Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer

It's quit easy to use, you have only to get use with the countour and frequency knobs (it cancels some mid-range frequncies)

I use a Les Paul Golden with Gibson hardware on my 73'HH IC-100S amp an a 76'Giannini Duovox (Point-to-point, hande made, all tube, 4 6L6 and 4 12ax7 + 12at7) thru a 4x12" cabinet
The overdrive SOUNDS GREAT !!! it's a JCM800 kind of overdrive, really good overdrive, a masterpiece, it's the best Marshally overdrive stompbox I ever heard, if you want "That Marshall sound" this is the pedal.
But the distortion mode sucks, sound muddy and too dirty, I think it's good for trash or death metal, but not too good for rock n'roll

100%, it's very strong, I kick it all the time, drop beer, don't use a case, and it still working perfectly

The Overdrive mode for Rock n'Roll , bules and hard rock is perfect
I've been playing since 92 and I own this pedal since 2001
I would buy another one if mine was lost.
I love the overdrive and hate the distortion mode
I compare it to ProCo RAT
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One rotary switch (OD/DIST), Three dual-concentric knobs (Gain/Vol, Treble/Bass, Contour/Frequency)

The stacked knobs are a bit fiddly sometimes, and sometimes if you turn the bottom one, the top turns too.

Battery compartment is easy to get into using only your thumbnail to undo the screw - so long as you don't do it up too tight with a screwdriver beforehand.

This is supposedly Marshall's "metal" pedal - the first thing I noticed is JH is also instantly recognisable as the initials of James Hetfield - take that as you wish. This pedal does have that "Marshally" character, despite what you may have read - it's got the Marshall voicing, and it's obviously a Marshall product. The OD setting is supposed to emulate a JCM900, the DIST emulating a JCM2000.

I have a SD Custom 5 on my Washburn, running into a Crate Vintage Club 30 (an unreliable POS amp, but that's another story). It's a nice chunky sound, but it's also interesting with single coils, giving a more harmonic laden sound, and if you put a Crybaby in front of it, it reacts well, unlike some other distortions.

The DIST setting sounds flubby and compressed, it's overly bassy, and sounds very "processed". It sounds like a POD almost, and nothing at all like the JCM2000 it claims to be designed after. Somewhat useful for recording direct, for really rough demos or something where you can't be bothered, but otherwise, ignore at all costs.

The OD setting is where this pedal shines - and there's plenty of gain despite the name of the setting - enough to pull off some heavy stuff, and it also goes right back to that AC/DC crunch if you back off the gain knob. I've managed to pull some convincing early System Of A Down and Rage Against The Machine out of it too.

The tone controls are more than adequate, but there's no way to BOOST the midrange, only cut it, with the contour controls. This strikes me as gimmicky, but I guess some of you nu-metal kids will love it. Good way to get that hollow "guitar at the end of a tube" sound - and hey, that "tube" sound is what everyone strives for, right... *cough*

I've also used this pedal into a Laney 50w tube halfstack, a Fender FM212R, a JCM800 Combo (the model with verb and switching - 4210 is it?) a Jade Storm 15 and a Behringer GX210 (my other guitarist's). I've found that it really depends on which amp you're running it into - through the little Jade practice amp and the Behringer it sounded awful where a more "generic" pedal might sound better, but through a decent clean channel it really opens up.

I worry about the footswitch, which doesn't seem as solid as a decent Carling switch or whatever, but haven't had any problems with it.

I assume the pots are PCB mounted, so I wouldn't go wiggling them around too much, but once again, no problems YET, and I've had the pedal for about a year now.

This pedal is HEAVY, the casing is thick metal. Casing feels more solid than a BOSS pedal, but again, the footswitch and pots inspire the fear of a higher power in me.

Have had no reason to deal with Marshall about this pedal.

It's a good pedal for getting close to the sounds you might hear on rock radio - and somewhat surreal to hear ANY amp take on a bit of that Marshally character.

What a lot of people don't get about this pedal is that the OD setting sounds a LOT better than the DIST setting. FAR better, I cannot stress this enough. If you have this pedal and have written it off as useless, give it another try in OD mode.

Instant "Marshall" channel for a good clean amp, and I'm giving it a 9/10, due to how it can turn any reasonable amp into a Marshall.

Were it lost/stolen, I would go out and buy another as soon as I'd finished noting the good taste on the thieves part...

I don't know why everybody is pooping their pants about how hard this pedal is to use. It takes like ten minutes of tweeking. Just set the main knobs standard like you would any other pedal and mess with the frequency/contour knobs to dial in your sound

This pedal sounds great. Better than a Boss DS-2 for sure. The only thing that sucks is if you dial in a good sound in overdrive mode, it sounds like shit in distortion mode and visa versa. But both channels sound great if you stick to one or the other

I don't know I just got it yesterday, I am playing a show tonight. It seems solid as a rock tho. Its a heavy little faulker

never dealt with marshall

I play reggae/punk/funk/rock and this pedal is great so far. I play through a peavey ultra plus tube amp with 4 12" celestions and it sounds great, no complaints. Also it is only $65 now!! I am thinking about buying another one and using one for overdrive and one for distortion

this pedal is very adjustable, it will take a few days to find out what works for you. battery changing does require a screwdriver though.....

i play bass and when i first tried this pedal i was pretty impressed, then it started to piss me off, now ive grown to like it, again.

i dont i think i was the only one.

as far as bass goes you actually need to REDUCE the bass on the pedal eq to get a good sound, this is important, what you do with the rest of the eq is up to you. when i nievely turned the bass up, thinking this would improve the sound, it sounded like shit, like a fucking dying elephant. it took me awhile to figure that was the problem, now it sounds really nice, makes my shitty solid-state sound like a pushed svt. it's suprisingly kind when you back off the gain.

it seems pretty solid, kinda looks like a 1950's fridge. in a good way.

no, never spoken to them. although ive heard marshall are pretty bad with customer support, being a massive company and all....

if you play bass and dont have to money to buy an svt rig, this is a good compromise..

N?o e muito facil de timbra-lo. Possui muitas regulagens todas muito sensiveis.

Medio. So se for combinado com um GE-7 da Boss. Extremamente comprimido.

Nunca precisou de reparo ou coisa do genero. Seu hardware e muito bem construido e resistente.

Para Heavy meta, meu estilo, e bom somente para base por causa da sua compress?o que e muito forte e a sensac?o do som estar distante.

At first i thought this pedal was easy to use, a learning curve of maybe 1 hour, but after extensive use (10 hours+) i have changed my opinion. It is a relatively hard pedal to get a 80% perfect sound from. Some of the dials make bad things happen!! (more on that later)

Im using a gibson SG Special --> JH1 --> '68 Fender Twin Reverb
I dont really use much overdrive, mainly distortion. When set to distortion and when the gains up full it does emit a fair amount of static and noise through my set up.
I have done a full mental circle with this pedal. At first i thought it was exceptionally good. Then after about 8 hours use i started to notice the sound with full gain was very bass overdriven (farty sounding). It took me a while to work out what the problem was and my opinion of this pedal was slowly slipping, but after reading some reviews here i worked out how to get rid of it. Someone here said the contour dial gets rid of it. Well it doesnt. Infact the only way i found was to turn off the bass in the eq..well turn it down to about 2-3 anyway. Infact the treble is pretty crap too, so i leave them both on 2-3 and it sounds fantastic!! Really meaty / chunky / thick. I encourage anyone hows having the bass problem to turn down the pedal eq and turn up your amp eq instead. Pretty stupid i know but after you do it, it will sound REALLY good. The distortion is slightly buzzy but it was VERY cheap.

I havent had a problem with it (apart from the farty bass problem mentioned above) and its built like brick so i suppose i would have to give it 10 based on those 2 things...

I havent dealt with Marshall before (apart from my valvestate 8080 which is a piece of crap, preamps breaks ever year or 2). When i had the above problem (bass) i looked in the manual for a hint on how to get rid of the overdriven bass noise, and it wasnt very helpful at all, just gave me a stupid graph with no hint on how to get rid of it. Pretty stupid if you ask me. Seems like a fundamental problem with alot of peoples rigs, you would think they would address it specifically. I.e. --> Turn the frigging eq down

I like / play all sorts of music. The stuff i play on my guitar is probably closest related to doom metal but with HEAPS of other influences/styles thrown in. Ive been playing for 12 years. If i lost this pedal i would probably get something else purely to try something new, but then...for 125 bucks it doesnt seem worth while. Stuff all to pay for a pretty dam good pedal (once you iron out the bugs). I love the distortion. Suits me perfectly. I tried a number of valve pedals (V-Twin and Xtreme Tone) and found that they didnt suit my playing style. Considering they are 8 times as expensive, i think i've done EXTREMELY well with this pedal. So to put it simply: once you get rid of the farty bass its really dam good for the price.

You have to play around with the 7 knobs for a while before you discover the huge possibilities of this pedal, the contour and frequency controls are a bit confusing at first, but once you have read the manual it becomes clear.

I am using the Jackhammer with my Rickenbacker guitars (a 650, 620 and a 325) and a VOX AC 30. It sounds fantastic. It seems that you can get almost every sound out of that pedal - from a slight overdrive to very aggressive distortion. And you can use it for alternative and punk as well as for rock and heavy metal sounds.

Seems to be very reliable. Time will tell.

Who needs support for an overdrive pedal of this price?

Great sounding, very versatile, relatively low noise level.

well, originally i got this pedal for me to try out...its easy, if youve owned a metal zone, its cake.

i own a bc rich warlock with an x2n in the bridge, super 2 in the neck. and a mongrel of a guitar with a super distortion at the bridge and a super 2 in the neck as well. i ran it through my JSX with a marshall 4x12...i set everything to unity and it sounded like big ol fat mud. i turned the bass all the way down and got alot of clarity back. the distortion mode, in my opinion, does nothing but kill the highs. pointless, really. i didnt really like it, and figured id just give it to my rhythm guitarist to see what he would do with it. well, i let him borrow it, and several hours later i went over to hear what he did with it, and sure enough he got the biggest, chunkiest sound on earth. we were floored to hear such a good sound from his setup. its being drivin by his jackson rhoads and a super overdrive, just for a bit more gain and grit. into the cleanest traynor amp on earth, and 2 peavey 2x12 cabs. it sounded like my old tone. round, and full. he was originally using a digitech death metal, and what a piece of shit that was. we both love metal, but hate todays metal tones. we like mids, but we dont love them. we like bass, but dont love it. perfect rounded tone for metal, with leads that stand out like a sore thumb. think iron maiden/powerslave.

well, i hear marshalls contact is shit...so if it craps out, im fucked! but it seems sturdy as an ox.

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo sir

its cool. not for my tone of course, but im speaking on the behalf of my rhythm guitarist. we play real metal, not the drop tune crap. think megadeth...thats us for todays generation. its got that great marshall tone, which is pretty cool, i admit. hes gone through alot of high gain pedals, but the clarity on this one eats them all alive. try it out, you either hate it or you love it.

Not to bad. Reading alot of these reviews, you kinda get the feeling that this box it going to be complicated. If you can work an amp, then you won't have a problem.

I'm using a hamer double cutaway and Epiphone Lespaul through a Crate 212gfx and the sound is great. my opinion and suggestions:
1. get a zero noise adaptor and good guitar cables...trust me it can make or break this pedal.
2.Mess around with the settings. There are alot of ways to make this pedal sound terrible with little effort at all,however if you mess around with the settings , you can get alot of really great sounds...it's really amazing
I have used everything from a dime distortion box, DOD, and digitech...looking for that perfect distortion. Every effect I would try, it seemed like there was waaay to much treble in the distortion...not enough balls to it, warmth, tone whatever!
This pedal I assure you has all of the above...it it great and i recomend it....both overdrive and distortion are excellent in their own ways......o/d will give you a nice bright crunch(think AC/DC)...and distortion delivers a great balls to the wall monster(think metallica S.O.A.D).Some people say it's too muddy....and it can be, but you have to adjust some settings....you just can't plug it in and play ....play around with it, you'll find your favorite tone.

It's a tank

dont know

I play a little of everything...so I wanted something that would give me a bit of everything....and in short...this pedal does the job.....If it were stolen or lost I would have another in no time...I love the damn thing! GET ONE

It actually has eight parameters built into four pots with double function. Setting volume, gain, bass and treble isn`t any different from other boxes, but the parametric eq for the mids takes some time to understand.
It is basically designed like the "contour"-function of the old ShredMaster-pedal, but the center frequency can be shifted anywhere to on the frequency range.

Really good and versatile.
The "Overdrive"-setting sounds really good, appears to have more presence and bite compared to the ShredMaster and A LOT OF GAIN !
I don't like it that much with my old SoundCity-combo, as this amp produces tons of high treble anyway, but with my other two amps ('74 Carlsbro 60-watts all tube head, '88 Laney AOR 50-watts tube lead) I get quite near to JCM800 sounds. Obviously that's what the JH was made for.
"Distortion" setting produces a very fat sound with A LOT OF BASS.
This isn`t too problematic, since you can get rid of the bass overload by means of the "contour"-function.
Even in this setting you get very different sounds from bluesy rhythm chord playing to Satriani-like hi-gain lead sounds.
Scoop the mids any you are in Nu-Metal-land.

Ultra solid and heavy.
Any other pedal looks fragile in comparison.

For the last 7 years, the ShredMaster was my very favourite distortion pedal, now I got the Jackhammer and I love the two just the same. Always difficult to decide which one of the them I will take with me to the next gig.
Great box !