Johnson Amplification J-Station

Have yet to get into the 'deep editing', but so far so good on the simple tweak a patch and save it deal. I do have a manual, but have yet to dig into it.

I've had a few modelers over the years and mostly used them for late night headphone wheedle stuff. The Behringer V-Amp worked well for my needs also as I mostly like cleaner tones and on the edge blues type stuff.

The J-Station has simply blown me away for it's blackface cleans, Voxish chime, tweedish cruch and plexi tones. These are what I mostly use and programing variations of them has proved quite easy and tonally rewarding.

Bought it used for cheap, so if it goes bye-bye, I'll do my best to procure another.

I've been playing for 42 years and playing live since 1980. I'm an old fart now, but still have a love affiar with all things guitar. I play a wide variety of music, but blues is where my soul lies.

Right now, in addition to the headphone deal, I have been using the J-Station into a Yamaha DS60-112.....kind of the forerunner of the Tech 21 Power Engine. Single 12 Celestion in a cab with a 60 watt power amp built in.

This combo is portable, lightweight, LOUD and best of all, oh so toneful! Again, I like to use the cleaner blackface models along with the Vox, tweed and plexi tones. I run an older black box Marshall Bluesbreaker pedal before the J-Station, and that provides all the dirt I need.

I am blown away at how good this cheap little set up sounds.....and how amp like it is in how it responds to touch and the guitars volume control. It's inspiring and makes me want to play longer.

This piece of equipment is like anything else once you learn how to operate it it's easy and learning how to use it for me was easy. The problem is that someone will say it's easy and the next might say it hard!

This is why I'm leaving this review. I have tried most of the other modelers and all of the major ones. Nothing compares to the J-Station I know because I have 3 and been a user since 2002. My main sounds are the Rectified and Tweed for dirty and clean tones. For giging I use the J-Station with the J-8 Controller run into an 80's Carvin X-100 head and two cabinets. I use no gain on my amp I get all of my gain from the Rectified patch and the warmth of tubes from my amp. The sound is AMAZING I'm always getting positive complimants on my tone. When I am at home I run a J-Station into a Johnson (not the same company) Loredo T25-R. The Loredo is a little 25 watt (realy 15 watt, but that is another story) tube amp you can buy for a couple of hundred bucks on Ebay. My sound is consistant and you can't say that with your favorite vintage tube amp!

I keep a J-Station with me always because it's consistant with the sound. You will get a better tone the way I use it than with any highbred amp (Line 6 Bogner for example). Highbreds either get so called tube tone from the pre or post and none realy do a great job. I'm getting my tube tone from the pre and post. I'm not having to noodle around with mods or trying different tube combinations for that perfect overdriven sound. I don't have to worry about degredating tubes that mess with my tone. I can run my J-Station into any tube amp and get a consistant tone because I'm not having to get my overdrive from tubes just the warmth.

I have been a user since 2002 and I have 3 units and two J-8 controllers. I have never had a J-Station fail on me but I have worn out controllers and that is because I play constantly and moving parts wear out. I have gone through a bunch of J-Stations because I have given away and sold some.

I have never needed them So I cant give a true review on them!

Everyone has their opinion on what they like and I love the J-Station! I am 48 and have been playing since I was 13 so I kinda know a little bit just in the fact that I have been around for awhile! I have turned alot of so called tube fanatics into excepting the ideal of what I do with this piece of equipment.

You can argue about all kinds of if's and's and but's, but you can't argue that for a relitively small amount of money you can have a GREAT tone!!!

You can buy a J-Station on Ebay for around $50. So a youngster with roughly $300 can buy a J-Station and a used inexpensive tube amp off of Ebay and sound great.

The J-Station, even in 2009, is still the best amp simulator available. It simply blows away the POD in all it's versions and is the best kept secret in guitar gear. Ease of use is it's only con. If you use the J-Edit software, it's an easy time programming it. But editing on the two digit LED with the manual can be frustrating. But it's a small price to pay to unlock the goodness within...

The next best thing to putting a SM57 in front of a nice amp in a nice room. If you can't record that way, use the J-Station. The clean sounds are brilliant and the Fender Bandmaster model is unreal. All the effects are usable and then some. Has an onboard tuner to boot.

I've owned mine for 4 years and it's never failed me. Just an awesome piece of gear and at $50 and under on eBay I'm thinking of getting another for backup. I might never need it though...a brick sh*thouse.

Never have used customer support and Digitech has pretty muched ended all remnants of the Johnson brand online. There is still a page with pdf's for manuals, etc... but any real customer support doesn't exist.

The best amp modeler available and at nearly 7 or 8 years old that to me is amazing! The technology obviously peaked a long time ago. Some say GuitarRig is better but I've heard it, POD, VOX ToneLab...them all. The J-Station just has something that raises it above those units. Better sounds to be sure but I think it has it's on vibe that classic pieces of gear all have. At under a hundred dollars new (if you can find one...the word is finally getting out about how good these things are), you have to get a J-Station if you record guitars.

i believe that J-station is the most close t real amps simulator. i didn't need any manual t use it, cause i buy it from second hand but the guy give me a piece of advice. i beleve that for editing preamps, and the options of : Reverb, delay, compr, gate, and other effects like chorus, flanger.... is really, really difficult, but if you use th pc-program life is better, at least for me after the long useage of line6 simulators as guitar pro, but i didn't try it yet cause need an audio card with midi in/out, but still it going t be really easy. but because when you wanna jam with your friends you cant have the pc with you it's losing my 10 points

Well if i could upload a sound materia you will totally understand how incredible is, well after using line6 products like guitar pro and they say line6 is the ultimate new generetion guitar and amp simulator i could say that they can simulate the 50% of an amp, Johnson J-Station can make io to at least 80%, and their amps johnson Crunch-Solo-Clean are ... you know years far, its a 2000 product but still rulezzz every other simulators, i use it with a Yamaha Rgx-520DZ guitar and plug it to preaps 2.1, for listen its real sound and its amazing!!

Well if this J-Station dies i barried with a priest in a glass coffin, and i mean it. With other merch' i was feeling empty but with this staff th hole has licked!!!!1 i totally would use it in a gig without a backup, cause if something happen live i was gonna leave the gig to find a place t cry ;p

well i haven't deal with the company 'cause im in greece and i could buy a new one with the same money.

well i play rock a bit of blues, thrash, neoclassicall and heavy metal.
i play 3,5 years, and i also have a Peavy Bandit 112, Line6 Guitar Pro.
i really gonna buy my guitar, its superb with dimarzio evo pickups, i'll totally gonna try t find a new Johnson J-Station, well the amp is really good, but i would buy preamps, cause with that multieffect any other amp is going to destroy anything.
i love its sound its amazing, reminds a compine sound of Vai,Satriani,Petrucci, the way i use it, its delay also is incredible, ihate its inability to change preamp, and the options of : Reverb, delay, compr, gate, and other effects like chorus, flanger,
my favorite feature is the edited sound
"72, with drive 9,trebble 10, midle 2, bass 6, level 5, delay 3, reverb 7, copmr /on, gate /off".
No i wouldn't compare it, cause for me its the ultimate prefection of sound.
the only thing i'd like it to have is a more modern style, its look is really 2000 and we are 2009 and i dont really care about it...
well it help is like a a father teaching his son ride a bike, its like taking me from my hand and guide me !!!! im so lucky t have one

very good sounds right out of the box.
Easy to edit, Records very nicely.
It will clip very easily, needs to have bass turned down

Killer clean sounds, awesome distortions.
When I run it live, I take the cab emulator off and run it thru the effects loop of my Rivera chubster 40 and my Fender HRD.
Sounds killer live with this setup.
I run it all the time without the cab emulator on.
I use it to record everything from vocals to synths and my roland drum machine.
Very good all around effects and amp sim.

I have been using it for years without a backup.
However, I have taken the power transformer in the power cord apart to change the fuse to keep it running.
It is very durable after having been dropped numerous times.
It is solid and reliable for being as old as it is!

I have changed the fuse out of the power supply a few times.
This requires basic soldering skills.
The unit has been flawless so far

I play, metal, jazz, electronica, blues, pop and experimental.
For an old 12 bit processor, it is very versatile with a great glossy sound.
It will clip easy on recordings if you dont turn the bass down.
You can find them on EBAY now for 50 bucks.
These things sound killer and are indestructable!!

Controls very straightforward and amplike. Set & Save........

I have 2 units, 1 in studio & 1 used live. I own a couple of amps but
rarely use them. This unit sounds great all by itself. So what if the
sounds aren't perfect sims as long as they are usable. IMO they are.

I've had both units for years with no trouble. I use the j-8 controller with my live setup and a Rolls midibuddy with my studio unit. They always work. Can't do better than that.

never needed them

For a 1st generation modeler to still sound great after all these years my hat goes off to the designer. People compliment my tone
all the time and ask "where's your amp?" Nothing Line 6 has out
to date can touch this thing. Too bad Digitech didn't realize what
they had. Those of us who use them know, though.

There are two sorts of editing:

Top level editing: easy as can be. Most sounds you can get here. Just pick a factory-preset-sound you like, rotate the knobs till you like it more, press "store" twice and voila: you got it!

Deep level editing: a little more difficult since you need to read the manual. Here you can specify your sound even more. For example if you got a midi footcontrol (like the Johnson J-8), you can define what parameter should be controlled by the expression pedal: volume, gain, effect-level or whatever. Of course, in this case the Wah is still accessible.

Generally I`m totally into vintage- and boutique- stuff:

I normaly play a Roland Jazz-Chorus, Korg DT-10, Crybaby, Fulltone Fulldrive2, Voodoo Lab Tremolo and Hughes&Kettner Replex. Other pedals in use are: Marshall Shredmaster, Marshall Gu'nor 2, Marshall ED-1, Marshall SV-1, EH Little Big Muff, Hughes&Kettner Tube Factor and Hughes&Kettner Rotosphere.

Guitars in use are: Gibson Blueshawk (my favourite), Aria Pro2 Fl20 Stratocaster, Epiphone Les Paul, Rickenbacker copy and an acoustic guitar.

To shorten this: the J-Station can`t beat the real thing (like hardly any digital modeling unit can), but it is damn close.

PRO's:
It`s very versatile and expecially most amp-modelings are very good. Not too noisy. And it also features some good Bass amplifier models! Great solo-leadsounds and sweet clean-sounds. I especialy like the Fender Blackface and the Fuzz (with low gain). Although I haven`t played a Mesa Boogie Rectifier before, the model sounds very convincing to me. I think, metalheads might love this.

The additional footcontroller J-8 gives you full control for your performance: effect (on/off), reverb (on/off), tuner (on/off), bank up & down, three presets per bank, expression pedal.

I couldn`t rate this 10, because there are also a few CON's:
-the pitch-effect has a little latency and sounds too synthetic
-I`m used to good rotary speaker sounds (since I also use the Rotosphere and the built-in Leslie of my Nord Electro2); in this unit it`s more like another tremolo-sound; nevertheless it`s nice that it can mimic the slow-down and speed-up effect when it`s controlled by the expression pedal
-the 2 acoustic models are not very convincing

Currently I'm singer and trombonist in my band; that`s why I don't need it for gigging, right now. But I sure could imagine me using it again, as I did before.

Never had any problems. I would gig without backup.

Even though the production stopped, there is still a webpage for the J-Station providing the manual, sound presets and more information.

I play Reggae, Ska and Dancehall live and it's a great match. I think it could fit any kind of music.

It's definitly worth the money. Unfortunitly the production stopped - but you still can buy them on Ebay. And if you are very lucky, you might find the fitting midi footcontrol Johnson J-8.

Just thought id add my penny s worth........
at some point i will add a proper breakdown on each model cos i think it may be useful as there isnt much info on this unit.....

easy to get sounds out of it....forget the presets really as they are mostly over done....just go to the individual models....

Well ive used loads of stuff over the years and i must say im surprised by this....despite the glowing reviews i was sceptical because all pre-amps, practice headphone recording type units that ive tried sort of sound the same.....a bit bland , sort of like the amps but not quite......but i can honestly say this is the best ive heard. Now you will never make a recording amp emulator sound like the real deal cos thats just impossible......but imo thats a different thing all together. Valve amps are great for gigging and rehersals, but even the best valve amp sounds crap at low volume. Thats why we want this type of unit. I was using COSM which compared to this is a pile of ****. This old unit sound 100x better and is the only unit ive heard that does a really good fender blackface and ive got this amp for gigging and honestly this sim. is damn near as close to perfect as you will ever get.
For clean/ breaking up type sounds (ac30 is also good) this thing shines. Ive only used this through a multi track but i expect it would sound the bollocks through a valve amp which would warm it up even more.
Imho better than the POD and better than VAMS, and COSM, and fenders new digital thing (got one of those as well) the only one comparable seems to be VOX s one but ive not had much experience of that.

For home use sure.

no idea

Been playing 20 years and wanted something I could record with. Ive got a roland multi track with built in COSM -which i was never happy with. I also wanted an emulator that would give me a fender clean sound through a practice amp-maybe like the recent BOSS fender pedals-but better (tried them both and thought they sounded crap) Well i havnt tried through an amp yet-family life and all that, but as a direct recording tool this thing sounds great. The fender is fantastic. Nice acoustic type sounds as well. This thing is amazing really. It may not have like a billion sounds and all the bells and whistles but for basic good amp sounds that sound not as digital as a POD and quite close to the real amps (especially the fender twin) this thing is great.
For what I paid for it its an absolute bargain.

With the Editor software, it's a breeze.. Without? Pretty much a pain in the ***

Here we are many years later.. And this Amp Sim is STILL one of the best sounding units to be had.. Much more organic sounding than the Pod XT Pro which I happen to be comparing it to tonight. That realization is what led me to write this review.

The unit I purchased is an American made J Station.. I would guess it's at LEAST 8 years old.. Probably 10+ yrs old.. Still works great..

Non existant.. Thank you Digitech you freakin *******..

Price of woodage ratio is off the scale folks..

I've done this guitar thing for 35+ yrs.. I'm still a Metalhead.. Won't apologize for that either.. These units are simply very organic sounding.. I've owned everything available on the market for the last 10 yrs as far as Amp Sims for studio use goes.. I own everything from a Peavey Rockmaster 4 tube preamp to a Podxt Pro to Guitar Rig 3 and Amplitube 2 to a Voodu valve.. I have a decent sized 20 space rack cab full of gear....... At the point in time of this review, The J Station,all 16 bits of it,, is the one I fire up most often... And those incompetent morons over at Digitech inhaled Johnson to do what?? Just inhale a Johnson I guess.. They sure as hell haven't improved on it in the 10 yrs since.. Digitech sux

If this had ever been released as a rack unit, I'd be set for a long long time..

I give the J-Station a 7 because, although th top mounted controls are easy to use, they don't give you a ton of editing capability, and the deep edit mode is kind of annoying. I've had this unit for several years, and never spent much time with it, and just recently got acquainted with it, and finally got a manually. The manual changes everything.

The sound quality is great, for what it is, an amp modeler. Johnson really did their homework. The Millenium amps (when they were around) were fantastic. This has a lot of the same sounds, just not as in depth. The J-Station does not sound good straight of the box, you've got to read the manual and tweak somethings. Luckily, Johnson had guitarists in mind and loaded this thing with knobs, and only a few buttons.

I've never had any problems, but its only been in my room, or in my closet. It seems sturdy enough, I'm not sure I'd leave it lying on the rehearsal room floor, but on a pedal board, or on top of an amp, should last a while. So long as the drummer does spill beer on it.

never needed it.

Overall, the J-Station is a fantastic buy, the last one I saw on E-bay was going for $90. I like to play rock, blues and funky kind of stuff, and the J-station really has something for everyone. Its really great for extra-strange spacey ambient sounds, I've pulled several synth like tones from it. I haven't had much luck with using it in conjunction with other pedals, the noise gets really out of hand really fast. It is digital, so if you can run it through something analog either before or after (preferably after, a good tube compressor, or something of the sort would probably do it wonders) or even just running it through your board and doing a little EQing and reverb makes a big difference.

Fairly easy to edit using the onboard controls, you don't have to hold down a bunch of buttons to change patches unless you want to do deep editing. I dock it two points, one because I can't seem to get the J Edit software to work, and another because depending on your presets, the knobs might not actually reflect their true position. Behringer's lighted control dials on its V-Amp, although cheap, make it easy to see exactly what settings are on.

I've played Line 6, Behringer, and others, and they all get decent distorted sounds, but this one can get amazing clean sounds. It's relatively pedal-friendly, though it really overreacts to gain on my OD pedals, so I have to roll them back. I use it with a bass amp and direct into PA and it sounds good both ways. I don't use much for effects from the unit since my pedalboard gives me those.

The casing is pretty durable. I would use it without a backup.

Johnson Amplification went belly up and was bought out by digitech, so I thought that customer support would be nonexistent. When I bought the unit, the mid tone pot was broken. I emailed Digitech's tech support and they gave me a number to call. After being on hold and transferred a few times, I finally got the right department and they sent me a new pot for FREE! It would have only cost me a few bucks, but it's a nice surprise. I'll definitely look at Digitech next time I need a multi fx unit.

I use this unit for a few church services that a normal guitar amp would be too loud. It works great. If it were stolen I'd buy it again. On ebay, these things go for around $100 and are well worth it.

Very easy for on the fly changes.Harder for deep edit but not that bad. Super easy when conected to your computer.

OK , I`ve had this unit for 5 years now.I`ve compared it to POD`s Yamaha DG stomp(I really wanted to like this unit but the sound just was`nt there)All kinds of Digitec stuff ,Sans amp stuff,Korg , Vamp, you name it .Nothing sounds as good. I really wanted to love the DG stomp because it was so well built but I just could`nt get into it at all.There are so many great sounds in this box if you have the patience to tweak it.No it doesnt sound as good as a old tube amp but neither does the old tube amp turned down to one at one oclock in the morning

Droped at least five times still works great.It`s made of metal not plastic.

The company no longer exists but there web site is still there.

I play jazz, blues,old school rock,Hip hop with my DJ son.I`ve played for 37 years have owned Gibson,Fender, Hamer, Martin,Ibanez,Supro,Ampeg old twins and bandmasters old 60`s ampegs,Traynors,Semour Duncans.I have a large collection of tubes and am constantly tweaking my amps for better sound.All that aside i`ve gotten more use and had more fun with this hunk o junk than any equipment I`ve ever owned.

Without connecting it through midi cabels deep editing this unit is a pain. However with the windows sofware its GREAT!

It takes quite awhile to realy figure out the potential this unit has, But once you have tried it all you can get some great tones!

I'll be honest, i got one of these off ebay because they where endorsed by Yngwie. He usualy only endorses the best of the best. Well he was right! The J-Station unlike alot of other pedals out there has a more analog sound to it than a raspy digital sound.

I can almost nail yngwie's tone with this! But i do recomend getting a pre amp with a tube in it if you realy want to bring it to life!

Well, Ive had it turned on for over 2 years now without turning it off and its still working!

Never dealt with Johnson, Id just buy a new one on ebay if it breaks

I defenatly recomend this for people who dont like the Pod, or if you want to record stuff on your computer!

Wonderfully easy to use. The only beef I have with ease of use is the stock patches aren't balanced as to level all that well, and if you have a user patch with lots of gain and a very low level (to balance with clean patches) a bump can send it very loud very fast.

Excellent. The models don't sound exactly like what they claim (especially the rectifier) but other than that, it's awesome. The rectifier has more bite, and it doesn't get muddy like a lot of real Dual recs out there. So, I guess it's better. The chorus is a real nice effect, especially on clean patches, but it can't get almost a vibrato like some chorus pedals can.

I don't know what happened, but the master volume pot broke, and when I opened it to fix it, it ended up being a weird digital pot soldered into the board. When I put it back together, it worked fine.

Also, the casing is metal, and it's been dropped, kicked, stepped on, dragged around by cables, water spilt on it, and been in car trunks with cabs on top of it, and it's never failed me at a gig yet.

Never needed it.

I play metal, and this thing has some absolutely stellar sounds. Some problems:

Pitch shift (for playing in intervals with yourself) has some latency.
No key lock mode to avoid bumping switches live.
Headphone out sucks - just use a speaker output, and you get enough signal.
Tuner is slightly inaccurate.

This thing sounds a thousand times better when used through a good PA or an amp. I try not to record direct with this thing, it sounds a little fake. Awesome for live use.

I used when it first came out.IF FOR ANT REASON YOUR JSTATION DOES NOT SOUND GOOD YOU SUCK READ THE MANUAL. I have giged with it for years all types of music Rock To Blues. Head banger. and to read the other review of some whiner say. sounds fack becuse he did not take the time to learn how to use it.should go to Line 6 and use one of there tinny ass crap boxs.the J station can make a crappy amp sound good and a good amp sound seewt and most the time I can and have just pluged in to the PA.you can get the soft ware on line free and up grade it too.

the sound is Just right.learn to use it,very good effects. tweeked right most people over do it a little is a lot.I am so sorry the are not made any more.

Never failed me.dont need no back up.I have three never need but one,I guess some day it ware out I use it every day 5 years now 6 days a week 2 hours a day or more.

I guess I played 25 or so years,I use Yamaha guitar US strats gibson lp.and other amps John jm 50 .Johnson Marquis jm68 bolth with J 8 foot job. Johnson Millenium 150.with the j12. Measa Boogie.S.O.B..pig nose 40 tube. peavey delta blues always with J station and a Daddy o. PA Yamaha 800 watt,or Carvin 4000watt. Yamaha 18s and carvin 12s and 15s
YES I WOULD BUY IT AGAIN.
What I like is never fails. sounds good . what I hate is that thay dont make them any more, that SUCKS. I cant make Line 6 crap sound big and warm and real with out hum.. Ya LINE 6 You suck Dont beleave the bull shit adds of all those great bands using that crap go see for your self.You pay me a lot of cash I would endorse there shit too. I am not getting payed hear.I wasted months trying to get a line6 xtlive to sound any where close. wast of time and money. any questions I left my email.I been ther done that.Hate mail welcome too.you cant defend line 6.there other guitar amp modelers thare good too I just hate line 6. My ears dont lie.

Make sure you have the J-Edit software and the 2.0 firmware (freely available here: http://www.johnson-amp.com/jstation.htm). If you don't have a manual, you can download that, too, from the same location. There's also a bunch of patches and a forum there.

Assuming you have either the manual or the J-Edit software, this thing is a breeze. ALL parameters are available through the unit only but the software running on a computer sure makes it easy.

I use it with a small PA amp and two 4x12 guitar cabinets. It's punchy and easy to control.

I've had one for many years. I just recently added a second and I'm experimenting with running them in parallel. I love the sounds I've coaxed from it. I use it both for recording and live (despite what's been posted here, the casing is metal...it's got really thick paint which gives it a plastic appearance but it's solid metal with plastic knobs). The more I've dug into it, the more I've found it can do (I've got them programmed to "pan" between the two via an old ART X-15...one turns up as the other turns down).

It could be my setup but it's always seemed that it was a bit bass-heavy. But that's easy to compensate for, should you also find it bass-heavy, by just rolling it off.

I also was surprised and thrilled to find that I could replicate my favorite bass guitar sound. I used to play through a seventies Ampeg V4B with an SVT cabinet and it was an inspiring sound. It's in the J if you tweak it.

Also, the bass amp and cabinet models are worth trying for clean guitar sounds.

I've had my first for about five years now. Never a problem. Never a glitch. I didn't buy the second J for a backup. I bought it because I have faith, based on years of experience with it, in the quality.

It took some patience to deal with them five years ago. I'd be surprised if you got any response at all, now.

But there were very helpful updates. And the final firmware added several new amp and cabinet models plus a bypass.

I use it for a huge variety of sounds and music. When I got the first one, I compared it to a Pod over a weekend. I preferred the ultra-distortion and ultra-clean sounds of the J. The bass models cinched it for me. I've since tried a V-Amp and Genesis and still prefer the J.

The tuner is not terribly accurate but I only use the tuner button to mute it.

Not only would I replace them if lost or stolen but I'm planning to buy a third and, maybe fourth, to dedicate to bass guitar.

I've already reviewed this a couple of years back. Just reading to see what folks are saying now since newer modeller stuff's out.

Also I want to say to
P-Dawg

You can turn the amp selection off. And the cab selection. Not easy with out the manual or the software. Try and get the software. I'd email it to you but I'm not sure where the installation disk is off hand. There's still a website for this thing though. You might be able to download it or find someone who's got the disk still.

By the way. I don't think Johnson have gon out of business. They were taken over. Only a small company I thinks. To be honest never heard of them til reading about this little box of tricks. I think Not 100% sure, that they were bought out by Digitech.

easy to get a great sound, I have been playing for 30 yrs and recording wise it nails almost the perfect lead tone.

Is a bit noisy but if you play with the noise gate it works good.

The sound out of this thing is one of the best amp sims around, I've tried them all, some of my best tones came from this thing, it gives as good almost as a matchless hot box thru a cab simulator, not quite the dynamics though. I still cant get totaly controlable feedback like I can with a real amp but damn, the sustain and "big balls at low volume" kick ass, for DI recording you cant do much better, mix it with some real class a tube amps and "wow"

never failed yet

I play mainly rock, some jazz and rockabilly etc..

The effects are decent but not easy to use on the fly, I've tried the pod,zoom,roland,line6 and this thing has some unique sounds the others dont.

When recording I use it direct then split the signal into a real amp with a mike and pan them about 3/4 L to R and the slight delay on the miked amp adds a Billy Gibbons fatness, I have 22 guitars and they all sound good thru this thing, sometimes its a little thin but overall Its one of the best amp sims I have ever heared, I've even done live things thru a PA and it sounded like a real amp.

very simple to use. you don't need the computer just your ears and fingers. deep edit lets you tweak to any sound you desire.

i use a Dana scoop with "hot" pickups and a Fender strat with Evans Eliminators,into the J then to a BBE 482 stereo into a Rivera TBR3.The tone is great. People who dog it just have no sense of equipment setups.No way a 50 or 100 watt head sounds better. You just can't get the volume up enuff to move the speakers less you play a stadium.Preamps are roughly all the same.Tone comes from your power amp PERIOD. the effects are all fine and for gigging it sounds like a much more expensive rig. I control everything with an fcb1010. I like it. The rectified sound is brutal. i have the Marshall "brown " down.etc.for $100 you can't beat it

never had a problem. Get a higher rated power supply(1.5) and it won't get so hot

outta business but who isn't(ADA,Badcat,Tophat) all thats left is crap or break the bank equipment shame

love it.

You need the manual for deep editing. Difficult to remember the codes when editing on-the-fly. I didn't get the software with it, so I guess I am doing it the hard way. Does not have a bypass switch.

I use strats and aa LP through variuos SS and tube amps. I suppose it could make a crappy amp sound better, but it colors the tone too much. It has a very plasticky sound, no matter which model is selected. Too many presets have distortion and delay. Chorus is very bad, rotary speaker is best modulation I found. Very noisy. Noise gate works well, and so does compressor. Very editable comperssor, perhaps this boxes' best feature. Pitch shifter is very scalable also, you can edit every semi-tone up to one octive up or down, I found this very useful. Preset #72 is the best of the factory presets. Almost all of the presets are way too loud with too much gain.

A plastic Box? You are nuts if you gig with a plastic box. I would never in a hundred million years gig with anything plastic.

They went out of business along time ago, and for a good reason.

I play all styles, rock, blues, yada, yada, yada. This thing is way too hard to use without a computer. It sounds rubbery and plasticky and digital, which it is. It can only do one thing: modify the tone stack of the input signal, which may have sounded good 5 years ago, but technology has far surpassed this box. I suppose in it's day it was a wonder. Now, it is a garage-sale item. It does sound good with headphones, and is meant for recording, so right now it is a toy for me. I only use the two presets, pitch shifter and rotary speaker effects. You can't turn off the amp model, and all my amps sound beter than this box.

I couldn't figure out how to turn the speaker simulator off the manual is hard to understand on this topic, so I can't use it on my half stack what a bummer, other then that it easy to use for the calling up the factory presets,editing is fairly easy just tweak a few knobs and store,with plenty room to store your fav.patch's it comes with free software that has cakewalk that's pretty easy to use.

it has some good clean sounds. but the marshall,boogie,amp sims. are real harsh sounding even tweaking the tone buttons I couldn't get rid of the harshness, but the noise gate works great, the bass sims.are great sound almost real, straight in to the mixing borad.the wha fx sucks. you can get some great Gilmore stuff out of this box which is cool if you like that type of sound the overall sounds alittle muddy for my taste.

so far so could. I haven't got to use in a live gig because I can't turn off the speaker sim.

they couldn't help explain to me how to turn that speaker sim. off just made it more confusing.

for the price go with a real pod this thing pretty much sucks for recording but the up side of this box it does have some great bass amp sims. and great cleane tones.

I edit most of my patches using J-Edit on window xp. J-Edit is really simple to use, I think the interface is cool because you can see all the panels and knobs just like a professional rack. I give this category only 6 because deep editing requires looking up all those CC parameters, which can be very inconvenient in a live setup situation.

My guitar is a Les Paul standard (stock humbuckers) and I play from blues, rock, to metal. J-station has a decent noise gate, so I never had any problems with noise.

I think the blackface, recto, JCM800, jclean are the best models.
blackface - nice warm round jazzy clean tone, sounds great for articulate arpeggios picking
jclean - add in some chorus and reverb, you get metallica cleans (master of puppets), tweak for a while and you can even get DT cleans (pull me under)
rectifier - nice compressed and tight aggressive tone, just like heard on CDs. I lower the gain to about 5.5, turn down the bass, add only a little reverb (bathroom), so it does not get muddy
JCM800 - nice model of classic rock amp, however the high gain sounds seems kind of weak, I think this was modeled for its lower gain sounds, which is fine because there is the rectifier model for high gain.

The compressor, delay, reverb are good quality effects. The wah is great (I have the J8 pedal), I even sold my dunlop 535q.

I wish the pitch shifter effect didn't have latency, other than that, I really don't have any complaints on the J-station.

I listen through headphones when practicing at home. I prefer the sound of line in directly into the PA board (global cabinet ON) when playing live.

Sure, I can depend on it. The J-station does heats up after hours of usage, but I don't think that will matter.

never dealt with them.

I've been playing for about 5 years. I like guitarists like Andy Timmons, Frank Gambale, Shawn Lane, SRV and bands like Dream Theater, Children of Bodom, Pain of Salvation, Evergrey, Pat Metheny Group ...
If it were stolen, I would probably take a look at podxt live, but for the price, I'd definitely buy J-station again.
J-station has helped me make music, I saved up so much time tweaking stomp boxes all the time, now I have more time to play. Once you find a cool sounding patch, you can save them, next time you don't have to waste time finding it again.
I wouldn't argue whether digital modeling is better than tubes or not, but for the price, convenience, and sound, I would say it definitely has a fantastic value.

Simple easy to use interface.You can get great sounds from the face of the unit without having to get into deep edit,but you always have that option.

If you mess with it you can get truly nice and quality sounds.I have used it a Boogie 50/50,tubeworks ,and vht and man it sound like a big$$$$$$$$$$$ rig. I use an ESP custom and an Alvarez Dana Scoop(I so like the active pickups) and thru a power amp(Tube only please as to this is where your sound really comes from.) a rocktron rx20 and two custom built 2x12 cabs with 1 having JBL g series and the other K series speakers and this rig is a beast. Kicks the crap outta amps that cost thousands.

move it around alot and no probs. The power supply gets hot though.Recommend using a 1.5 instead of the 1.3

Discontinued and a shame they might have gone on to build even better.

Real nice much better than the P iece O f D ung. That thing is a sterile complicated piece of crap with absolutly NO tone

It could'nt be any easier. A monkey could figure out how to use this thing. You dont even have to read the manual if you dont want to. Editing is pretty much common sense too

When I used this thing I used a early 80's jackson vee with duncan jb pickups. I used to run it into a mesa boogie 50\50 power amp and then into a marshall 412. I bought the j-station because I have owned a mesa single rec. marshall jcm 2000 50 watt and a whole bunch of other stuff that I thought sounded like shit. I finnaly just ran the j station into my 50-50 as some sort of joking experiment. I never thought it would sound good but it sounded amazing. Everyone at my rehersal space said that they thought my guitar tone was the best they ever heard. Oh yeah, i guess I should tell you what I play... mostly metal. You can get a good high gain sound outta this thing on either the rectified or johnson lead setting.., but take it with a grain of salt as far as all this modeling stuff is concerned. A model does not sound like the real thing. Ask yourself what a model is... it is a copy or mock up of the actual thing ,so take it for what it is. Nothing sounds like a marshall jcm 800 except a jcm 800, dont kid yourself. I'm sure there is a bogner or some other high dollar amp out there that would run circles around my set up but only a trained ear could tell. In other words most of the people who listen to your music wont know the differance.., and the differance will cost you about three grand more. lets get down to the brass tax, nothing you will get for 150 bucks will touch this thing and if you run it into a tube power amp it will sound better than about 90% of the stuff out there.

Never had a problem, probably never will. This thing has taken about as much abuse as anything I have ever owned and still works as good as it did when it was new

Never dealt with them

i give this thing a 10, I've owned a pod pro rackmount unit and the j-station sounds better. Dont be fooled by the high advertising budget of line 6. their stuff sounds grainy and very digital, totally fake in my opinion. I have'nt tried the vox tonelab so I dont know how the j station compares but it is the best I have heard yet. Besides if the tonelab does sound better it still costs way more. You just cant beat this thing for the price. The effects are all excellent too. I especially like the delay, very clean sounding

The stock patches are ok, but this thing screams when you edit the parameters! Without running it into a PC, it can be a bit tedious in "Deep Editing" mode, AND it definitely helps to have the J8 foot pedal. The manual is clear enough and workable, and the latest firmware is 2.0.

I'm running a Godin SD > J-Station (w/J8 foot pedal) > Boss EQ > Peavey Bandit 65; turning off the "cab" sims through the FX loop worked wonders! Not really noisy at all, just the standard single coil hum when switched to them. The effects simply blow me away on how good they are. I can nail anything from EVH, Soundgarden, Creed, Megadeth, Metallica, AIC, STP, SRV, Zep, etc. I really like the chorus as everything really sparkles and sends me away. I don't use the auto-wah much, so can't comment on that.

I have had this for over a year now, and the only problems I had with it is from my own stupidity. Duh - cab sims "on" through the amp sucked the life out of it. I don't gig yet, so I'm clueless on how effective it would be in that setting.

Never dealt with them.

I play hard rock, metal, and blues, and this modeler has hit everything I've aimed at so far. I've only been playing guitar for a year now, but I've played classical piano 35 years, and drummed for a couple of bands, so I know enough to know what I like and what sounds good to me.

If this were stolen, I'd search the ends of the earth for another, and pay the local Guido to hunt down the sorry son of a..... that stole it.

I must have checked out everything before buying the J-Station, and all of them couldn't compare: POD, V-Amp, RP's, Zoom, etc.

Does it help me make music? LOL, it gives me the will to live and play guitar!

Real easy!

I give this a nine because it is simply the best amp modeler there is for getting a few distinct sounds! No other amp modeler I've heard can nail the rectifier sound like this one. I've tried with the POD and the BOSS GS-10 and thier high gain sounds are practically worthless! I've got a lot of amps including the Marshall jmp-1, Roctron voodoo valve, Groove tubes trio, MP-1 and more, but none of theme gives the rectified sound like the J-Station. I recorded a cd
with the J-Station going direct and it is a big thick, warm sound. If you want to hear it, just go to my website(unclelight.com) and check out the audio samples. This also gets some great clean sounds too! For 150 bucks this thing is a friggin miracle! If you get a chance to pick one up -DO IT!! You won't regret it! And it's got some good bass sounds too!

No problems so far!

I don't think they make these any more so I can't say!

I give it a nine because for what it is it really sounds great! There may be better modelers out there (Vox tonelab) but for the price these go for nothin can touch em!

Well,i have to say this thing isnt the easiest to change sounds on the fly,the deep level editing mode isnt good because the only way to edit effects is if you have the manual with you(or if you memorize all those numbers,LOL!!!!)When editing amps and cabinets its easy enough..

I use a Jackson dr-3 with EMG 81/60 and i plug the J (Version made in USA)into a PA and the sound is great!Cuts through the mix,defined ,cleans are good,crunch is also very good,lead is good,effects are great,i even like the JCM 800 simulation! Our rehersal space is next to another band whose guitarist has a Mesa Triaxis,G-Major,2-90 and 4x12 Vintage 30s,and i have to say that the J gets you 90% of the sound of a real High tech high priced all tube rack.And i doubt that a 10% sound difference justifies the 1000 %price difference.Bassicaly if your a guitarist with a budget,and have axcess to a PA ,IMHO you should buy a J station and a Midi footcontroler and thats it..And besides ,99% of the people at a concert couldn tell a difference between a J station amp simulation and the real thing !!And the J is much better than a Pod(at least the ones i have played)!!

Had it for 1 year now,and i have had no problems it woorks like a charm.I would use it without a backup(or buy one if you thinks its that big a deal.(although they are more expensive here in europe you can still get them cheap)

Well everything i needed i got from the J sation forum,as for customer support i dont know because i havent dealt with them(and they dont even exist anymore-Too bad ,i think that the J could have been a monster Emulation machine )

I try to play everything from Tool to Messhugah to Satriani and that is why i like this unit,you can get alot of good sounds out of it and the effects are really good(except the envelope filter,its kinda harsh).Dont plug it into a tube power amp and guitar speakers,try a keyboard amp or a PA,thats where the unit shines.

This depends. With a computer handy, you can access all parameters the box offers very easily, and it's a real joy to program. Unfortunately, without a computer, some parameters are a royal pain to tweak. The compressor is particularly annoying to me, as you can only turn it off or on without going into Deep Edit Mode.

The clean/overdriven tones are fantastic, but they're too transparent to hide the sins of my guitar. The high-gain models sound dead on to me, but I prefer Line6's inaccuracies on the Mesa Boogie sound and I'm not a fan of the real thing (forgive my heresy). Cranking some of the clean models achieves some gloriously nasty filth you could only get from a real amp right before it explodes. The bass models are wonderful after some serious tweaking, with superb punch and snappy, crisp highs.

As for artist tones, I've come across Linkin Park, the Cranberries, KoRn (unfortunately), Our Lady Peace, and Orgy guitar sounds. I've also found Rage Against the Machine, KoRn (unfortunately), Primus, eels, and Green Day bass sounds. I don't listen to much music made before 1990 so I can't pinpoint artists, but I've obtained some convincing bluesy guitar sounds, and some fun slap-pop funk bass tone.

I use a crappy Kramer Focus guitar and a sw33t Ibanez BTB-505 bass. I go Instrument->J-Station->Computer/Fender Frontman 25B amp. I've eked great tones out of my Focus even though it's a horrible instrument (it's the best axe under $200, IMO, but that isn't saying much), and some AMAZING tones out of the Ibanez. I've never tried it with better guitars, but from my experience with the upgrade from a crap bass to good bass (I used to use a Kramer), I think you'll find your amp/guitar tone will come out intact. I've not had good luck with FX loops, and I recommend using it before the instrument input of your amp.

As a side note, the little Fender is the best-sounding amp I've found, period, for both guitar AND bass. I don't know if I got lucky and got a fluke unit, but even though doesn't get loud, and has no distortion or FX built in, it just sounds GOOD. Even the boutique amps can't beat it for pure clean tone.

As a desktop DI box, it's PLENTY sturdy. Don't play football with it, or wash it in Bud and it should be just fine. The jacks are solid and have held up to a fair bit of abuse. The knobs are plastic but have held up to some rough treatment with surprising equanimity. It's not as solid as, say, Boss stompboxes, but it comes pretty close.

My idea of customer support is a thousand pages of FAQ's, technical support documents, and PDF's on the company website. On this score, it's a smidge better than the average music gear company. I reserve better scores for the time when I find a site as thorough as computer hardware sites. I haven't tried the e-mail/phone support.

I play experimental industrial stuff (think "The Downward Spiral") and Postal Service/Ladytron pop-techno. This box works well for both. I've been playing guitar and bass for about five years, but my G.A.S. is so bad my ear for tone is equivalent to ten years of experience. :)

As a single-solution multi-FX box, I have yet to find anything better. Sansamp has better models, TC has better FX, and you can't beat boutique tube amps with a few grand of boutique stompboxes, but they just aren't as convenient, and not NEARLY as cheap. For the price, and for the function, I don't think it will ever be matched. Thus, I give it a 10 overall.

I'm sort of going to do a product comparison between the J Station and my old modeler, the Behringer V Amp 2. If the J Station loses points, it's because it's not as good as the V amp. Likewise, if it gets a high score, it's because it beats out the V Amp.

The J Station has the following inputs and outputs: 1 guitar in, 1 TRS footswitch jack, MIDI ins/outs, L and R outputs, S/PDIF out, and headphone out. Compared to the V amp, it has a digital out, but lacks an aux in. It all depends on what you want to use a modeler for, but for desktop and computer recording, the S/PDIF out is a nice feature since you don't have to mess with digital to analog conversions.

Controls are pretty intuitive as far as selecting an amp model, effects, and eq points. I haven't gotten into the "deep editing" mode yet, but you can do quite a bit with the surface controls. Deep editing seems a little tricky to access without a computer interface, so it loses a point here. Also, the V Amp's lighted dials are the best thing since sliced bread. Not as expensive as the rotary dials of a Cyber Twin, but they still let you know what your presets are doing at a glance. Behringer's deep editing seemed to be a bit easier to get to as well, but you couldn't do as much in it. On the editing patches front, the V Amp is a bit easier.


Both the V Amp 2 and the J Station sound acceptable straight out of the box, and both sound better after a little tweaking. They're equal here.

One final area where the J Station edges out over the V Amp is a power switch.

I have a pretty decent pedalboard of fx I run into the J station and use it as an amp modeler. Running direct, no pedals, the J Station sounds great. It really sounds like you are plugged into an amp, and the amp is breathing like a regular amp and speaker. I don't know how, but this beats out every other modeler I've tried (Behringer, Korg, Pod, Digitech). Distortions and effects can be added later, but a good clean sound can't be faked. This thing delivers on the clean sound, and the distortions are good too.

Most of the effects are pretty usable, but I use my own fx anyway. The one thing this unit does well is its auto wah. It actually oscillates more like a synth wah than any other unit I've tried. It probably won't outdo an EH microsynth, but for a buit in effect, it sounds awesome, and responds differently to each amp model. One of the acoustic sims sounds ok, the other sounds bad.

To answer the question, "Do these amps sound like the ones they're supposed to model?" I can only say that most of the settings sound good and usable.

One other feature that is cool is that it has 3 bass amp models. It won't substitute a full bass amp or modeling system, but for the project studio musician, it has enough to be usable, and it has a bass compressor too, available with deep editing. I don't think you'll find a better sounding modeler around.

It feels pretty hefty and sturdy. It's mostly metal, so it feels more reliable than the V amp. The only downside is some of the knobs feel a bit wobbly. Well, it's not as sturdy as a boss pedal, but for a desktop workstation, it feels reliable. I'd sit it on my amp and gig without a backup.

They got closed down by digitech, so I wouldn't put much stock in customer support.

Someone else said this unit will become the TS808 of modelers. I have to agree. The clean sounds, most difficult to emulate, sound great through this thing, and the distortion sounds good too.

You can only find these things on ebay or used on HC classifieds now. They run between $80 and $120, and I would have to say they're worth it. I'd look for a second on off of ebay if this were stolen.

UPDATE to my earlier review:

after several months of experimentation, I've learned that this unit is unacceptable for use with acoustic guitars. No matter what the configuration (modeled/presets or as a "direct" preamp) or whether I mic the guitar as opposed to a soundhole pickup, I cannot get the nuances particular to a steel string acoustic guitar through this unit. I haven't yet experimented with a vocals through it, but I'm guessing the same.

I still love the J-Station for it's features/value. Configured properly, it's very well suited to single coil pickups on electric guitar, but if you plan on recording acoustic guitar (or vocals), be prepared to also invest in a dedicated mic preamp

Pretty easy to use. Out of the box, you don't need to know much because it's like an amp. Just turn the knobs. Some of the deep functions are more difficult to program without the J-edit software.

This is probably the closest unit you will find to the real thing, amp wise. Too bad Digitech bought them and then discontinued it. It has been said that the J-Station will become the TS808 of the modeling world.

This is about as good as it gets with present technology. Blackface and Tweed are almost dead on to the real thing. All the rest are really good. Effects are excellent, which is where many modelers really are lacking.

I don't use this with an amp, just for recording, but it does sound pretty good if you turn off cabinet modeling and run it into your effects return and use the J-Station as your pre-amp instead of your amps internal pre-amp. You then use the J-Station for all controls. It in effect makes your amp into a power amp, just like a PA. Which brings us to another point. It works great with cabinet models on and run direct into a PA.

It has worked great for a couple of years now. The things are going for quite a bit used on eBay. They were selling new for 89.00 right before they were discontinued and now I've seen them going for up to $155.00 on eBay.

Have not had to use them, but they do have a forum. The unit has been discontinued.

This is as good as it gets. Great sound, perfect for recording. The only thing I wish I could do is stack effects on top of each other.

I would desperately look for another one if it broke, and when they were selling cheap on eBay, I should have picked up a spare.

I've used a Digitech RP100, the Genesis 3, and a Vamp2.. It is much better, and I've been told it sounds a lot better than the POD products.

I received this information from the person who recommended the J-Station to me. He works for a movie studio and if you watch Stargate SG-1, the Outer Limits, or have seen the Mandy Moore film, Saved, you have heard him playing... through the J-Station. Also other numerous films and TV shows.

Very easy to get a good sound. Pick an amp, pick a cab are run with it. The J-Edit software makes this very easy. Deep editing off the front panel is a bit more trying. I wish this had the Genesis 3 user interface. Editing patches was easy. I upgraded to the latest and last patch upgrade.

I use it with a Fender Strat. The Gate works well. Effects are great. I love the Sound Stage reverb. I can get most any sound I want. The SOLDANO amp is pretty much in there with the JCrunch and JSolo. It depends what CAB you use. I really like the cab sims on this unit. The 4x12 really all have there own sound and I don't have to fight with EQ settings and CAB Tune like with the Genesis 3 and GNX products to get a good sound. The 4x12 cabs are well defined. I want bright select Boutique, I want dark select Greenback, I want a mix of the two select Johnson 4x12 etc. IMO this is the best amp modeler made to date period! If you want the sound of a real amp to the point that you can almost "hear the plywood" of the cabinet then this is it. I think it has a very "tube like" sound also.

I wish the SPDIF would mute when shutting the unit on and off. I get a loud POP sound.

I played a Genesis 3 and a POD XT and like the J the best.

I would use it live but would always have a backup. I wish thay made a rack unit of this. I may make my own.

Well they are out of biz right now. I wish Digitech would bring it back. (Note: Harman Music owns both) Email them and ask them to. They are getting sick of me bugging them I'm sure. I always get quick resonses from Digitech! I consider thier customer support outstanding.

I play 80's style rock. Dokken, Van Halen, Iron Maiden style. But also some soft stuff and am delving into some nu-metal kinda stuff slowly but surely.

Go to the J-Station sound forum and the Digitech Genesis 3 Sound Community to here real people making real music with the J-Station. and BRING BACK THE J!

Very easy to get a good sound out of this unit. It is much easier to dial in your sounds while hooked up to a PC, but it isn't absolutely necessary. The guys that whine about "dragging a pc to their gig" are being stupid. You can always dial your sounds in at home, and then once you get to a gig you can easily tweak eq, gain, levels, and all of the most critical parameters from the front of the unit.

This is my second J-Station. I bought when when they first came out about 5 years ago and I loved it. I used it for a ton of recording and got some amazing sounds. I bought a new guitar and suddenly didn't like the J-Station so much anymore. Instead of upgrading the pickups in the new guitar, I blamed the J-Station and sold it in search of something better. Since selling the first J-Station I have owned: Digitech GNX2, Digitech Genesis 3, Behringer V-Amp2 & V-Amp Pro, POD Pro, Rocktron Replitone MP preamp, Rocktron Chameleon, Sansamp GT2, Sansamp TM10, Boss GT-6........you get the idea. After all of those I finally broke down and bought another J-Station. I am very happy I did. The cleans are AMAZING in my book, and the distortions sound great for recording. I have run this unit to my power amp and speakers (Hafler G150 & 2 Fender 2x12 cabs) and gotten some good sounds, but this unit is best suited through a PA or for recording direct. If you do use cabinets just make sure you turn the speaker simulation off and adjust the eq. If you are not getting a good sound with this, then you better check your guitar and pickups. If you are running a crappy guitar with cheap pickups, nothing is going to sound good. I swear by the Dimarzio Tone Zone. This pickup is great for rock, metal, and lead guitar. I also have a Tone Zone S in my Strat and it sounds almost as good as the full size humbucker. The effects on this unit are outstanding as well. I love the delay, chorus, tremelo. This unit also has great bass amp models so you can record bass through it too. I am giving this a 10, not because it is the best thing in the world, but based on the sound you get for $100. This is the best bang for the buck going in direct recording gear. I also wanted to mention that I have tried running a Sansamp GT2 and a Korg Hyper Distortion pedal into this unit using the J Crunch channel and it sounded great. Back the gain down to 1 on the J-Crunch channel and use your distortion pedal into that model and you can get some great sounds.

Seems rock solid to me. I don't abuse my gear, but this seems well built and I have owned 2 of them.

Even though these are out of production they still maintain the Johnson website. You can upgrade the software on your J-Station as well as download patches directly to your unit. You can also download the manual for free.

I play rock & metal with lots of lead guitar and this unit is great. I don't think it is only suited to those styles though. The bass sounds are great, the acoustic sims are decent, and the various models sound great. I mainly use the Rectifier and Brit Stack for distortion sounds and the J Clean & Blackface models for clean stuff. The blackface model with some chorus and delay is breathtaking!! Just tweak the eq and experiment with the cabinet models to get the right sound. These are plentiful and cheap on ebay, so get one while they are still around. If you want to record direct to your PC, or if you want something that sounds great through headphones, I have not found anything better. I have know idea why the Line 6 POD put this unit out of production, because I think the J-Station is superior to the POD in every way. Maybe Line 6 just did a better job of advertising and marketing the POD?

Too few parameters are available from the front panel. The display has only 2 digits so it's really difficult to work with, you have to learn for example, that bank 26 is reverb on/off (or something like that) and the banks following that are all the different reverb parameters. It's really easy when you plug it into the computer and twiddle all the virtual knobs but that's never gonna be practical in a rehearsal/gigging situation. I hate programming sounds on this thing - it's so illogical. Plus, it took me ages to work out that the numbers with a dot between them are the parameters and the normal numbers are the values - it doesn't even mention this in the manual.

There are SOME excellent sounds in the J-Station. The Fender Blackface model is fantastic, and so is the Vox AC30, both of these will give you nice cleans and slightly dirty cranked amp sounds - very close to the reality of what these amps actually sound like. Aside from that however, most of the amps sound terrible. This is mainly due to the speaker simulations being way over the top - they're either very bright, or in most cases sound like you're using a wah wah pedal halfway a la Mick Ronson. The best reason for buying this would probably be for the bass amp sims, as the Trace Eliot and Ampeg models sound excellent in a mix, and how many bass players really need 16 different amps (as in the bass Pod)? The reverb, tremelo and rotary sounds are excellent and the compressor is nice too. In fact, the best sound I've ever got with the J-Station was by using it as an effects unit with no amp sim, in the effects loop of a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.

It's solid as a rock, I chuck it in my rucksack all the time, there's no real parts so there's not much to go wrong.

I play all sorts - but I would describe my electric playing as pop rock/ alternative. This is a fun toy but not really a serious piece of kit. I use it for recording all the time - because I can't afford a Pod XT or a Vox Tonelab. I do get some good sounds with it but it takes ages to find them and usually requires some external EQ. The main thing that's missing for me is big transparent crunch, as all the amp/speaker models apart from the Blackface and Vox have ugly mid peaks, and those 2 models don't prouce much overdrive (like the real things). If you've got some nice overdrive pedals you could just use the 2 good amp models to run your sound through - this works great, and things are slightly improved by bypassing the speaker sim and running into an amp with a decent speaker. But I've got some big festival gigs and stuff so I'm gonna have to buy something better.

A friend was selling this unit, and I took it home for a weekend test drive. I have lots of equipment already but am always experimenting with new tones. My initial plan was to hook this unit up in one setup that already has a Pod. I would bypass the Pod to play with J-Station tones or vice versa.
Well, it didn't work out that way. J-Station had NO bypass. (Apparently this was an older model and did not have the special bypass amp-type mentioned by others.) I would have had to buy an A/B box. Yuck. No thank you.
Secondly, I simply detest units that can be fully controlled only if you use a computer. Yeah, I have a computer, in fact I am an IT Sec pro and have 4 home computers, but I prefer to keep my computers and my guitar gear separate. I play in a number of bands and with friends. What am I supposed to do if I need to adjust the tone in band practice (to better match to current band)? Take a computer with me? I have anough gear to carry already.

Below par. I can see that this an "entry-level" unit targeted at young and inexperienced guitarists and does not even attempt to produce a professional-level sound (which can hardly be expected in this price category anyway). While I admit that some of the models were impressive on their own, the sound was far too mushy and distant for any serious use (even band practice, let alone gigs/studio work).

Secondly, I must wonder how many (if any) of the people who praise the J-Station Rectifier model have actually *played* through a real Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. As for me, I owned a Dual Rectifier combo for 5 years in the 1990s; I eventually "grew out of it" and sold it as my taste developed (and I had a better understanding of what kind of tone I was looking for). I would *never* mistake this model for a real Rectifier. People here say that it is better than the Pod model. Well, it may be "better" in the sense that it is more bassy and heavier than the Pod model (as well as more mushy and distant) which probably makes it "better" for beginner-level garage metal bands. But if you say that it is closer to a real Rectifier than a Pod is, you obviously have never owned a Mesa Boogie. The Pod is definitely closer to a real Mesa Boogie Dual Recto, albeit not by much. However, both modelers *completely* lack the bite, body, precision and tightness of a real Rectifier even if they catch some of its timbre. Yes, I can definitely tell whether somebody is playing through a Rectifier or a modeler. (Of course having actually owned a Dual Recto Combo helps.)
Bottom line is, I guess, if you want tube amp sound, buy a tube amp, not a modeler.

I did not buy it. The main reason was the lack of bypass, and secondly, my friend was asking for a price that was not very much lower than the list price.

I have been playing since 1985, and owned more gear than I can count. I favour Gibson guitars (SG and LP models), but also regularly play on custom-built "enhanced" Stratocasters.

I could recommend this unit to young guitarists who want a cheap modeler. The price isn't too bad, and the sound is so mushy that it sounds pretty much the same whether the player is a novice or an experienced one.

Not for the advanced guitarist.

I had one of these units a couple of years ago, and sold it to upgrade my live rig. I bought a Rocktron Replitone MP which I thought would be ideal for both live and direct recording use. Well guess what, just sold my rack of Rocktron gear and bought another J-Station. I still think this thing kills the POD and the other competition as far as ease of use and usuasable sounds. Hook it up to your computer and use the editor. It doesn't get any easier than that. The addition of a couple of bass amp sims is like icing on the cake. No other guitar modeller offers that.

I think this is still the best amp sim out there. Haven't tried the Vox Tone Lab, but I've read alot of people complaining about RF noise and the ability to only use certain effects at once. The amp sims are great, and don't have that boomy bottom end that the POD and the Replitone seem to have when used direct. Amazing effects. I love the stereo imaging with the ping-pong delay. Dead quiet with the noise gate and a real usable compressor. Really getting into the clean and semi-clean amps. I recorded someting last week using the Vox sim and it was dead one. 24-bit digital and digital outs make for noiseless recording.

No problems with either unit I owned. Had a little trouble this time installing the editor program on my PC. May have something to do with the fact I'm running Windows XP. Eventually I cut and pasted it into the programs files, and it works fine.

Even though they no longer make Johnson products, the website is still up and I ordered a cord for my J8 footswitch from it.

My guitars are Line 6 Variax 500( in a custom built strat body), Carvin Bolt with Lace Sensor single coils and a Seymour Duncan Holdsworth pickup on the bridge, Johnson electric-acoustic, Ibanex Roadstar bass, Fender Fretless Jazz bass and a custom body housing a Roland GK midi pickup. Recording is done using a Roland VS1680, Cakewalk Guitar Studio and Steinberg Cubase.
This thing is just ideal for me. I record jazz, fusion and world music. I'm also involved in recording a CD for a progressive-alternative band. My J-Station is all I need to get the sounds I want for any of these projects. I'm looking forward to using it as a pre-amp and running it through my ADA power amp and Avatar 2-12 cabs loaded with Eminence Vintage 30s. The J8 footswitch will eliminate all of my midi pedals and effects and will let me control different parameters live with the built-in expression pedal.

Easy to use but do the editing with a computer or keep the manually really handy!

I really like the tones. I also have a Beringer V-Amp2 but like the Johnson's tones better

Gotta go low here, my power supply crapped out & turns out a generic radio shack won't work even with proper amperage & voltage. Replacement power supply cost $50 which was a drag since the whole box was only $100. Also, mine won't hold the presets except factory presets. They could probably fix it if I mailed it back but who's got time.

they emailed me back and forth about preset but it boiled down to "send it in and we'll look at it"

As soon as I bought it for $150, they dropped the price to $100, go figure. It's been discontinued since Johnson is owned by Digitech or something and they didn't want the competition.

This unit is intuitive after an hour or so. The effects and settings are arranged pretty well. Creating a godd patch can take a while, but that is due to many options. After a week or so, you stop seeking perfection and you still have good sounds. I could not change settings on mine, but after the software was reloaded at the factory, it was easy.

The sound quality is good. I use a G&L Legacy, ASAT, 70s Gibson SG, and Charvel Model 1(w/JB humbucker and JB Jr.). I did not use this unit with my amp. I bought it to play at church and gigs where I would plug it into the PA. I plugged it into my Marshall head once, but it sounded like the amp was in a box.
The unit is not noisy due to the very good noise suppressor. The presets are over effected, you know the drill. Take out the effects, and the amp models and cabinet models sound good. The cabinet modes are to me, better than a red box pro. There are too few subtle differences between the different 4x12 cabinets, though. Maybe my ears are too fine tuned. My big gripe is with some of the amp models. Marshall JCM900? When was that considered a classic? Where is the Soldano model from the Johnson amp line? That was a good model. Where is any Marshall Super Lead? There are 7 or 8 higher gain models that sound very similar. Also, the gain sounds the same on almost all the models. The JCM900 does sound very different than any other model because it is the only model with sufficient mid-range body. Oddly the best models are the Johnson models and the generic fuzz model. The fuzz model reminds me of the fuzztone the Edge is famous for. Excellent!! The Johnson amp models are the clearest and most usable. Same for the cabinet models.
The effects section is stellar. The effects are subtle and quite uasable. I know 2 studio players that use the DI bypass of this unit and use the effects section for their rig. The chorus is especially beautiful, but subtle. Think TC Electronics, not Boss CE1. The delays are good. The reverbs are ok.
One important note: do no expect to plug your favorite overdrive or distortion pedal into this unit and get a usable sound. Mine sounded terrible with my Fulltone Distortin Pro plugged in.

My unit was faulty when it arrived. It just crapped out every 5 minutes. Sent it to the factory. They reloaded the software and it worked fine afterward. I have to grade it down because of the first one.

The customer support people at Johnson Amplification were helpful and fast. I sent my unit in and recieved it fixed within 2 weeks. Goo professional operation.

This is a real bargain. Modeling technology has moved past this unit, but it has some good sounds when you find its strengths. It is $50-$200 cheaper than its rivals. It does sound better than all Pods until the XT. It blows the Behringer out of the water and is still cheaper. Digitech Genetix sounds much better. The gains are more realistic and have different characteristics on each model.
You can tell from my gear I require good tone. I have recently sold my J-Station after 2 years of ownership. It does not deliver the tone quality I need, but it is a fine little system. it is good as a headphones amp or beginners with a PA. It was useful in the church band. It is a bargain and well worth the money.
If it were lost or stolen, I would have replaced it, if it had been an essential piece of gear for me. It will not get in the way of making music. For the hobbyist and beginner, this is a Holy Grail. For the semi-professional, you cannot replace tubes and good gear.

The front panel has all the important buttons/knobs so you dont need to go through menus. Its very easy to get very close to any sound you are looking for quickly. I think this is the perfect balance of featuers and complexity. When the guitar is in the mix, the ability to hyper-edit is not so important.

I have a Peavey XXX amp which I have recorded well with SM57 and Condenser mic, sounds great for rythym, but getting "that" lead tone can be maddening. Once you've tried recording with a mic, you appreciate how easy the J-station makes everything. The lead tones sound compressed, good, like they do after FX have been added. This works for 95% of the stuff anyone will do. No loud recording voulme, no difficulty monitoring, adding FX after tracking. Whatyouheariswhatyouget!

I wouldnt record a guitar masterpiece with it, but it works well enough for 95% of the recording situations a pro would be in. Time is money.

This would get a ten but after using it for several months, you realize that all the distortion models are tonally very similar. You can get lotsa differnt sounds but they all have that "J" sound. Need to use differnt guitars to get differnt identities.

The SPIDF output and J-Edit software have exhibited some flaky behavior that is usually fixed by unplugging and plugging back in. Crackling through the SPIDF sometimes. But only when tweaking with J-edit. I think its a software error, not hardware.

This is the guitar best buy of the decade. I think it still compares well to the POD XT Pro demos ive heard. (Here 5 years later and they still sound phony) Its all about recording and HEH 90% of the time I dont even fire up the amp anymore. Its not a tube amp, lacks the complexity and character, and has less identity, but it is a grreat tool and makes a very complex thing (recording guitar) easy.

Very easy to use in a basic mode, J-Edit makes it even easier, but I don't use it much. I can get to about 99% of what I want right from the unit.

It sounds great to me. I use it for recording and just basic playing with. I don?t use it much into an amp, but it seems to work best if you turn off cabinet modeling and run it straight to the effects return and plug your guitar right into the J-Station. Basically just using your amp as a power amp.

It does not seem to introduce any extra noise, and I use it via Analog outputs to my computer sound card instead of the S/Pdif output.

I really can?t compare it with any other unit. I was going to buy a Pod and put it up for discussion on one of the forums, and it came back the J-Station had a much more realistic sound to it. One of the guys that talked me into the J-Station works for a major motion picture studio in LA. He uses it exclusively on all the films he works on. I figured if it?s good enough for him, it?s good enough for me.

No problems yet. My movie studio friend drags his to sessions all the time and it keeps working.

N/A No contact yet.

This thing can do most anything. I really like the Tweed mode, and the JCM800. Very smooth. The Johnson lead mode is really hot and when you play harmonics, it screams like crazy. It has bass models also. I can just plug the bass in and don't need a second unit.

If it were lost or stolen, I?d buy another one. In fact, I considering buying a second unit so if anything happens to it I won?t be with out it.

From what my studio musician friends tell me, this is the most realistic sounding modeler you can get at any price. I love it also, but I?m not an expert like my friends are.

I just wish you could get a stand for it like you can with the POD.

Compared to a Pod, this unit really shines.
Sounds are richer, and warmer,and more tube like.
The Pod CAN do a Heavier distortion, but not a more tube like distortion.
Editing the J-station is easy once you locate the deep editing parameters and get away from the Big front knobs.
Manual is decent.

Unit works well driving an amp or in the effects chain.
Very quiet unit....
One of the best ways to use this unit is to plug it into a Marshall Cab from the Headpone jack...THe sound is louder and warmer then using the normal outputs...When you adjust the Preamp gain and the Volume, there is plenty of Volume for Tracking live in your home studio, and the sounds are very good.
Also,using the Headphone output into powered studio monitors is effective.

I have spent many hours using this unit, and have had "0" problems.
The unit is well build and useful.
Trustworthy for gigs.

Have never contacted Johnson//Didgitec

Great for gigs, Home studio, or JUST Jamming.
Good sounds, dependable, well built, not hard to Tweek, and covers many tones that the Pod or the V-amp offer but a little better.
Great addition for anyone that records at home.

Vers 2.0 J-Station. Needs the J-edit software to get the best out of it, as deep editing is not really possible from the front panel. Once the software is installed, it really is a breeze to edit and the vast
array of parameters become available. The presets, like most manufacturers, just has too much of everything to show the unit off in shops and needs tweaked, then it really shines. Basic adjustments can be made from the front panel. The manual was pretty good, but very flimsy and the addendum for Ver2 was on a loose sheet of paper
that could easily get lost. It would be far better if it was bound
with some covers.

Where to start? After adjusting with J-Edit, it just sings. The Blackface Fender is one of the best I've heard. The Rectifier is just fantastic. The Marshall JCM800 is right on the button. It has none
of the tiresome boomy bass that inflicts the POD and its models are far better. The small Tweed is just great for blues and J-Edit lets you mix and match amp and speaker. When used live, you must switch off the cabinet models or the lead tones become muddy - easily done with the switch. The Bass amps are an absolute godsend if you're recording and sound spot on with my Mexi Jazz bass. Poorest sounds are the two acoustics, they don't sound like either an Ovation or a
J200, but they have some usefulness as an alternative clean tone.
All in all, it's hard to fault sonically. Only fly in the ointment is a slight tracking delay in the pitch shifter.

Solid. Built like a tank

Never dealt with them as it's never broke down, but their website is very good for resources.

AT this price point, there really isn't anything that comes close. It has everything you need. Full 24 bit processing both external and internal with SPDIF making it ideal for recording. WIth the cabinets switched off and plugged into a valve amp, it sounds really great live. The Genesis 3 is its replacement. Having tried one, I don't see where all the research has gone. The amp sims are no better and the Rectifier model actually sounds poorer on the Genesis3. The only improvement I could find was that the pitch shifter tracks better but,
as I don't use one anyway, its not relavent to me.

It's easier to get elaborate patches out of this than it is to program a FM synth :)
Seriously- you have to get into edit mode and fiddle around with the manual in front of you to get serious, but if you can do synths you can do this. I guess you could just not bother if that seemed difficult. For me it was necessary- I replaced ALL the presets with my own patches. Amp/cab combinations, dry, with the shortest possible single slapback digital echo on the 'delay' and a big verb on the 'reverb', and then set both of them to 0 by default. That way if I want to add 'nu-metal' edge or verb I can just turn the knob and it's right there.

Strat copy with Lindy Fralins, SG copy w Gibson P90s, strat copy with single old Gibson humbuckers (yeah, all the guitars are crap and all the pickups are fancy vintage stuff)
I use this for the SPDIF digital output and am monitoring over big studio mains, not with an amp. I'm very happy with it. The sounds I like best (all custom patches) are Plexi into a greenback cab, Dual Recto into a Fender Bassman 4-10s cab (don't laugh, it's nuts!), the Matchless DC-30 into Vox AC30 speakers, Hiwatt into Fanes- as you can see, my idea of fun is playing with combinations of amp and cab, and it's very rewarding. I will use something like the Fane cab as a sort of EQ- snarly nasal un-bright rock and roll bark. I don't care for any of the post-Plexi Marshalls, especially the JCM900. I like the Matchless DC30 better than the Vox AC30 model- one neat trick is to set it up with all the knobs cranked and then roll off the bass control to about 3:00 which brings in this astonishing midbass punch- other amp models don't even respond in anything like the same way.
I did one mod which helped the sound out a lot- the input stage is resistors and a 10uf cheap electrolytic capacitor. I bypassed this with a .1 uf polypropylene film capacitor from input jack to a place in the circuit, and the sound became substantially less plastic. (please don't email about this mod unless you figure on paying me muchos dineros to do it thus voiding your warranty ;) )

Haven't had a problem, don't treat it roughly. No opinion.

Moot point as I modded mine: no opinion.

I like this. Originally got it on the strength of an amateur musician who'd put up mp3s using it- there was a groove and sense of movement that came through his guitar parts, and though it was a bit veiled and dull I saw the potential. Sure enough, it's a very nice little unit at a great (close-out) price, and there's that film cap mod which gets rid of the veiledness (I'm basically bypassing straight from the input jack to the first transistor, skipping the resistors and such. Under some circumstances this produced an electronic squeal, but in normal use it didn't. Seems like the master headphone volume was able to bleed through when you hot-rod it that way, so I just keep it low.

The eq presets are straight forward however, the deep editing requires the use of the manual to guide you through each function in order to see which on screen number corresponds to a certain effect. Nevertheless the features are versatile enough to get a certain sound.

I read all the glowing reviews about the J station in Harmony central so I eventually tested it out at the local guitar shop to see if it lived up to the hype. I was impressed enough with its rectifier model that I was to persuaded to buy it. Initially this unit sounded great with my guitar and amp as it gave a thick & full tone. its effects features such as the chorus and reverb colored the sound to the each amp model well.In spite of all these good features my final assesment on the J-station is that it provides good but, not great amp model sounds and although it comes close to certain amp tones, it did not provide enough definition to each note I played through my guitar. aside from the blackface and the the clean amp models, all the rest of the amp models are muddy and undefined and that made the music sound like it was coming from the background rather then foreground. I think this is a good pedal for beginners but, those that are looking for a pro quality sound should look elsewhere.

I basically traded this in and paid the extra to get a POD 2.3 because its sound is more defined which is what i'm looking for since I wan't all my notes to be heard and not muddied up.

Easy to get great sounds, but the showroom presets in ANY processor are made to blow away the customer, and are always too wet, over driven, overeffected in general.

The Edit software is incredible, had trouble with the firmware ups at first, but that was an os problem, not theirs. It finally worked. Big pic of outboard rack effects without having to deal with one, was done with those in the 90's.. LOL... the local deep level editing is real tiresome thoiugh, but thats because of limited button features with so much to control, actually a plus in a strange way.

Manual is very very descriptive, without missing a notch.

- Electric guitars, metal and jazzy bluesy settings are what I use it for. This unit is totally discreet noise-wise. The factory settings for wah and p-shift are incredibly stupid, non-usable. Get into the software and tweak, then they rule, big time. Dunno why they set those that way.

Works great, I work at a music store and have had contact with them various times personally, AND at work. Great co.

very

Listen carefully, I have played them all. The V amp has great effects, bad sims. You have to take out the chip to upgrade.

The pod is good ONLY for metalheads ONLY. The amp sims are meager to good at best.

Its a shame these things are selling for as cheap as they are now, because they are worth their weight in gold at the pod price. The J station is the BEST you will find for overall amp sim for recording period. It runs the whole spectrum really well, and if you think it dont, you either are a talking head, repeating what others have said, or a punk rocker..... hehe

easy to use?? yes, very easy. not a COMPLETE cakewalk because when you enter "deep edit" mode you might need to consult the easy-peasy manual to remember which NUMBER corresponds to which PARAMETER.

i've owned a POD for two or three years. i've upgrade the POD to both 2.0 AND 2.3 status. the POD is a sturdier piece of kit (being made of metal).
the J-station (however) just ABSOLUTELY DESTROYS IT when comes to "realism" of sound. the J is MUCH more "alive". NO CONTEST. ALSO,..compression AND reverb AND delay are ALL ACTIVE and INDEPENDENT of whatever "modulation/pitch" effect you select. did i mention that delay,reverb and compression are ALL independent of the other effects??
THIS ALONE KILLS THE POD 2.3 AND KICKS ITS LIFELESS BODY WITH A POINTY-TOE'D BOOT. for the money i paid ($80) this is incredible.

(fot the record,...i have not tried the POD XT. it's specs look VERY impressive).

AGAIN,..this is NOT a as sturdy a unit as a POD. it is plastic. HOWEVER,...how often would you actually put your gear into a position where it MIGHT fall 3-4 feet to a concrete floor?? not too likely.

the J is no longer made,..yet the website still exists and is full of enthusiastic users. 'nuff said.

i have analog rackmounts and lots of pedals. i wanted something that was very portable (and a little different) that could offer me "most" of what my racks and pedals can. the J does this. my POD 2.3 could not. i can get lovely clean tones from the J. i can get nastiness as well. the POD (which i intially liked) now sounds very "processed" and "distant" by comparision. i prefer the J. AGAIN,...i have not tried the POD XT. perhaps IT is the ultimate. i don't know. UNTIL THEN, there is the J.

p.s. i have "heard" (and it is only rumour) that the "Made In The USA" J Stations sound better than the ones made overseas. i cannot verify this. mine is a USA model and i am quite happy. myh POD is heading to eBay.

I've never used the knobs on the front of my J-Station, the PC software is simply brilliant so the unit itself is on a shelf over there.. and I have no need to go near it. Editing is a breeze.

OK, this is the critical area, I've ownd a J-Station for a couple of years, I use it for home recording, and have always been very happy with it, I get complimented on my clean recorded guitar tones from recording snobs who'd never dream of using an amp-sim, so having fooled the self proclaimed "experts" I'm happy. recently my J-Station got wet (don't ask), and it died.. I went into town to get another one, they were out of stock everywhere, so I bit the bullet and spent 3x the cash on a PodXT.. --mis-take-- the Pod is junk compared to the J-Station, it sounds processed, it has the worst compression I've ever heard, and the least convincing distortions, so, I did what any sane person would do.. Bought a new J-Station on eBay, and sold the Pod. Now I'm going to buy a spare J-Station just incase I have an accident with this one, I have a feeling the J-Station is one of those "classic" products that over time will gain a reputation in inverse proportion to its availability, buy one now while you can.. Oh, and my live rig is a 1969 Marshall 100 watt Super lead into 2 4x12 cabinets, I know what that sounds like & the J-Station comes pretty damn close to replication it's recorded sound.

Erm.. don't get it wet! Mine died following a rain related mishap, but I bought another.. other than that no problems at all.

The forums on the Johnson website are a godsend.

For home recording this is the best Amp-simulator you can get, don't fall for Line6's brilliant marketing, get a J-Station while you can, hook it up to your PC and find your sound, it *is* in there. I wouldn't use any Amp-Sim live, you can beat a hot amp pushing a straining speaker, but for recording this thing is pure genius.

Very simple to use right out of the box. Presets are fun at first, but tweaking the amps, cabs and effects are much more interesting for finding "your" sound. It's a no brainer.

I'm playing a strat and recording direct to computer. I mainly stick to 5 amp models, rectified, j-solo, black face, tweed, blues. I use only one of the cabinet models, the johnson model, it sounds great with all previously mentioned amp models. I use a little compression, a little noise gate, very little delay, the spring reverb which is excellent, and I tweak the pitch/detune which gives it a great "tube sound". First I select pitch/detune, then I turn the effect speed knob to twelve oclock, press the edit button, dont hold it down, then turn the effects speed knob to the left to about 11.5 just slightly until you hear it go out of phase. Press the edit button again to turn it off, then turn effects speed knob to about 8 oclock. Awesome tube sound with black face and rectified. It turns this unit into a complete beast. It's like going from a 2x12 combo to a full raging stack. Rock on. No need to buy a stack after you hear this. This effect setting with black face and spring reverb will give you a better fender sound than the real thing, this same setup using rectifier will bring out the Metallica fan in you.

Hell yeah. Had it for 2 years, no problems.

Never needed it. Went to Johnson website and upgraded with no problem.

Bad ass unit. Go from Stevie Ray to Metallica in a flash. PS I bought POD before this, and returned the POD within 2 days and got this instead. No comparison. Dont buy POD waste of money! I dont care how many poser rock stars use it. Don't get fooled by their marketing. These guys aren't musicians they're salesmen, and damb good ones at that.

The sounds out of the box are okay, but don't expect a miracle. I took me about a week or two to find my main distorted sound. Fairly easy to use with the basic editing stuff. However, the deep editing features are a bit difficult to access on the fly because there are simply so many parameters that you can tweak (ie, don't bet on being able to change something significant without the manual). The good news is, the manual is very helpful and explains things clearly. FYI, this is an older version (from 2001) that has not been upgraded (to my knowledge), because I lack a MIDI interface for my computer.

My setup:
Jackson Kelly > J-Station > Computer (NOT through the SPDIF)
or
Jackson Kelly > J-Station > Sovtek Mig 50 > Johnson or Marshall Cab

By my axe, you can probably tell I'm a heavy metal guy. Thus I purchased this unit primarily for getting a good, distorted sound and some nice effects.

My Favorite features:
1. The Rectifier model- I use this for my main distorted sound. You can get some pretty good metal sounds here and also some nice liquid gain lead sounds. Heck, you can even get kind of a Santana thing here (don't expect a miracle though, his sound is miraculous...)
2.The Delay
3.The noise gate (eliminates almost all the noise, this is a quiet unit).
4.The compressor
5.Most of the digital effects (the chorus, flanger, phaser, the rotary is ok, as is the tremolo)
6.Most of the other amp models...

Thing I didn?t like:
1.Pitch/Detune (sounds overbearing and phony)
2.Auto Wah (for the same reason)
3.Acoustic Sims (yep, phony sounding)
4.The Distorted Marshall Models (didn?t do the amps justice)

Like stated below, when you play through an amp, turn off the cabinet sim, otherwise you get way too much bass.

Seems reliable, has never died on me, but runs very hot.

Never delt with Johnson

This is a great unit, especially for the price. I've seen them on musicians friend for around $90 bucks, and for that money you proabably won't get anything more versitile. It's also great for people who like to record on their computers (esp lower end systems like I have).

pretty easy right out of the box - lots of preset patches. With J-Edit software installed on your computer and the J-Station connected via MIDI, it's totally simple to completely edit patches. The manual is excellent (and short, too). The guitar tuner isn't as easy as other ones I've used, but, with some effort, it works.

I'm recording direct to computer. A more than adequate selection of nice fat distortions and bell-tone cleans can be achieved. The noise gate works. The acoustic models aren't very satisfying to me...but that's what my acoustic is for. Effects are as good as any digital I've heard. You can emulate most artists sounds with this machine, but, like most other multi-effect/amp modelers, some super wierd effect combos can't be achieved because only delay, reverb plus one more selection out of the 7 other effects can be combined at one time. If you really feel you need an overproccessed sound, get a job and start saving up for stomp-boxes (each box will cost you about as much as a J-Station)

metal chassis, tight buttons/knobs, and screwed-on 1/4 inch metal jacks.

...they still have a decent website and informative moderators on their forums. Doubt I'll ever need support anyhow, since it's such a solid/simple unit

I bought it from some kid who, understandably, wanted use the included J-Edit software, but couldn't get his computer to recognize the J-Station (someone probably didn't re-install the MIDI drivers after a format). He had only used it twice...SCORE!!! The huge sound, "Tap-it" button, and foot pedal expandability are great, but J-Edit is my favorite feature. The graphic interface looks like, and IS, a full effects rack on my monitor.

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.

Pretty darn simple setup. Best of class in theis regard. The software editor is excellent, and gives you all kinds of control not available on the front panel, including suprising control over effects parameters. And the ability to have an effect such as flanger or chorus, PLUS delay, reverb and compression, in addition to the amp and cabinet sims is great.

OK here's the hard one. What I've always found is playing through an amp sim like this(or the Pod), compared to a good amp, is always something of a letdown. The experience of PLAYING just isn't the same. Mabe its the latencey, mabe its how you hear playing through phones or speakers, I don't know. But what I always find is listening back later, it sounds great. Considering the time and trouble you'd have to go through(not to mention the volume!) to get recorded tones this good, this thing is a godsend.
Its a tool, folks. And for the price, you can't argue. The presets suck(naturally, though, because like an amp, you really need to tweak to find the right interaction with your particular guitar and playiing style), so load up the software, get some tones, save them as presets and your off! Bass tones are VERY good to my ears. A big plus.

Both units rock solid for 2 years, gigged with 'em and everything.

Haven't neede to. Web site is good.

I also have a SansAmp, which I find has the best clean tones of any sim I've tried(including the Pod). Since I play alot of Strat, using the clean tones of the SansAmp combined with the overdriven lead sounds on the JStation, I have quite a guitar recording arsenal.
All this said I've been able to get some good to great recorded sounds out of strats, les pauls, and all the usual suspects.
And as I said before, the bass sims are a BIG plus. Of course the bass pod has many, many more tones, but I've tracked a lot of bass with this and the bassists have always been amazed at the tones. I have too.
I think the best things about this box are the ease of use, versility, and price. Probably the best investment an electric guitarist can make for a home studio. The Pod might sound a little better perhaps, but it lacks the Bass sims, and is twice the price last I checked. That's why I opted for this instead, in fact I have two(for tracking bass and guitar live or in mixdown).
I guess bottom line is if your on a budget, and need good recorded guitar tones, get this.

Hmm... I've got the 2.0 version when I bought it . It seems there's not another firmware update for the moment (I hope it will be more updates for more amps/cabs ;-) )
The manual is very clear, so the unit is quite easy to use (exepct deep-edit, maybe, but it's NOT a problem since I edit patches through midi on my computer).
Editing patches is easy, but it depends on how you do it : on "base editing" (without midi), it's easy ... on "deep-editing" without midi, it's a bit difficult since the display alternates parameter number and value... on midi-editing via a computer, even a dumb could operate properly !! Very easy to use, in a global view...
How easy to get good sounds ??? well ... pretty easy !! you got what you want (except one thing, I'll go back for it in the next "step") ... Amps, Cabs, etc ... anything you want !!

I use the J in 2 setups :
1) Washburn WG580 (tuned in D) -> J-Station -> Crate TD70 (with a tube... the TD70 sounds very "oldie"... strange sound, more for old-time rock/heavy metal then other styles... a bit marshall-esque). In this setup, it sounds good but too strange (it's due to my amp : any FX I've played on it sounded strange)
2) Washburn WG580 (tuned in D) -> HiFi power amp + cabs w/celestions OR connected on the Mic input of my sound card. In this setup, it's a dream : big beautiful sound !! The J delivers his punch and subtilities...

Amps models are perfect, in my opinion !! I've got an old friend who makes a collection of guitar amps, and I've been able to compare REAL amps and models of the J ... I did not notice any difference, even for the Rectified (Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier) !!! By the way, Rectified kills !! it's the biggest sound I've ever heard and played with (it's not a model for neo/nu trendies... juste use a weak BigMuff, it's good enought for you) ... and the Acoustic model is sooooo real !! juste like a real acoustic guitar !!

FX are all very very good (if not perfect), except the Pitch Shifter ... It's maybe the weakest point : using the Pitch in order to have a detuned guitar, okay (but don't go under 3 semi-tones down or it'll sound crappy) ... but using it like a up-whammy : NO !! it sounds awful ... BUT it's very useful to got strange FX, though...

Getting artist sounds is quite easy if you know how analysez the sound of the concerned artist ;-)

Note : tje J is absolutely NOT noisy, even on extreme compression + distortion settings (aka Rectified + Compressor both full-armed), since the J has got a professional Noise-Gate... extremely effective !!

Can I depend on it ? OF COURSE !! It's very sturdy (metal chassis) ...
I could use it on a gig without a backup... I trust Johnson !!

I've dealt with the company to have some details on the unit ... They anwer very quickly, with the expected answers ...
I hope Johnson will release other upgrades (why not an upgrade with models/cabs based on "Mesa/Boogie Triple Rectifier", "Marshall JCM2000 Triple SuperLead" and "Hugue&Kettner Tri-Amp" for example ??) ... and why not an upgrade to replace the Pitch Shifter by a Harmonist (with quality amelioration) and adding a Whammy model ??? Everything's possible...

I play mainly classical music, black metal, death metal, pop rock and so on ... The J gives me the ability to create ANY KIND OF SOUNDS for ANY KIND OF MUSIC (except rap/rnb an co, since they don't use musical instruments ... lol)
If it were lost or broken, I'd buy a J again (or maybe a Digitech GENESIS 3, which is equivalent to the J) ...
My favorite features on the J are probably the Rectified, Marshall and Acoustic models ... perfection !!

if you can read, you can get amazing stuff out of this thing!

everything is awesome for a little in home recording studio, I use it to record direct into my comp and cakewalk guitar tracks. It rocks. Havent used it live but for little gigs and stuff I imagine it's a great little toy!

darn skippy I can depend on this thing, I'd have to gig without a backup, because I dont have money for another one! lol

if the rating could go past 10 I'd make it 1,000,000,000,000,000,000. their support staff online is amazing. The samash I bought it from lost the software for it, but I e-mailed johnson/digitech about it and they sent it out to me in the mail and I recived it about 2-3 days later. Also they forgot to include a serial number for guitar tracks but I sent their customer support an e-mail and they replied with a valid on within 5 minutes(response time also goes for the time I e-mailed them about the software) all in all, they have the best customer support of any company, bar none!

I play mainly guitar instrumental stuff, but I do play in various praise and worship bands in different churches and this will supply everything I need for everything I do! I play a lot of shred stuff and speedy stuff (inside and outside of church =D) and it fits nicely. Especially when the church audience doesnt like mean ol' rectified distortion! lol

pretty easy to use (in general).
except deep level editing requires a manual in your hands.

this device is NOT GOOD for recording!

you will not be able to get even a half of a studio quality sound.
(even with a major post-processing)
j-station sounds very digital (cold), has no tone,
no dynamics and no shape. it sounds like a toy compared to (ministry, m.manson, nin) the studio quality sound .

only use tube pre-amps for recording!

a hot device. but stable.

don't know. maybe good (they have released some bios updates)

noise gate could be the only good thing. but...

you cannot fully bypass amp emulation on this thing.
(only speaker simulation can be turned off).
it ruins the sound with a bad amp head emulation all the time...
(even if you want to use a noise gate only)

j station is a pure sound ruiner!
even a cheap ($30) real amp with ($15) microphone sounds much better than js. (trust me, i've tried)

I was impressed with the array of sounds put out by this unit the second I hooked it up. I primarily purchased the unit for recording into protools and found that it is exceptionally versatile and easy to use. Editing patches takes a little practice, but you get used to it. I haven't had the opportunity to utilize the j-edit software, but the manual is very clear and easy to interpret.

I have a strat with a seymour duncan lil 59 in the neck, sd jb junior in the bridge and a virtual vintage blues in the middle. This is one quiet strat with a meaty tone that is only complimented by the j-station. I prefer using the black face (fender twin) setting and find that the tone is very thick and warm. The reverb and delay are excellent. Paired with a tube screamer, this a great little rig. As stated before, this unit is versatile especialy for recording. The bass amp models are also fantastic. I have used this unit for live performance for both bass and electric guitar. I would only reccommend this if you are gigging in a small venue and/or if you have a good monitor mix. This unit is phenomenal for live performance, In small venues, it gives you greater control over your volume because it delivers a line level signal directly to the board. It is also a heck of a lot lighter than any amplifier.

I have had no problems so far with the unit. At $150, it wouldn't hurt or break the bank to have a backup.

n/a

I have been playing primarily jazz/funk/blues for 16 years. I have had several amps including a mesa boogie, roland jc-120, hot rod deluxe, all of which are great amplifiers, but I would actually consider using one of these with a powered pa speaker as my amplifer it's that good.

Version 2.0. The user interface of this unit is much easier than comparitive units such as POD or V-Amp and the computer software makes it even that much easier. All parameters can be accessed thru the unit. It is fairly easy to get a good sound right out of the box and editing patches is as easy as just turning the knobs which kicks the unit ito a manual mode. The instruction manual is very easy to follow and understand and outlines all the parameters well.

Here is where I'm torn on this unit. I used to own a POD so my this review is a comparison of sorts between the units. Heres what I like about the J-Station: The Recto model, which is the amp model I use the most, is the best I have heard on any modeling unit, definitely better than POD. It really sounds Recto-ish and will give a good chuga-chuga low end. The Crunch and Solo models sound good as well with a goo midrange chunkiness. I also think the effects on this unit are a step above POD with more delay and reverb options. The J-station also has a separate compression control which is nice. The reverb sounds good as well and any model can select what type of reverb to use, it is not predetermined like POD.

Heres what I don't like: first, all the clean amp models absolutely suck in my opinion. It is not that they aren't clean enough, it's that they are too clean!!! They all have an 'Acoustic' simulator quality to them and don't sound like a real amp. And they all sound the same as well. I can't tell the difference in amp models between the Fender Twin and the Vox, and none of them have any punch or break-up as you turn up the gain, they just get louder. Very poor!!! And most of the other amp models such as brit stack or the Mesa Mark IIc need a lot of processing to sound decent as well. Second, I get a lot of digital clipping in the unit when the volume is turned up and really have to check my levels. Not nearly as much digital headroom as the POD has. So you can see why I'm torn...My favorite amp model is great and the effects are good but for the most part every other amp model is just about unusable to me.

Seems dependable and built well but I probably wouldn't gig with it. It seems made more for studio use.

Overall I am pleased and dissapointed. Like I stated above as compared to POD the amp models are not as good minus the Recto model which is great!!! The effects are defintely better than POD and the user interface is better but if the amp models lack it becomes bitter sweet. I have a feeling that I will end up returning this unit to get a POD again because the POD does the 'just starting to break up' thing well and sounds more organic on a lot of amp models and the J-station doesn'tcut it in this department. I can not reiterate how much the J-station clean models (Fender & Vox) suck and sound so lifeless.

actually, its not easy to get a great sound at first unless you using it a certain way. i plugged straight into my Marshall AVT150 half stack, and was terrified by the sound. a couple days, a couple pages of reading later (no it dosent take me a couple days to read, thank you) i realized that i had to take off the cab sim before it would sound rite through an amp. READ THE MANUAL, great stuff in there, although its kind of boring, even black and white (come on, black and white?!?!) oh well, other than the cab sim being different for different apps, it is easy to use, although the eq's can be quite limiting (more on that, read on!) mine is brand new, atleast right now it is, by the time you read this it will be old, very old, oh so very old. because of the cab sim being kinda hard to get to, and so important, i'll give it an eight for ease of use.

ok, hears the fun part. my setup is either a dean ML standard with a duncan distortion in the braidge, and nothing in the neck (how punk rock is that?), or a tom delonge strat (not a fan myself, really, but i love the strat). the guitar signal gets split to both a fender princeton 65 (loud little thing) on the drive channel all the time with the gain at 2, the volume at 3-4 (i told you its loud) and the J-station into the fx loop return of a Marshall AVT150 half stack that gets switched between "rectified" and "johnson clean" settings. i use this setup to play ska-punk, but my band likes to jam out metal to reggae and all between. ok, ive used this for a bunch of stuff, so i'll use a list.
-live (to the board)- the time i tried this the sound guy who did it is known by guitarists around my town for cutting all the mids and forcing the guitar out of the mix, so the rectified setting was just scooped to the balls, and thats a problem. THE RECTIFIED SETTING IS ALWAYS SCOOPED, BUT THERE ARE A LOT MORE SOUNDS THAT COME OUT OF RECTO'S!!! do i have to say it again, my high-gain brethren! this thing sounds like a recto in one setting, with the mids gone and the bass and treble all the way, no matter what i do to the eq, and live this problem is taken to a whole new level, luckily i was biamping that night so people could hear me somewhat. i wouldnt run to the board again, although i cant say that about any other settings on the j-station.
-live (in the amp fx return)- now this is more like it, but now a whole new problem arises. my cab has never farted, no matter what i through at it, but on certian pitches,playing palm mutes (a mainstay of my style) the recto always farts out my cab. the only way to stop it is to turn the bass ALL THE WAY DOWN, which sucks all of the tone out of my rythm work. but thats where the fender comes in. fenders like this are mid heavy by nature, and having an open back, the tone of the two amps together just fills a room; highs, mids, AND lows, all of which are important.
-direct recording- i ran one of the 1/4in outputs to an adapter, than straight into my computer to cool edit pro (64 real tracks, i love this program! screw cakewalk). hear is where the sounds started to make sense. I KNOW, i know that thats what it was made for, and im here to say that this is where it shines. i put the recto (yes, that is all i use except for the johnson clean) into a 1960A cab sim, because into the original preset, which went into a cab with vin 30's, the sound was kind of floppy. NOTE-these are digital patches, therefore the cool things about vin 30's and greenbacks, their natural breakup, is not so natural. what i got was EXACTLY what i was looking for. In a nutshell, it was new found glory meets Pennywise. oh by the way, the noise gate has reaffirmed my faith in noise supression, with no cut off of my tail, but perfect feedback disposal glory (dont get mad, get glad! *with a j-station*).
Hey guys, ive got some bad news. well, not so bad i suppose. basically i spent 70 of my hard earned dollars to get the three button footboard, which comes with a stupid short stereo cable and takes three minutes to change patches. I play ska, i have to change constantly, and i need quick changes to get it tight and right. I even tried hitting it early on purpose, but that dosen't work because from the time you hit the button to the time it hits the new patch there is no sound. yes, this pisses me off, because i payed nothing for the 6-button tank that came with my marshall, which has spent two nights in a flooded basement and still works like a dream, although its a little rusty (a hair dryer can work wonders for electronics). but i paid a thrid of the price of the j-station just for this foot controler, and if it unplugs from the back of the j-station than it has an extremely pesky habit of losing every setting ive ever editted.
I think ive set a new record for length here, but i'll

its metal. i dropped it, it worked still (said i would make it up, didnt I) ;) it gets a 7 (plastic parts, can break easy)

no idea, dont want to know.

i talked to long already, your tired, now go play with your children, you obsessive gearhead! And get a j-station! for the price, its the thing, for real. BUT (and this is a major cellulite oozing but) if you want high gain, check out a pod, because this thing does not do the high gain thing the way i wish it did. but I'm so happy with the recto setting taht I really dont mind. overall, lets see. for the price, i cant give it less then an 8 and still sleep tonight, but the foot controler (the three button version) gets a 4, no, 5, i'll be nice, at least they tried. c-ya on stage gear brothers! (email me for any reason, i'll be happy to listen to questions and give a completely wrong answer just for fun! evil laugh!!! MUAH ha ha haaaa!)

Very user friendly and tweakable on the fly.
Played with it right away using the quick start page for about the first week.
Excellent manual.
Started with version 1.6. Present is 2.4
Easy to upgrade online, and deep edit with a computer.

I bought it as a headphone practise amp, then used it immediately the first weekend on live jobs to get lower volume distortion sounds than my amp allows.
I think it's great live. My amp can be sorta primitive sounding (Budda Twinmaster) and midrange heavy, but the J-Station matches it well even without deep editing (which I didn't know how to do until after that first weekend).
I just grabbed the tone knobs, rolled off some reverb, etc.

I like the chorus quite a bit.
Even the presets are useful if you tone 'em down a little. Everybody wants to show the extremes on their factory presets, but at least this one can be diminished quickly even by a dolt like me.

It's quick enough to get a sound between songs even when I knew NOTHING about it!
Very intuitive, as I think they claim. If you've ever been around any effects or processors and know the difference between delay and reverb; or flange and phasor; or Blackface and Recto (Mesa), you can negotiate this unit on the fly and augment your rig with all the effects anyone could ask you for as a sideman these days (what I DO).

I think because it is meant for recording digital tracks, they intentionally voiced things on the warm side, but since my amp has a lot of presence and plenty of highs to spare, I could get a nice sound without even knowing what I was doing.
Now that I've studied the unit and manual (and software, etc) more, I'm impressed with how little it's limited.
Very well thought out and user friendly unit.

Seems stout as steel.

I'm careful with the power supply wires though. They're kinda long and designed more for convenience in a studio setup than throwing in a box with cables.

Good website and they say they'll be there.
Easy to upgrade.

I play everything from Travis-picking Folk (acoustic patch works great with my Strat), to Jazz, with R&B, Blues, Pop, and Classic Rock & Roots music mixed in there too.

40+ years experience. Some Demo studio work, as well as Musician's Union sideman jobs (real musicians have day jobs around here ;)

I've had three Peavey "FX" processors of various eras, plus "Intellefex GT," a couple of Korg PX-3's.

I thought this J-Station sounded better and was more user friendly for editing than a Pod.

It's louder in the headphones than a Pandora's Box (Korg PX-3), but lacks an aux input, so you can't play along to CD's with the J-Station without rigging up a mixer. Dandy headphone amp though.

I have not recorded digitally with it as yet, but am confident it'll work as advertised.

This is an informative post for the previous poster and others.. Johnson Amplification is the same company as Digitech. Their factory is about 2 miles from me. Anyone who is commenting on their customer service rating is commenting on Digitech, and Vice versa.

The J-Station has the same basic layout of every other multieffect pedal/amp modeler made. It's based on a number of user banks, each one having settings that you can edit for each component in the 'chain', from effects to the virtual amp to the virtual cabinet. While it is pretty intuitive, it is also a hassle with all the button-pushing. Fortunately, the J-Edit software that comes with the unit makes it simple to do all the tweaking on your computer with your mouse. It is almost a must, because you can get up and playing much quicker which is the whole point of these things (instead of setting up an amp and mic). Also, I owned a Behringer V-Amp 2 before this and the software would crash constantly. The J-Edit software finds my J-Station on the first time, every time, and works beautifully. The interface is also nice to look at. I went straight with the software and did not read the manual, but I would probably need to if I did all the tweaking manually.

The firmware version that came with mine was 2.0 (latest), and updates can be downloaded off Johnson's site, although I have a feeling this will be probably be the last version, before they drop the support and come out with a new model to entice our wallets. Even so, the features as is are more than worth the price.

I am using this with my PC and a Midiman Audiophile 2496. I record the device through the S/PDIF out. The first J-Station I bought was defective and caused loud popping noises in the right channel, but I RMA'd it with zZounds and they sent me a new one that worked. I didn't really like the factory patches, but after adjusting the settings I can get many useable sounds. So if you are demo'ing it in the store and don't like the presets, keep this in mind. Sound-wise it is on-par with the V-Amp 2 and the POD 2.0, in my opinion. There are subtle differences in sound but they all do a pretty good job of emulating their amps.

My only gripe (if you call it that) is that the digital out is locked to 44.1kHz. I generally record at 24/88.2 but since it was kind of a hassle to resample the frequency before mixing down, I just record everything at 44.1 now to accomodate the J-Station. But at least the J-Station has a digital out, 24-bit at that, while the V-Amp and POD don't.

It has a metal chassis and looks very sturdy. It doesn't have a preamp bypass AFAIK so I don't know why it would be gigged with, except if it were hooked up directly to a PA.

I e-mailed Johnson about the problem I mentioned above, and they e-mailed me back the next day (oddly it came from Digitech). They were helpful in answering my question.

I would definitely get this over the V-Amp 2 or POD. It has the best features for recording among the three. The only other product I would consider in this price range is the Digitech Genesis 3, but I haven't been able to try it. Other than that, this is probably the best value in terms of price/performance.

just bought it during a few days only ....
still trying ....

Those my friends who are working in famous studio told me that :
" J-Station sound is better than Line 6 POD ver2.0 ..... "

i think that maybe POD have more "function" than
j-station .... i haven't compared them yet ....

But i am so great that i can get this such a great sound direct recording pre-amp without highly charge.
J-station is really cheaper than Line 6 POD ver2.0
and comes with a J3 small control pedal, it is free !!

ya..... sure ! i trust it !!

Haven't get any problem with it yet

i am playing in blues, a little in jazz, all kind of rock and metal.

This ax helps me a lot in how to get a very close great sound with
those famous bands or guitarists in the world.

If i have more money , i will definitely buy a new Line6 POD (ver2.0)
and its control pedal.

Trust me !!!! J-station is valuable to this low price.

Very easy to get a good sound of it. The owners manual is easy to understand. Editing patches is very easy even more because of the software the J-Station includes, just edit the patches on the computer, sync the PC with the J-Station and that's it.

Amazing sound quality considering that the price is one of the lowest in the market. The "solo" overdrive is pretty acceptable as well as the chorus is. The only sound I do not like is the auto-wha.

So far so good, I just bought it.

It's a very good piece of equipment, it has a very good sound it's very cheap and easy to use.

Well, all things are relative to the user's preference, and my general assumption is most of these have too many settings that are overly distorted, their clean chanels are too 80's rock ballad like, and there are too few of the variety pre-sets (rock-a-billy, country, and real blues not the stupid heavy-metal type).

So, like most digital processors, you have to un-process a little bit to get a sound acceptable to play with or put on tape. I chose this because the knobs and effects looked very basic and easy to tweak, and for the most part, they are. You still have to read the manual and play with it a little bit, but it's very easy to do so.

Like I said, the sound, after tweaking, will do, but it's still no stomp box on a good amp. It's just much quieter and easier to use when you're trying to record with it.

Endorsements from big stars are sometimes reassuring, but they can also be very misleading. As I said above, it's all a matter of taste. And my taste favors a good amp and good pedals. I will say, for recording an idea, it doesn't sound that bad. And it is definitely quieter and more convenient than trying to mic an amp or going direct from your amp, but pulling your hair out because it's so freaking noisy.

I'm glad I hung onto the J-station for a couple of days and played with it. I was ready to send it back and get a POD, but then, after playing around with it, I couldn't justify the extra $100.00 for a 20-bit unit when the J-Station, at $150.00, is a 24-bit digital unit. In addition, like the POD, you can download patches, pre-sets from other people, and upgrade amps and cabinets for as long as Johnson-Amplifiers has the J-Station website. So, for what I needed it for, it sounds pretty darn good.

Well, I had considered getting the V-AMP2, because I tried one out at Mars Music and was quite fond of it. I got on Harmony Central, and noticed some of the users complaining about the cheaply constructed input jacks, and that turned me to the J-Station. Being made out of metal, and being as light as it is, this piece should last for as long as a person will take care of it. It gets warm, but I don't think over-heating will be a problem. I also like the on-off switch (the V-AMP does not have one)

Never dealt with them, but they seem to have a good reputation.

I play hard rock, country, jazz and blues. Like I said, for what I am trying to record, it will do fine. I'm not ready to write the President and demand he give this out to all kids in place of school lunches, but I'm happy enough with it to keep it and give it a shot and let POD stay on the shelf at the music store.

There are people who have played only a year and could run circles around me, but I always appreciate a seasoned player giving his/her two cents, so, I've been playing for 18 years. I have had many great guitars and sold most of them when I was mentally ill (I still am). However, I have purchased some great electrics (American Tele, Guild Bluesbird) and have held onto my Am. Std. Strat and have some very nice Larrivee Acoustics.

If this were lost or stolen and had the money to replace it, I would either get another one, or go try a POD. I gave the POD a hard time, and realized how nice a unit it was at a music store last weeks. Again, I don't think it's $100.00 better, but I would either do that or try a POD PRO or Lexicon rack mount. I love my amp, but hate the noise and bulk.

Ease of use is fair. Without a computer to tweak and save patches, its pretty much a labryinth. That said, you will be amazed at what you can do when you have a computer hooked up with the included J-Edit software.

I use the J-Station live. J-Station into a Behringer Tube Composer with the 12AX7 warmth settings full-up. This goes into a Crown CE1000 powering eight-eight inch high power speakers in four custom cabs(two four ohm speakers per cabinet) @ 450w per channel. Settings are customized to the guitar being used. My main guitar is a black Yamaha SG2000 I bought new in '77. My new infatuation is a Kramer flying V, I've done some extensive mods to it, including a JB pick-up. The modded Kramer together with the J-Station are a chemistry. I've owned Fender, Ampeg V-4 8x12 Stack, Marshall 8x12 Stack, Roland Jazz Chorus, Traynor MKIII, ADA MP-1 and I can honestly say I can get any of these tones from this rig, at any volume. You need a stereo sound system, not a guitar amp to use J-Station live. The effects/reverb is very good, but I give this unit a 10 for amp and speaker modeling.

Built like a tank. As something intended for studio use, its very roadworthy.

I've only used the web based support and its been very good. I've been able to upgrade the units internal firmware to get the new cabinet and amp emulations, not to mention custom patches. I hope Johnson keeps some support going in the future.

I've been playing for 35 yrs. My roots are in blues/rock/pop, but I enjoy all styles of guitar playing. I have a lot of classic gear, played a lot of great gear, I'm keeping the old stuff around for sentimental value only.
The J-Station and the rig I have it wired into, is the most amazing set-up I've ever played. If other products can improve on this(not POD, sorry), of course I'll replace it.

First of all, let me point out that I'm using this for one specific purpose: recording "rough drafts" of songs on my home PC. I got the latest version of the J-Station, which has several added models and includes Cakewalk Guitar Tracks software. I'm not using it for MIDI, as a distortion/effects box for my guitar rig, or to nail a particular sound via the amp models. Plug guitar into J-Station, plug J-Station into soundcard, record in Cakewalk GT. Simple as that.

For my purposes, the J-Station is very easy. I wanted something that I could basically use out of the box, using the presets. I have a reasonable amount of guitar gear, several amps and effects units, and I'd rather get something with good presets than something that CAN be programmed to get my sound. This piece of equipment works the way it should from the moment you turn it on. The Cakewalk Guitar Tracks, although not considered pro-level software, is not a "light" or "limited" version that only allows a handful of tracks. I recorded 8 tracks (including vocals) before I had to mix down, and that was a playback limitation. Cakewalk has a reasonable amount of effects available, if you prefer to add your effects after recording, and it's very easy to cut and paste from track to track. Guitar overdubs, volume increase/decrease and even vocal harmonies were easy to perform without ever reading the online Cakewalk documentation.

I didn't use the "deep edit" or the MIDI-based editing software, mainly because I don't need to. I wanted to get my feet wet with PC recording before setting up a home studio, and the J-Station/Cakewalk GT combination is great for that. Typically, I record dry guitar tracks, using the preset models but no effects, just the gate and compressor. The manual is sufficient, not arranged the way I would have written it, but adequate in answering most questions.

I'm *not* using this with my amps or cabs, just as a direct box into my PC. For most purposes, I use Jackson guitars and Charvel basses into a Sound Blaster Live MP3+, with a Boston Audio speaker system. The sound quality is decent, better than I expected through my PC really, but the heavy distortion models do tend to get muddy. Keep in mind that part of the amp model concept includes EQ settings, so adjusting the gain and EQ on the J-Station itself isn't going to give you the same results as making the same changes on a clean amp. That can be good or bad, depending on how you look at it.

Considering that I'm going into a consumer-level soundcard and run-of-the-mill speakers, overall sound quality is acceptable. Noise isn't too bad, but of course you need to stand back from your monitor or you'll get some buzz. As far as effects are concerned, I am recording dry through the Johnson and adding effects to recorded tracks in Cakewalk. This is very easy.

My main requirement when shopping around for an inexpensive PC recording unit was that it be able to give me a variety of guitar AND bass sounds, with minimal messing around necessary to get a decent sound. I can record clean guitar, distorted rhythm and lead, and bass, with no changes other than to select the appropriate model and adjust the level a bit. Is it "my" sound? No, but it's easier than getting each of my amps and effects hooked up to record one at a time. The bass models, while clearly not the emphasis of the J-Station, were a major selling point for me. The amp models differ from one another enough that you can tell Mesa- and Marshall-style distortions from one another, or make find a lead guitar sound that sounds good with the rhythm track.

I only use this at home, and only on my PC. I don't plan to gig with it. Johnson is owned by Harmon, the same folks that own Digitech and DOD. Thus, I don't exactly have high hopes based on experience with those brands, but I have different expectations for the J-Station.

Hopefully I'll never need to find out.

I play thrash/death metal, and there are several amp models that would work for that sound, but I also use it for other types of music. For $149, I wasn't expecting a lot, and to be honest, I'll never use many of the functions of the J-Station. The bass models and included Cakewalk GT software made it easy to choose this over the POD and V-Amp, both of which I also considered. I'm in the process of building a PC for the purpose of multitrack recording, but the point of buying the J-Station was to experiment a bit with my existing system.

I've used the J-Station for a couple of months now, and it has lived up to my expectations. The price was right, the features meet my needs, and I do consider it more of a tool than a toy. Without software such as the included Cakewalk, I don't think I'd get much use out of the J-Station, but the two combined make recording extremely simple. Getting the sound of two different guitarists and a bassist, all by turning one or two knobs, and then being able to record several tracks (including overdubs) using only what was in the box makes this worth far more than what I paid.

For the J-Station's Basic modes i.e. amp modeling and it's upper level effects it is quite easy to use, turn a knob and play. Johnson's instruction manual for the unit is pretty straight forward, easy to understand and provides good instruction for the deep level editing i.e. (changing speaker cabinet models, reverb paramaters etc.). I tried using my brother's Zoom 505 pedal, this thing was a nightmare to use beyond basic presets, even then the Zoom was not user friendly. In comparison to the Zoom the J-Station is a dream to operate (and sounds soooo much better).

This where the J-Station really shines. The reason I give it a 10 is because I connected it to my old 1978 Carvin VTR-2800 tube amp. The Carvin is kind of a hybrid like an old Musicman, solid state preamp, Tube poweramp and a 7 band equalizer. Actually Musicman and Carvin had it right back then, because whether you use 12ax7's or transistors make no difference in the preamp, it is the tube power amp that adds the warmth. Marshall (and others) have it backwards with their Valvestates. Okay let me get back on track, so I selected the J-Stations Mesa Boogie (HOT ROD) selection and AB'ed against my Mesa Boogie 50 Caliber +. I mean the J-Station had it wired, A little tweaking and I had stereo Boogie 50 Cals. I used to just find the Carvin mediocre before, before the J-Station that is. I think the key is that one must run this thing through a tube amplifier if you want it to sound like some other kind of tube amp. I guess you could even use it as a preamp for some tube power amp. So I conclude since it does a great Boogie imitation, the other simulations are equally accurate (I have heard a JCM 900 and it it's accurate, the Matchless I havn't heard in person, but that selection sounds great).

The effects all sound excellent, it was the modeling that I purchased this thing for.

I have never seen any amp modelers do a Marshall Valvestate simulation or any other Solid State amp Simulation. Like I said previously, a tube in the preamp is just marketing hype. If you want tube amp sound, make sure the tubes are in the poweramp side. These so called hybryds claim they have real tube sound, well that is just a bunch of bologna. They save all kinds of money by not putting an expensive out output transformer in their amp. So all the money thay save turns into profit for them (on your back of course) just because marketing told you it was just as good as the real thing. Don't believe it. Buy a good used tube amp if you can't afford a new one.

Mine was a demo unit from my local music store. No problems yet, don't expect any. One comment though on my 9VAC power supply, it gets really hot when the unit is in use.

I have not dealt with them yet.

I am really impressed with the J-Station, overall I give it a 9.5 just because this thing is just so much fun to use.

Very Easy. Figuered it out in a night and the manual is well written

UNBELIVABLE. I worked at Musician's Friend's Customer support center when this thing came out. A rep from Digitech came and diminstrated this out for us and I was blown away. The rep is the guitarist that works with Kurt Bestor and Sam Cardon on the Inovators CD. When i fist stated playing I thought I was listening to Eric Johnson-MY GOD-The rep uses the Johnson Millienium amp and he said he can hardley tell a difference between the two. With some tweeking you can get some great tones out of this little black box

Very Reliable

Not Sure

Ultimate piece of equipmentt. I highly recommand picking one of these up.

Very simple, you may have read other reviews and they said "oh it's hard" well that is because they're stupid. Hey I had an RP-300 and it was a mother never mind to use (BOTTOM LINE IT IS EASY TO USE IF YOU CAN BELCH , FART OR BEAT 2 STONES TOGETHER YOU CAN USE THIS!!!)

This is my main stage unit, you can blast it through like 10 4*12 cabs and it still has a great tone. The effects are very cool and all of the presets are good (NOT JUST ONE OUT OF ONETHOUSAND) I can trust this unit to hold out on me live. SOUNDS BETTER THEN THE GNX-3

I could througt this thing off a 3,000 foot ledge, pick it up and have enough confidense to go and use it live.

I hate the guy at guitar center that has long hair and sits in front of you and plays stairway to heaven for an hour and when you try to ask him a question he looks at you like you don't deserve to live. Besides this everything went ok.

This modelor killed a lot of my other ones it made my GNX-3 look like a playskool child toy. I only use this it is the single best piece of gear I have ever owned. BUY ONE TODAY OR IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY STEAL ONE THE GOOD LORD WILL UNDERSTAND IN THIS CASE!!!

Easy after a week or so.

Using this with Gibson Les Pauls and Jackson SL-1. Outstanding emulation once you take the time to twaek out your sounds. This can take longer than a month, but the reward is much better sound than the pod. From high gain to twin clean, for it's price it's a steal.

Have 3, no problems yet.

Useful, but now they work for Digitech and are busy with the GNX series.

Price aside, for a table top emulator it is hard to beat. Add the effects that truely make the pod's effects sound wannabe's and you can't go wrong. Paid full price for my fisrt one and I am buying more at half price from folks who can't read the manual and say it sucks. Yep, this product is being sunset it seems and when the price goes up, I can sell a few for a handy profit to those that missed the boat.
Made of metal, made in the USA, not like some others.

Modeling and effects processor. Digital. Uses knobs for "suface" editing, and buttons (banks) for "deep" editing. Deep editing will change some overall models and effects across the board, while surface will change what model or effect is picked. Once set up as you like, it's easy to switch back and forth. One effect at a time, as well as one amp model at a time. No blending. Can be used with a foot controller for wah, etc. And banks can be accessed from buttons on floor pedal (both from Johnson). AS easy to use as any other modeler like POD, BOSS, etc. Easier than Korg 1500G (to me).

Although this modeler can be over the top in distortion, it truely sounds great at lower distortion levels, unlike POD, etc. NOT for the metal heads out there. The boutique and the rectifier settings (along with 3 or 4 others) are really thick and meaty. The character of the guitar does come through. I play a Strat, w/H,S,S and a Les Paul w/DiMarzios. Also a 12 string Fender electric. I also use other pedals. I run the Johnson through the effects loop, which makes it sound the best. I EQ from the modeler, not the amp. SOunds best to me that way. I am in a cover band now, and that's why I bought into modeling. Works well for that job.

Haven't had this more than 1 month. Did drop it once, still works. Time will tell. I mount mine on a stand to access easily, so it's not on the floor. Might help some.

Never tried. Hope not to.

I've been playing since the 60s. This is a hobby for me. Not a career. I use a Seymour Duncan convertible amp. All tube which helps the sound. And I have left a long time blues band for this cover band. Needed something fresh. So this modeler gets me up to speed without buying all new gear. I looked at Line 6, Korg, Digitech, Boss. Johnson performs as well as any of these. Nothing is exactly like the model in any of these pedals, but it is close. I wish it could meld models and run more than one effect at a time. But I only paid $80.00 used. Can't complain.

Pretty easy to get a basic guitar sound on the front panel, without consulting the manual. The deep-editing is a little more difficult unless you have the computer software and midi link-up. With the software the whole unit is ridiculously easy to edit and program.

I'm using a Carvin bolt-on with 2 Lace Sensor single-coils and a Seymour Duncan "Holdsworth" splittable humbucker on the bridge, a Jay Turser jazz box guitar and an Ibanez Roadstar bass. I run the unit directly into my Roland VS840GX. The amp models are pretty damn close, with very little noise or hiss, even without using the noise gate. I do find that the j-station, as all modellers, tends to not have as much presence as a miked amp, but that's the trade-off. Beats the shit out of the COSM amp simulations found in the Roland, which is why I bought it. Nice warm bottom end and nice selection of amps and cabinets to mix and match. The effects all sound great, and the stereo spread is great for recording.

Well, I don't gig with it, it stays in my studio on the console. Seems like it's pretty solidly built. Haven't had any problems with it.

Haven't had any problems with the unit.

I play everything from nu-metal to jazz. I've been playing 25 years. I'm currently using a Rocktron Pro-Gap preamp, Rocktron Intellifex, Digitech DSP128, ADA Power Amp and 2 Marshall 1936 2x12 cabs. This thing has got me considering buying a Johnson pre-amp so I can transfer my recorded sounds to live easier. If my j-station was lost or stolen, I would definitely buy another one. This thing does everything it's supposed to do. It gives you a decent imitation of the most popular amps on the market in a packet you can stick in your guitar case. For doing recording sessions where you need a variety of sounds, this thing can't be beat!

Its pretty easy to use if your using J-edit.

This is were this thing Really Shines..I'm playing on a Ibanez JS-100 aka The Satch!!The Rectified Channel sounds real Heavy..Good for Metal And Shred which is what i play..You can get some good sounds for Yngwie Style licks on the J-solo. I honestly Have NO idea why the Pod is 299 and this is 149..Line 6 must be on Crack cause even if they were the same Price i'd get the J-station over the Pod...And for 149 you just can't Beat it.

Yea this thing is build prett nice..I've dropped it a Few times and it still Works like a Charm.

Overall it sounds pretty damn Good..If i lost this fucker I'd Buy it again. Doesn't sound as good threw an Amp but threw the PC it KILLS! or a set or headphones..PISS ON THE POD!! smoke a J and then play on the J it rox!

I haven't dug deep into editing/programming other than twirling some knobs; my feeling is that if you have to alter the pre-programmed sounds by deep editing, than you're likely trying to polish a turd.

I have a variety of guitars; Am Std strat with Lindy Frelin pickups, an Am Std tele, A Carvin TL60T, etc. I bought this unit to use with Sonic Foundry's Vegas when recording/setup with a live amp wasn't an option. I particularly was looking for a good clean Fender sound, as well as a pushed blackface. I find the general tone of this unit annoying, muddy or shrill with no good in betweens(got good clean monitors). The effects are squashed and uninspiring. As a test, I recorded a guitar instrumental ala "The Hellecasters", using every guitar in my arsenal. This track had tones ranging from Ronnie Earl to ZZ Top to Carlos Santana to Dick Dale. I fought a long time to come up with compramised tones, and quite honestly couldn't settle on some, so I dug up my old Digitech GSP-7 and found those elusive patches in 30 seconds. The color and dynamics of the effects on my decade old (or more) Digitech blew away the J-Station.

I would depend on it at a gig if my amp blew a tube and I was within 10 minutes from home to retieve it. Wouldn't think of taking it otherwise. It's never broke, however.

never called for support

I play a variety of music from roots rocking blues, swing to melody driven pop rock. I've been playing since 1970 and like a variety of good guitar tones, but use the Pantera tone the least. I think that if this thing has any strengths, it's in that tone dept., but I don't know - maybe it's just that I'm not an authority of squashed gunga-gunga tone. If this thing were stolen, I'd certainly not replace it. I'd likely check some other gear out, but I'm pretty certain their ain't no thang like the real thang. I do think this unit sounds it's best dry, just using the amp modeling without any effects. But still, I feel no interaction between my fingers and whats coming out of the speakers - as if what I am playing is going through some tone interpretor and screwing up the translation.

Just like any other amp modeler, this is not the easiest thing to use or edit. It is easier than the POD however. Browsing through presets is easy if you have ever used a processor before. Patch editing is extremely simple once you get the midi-to-joystick cable and run the software that is included with the j-station. The manual is not the most thorough or interesting, as opposed to the POD. Mine has firmware version 2.0, which is available free if you get an older version. Just download it and run the updater program that is also included with the j-station.

I have a strat and a tele with emg's. Emg's really help to reduce tone loss with effects processors and digital equipment like this. I also have a PRS knockoff with PAF's and a G&L strat with SD mini-buckers. I couldn't decide whether to get this or the POD, so I bought both from Guitar center, which has a 30 day money back deal, and took them both home to A/B them with my PC and my rig. I am submitting this review for those considering the two. After comparing the two side by side in my house with no "guitar center noise", I cannot believe that the POD sells for twice the price of this one. This thing has got to be the quietest guitar unit I have ever heard, bar none. It is quieter than any amp or preamp that I have ever heard. It's one of the things that made me choose it over the POD. The POD had massive hiss whenever a clean sound was dialed up. Even with the High-gain settings the noise is almost unnoticable with the J-station. The POD also had a tone color reminiscent of a Marshall amp in every amp model, including the fenders. It was also almost impossible to get decent clean sounds out of the POD. The J-station has some nice cleans as well as excellent distortions. The effects are outstanding, as you would expect from Digitech/Johnson/Harmon Kardon/Infinity/JBL/Altec-Lansing (They are all Harmon Companies). The auto-wah seems a little thin, but I have not yet gotten around to tweaking it, and the manual says that there are other types of wahs to choose from. I especially like the fact that you can place the modulation effects such as the flanger, chorus, or phasor (the POD does NOT have a phasor) before or after the distortion. I always put my phasor before the distortion, it kinda gives it a wah-like sound. Global cabinet emulation can be turned on or off, for use with amps. There are about 15 different types of reverb, each with adjustable parameters (once again outdoing the pod) The reverbs and delays are some of the best I have heard. Delays include mono and stereo, digital and analog as well as ping-pong delay. The j-station also includes "spdif" digital output, so that dead-quiet sound can easily be transferred to your PC or recording device. One of my favorite guitarists is David Gilmour, and they even included a preset of his "run-like-hell" sound (its called gilmourish). I use the j-station either with headphones or into two mesa-boogie combo amps in a stereo setup. When running into the tube amps I've discovered that it sounds better either with cabinet simulation off and the treble turned down, or reselecting the cab. It takes a little tweaking, but it works well. It probably would work better with a more sterile solid-state amp, but for my uses this setup works just fine.

It seems pretty sturdy. I have not owned it long enough to say if it is reliable or not. I have a zoom ps-02 I would carry as a backup if necessary. All the other Harmon products I have owned have been pretty reliable.

Never dealt with them personally, but the fact that they set the j-station up to be upgraded via your pc and MIDI cable, I will give them a high rating in this category. The pod requires a chip replacement and I believe they normally charge for this...j-station upgrades are FREE!

I play various classic rock and blues tunes. This thing would work well for just about any style including jazz and country. Even metalheads would like it since it has insane amounts of gain in most of the models. As I said before, I compared this directly to the pod and the j-station wins hands-down. My favorite feature would have to be the J-edit software, which also blows away that crappy bug-riddled sound-diver pod software. I have been playing for eight years off and on, and have been a total gear-freak most of this time. This thing really satisfies my amp lust and saves both room and money. Other gear I own is a vintage fender deluxe, Mesa Boogie mark 4 widebody and subway rocket amps, a digitech valve fx tube preamp/processor, and about twenty effects pedals. If anyone is interested in getting one of these, better act fast, because I think they might be discontinuing them in lieu of the new Genet-X processors, which cost about twice as much as these. The j-stastion is a hell of a deal for the $149 price. If your low on cash I think they go for about $100 on eBay.

The manual is good and if you install the software like I did you would find it very easy and helpful

I use a fender strat with seymoour Duncan Pickups and a power amp. I don't think any amp simulator is intended to be used in a guitar amp. You can get tons of sounds out of this thing. The clean sounds are beautiful and the effects are useful

Seems reliable

Didn't have to deal with them

For 149 this thing is worth every penny. You can get some nice convincing guitar tones out it. If you want to hear a beutiful lead sound that I got out of it, check out my page and listen to "Going Down". I love this unit and if it was lost or stolen I would have to buy another one . It's and essential part of my recording setup

I bought mine for 150$, which I think is a bargain because if you bought all the effects pedals separatley it would have cost a whole lot more. I think it is really easy to use. The knobs allow you to access presets very fast. I am using version 2.0

I use a Cruise guitar which probably nobody has heard of because it is possibly the worst guitar ever. Anyway, I put a DeArmond gibson-style pickup in the rear position, so it didn't sound good at all through my Peavey 212 Stereo Chorus. But when I got the J-Station it made it sound like a dream, not Gibson quality but good enough for my purposes. I really like the tweed because it gives you a good partially distorted sound, especially when driven through a Marshall 4x12 cabinet. The phaser is really good too and the delay is amazing. ok, it's just an all around great unit. It isn't noisy at all because the noise gate takes care of any noise without a glitch.

I would definitley depend on it. The other guitarist in my band bought one a while ago and it is pretty beat up but it still sounds good. i would definitley use it without a backup.

I bought it with the upgrade.

I play emo-punk and worship for school. It helps me make music wonderfully. I would recommend it to anyone.

Its a fairly easy-to-use digital amp modeller. All deep functions can be accessed from the front panel, as long as you have the manual. The most basic effects and amp/tone functions have their own dedicated knob. (amp model, delay rate, etc.)
Johnson J-Edit makes it much much easier to use, all you have to do is turn the box on, and all functions are right there on you computer screen.
Manual is decent.

I was looking for a good blackface Fender clean sound, to use to record with on the computer. It sounds pretty good in Cakewalk, but lacks the dynamics, warmth, and high-end shimmer of an actual silver/blackface Fender.
The effects are pretty good, the various spring reverb emulations are nice.
The J-Station is better than any other digital amp modeller in this price range, but sucks compared to actual amps and speaker cabs with a mic for recording.

Its in a black metal case, textured to look like computer plastic. Very flimsy knobs. The software never crapped out on me.

I bought this at the Virginia Beach Guitar Center. The place is run by kids, literally. The assistant manager looks like he is about 18 years old. He is your typical punk kid. Very arrogant. The adults that work there are strung out wannabes. The girls are all lesbo wannabes, since thats in fashion now. God they are ugly. Horrible tattoos. Everybody there is borderline mentally handicapped and has serious attitude problems. Most of them there lie though their teeth, also. I'd say go to the Mars Music, its only 2 stores down.

Oh, back to the J-Station review. Its sucks for producing Fender clean to mildly overdriven tones, but its effects may be useful to people that use them. I sold mine on Ebay for more than I paid for it.

The ergonomy is perfectible. Multi-function knobs don't make things the most intuitive. Though, customizing an existing preset and save it as a new one is rather simple.

Depends on what instrument you use and what sound you want. Marshall drive emulation is excellent. Vox emulation, even with a Rickenbacker 350 Liverpool, does not have that "magic" touch. Bass programs are poor.

No problem for the moment.

Did not have to deal with them.

Good product for the price, but not adapted to demanding musicians. I am about to buy something else, though I'll keep because of some tones I like. If it were stolen, I don't think I'd buy one again, though.

I'm not really very sure about this thing. At first it seems pretty easy to get some sounds using the presets but I've found that as soon as I turn a knob to adjust something the entire sound changes and I can't seem to get back to anything close to the preset. It's actually making me hate the JStation I've been trying to work with the manual and deep level editing mode but that gets pretty tedious. I think I am going to try out the Jedit package but I use a Mac. I downloaded a beta that Johnson has posted but I haven't tried it yet.

It's definitely not my Marshall but this isn't meant to be an amp, more of a modeler. Overall the sounds are pretty right on. I don't really have much use for any of the effects except some reverb on a clean sound or something, besides any effects I need for recording are in Pro Tools I'm bought the J Station basically for a headphone practice amp and songwriting/recording on my computer. I'm using a Fender Tele, Ampeg Dan Armstrong, and an Ibanez Iceman all with EMGs for electrics and an Alverez for an acoustic. My amp is a reissue Marshall Bluesbreaker that I usually run full on live so it's pretty hard to find a digital model to compare to that. My computer is a Mac G4 with Pro Tools Free (I don't need all that much for recording, 8 tracks is enough...) That said, it still seems like a waste if I cant get any sounds out of the damn thing. I'm going to try the J Edit for Mac soon and if that doesn't help any, I'm dumping it

Seems really reliable. I would never use it live, my live sound is pretty basic; guitar, wah pedal, amp. I like to keep my live sound pretty dry and let the engineer add any effects for solos and stuff.

Never talked with them but since I'm having so many issues getting sounds, I reckon that I ought to huh?

Overall, I think the J Station is a great idea and if I can get the bugs out of it, it should be a pretty great tool. I've been playing for close to 25 years and although I don't consider myself a virtuoso, I'm accomplished enough to know what's good. I have also been a live sound engineer for over 10 years so I have a decent ear for guitar sounds. I'm really not so pleased with the J Station so if it was lost or stolen (or thrown out the window) I probably wouldn't get another one. I thought about checking out other modelers like the Pod or Behringer but I expect more of the same issues that I have now. I guess I'll just see what happens with the J Edit Beta..

Hook up guitar, hook up headphones, turn on unit, set levels, strum guitar. Very easy to get sounds out of. Does it sound good? Different story. Manual is very good. Having computer/midi setup is essential. I have a version 2.0. Can't wait to try the next version.

I'm using a strat with SC pickups and a Strat with HB pickups. Noisey? No. Effects: All are great EXCEPT Auto Way and Pitch Shift.
I run it straight into soundboard or computer. Great Blackface tones. Sometimes the Reverbs have a grainy digital sounding harsh tail with some distortions. I've had it for 2 months now. It really is convienient but I have a love hate relationship with it.

Metal case, seems rugged to me.

Called a couple times with different questions. Friendly and fast. MUCH BETTER THAN CAKEWALK CUSTOMER DEPT.

I bought the unit for recording. Yes it fits the bill. It has a wide range of sounds for very little money. Hopefully Johnson will continue to offer SW upgrades. Does it sound like a real amp in a real room? Here's where the love hate thing comes in. No it doesn't sound that good. Not even close. But close enough. So I've kept it and continue to use it. Is it as good as a POD? Yeah I think so, better if you consider the price index.

Sounds great through a good set of headphones, but you have to tweak your amp/pa/whatever to get a good sound through loudspeakers.

Fairly easy to use, with the Windows MIDI interface. If you don't have a computer running Windows with a MIDI in/out, you won't have
the full editing capabilities that the software offers. You can get some good tones by manually pushing buttons/turning knobs, but the full functionality of this device comes to bloom when using the MIDI
and computer interface.

The manual had enough information to get me familiar with it. After reading it through, I had no problems using the J-Station.

Firmware unknown; however, I have modified all the stock patches with my own sounds...and it can sound GREAT, if you put the time into it!

Two ratings for ease of use:
MIDI/computer: 9

Manually: 6

I play a Fender/Squier Stagemaster 7-string, the version with the Floyd Rose, and it ROCKS for metal sounds on this thing. AWESOME Rectifier sound, and good clean tones, too.

Hardly any noise if you use the built-in noise gate properly!

Effects work as you program them; however, you can only use one at a time, except for Delay and Reverb, which can be used with either the
chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, vibrato, octaver or the others.
However, I find this of no problem, as that I simply use the chorus sound with a little delay to fatten up the sound and some reverb to give a little ambience, and it sounds KILLER.

I run it into my computer, which pipes out into my digital speakers. When traveling, I just bring headphones. For band rehearsals, I run a
line out into the PA.

You can download patches from the Johnson-amplification webiste, and get tones that claim to be similar to Jimi, Eddie, Gilmour, a few others, but you really can't expect too much without having their exact gear! My suggestion is to use it to find your OWN good tone...
it's not too hard, and it has some great heavy grindcore tones, not to mention some killer Fender clean sounds.

Effects: chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, vibrato, octaver, some others. All functional.

I've dropped it, took it on a plane, had fat chicks sit on it, and the thing still works, so I'd say it's reliable. Metal casing is a good plus.

Never had to reach them, but they are on the web; easy to find.

I play a lot of stuff, from reggae to blues to metal, and I can get just about any sound I need from this thing. Works great for me.

I've been playing 20 years, and own a Fender amp; but have played many guitars (Jacksons, BC's, Kramers, Gibsons, etc) through many amps (Carvins, Marshalls, Mesa/Boogies, Fenders, Soldanos). Currently
liking the 7 string through the J-Station, however. I also play some classical and steel string acoustics as well as bass and keyboards.

If stolen or lost, I'd find the thief and cut off his nuts, make them into a necklace, and then pimp off his sister. Oh yeah, I'd then get the thing back.

It rocks. I love it. My favorite feature is the killer lead gain sounds I get while using the rectifier amp emulation mode with the
Johnson speaker cab emulation. It does emulation really well, too!

Naw, it needs nothing else that I can think of...the thing even has a built in tuner!

It makes me look forward to playing because of the killer sounds!
<P>
Rock on, dudes!

It is easy to muddle around with the effects when interfaced with the computer. Before I did so, the user presets sounded really nice out of the box and I like the fact that you can try any amp model sound with each preset! I also love the software you use to interface with the station.

WOW simply superb! I am a AC_DC fanatic and have been for years and years. For the first time in my life I can say I have nailed the AC-DC sound to a T with the help of the J-station! The effects are really nice butt where this baby shines is in the amp modeling. I have some experience in different amp sounds butt you don't have to be a profesional to know what amp is what. The unmastakeable tonal sounds of each amp model are evident. Before purchaseing the J-Station I was really considering the Digi Tech genisus 3, the features on it are very nice butt I have no regrets going with the j-station and saven some dough. Also when I run the station into this little 15watt 8 inch practice amp it makes it sound like a million$$$

no probs yet. seems sturdy not chinsey.

n/a havent had to contact them.

Awesome!! I haven't had it a week yet and have dialed in some great sounds. Also there are websites out there if you look around with J-Station presets. I like to program all my own stuff,butt I have tried other musicians presets and it is cool to see what sounds they may have come up with.

Reviewed before - easy with J-edit

Just posting this because I saw at the Johnson web site forum that a dealer in England purchased the last batch of J-station's being made. If you want one, I would start looking hard at them.

Pretty good.

In a word, easy peasy... lots of knobs on the unit that do only one or two things. Simple enough to tweak sounds immediately. Of course Deep Level Editing is cryptic - esp. without the manual - but this unit has been designed to sit on a desk next to a computer recording/sequencing system and thus using J-Edit and the MIDI sync really isn't such a big concession to functionality. And adding more buttons and a big-arse LCD screen would bump up the cost. So quit whingin' and get yourself a joystick-to MIDI I/O cable if you're MIDI-less.

Incidently, J-Edit is very well written piece of software (again, Johnson want you to use it - it's not an unreasonably expectation either) and looks and works fabulously well. Every function is readily accessible and it couldn't get any easier to manage your presets.

Gets a 10 because it's a gas to operate with J-Edit. The only wish is that cabinet models were selectable via top level editing.

In the time I've had the J I've just run it through my computer's active speakers (they're decent but not incredible) and sub. So with that in mind...

The sound it very, Very good. Since coming back from my 3 year hiatus from playing I've just been mucking around with a ZOOM PS-02 for the last few months. ZOOMs, as you probably know, aren't the quietest units but I got a good deal on a feature-packed unit. Anyway, the J blows it out of the water. The only noise that comes out of it is thanks to the computer monitor sending nasty stuff into my Tele's single coils. A bit of hiss on high gain settings for the Boogie Rectifier and Johnson amp settings but that's perfectly reasonable. The Gate handles all this well.

The emulations are very accurate, certainly enough for you to say "That's an AC30" etc. Speaking of which, the Brit Combo [AC30] and Boutique [Matchless Dc30] rock. The J-Station really excells at that slightly overdriven tube tone, which ironically is the hardest thing to emulate digitally. With the compressor and gate off the J responds predicably with volume control tweaks (the way it should be) and your own picking dynamics. Most impressive.

One small critisism (that another person has also mentioned) is the J's noticeable bass-heaviness. It depends on the amp and cab model, but I often find myself cutting the bass down to get the required clarity and bite. Ironically, this happens while using a Telecaster, having spent so much time turning the guitar's treble down on the ZOOM to save my ears! It's no biggy, every monitor combination will have some kind of emphasis.

The effects are the way they should be: none of the stupid SFX crap ZOOM try to woe you with, just the basics. They all sound great bar the rotary (nice but emphasises the bass even more, requiring extra tweaking) and pitch shifter (just doesn't work for me). The auto wah is kinda cool when used moderately but when my VOX wah finally arrives from the US I'm sure I'll forget about it quickly. The Flanger is insanely think - I quite like it, though I can see other people not thinking too much of it. Reverbs are lush and the analog delay settings are a wise additions, as it the 3 second delay time and HOLD repeat function... good for inventing little loops. Everything else sounds great, provided you keep the mix levels reasonable.

9 because I'm sure better sounds exist (ie. using real and very expensive amps and vintage effects units) but definitely not for this kind of money.

No qualms so far. Of course it hasn't moved much from my desk! Again, Johnson have made this to sit on a desk, though the thick plasic top/metal base has a quality feel to it and the knobs don't wiggle worryingly. I'm sure you could gig with it if you got the J8 controller and set up all your presets beforehand though, just not abuse it like you might a BOSS pedal.

Only slight concern (again, one other person has mentioned it) is that after a couple of hours the base gets rather warm. Not ouch hot but there's some serious power going through it. Whether this affects durability we'll just have to wait and see.

Haven't had to deal with them yet, but the website has a wealth of info. I was able to download the manual well before buying the unit (something I like to do to help decide if I should get it) and the downloadable patch area is a great idea - even if some of the patches there aren't amazing (oh well, the idea is there though). My unit came with the verson 2 additions so I haven't had to deal with updating a unit yet. Hopefully Johnson will keep the updates coming for a while yet - this kind of expandability adds real value to the unit.

9 for the great website. Can't really comment on anything more but everyone elses responses are positive.

I play a Fender Mex Tele and Kramer 7 string, just jamming and recording my own tunes in my little PC (though soon to be Mac) based HD/MIDI studio. I write a mix of funk and metal mostly, though I also love blues and have been writing hybrid industrial/dance/metal (think Rammstein, maybe) lately too. The J station lets me dial up a great sounding tone in seconds that has all the important qualities of the tube amps it's emulating.

I got a bitchin' deal on my J. They are amazingly cheap in the US ($149). That should equal around $300 Australian Dollars but for some screwed reason you'll find the price tag between $700 and $1000 (initial price, mind you). If you're not in the US, bargin hard. PODs and the Digitech GNX unit are still around AUD $1000 - I haven't heard a POD though the 16bit architechure, lack of digital out, restrictive effects system and inferior update system swing it in the J Station's favour. I doubt the POD sounds twice as good as the J anyway. V-Amp? Again, haven't heard it but the reviews haven't been positive. It costs more, and the only advantage it has are the auto-updating knob position indicators. It would be nice if the J had these but again, would probably affect the cost, and if you're using JEdit it doesn't matter. The GNX is the "new" version of the J (Digitech and Johnson are both owned by the same company) hence the similar feature list and amp model names. The "Warp" function - maybe it's worth the extra.

The J Station lacks the POD et al's cutesy looks but only the most shallow twit would see this as a disadvantage. It costs stuff-all and sounds great. Nuff said - buy one now! My ZOOM hasn't been used since I got the J and will be sold soon. The difference in quality is massive.

The only thing I sometimes find lacking in it is a Dimebag-style OTT heavy metal sound (something the ZOOM actually does well). Johnson have done such a great job making the J sound like a room full of great tubes amps it seems they forgot a Randall or Boss MetalZone Solid State model. Maybe it's blasphemous to request such an impure tone but hey, there's always update 3 to look forward too!

Unless you already own an AC30, Matchless, Twin Reverb, Boogie Mark II ... (you get the idea), you will not be disappointed.

Unfortunately I do not have a computer at home right now so I cant judge the computer interface. The Deep Level edit mode isnt hard to use at all..the manual is pretty straight forward.

My unit has not been firmware upgraded as of yet.

Right now Ive got a 77' Strat - to J-station - to 79 Fender tube amp.
(This is my trusty bedroom setup)

This thing is a perfect 10 through headphones. It makes you want to play for hours...and you will play for hours.. leaving everyone to wonder why you havent answered your phone all day.

However - Its a bit noisy thrugh my tube amp. Lots of amp buzz on some of the distortion settings, and the clean tones really rob the natural clean tube tone of the amp. The chorus effect is nice.
When playing clean through the J-station I like the "Blackface" option. The "rectified" and "brit" distortions are fun.
The J-Station probably sounds alot better through a solid state amp. Still, a great little practice tool.

In my opinion - the "rotary" effect is useless... I'll stick to my Uni-Vibe.

Looks damn sturdy.

Never had to deal with Johnson.

I play anything from Jazz to Classic rock to Punk to blues..
I couldnt find a super-satisfying jazz tone...but it's really fun with everything else.

I was going to buy a Line6 POD.. but I saw this behind the counter at the last minute. I plugged it in and put on some headphones. About an hour and a half of shameless shredding later, I stood up and yelled to the store employees "WE HAVE A WINNER!"

It's made in USA, sounds great and only costs $150. What a bargain!..
I'm really glad I bought it and cant wait to get a new computer and start recording. For the money, this can't be beat.

At first it seemed difficult to use, but a quick glance at the manual will get you going in the "Deep" editing mode which is key to getting good sounds out of this unit. It took me a couple of hours to get good sounds out of this thing. Things sound much differently through headphones, so you might want to make an effort to hear this through live speakers. Things that didn't sound that great through my headphones (AKG studio type headphones) sounded great through my bizarre amp setup: My cheap PC microphone placed inside one of the cups in my headphones, going through my soundcard and out my PC speakers. If you do this, be VERY careful because if you knock the mic or get too close to the mic you will get some nasty feedback and buzz. The bottom line is, if you have a functioning brain you can get some good sounds out of this thing.

I'm using a Fender American Series Fat Strat Texas Special straight in with AKG Studio headphones. It can be a bit noisy if you're near a computer, but the noise gate is fairly effective in most normal situations. I'm not a big effects guy, but they sound pretty good to me. I like the analog delay and the rotary speaker best. They all sound fairly transparent. One of the keys to getting a good sound of this thing is to try the different cabinet models. The Marshall 4X12 model sounds good on pretty much everything. My favorite models are the Boutique, (great for a pseudo-Vox sound, but I still can't nail that Brian May sound), the Brit Stack (takes a lot of tweaking to get this one sounding decent), Fuzz (My absolute favorite. I get an awesome Maggot Brain sound with this one) and the Black Face. The acoustic models suck big balls. The Rectifier sounds good for heavy sounds and is just as muddy as the real thing.

It seems well built enough to last a long time in a studio. I wouldn't use this thing live, too many parameters to screw with. I use this just for practicing and recording.

Never dealt with them. I'm about to try to contact them to get a serial number for the Cakewalk Guitar Tracks software since I can't find one in the box.

I play experimental rock music. This unit is great for fooling around because of the huge variety of sounds. If it was stolen I would definitely buy it again. The POD amp sounds are a little better, but the J-Station gives you much more flexibility with effects and the difference is not worth $200. I'd also like to share the fact that I love you all!

This is a follow up. I posted a very positive comment below a few months ago. Here's the hitch- this thing is coined as an amp modeler/preamp.... I recently tried it through my Marshall EL34 power amp as a preamp and it sounded pretty terrible. I still like it's sound for recording and it is still a great/cheap unit. But I'm just letting people know that it doesn't sound good to me as a preamp. It seemed that I had to turn up the treble all the way on every patch to get it to sound ok. I did turn the cab emulation off and it didn't help much. Anyway, I sold my J-station and all of my other effects and bought a Digitech 2101, which is cool... but still doesn't sound that snazzy as a preamp (sounds ok though and the effects are incredibly flexible). I think a good mesa, marshall, or VHT preamp is what should be used as a preamp. If you like heavy metal you can buy yourself a Peavey Rockmaster preamp real cheap, but they suck for everything else (IMO). Take a look around like I did and follow your ears.

It is pretty easy to use even without J-Edit software (included), but I suggest using J-Edit to prepare some "initial" patches which would suit your style/taste best. Why do I suggest that? Because despite the fact you can edit every single parameter without J-Edit, you'll have to spend a lot of time clicking buttons, rotating knobs and reading the manual in this case. But minor tweaks to ready-made patches are not a problem at all. What I would like to have is a rack-mountable version of J-Station having nice onboard UI (like in TC Electronic processors). I'd pay 3 times as much for it. Not that I have any problems with J-Station as it is, but I just like to put my stuff into the rack.

Well I'd give it 9 for sound quality if it was $500 device, but since it's just $150 - I'm giving it 10. I can't evaluate clean sounds properly (I almost never use them), but when it comes to dirty sounds - this thing really shines. It has "tube warmth", it performs realistically when you use volume knob on your guitar or change the level of gain, it preserves dynamics very well. When it comes to direct recording, you have spend a lot of time to setup a real combo and mic to get comparable results. And you have to have a bunch of amps, cabinets and combos to have the tonal versatility this small thing offers. Effects are very good too. Not even "good for the price", but just "very good".

One of the well-kept secrets of Line 6 (Johnson's main competitor) is that they use 16 bit AD/DA converters in their POD. And 16 bit is just not enough to properly capture guitar sound. J-Station uses 24 bit AD/DA converters (as does $600 POD Pro), so no problem with dynamics here.

I use my J-Station with Ibanez RG3120 guitar (pickups replaced with DiMarzio Evolutions), Sennheiser HD580 headphones and, sometimes, TC Electronic G-Force. This thing is just perfect for recording also (it's what they made it for), since if you have a soundcard which supports S/PDIF input, you can record your guitar using entirely digital signal chain.

It is very well manufactured. Just go to the nearest guitar store and see for yourself. It is built to last.

Never dealt with them.

I'm into guitar gods like Vai, Satriani, Johnson, Saraceno, Reb Beach, May Lian etc. J-Station is definitely a good match for the music I play. I've been playing for 5+ years, and I really wish I had something like J-Station from the very beginning.

It is kind of hard to compare it to something, because the only comparable device is Line 6 POD, but it is twice as expensive, and my engineering background keeps me from being fooled by their promises. 16 bit is a thing of the past. I don't like how the POD sounds neither. In my opinion it is a little bit "nasal", and kills the dynamics.

I wish I could buy a rack-mountable version of J-Station which wouldn't require a manual and/or a computer to adjust it easily. Something like G-Force or even G-Major UI would work just fine.

But for the price of $149 it's definitely fantastic value.

Fairly easy to tweak sounds without using the J-edit. But it takes reading the manual or checking the forums. The manual could be improved with a little more detail, better explanations, but I got off to a quick start with only a few missteps. Overall, a 7 without the J-edit, a 10 with it.

My live setup is a Yamaha rgx 112 (single, single, bucker) with Joe Barden pu's (great) to a Boss tu-2 to the J then straight to the board. A Rocktron MidiMate for switching presets. An Ernie Ball vol pedal is on order for cc control. Cabinet sim is on.
No amp to lug. I never touch the J once the master vol out is set. After the 1st song or 2 I might have the drummer bump my guitar in the side fill monitors. (He's running the board now.) One alternative I've heard to going to the board is using a powered monitor.
There is some noise on the cranked gain settings, but not bad. Mostly from florescent lights with my hands off the strings. No problem when recording to the PC.
I play in a cover band Stevie Ray, Green Day, Sugar Ray, (all those pig latin bands), danceable radio rock, I suppose.
The Concert head is used the most, with either a 4x12 cab or the Bassman 4x10. Good Stevie Ray in-your-face single coil, with great clarity on the lower register. Flip to the bridge bucker and let her cry. One preset with the gain back for rhythm, another with the gain cranked for lead.
The J Solo is hard to beat for leads. And I use it on the heavy parts of Loser and This Is How You Remind Me. The Brit Master vol (A2) amp is an alternate rhythm/lead-back off gain/crank amp. It's used for Bare Naked Ladies stuff, and with gain backed off half way and some chorus, for New World Man and ZZ Top's Thank You.
For acoustic and clean settings: The acoustic settings are OK, I haven't explored them much, mainly because their output is so much lower than others, and I'd have to adjust the others back. The Blackface amp is great for some clean sounds, like the start of Under The Bridge. But bear down too much and it gets boinky, though I guess that's a universal ultra clean setting problem. Instead, I'm using the tweed or the Brit Master vol with the gain way back for clean, cut the mids for acoustic.
I use effect sparingly, especially live. Just enough chorus to add spaciousness; the extra added for New World Man and such sounds good to me. The flanger is so-so. I've found a passable setting for Lightning Crashes, no Electric Mistress here. The Phaser I only use on Econoline Crush's All That You Are, though the early EVH subtle phase can be found. Tremolo is OK used lightly. Auto wah- a quirky occasional special effect. Pitch/detune- I like this for the EVH Pretty Woman effect, detune about 11 cents. Harmonizer tracking is only so-so. Compression and Noise Gate are fine. Overall, you'd have to pay a lot more for better effects.
Gripes: The basic EQ tweaking can take some time. The treb, mid, bass is limited, especially shaping the mid. But, the different cabs and compression frequencies can offer a lot of choices.
There's a slight seam when changing presets. Only milliseconds, just enough to be noticeable. I'm conscious when changing midsong to find a strategic place to switch, especially extremes, like the acoustic/clean to the heavy crunch in 3 Doors Down's Loser. I'd be interested to know if the J3/J8 pedal users have a seamless morph.
I've got 8 patch samples/syx files at my home site. Also 17 cover songs by my cover band recorded at rehearsal, with the J patch noted for each song. All are excerpts except for I Know A Little. You can hear the patch switch seam I'm talking about at the fade out of Crossfire when I switch to a louder/lead J Solo patch, and when I switch from Concert rhythm to lead in Jenny Says. http://www.onlinerock.com/musicians/richardt/music2.html

I depend on it, so far with no problems, at every gig. As cheap as it is, I'm considering getting another for backup, and to have one for PC recording, one for gigs.

No company interaction other than getting the software upgrade. No problem there.

It fits my radio rock cover gig fine.
I've been at it about 33 years, used Marshalls, Carvins, Gallien Krueger, Lab... My previous rig was a Scholtz Rockman preamp with a Fulldrive II and Zvex Super Hard On (all great) to a couple of Peavey solid states (eh). I was about to get a tube power amp and be Mister Rack Dude till I got the J. From over-complex to ultra simplicity. Big smile.
I first considered the J because of the pain of being hooked to the computer with everything set, then, rehearsal/gig time - tear it down, pack it up, tear it down, set it up, repeat.. So the J was going to replace the recording set up. After trying it at rehearsal, lots of hassles gone.
I'd played thru the POD and heard a combination POD/J live. No complaints with the POD, just didn't spend a lot of time with it. After reading all I could on the web and considering the price, I went with the J.
Wishes: seamless switching, more control over eq and effects, better effects. Again though, for the price... I've heard of a rackmount J in the works that will probably address all that. Hope so.
E-mail me, or visit my site, lots of samples, alone and live with a band, links to other J info sources: http://www.onlinerock.com/musicians/richardt/index.html

This unit is nice and easy to use, haven't used j-edit yet, but most of the editing functions you really need are redily accesible.
Am using with the j8 pedal, which is AWESOME! just one lead out to it - (real good for on stage), tuner, wah, stompbox style controls for fx. fantastic.

I am using a Godin solidac with this, straight into a pa. Most of the effects are good, but i don't use a lot of effects live. the auto wah is pretty cheesy, but the chorus and rotary are great. Black face clean sond is great, as are some of the dirty amp sounds.

no dramas at all. gig W/O backup every week.

never checked, never broken down.

great all round unit, no hassles. Tap function on the j-8 would be great.
man these are cheap in america!!