Johnson Amplification J-Station

This is the best guitar processor ever made. I have been looking for a distortion sound like this for years and years. Ive tried everything and have had to live with a tube screamer until I found this unit. 99.00 ?!?!?!?! You will never get a deal like this ever!!!!
Here's the whole key to loving this processor.(which if your to dumb to have figured it out already, I shouldnt even tell you)is to TURN OFF THE AMP SIMULATOR WHEN YOU HOOK IT TO AN AMP. DUH !!!!
Im throwing all my pedals-rack eq-and cords away. No wait, EBAY!

My life is finally complete thanks to the J-Station.

Fairly easy to get a few of the presets to sound OK, but most need a good editing to get a collection of thirty or more presets. I used two or three modified presets for about six months, then I got a USB/MIDI interface converter so I could run the J-Edit software and now I'm getting a few more favorable presets. I couldn't cope with manually programming more than a couple of channels.

I'm using this with a Strat, and the stock single coils pick up a variety of noises, including the fan on my laptop. But when I crank down the volume control on my Strat, the J-Station is pretty quiet even in a high gain mode. I've used the J-Edit program for about a week now, and all I've really spent much time on is evaluating the many amp models with a little compression and a dash of reverb. So far, I'm really impressed with the Brit Combo amp model for a clean sound, and for something just a little punchy I really like the Blues amp model. The J Crunch is fun to play with. I'm sure to get a collection of several fine quality amp models out of my J-Station. The hard part seems to be reducing the seemingly endless posibilities to a few choices!

As far as consumer grade disposable electronics go, this seems to be a well-built unit. The internal processor gets a little warm, but not so hot that it needs a cooling fan. It seems that the control knobs could be damaged in a fall, but the unit seems solid. I bought it used and it's been on for the last six months. If I really needed reliability I'd just get the $100 second J insurance plan. Nothing assures reliability like redundancy.

No interaction, but I hope they continue to provide parts and repair sevice for a few more years. I believe there are rules about how long they must support a product after it is discontinued. Remains to be seen.

I've played an acoustic for years, but never played electric until a couple of years ago. It's been a lot of fun, and the J-Station adds a lot of useful quality features. The compressor works fine, the amp simulations are very good, the noise gate works, the reverb provides an array of ambience, the echo is of fine quality and fully adjustable as well. The effects are also of good quality and fully customizable. All in all, I'd have to say it's a great value.

FIRST OF ALL I WOULD JUST LIKE TO SAY THAT I AM SOO HAPPY WITH THIS UNIT , AND IF YOU CANT GET A GOOD SOUND OUT OF THIS ,YOU ARE A COMPLETE MORON OR YOU JUST REALLY SUCK ON GUITAR ...PERIOD , ,THIS UNIT IS FAIRLY SIMPLE TO USE AS LONG AS YOU GET THE MIDI TO COMPUTER CONFIG. WORKING, OTHER WISE IT TAKES A LITTLE TIME GETTING ALL YOUR SETTINGS DOWN .BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO MANUALLY PUNCH IN YOUR SETTINGS . HAVING THE SOFTWARE ALLOWS YOU TO CHANGE SETTING ON THE FLY ,

THE SOUND QUALITY OF THIS MACHINE IS TRUELY AWESOME ,ALTHOUGH I DONT CARE FOR THE WAH MUCH , THE DISTORTION ON THE BRITISH SETTINGS ARE SOO TUBE LIKE YOU WOULD NEVER BE ABLE TO TELL , IT SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE RECORDING THROUGH A MILLION DOLLAR RIG , I WOULD BE MORE THAN HAPPY TO SEND ANYONE A WAV SOUND SAMPLE IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO JUDGE FOR YOURSELF. FOR 100.00 BUCKS HOW CAN YOU GO WRONG . MY BOSS DELAY PEDAL COST TWICE AS MUCH , I HARDLY EVER PLAY MY TUBE AMPS ANYMORE BECAUSE THE SOUND OF THIS MACHINE IS SOO AMAZING THERE IS NO NEED FOR IT ANYMORE , I EVEN THOUGHT ABOUT SELLING IT. EVEN IF THE POD SOUNDED THIS GOOD ITS STILL COSTS 3 TIMES MORE , THE CHORUS ,DELAY AND REVERB ON THIS UNIT IS VERY GOOD ,THE ACOUSTIC SOUNDS ARE REALLY GOOD AS WELL . I PUT A LITTLE CHORUS TO THE ACOUSTIC ALONG WITH COMPRESSION ,REVERB AND DELAY , AND I COULD JUST PLAY FOR DAYS . I COULD NAIL GEORGE LYNCH ,MALMSTEEN TONE NO PROBLEM WITH THE DISTORTION , THE TONE IS AWESOME , YOU DONT NEED ANY PREAMP PEDALS BEFORE THE INPUT. I AM PLAYING THROUGH A FENDER STRAT SCALLOPED NECK , DUNCAN DISTORTION ,BRIDGE , DIMARZIO HS3 , NECK ,STRAIGHT IN TO THE J STATION , S/PDIF OUT INTO A MIDI FILE SOUND CARD , COOL EDIT PRO SOFTWARE IS A MUST TO HAVE ALSO . AGAIN I WILL SEND YOU A SOUND SAMPLE TO HEAR HOW AWESOME THIS UNIT IS.

NO PROBLEMS . COMPUTER IS NOT LOCKING UP I RUN WINDOWS XP 2.4 GIG . EVERYTHING RUNS SMOOTH . I JUST CANT GET OVER FOR A HUNDRED BUCKS , HOW AWESOME THIS IS . IF I PAID 500. I WOULD STILL BE HAPPY WITH NO COMPLAINTS , AND IT SAVES MY PRACTICE AMPS TUBE LIFE......

N/A NEVER DELT NO PROBLEMS YET

MY STYLE OF PLAYING IS YNGWIE , GEORGE LYNCH , DREAM THEATER TYPE SOUND , I LOVE TO PLAY FAST LEADS , I"M A REAL TONE HEAD ,I LOVE PLAYING FAST APPREGIOS AND MELODIC BLUES ,HARMONIC MINOR RUNS ,YOU REALLY GET A GOOD SOUND OUT OF THIS.

it's not too hard to use, editing is a bit of a pain, could have a simpler, better designed layout

it sounds weird, fake with digital harshness... it has some useable bass patches, and sometimes you don't notice in a mix, but i don't see how anyone could give this thing a 9 or 10, it's pretty much garbage, i would never use it on a recording other people would listen to

seems sturdy

may be useful for some people, the tuner is a cool feature, but the sound sucks, and that's the big problem here

Fairly easy to get a good sound out of this thing. The Amp sims are much better than pod, if not quite a replica of the real amps in some cases. I basically play blues and R&B so about 35% of the sounds are of no interest to me anyway! Editing is fairly easy once you take some time to read the manual, (fairly useful)but tweaking is very painstaking, especially if you're trying to repro an exact amp sound. Top editing is extremely simple.

I use various guitars, including a couple of vintage Gibsons and Fenders. My main axes are a Mark Lacey built double Fat Strat with Bill Lawrence pickups and a custom built Explorer with custom wound pickups. Both guitars are fairly bright sounding, and sound just fine with the J-Station. It reproduces what is there..if your guitar is noisy or otherwise not sounding so good, the J station reflects that. The effects all work very well, though some real tweaking is necessary. I have used it as an effects unit with a couple a Marshalls after setting it on the `no modeling' setting and found it to be the cheapest and best 24 bit fx unit out there.

The unit is metal and seems fairly solid and reliable..no problems yet! I have gigged with it by itself into a power amp and it works well, though most players would probably want the J8 foot controller for maximum flexibility. Only caution is to make sure to use a loud enough power amp...at least 150-250w. The J-station was not really designed for live use and doesn't put out much output, and if you turn up the master you can sometimes get digital clipping...no fun, I tell ya! I've also used it live as an fx unit as described above..it does just fine like that.

Had an internal problem with the first one I bought. Johnson at least tried to help, but were mostly ineffectual. I called ZZounds, where I bought it and they replaced the unit straight away, no problem.

I play blues and r&b, so I don't really need tons of different sounds. For what it is, at this price, the J-Station is a major bargain. Live and for recording, it's still an exceptional 24 bit FX unit that can be used on more than just guitar. Will it repro than tweed Bassman or that plexi Marshall? I don't think so, but it comes within shouting distance with a lot of editing. Does it have a lot of great sounds on its own? Yep! All in all a useful box and worth the money. I'm sure I'd buy another if it went missing.

For recording its very easy to use if you forget the physical controls on the box and use the software which comes with it. The parameters are sent to the box with MIDI. Once you run the software the box and the software are in sync for good I have any wierd issues. Plus the software gives you access to the cabinet models which you dont see on the panel. Firmware 2.0 which I have has more amp models and cabs to select from. Since I dont use it live Im not sure how usuable it is on a gig.

Vintage mustang with various effects pedals in front of the J-Station. I dont amplify it I just use it for recording. The clean tones seem to pick up the special character of the guitar well enough not as well as a twin. It responds very well to pedals in front of it - the built in effects are good but I dont go overboard with them. Many presets are usuable right out of the box while others are there to show off the various effects. The cabinet variations are interesting. I have to say I tried all the modelers on the marklet for several hours side by side and this one was the only one that sounded decent. Dont even think about a POD. the 10 is for best in class - not the same 10 an great amp would earn.

I dont gig with it it hasnt given me any problems.

no experience

I play straight ahead rock I almost gave up when I moved into an apt and had to put the twin in the closet. Researched attenuators - gave em the thumbs down - bought a POD then sold it. The J-Station has really made me happy and enjoy playing and recording at 0 volume levels. I believe its discontinued so get one before they run out. Even if your not into modeling - this thing is worth the price of at least 7 pedals or a decent amp and its only 149 you will find some use for it.

I haven't used it for recording or hooked it to my computer. Basically I was looking for a preamp because my Mesa head wasn't versatile enough, especially in the crunch department. What sounded great through the headphones just didn't seem to come through live, though. The reason turned out to be (and other folks have commented on this as well) speaker emulation. This can only be adjusted in "deep editing" mode. Pretty much everything else can be done using the knobs. I finally got on the web site and downloaded another copy of the manual (misplaced the original soon after I bought the unit). Ten minutes later and I was deep-editing (which simply involves holding down the "shift" button for a few seconds and then pressing the < or > buttons until the desired parameter is displayed). The transformation in sound when I discovered parameter 15 (speaker) and set it to bypass (00) was remarkable. Other cabinet emulations also affect the sound significantly and there's no other way to achieve the result. It's so dramatic that I think Johnson should have made the function a top-level edit by adding another knob. I should say that if you want to switch amp models while you're in deep-edit mode, the new model will revert to whatever speaker cabinet it has been paired with. However, if you're already editing parameter 15 you can adjust this back to 00 quickly using the data knob. For live performance the solution is just to save your favorite amp/speaker combination in a new storage location for quick recall. So, in spite of the relative ease of deep editing (once you have the list of parameters in front of you), I'm going to give it a 9.

As mentioned above, I'm not really doing the home-recording thing. I was struggling so much with my LP Custom combined with my Mesa (soloing was great, but crunchy rhythm was just not there) that I decided to get the J-station. I wanted to keep the Mesa and couldn't afford to get a decent Marshall as well. Before I sorted out deep-editing the speaker emulation it was like having a blanket over the cabinet. Relentless attempts at adjusting the EQ, gain, etc. did little to alleviate the problem. With speaker emulation bypassed - well, it's transformed my opinion and I can say that the J has delivered what I hoped it would. I can now shred and chug with both my Gibson and Ibanez RG570. The effects are mostly good - the delay is great fun, compression and noise gate very useful, although I probably need to get into deep-editing the auto-wah to get it to sound less springy and electronic. Bearing in mind the price, I have to go for 9.

So far, everything have been OK. The unit is very solid, although I'm not that keen on the power supply. However, I haven't used it that much because it didn't do what I wanted - or rather I hadn't figured out how! It'll probably get a lot more use from now on.

I like the web site. Hopefully this will continue to be maintained.

It's hard to believe that something this small and inexpensive can do what it does. And I know I haven't got to grips with half of its capabilities. Minor gripes about the need to get into deep-level editing to adjust amp/speaker combinations (I'd've thought this was a reasonably fundamental requirement) are just that - minor. I hated hearing a friend's Pod sound better than my J, even if it was more dough. But now the speaker thing is sorted I'm feeling that I got something of a bargain, especially with the useful effects. Maybe I don't have to carry around my Mesa head and 2x12 cabinet anymore. For the money, I just have to give it a 10. If it was lost I guess there's something out there that's better now, with the technology moving so fast. But at prices like $80 used it'd be hard to match. All I need now is the time to explore the other features - and buy a midi connector.

Pretty complicated...if you're deep editing from the J-station, it's like decihpering hieroglphics. If you stick with the general presets and just tweek a little, it's fine. Real trick is to edit on your computer using a Midi in/out and the J-edit software. That's pretty easy. Since I'm giving two opinions, I won't rate this.

Effects are fantastic!! Best going. I'm not big on amp simulators. J-station, Pod...doesnt' matter. It's not a good simulation of the real thing mic'd into my recording studio. As far as amp simulators, effects are better the Pod and the amp simulation is just a little short.

HERE'S A GREAT THING TO KNOW-- IF YOU EDIT ON THE COMPUTER (NEEDS MIDI IN/OUT...CHEAP $40 USB WORKS...YOU CAN REMOVE THE AMP AND CABINET SIMULATION AND SAVE AS PRESET(S). WHY YOU ASK! RUN YOUR GUITAR THROUGH IT AND TO YOUR "REAL" AMPLIFIER. IN THIS CONFIGURATION, IT DOES DUAL DUTY AS A EFFECTS DEVICE THAT'S BETTER THAN ANY BUNCH OF PEDALS YOU CAN GET (AND QUIETER TOO...ESPECIALLY WITH THE GATE ON), IT ALSO WILL ALLOW YOU TO RAISE THE VOLUME (ACT AS A PRE-AMP) TO SEND A HOTTER SIGNAL TO YOUR AMP, GETTING SOME NICE TUBE DISTORTION ON A TUBE AMP. LOOK, YOU GOT COMPRESSOR, GATE, DELAY, REVERBS, CHORUS, ETC. THIS IS THE CHEAPEST PEDAL CHAIN YOU'LL EVER BUY. GET ONE ON EBAY AND A MIDI USB FOR YOUR COMPUTER AND YOU'LL NEVER REGRET IF FOR LIVE PLAYING.

Seems to run hot, but always runs. Can't complain.

Pretty lame that Johnson amplification is not supporting any upgrades. They want you to buy the Parent company's new digitech device. Shame on you J-Amplification!! Hang your money-grubbing heads.

Powerful effects, passable amp modeling. Best use is as an effects chain for your amp.

I've already posted a review for the JStation, but I have some news that certainly would be of interest to existing owners and those considering a purchase.

Johnson WILL NOT be posting a v3 update for the JStation. I emailed them a few months ago with some feedback and suggestions, and asked then if another update was in the works. Quick to respond as usual and very friendly, but unfortunately, no. Harmon (the company that owns both Johnson and Digitech) are obviously throwing their weight behind the GNX series, and sadly the JStation will be put to pasture as is.

This, of course, isn't that surprising. Not only is amp modelling technology moving at an incredible rate, with faster and faster DSPs and higher bit depths (32bit floating point, 192KHz anyone?), but the fact remains that the JStation isn't exactly the kind of high-cost product that would typically warrant or deserve several years of software updates.

The that the JStation has run its lifecycle of course doesn't detract from the fact that it is still a great little amp sim, certainly the best one around for the dough. Even when I get my Mesa Boogie Mark IV combo with matching hardwood 1x12 extension cab, I'll keep this guy on the desk for when I need a different tone in a hurry.

First, my disclaimer is that I have not yet been able to connect with the J-edit software. Since this was a big selling point for me, it will be reflected in my ease of house. The manual editing and deep level editing as far as ease of use are both very good, however, and the manual is good.

I have a simple setup. I used all sorts of amps, preamps etc. including the Johnson Millenium combo and head. When I was using the Johnson marquis combo and millenium head I realized that the power amp in these amps pretty much sucks, and how great would it be there was a separate Johnson preamp to run with my good, solid state power amp namely, the Mosvalve 962. Well, what do you know.. they came up with the J-station. Not the tube-preamp, rackmount unit I imagined, but close enough.

As for effects, the J-station absolutely excels. This is the reason it beats the pod hands down. I especially like the ability to run effects like the phaser before or after the amp model. I love a pre-preamp phaser sound (a la "have a cigar").

I use this for home recording, studio recording and send the stereo outs into both sides of my Mosvalve 962 into my stereo peavey412m cab. Overall, the J-station, IMO, excels in this kind of setup for me just as much as direct for recording.

I have ended up (as I did with my Johnson amps) really leaning towards the Johnson models (crunch and heavy) for my main sounds. I find the recto model thin and brittle (but I guess you have to give Johnson credit for accuracy, since I felt the same way about the triple recto I used for a week before selling it asap). The marshall models seem to be really bright and almost fuzzy in a direct setting, but when sent to a good power amp and cab, they give you a very authentic marshall stack crunch. I find the johnson models to be a perfect mid point between the extremes of marshall and rectifier.

no problems yet. My sound guy has a H&K tubeman if I ever need a backup preamp for live, but we both agree the J-station sounds much better.

Digitech is quite plainly awesome. (They are Johnson). Whenever I have needed support on a digitech/johnson product they have helped me and even let me come down there if necessary (they're here in Salt Lake).

Great product, very useful and for the price, EVERY guitarist should have one of these.