. Well the High Gain footswitch allows this at a simple stomp. Dynamics is what this pedal is all about and it offers you this from many different angles, "transparent" tone, Clean blean, high gain footswitch. Nice!
One Snappy Compressor ... Cummon ... what else could we have titled this. However the term squishy would've been more apt as its clear that the Dyna-ssor borrows more than a little from possibly the most famous guitar compressor of all time, the MXD Dynacomp however it mixes in in qualities of the high fidelity Ross compressors.The result is a compressor which doesnât change your tone but will still work for a variety of genres from country through to metal and all in between.
Wet Wet & Wetter If you're new to chorus take a moment to go listen to the 80's because that's what that sound is! There are a few revered choruses from the 80's such as the Boss pedals (CE-1, CE-2, Dimension C etc) which many would argue are the quintessential chorus tones. So Jam went in another direction. Jam have created an analog chorus pedal which sounds modern ... this is clearly a double negative but somehow they've done it. Even long time chorus haters have been turned onto this pedal such as Greg Koch who would only use chorus as a faux Lesley sound and now loves the Jam Waterfall. In fact this pedal is so well received that even the mighty Steve Lukather has one as a mainstay on his board.Enough name dropping, lets talk about the controls. We have Depth and speed, an extra switch for a different flavour of Chorus giving a more 3D sound. The right switch kills the dry signal and therefore provides us with a vibrato tone.Yes that's right you get two effects in one pedal! So head into the player now and compare this with the other Choruses and vibrato's on Tonepedia to see what makes this one special.
When Muffs Collide Muff aficionados commonly fall into one of three groups, Op-amp, Triangle or Russian. Of those the Triangle and Russian have the least in common with the triangle muff being the most aggressive of the bunch. What Jam has done here is simply taken the best qualities of the Triangle and Russian muffs and stuck it all in a pretty little box a fraction the size of a 70's big muff. Then they've created a boost tuned to get every single delight out of the fuzz and squeezed that in there too.The result is pedal that would even make David Gilmour blush.This is so well respected, just check out the list of famous users:David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Graham Coxon, Jim Campilongo, Greg Koch, Dweezil Zappa, Lee Ranaldo, Adrian Legg, Guy Pratt, Robert Randolph, Julien Kasper, Sean Ono Lennon, Red Fang ... As always we urge you to A/B this pedal against our long list of fuzzes to hear which sound the best for you!
But Its Not Green ... Today's pedal market has lots of A) Fuzzes and B) Tubescreamers. You just have to search through Tonepedia's catalog to see this, but back when Jam Pedals released the Tubedreamer things were a little different. In a similar fashion the Tubedreamer is still a refreshing take on the traditional circuit, many simply look to recreate the earliest models but not so here. In a way the Tubedreamer isn't a Tubescreamer at all due to the use of asymmetric clipping which has more in common with Boss's SD-1 however the topology of the Tubedreamer is primarily based around an 808. The heritage is here too as it features the increasingly rare JRC4558D chip used in the late 70's early 80's pedals.The result is a pedal which is familiar yet a tone all of its own, add into the mix a choice of 3 diode clipping options and we have ourselves a pedal with both looks and sounds great still all these years on. Could the Tubedreamer soon become as renowned as the originals ... It could be argued it already is. But how does it sound and compare to the originals!? At tonepedia we don't tell you, we ask you to try them yourself. Under overdrives you will find a mixture of early Tubescreamer and even an SD-1 or two, A/B the Tubedreamer with these and you tell us what you think ... Which is your favourite?
Lllllllama ma ma ma This simple pedal is what bought JAM Pedals to the attention of the pedal community. As delays go today, something with three knobs seems overly simplistic and to be clear there are other versions now of the Delay Llama including the magnificent Xtreme version but this pedal has everything it could need to be a staple in your rig!Why is it so special? Well let us put this very clearly, this is one of the best sounding delay pedals ever created!The repeats sound so organic and warm but retain clarity until of course the signal naturally degrades, this works so well for dirty lead and clean sections equally.
The Bass OD Bassist Deserve It's fair to say the Lucydreamer Bass is more than just a guitar pedal with a Bass sticker on the box.Where-as the Lucydreamer accentuated certain guitar specific low end frequencies the bass version has been fine tuned for Bass friendly tones. Likewise it pushes the mid range in a way which suits basses and bass amps while maintaining your core tones. If you think this mean "transparency" you would be right and added clarity comes courtesy of the clean blend control which allows you to add just the right amount of drive to your tone. BUT WAIT what if you want to go from a light crunch to full on driven bass lines. Well the High Gain footswitch allows this at a simple stomp. Dynamics is what this pedal is all about and it offers you this from many different angles, "transparent" tone, Clean blean, high gain footswitch. Nice!
Bass Rattle!When people talk about overdrive and distortion pedals there are a few which normally tend to pop up in conversation. Tubescreamers are the obvious name drop as are Klons and even the infamous Boss Metalzone MT-2 and rightly so as these are all massively influential pedals which have inspired numerous drive pedals since. There is another pedal sitting with the greats which may be seen as the underdog in sales terms but for many including most in the TonePedia team the Pro Co RAT is one of the best. Edging on distortion/fuzz territory with a totally non smooth break up when playing chords, RAT style pedals can sound very amp like. That changes massively when playing lead notes as RAT style pedals sing sweetly in what feels to be a junkster position to gritty aforementioned chords.So JAM know a thing or two about classic pedals, especially the original RATâs featuring the elusive LM308N chip which they have found a source of NOS (new old stock) parts for. This has resulted in the RATTLER, a near faithful recreation of the best RATs ever made and what has changed is all for the better such as featuring an LED on/off indicator.What's amazing for you is we have an original first version small box RAT on TonePedia and now we have the Rattler too so you can now experience both pedals side by side. This is the Bass version which is tuned for bass frequencies and features a mix control AND a boost footswitch, neither of these feature on the standard guitar Rattler!
When Bass Muffs Collide Muff aficionados commonly fall into one of three groups, Op-amp, Triangle or Russian. Of those the Triangle and Russian have the least in common with the triangle muff being the most aggressive of the bunch. What Jam has done here is simply taken the best qualities of the Triangle and Russian muffs and stuck it all in a pretty little box a fraction the size of a 70's big muff. Then they've created a boost tuned to get every single delight out of the fuzz and squeezed that in there too.The result is pedal that would even make David Gilmour blush.This is so well respected, just check out the list of famous users:David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Graham Coxon, Jim Campilongo, Greg Koch, Dweezil Zappa, Lee Ranaldo, Adrian Legg, Guy Pratt, Robert Randolph, Julien Kasper, Sean Ono Lennon, Red Fang ... This is the Bass version tuned to suit bass frequencies and featuring an added mix control.