Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer

Not thgat easy to use. Lots of stacked knobs. Has a varible Q filter built in, and treble and bass controls.

I have had my JH-1 for 5 years. I bought it when they had just been introduced. I love this pedal !! It has a very bassy, very high gain overdrive sound. It is hard to find a high gain pedal with a good bassy tone. This thing rocks for tone. Not noisey at all. It does feedback on high amp volumes though. I use this pedal with my '62 brit valve amp, it gives me a nice creamy overdrive sound on the neck of my '90 Les Paul Standard, then switch onto the bridge pickup and it's pinched harmonic city. Warning - This pedal will make your amp move around by itself. These things are cheap in the UK. On Ebay they go for ?20, in the USA they cost a lot !!

Very well built, even better than a Boss pedal. No problems in 5 years.

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I play rock and blues, with a leaning to Hard Rock and Delta Blues. I have been play for 16 years. I would get another if it were lost. I use this pedal with a Boss CE-2, sounds AMAZING the best chrous overdrive there is !! I can make my guitar cry with this thing. It's great for balls out rock and roll. No one could be unimpressed with the tone and over the top gain. Great for shredding with, infact the best ever shred pedal. Can sound muddy. My tip is turn the bass control down to 0. It hits a sweet spot there. Email me for advise if you like.

The JH-1 is quite simple to use as long as you understand terms such as contour and contour frequency. These are explained in the manuel anyway.
Although the knobs are layerd (big one on the bottom smaller one on top) this is only confusing the first few times you use it.

I'm using this with an ibanez electric guitar through the JH-1 to a marshall combo amp. The sound quality is perfect as long as the original line sound (bypass sound) is reasonable. You can pretty much get perfect distortion/overdrive sound for whatever music you play from lightly distorted blues to pure metal. I'm in a band and we have roughly a Queens of the Stoneage/Joy Division Sound and the jackhammer is perfect for this. I can get a nice overdrive sound for single note joy division riffs, then when i play fifths they are really crunchy - this is without even adjusting the pedal Perfect!

Well its made out of medal, i have owned mine for two years and we play pretty much every week. The only problem is that batteries die quickly in it unless you remove the input lead which most people usually forget. Just buy a 9V adapter - problem solved!

never needed to - i'm sure they're "incredibly kind and helpful"

I have been playing guitar for 6 yearsand have owned the JH-1 for 2. The only other effects pedal we have is the Zoom 707 II which had crap disortion effects and was made out of plastic and therefore broke within 10 gigs. If the Jackhammer was stolen/lost i would buy it again. Although i have a similar distortion set up in my marshall amp, it does not seem quite as bold even with the same settings. This pedal is so good even when we have gone into rec studios and have POD's and other effects units, for distortion i only use this.

Manual gives some good insight as to what the pedals do, but the suggested settings are utter trash, to be honest. Knobs are pretty straight forward, and its not that complicated, but I imagine a beginner would have some problems with the Frequency and Contour knobs. Other than that, piece of cake.

This pedal isn't THAT bad... if you have a good amp to back it up. When I run this thing into my B-52 AT-100, it does a thoroughly good job of getting the Marshall crunch. If you run this thing into ANY mid/low quality amp, however, you're in for quite a nightmare. My dad has an old 50W Rickenbaucher solid-state amp, and with this pedal, it becomes the muddiest piece of garbage you will ever hear. One of my friends has a Crate 120W Solid state combo, and that thing isn't much different. You almost choke on all the mud. I give it a 5, because even though it gives good tones through good amps, it won't sound for good for anyone on with budget with a standard grade amp, and that's almost every beginner and intermediate player.

Metal casing, roadworthy. Very nice here. Just bring alot of batteries.

Good with good amps, horrible with everything else.

It has 7 knobs: Mode(you can choose between overdrive or distortion), Gain, Volume, Treble, Bass, Freq and Contour. You can get a good tone very easily. The manual helps a lot explaining what's the function of each knob, and giving setting suggestions.

I use a Yamaha Pacifica 012 guitar, a Meteoro Thor Plus(braziliain), and a Boss CE-3 Chorus. It sounds really good, I can get from bluesy to metal tones. The only thing I have to complain is that his sound is kind of trebley depending on the setting you make, and my amp is solid state, so I can't get the best tone the pedal delivers, but later I'll get a better amp.

I depend a lot of it, it's the only distortion unit I have so far.

I didn't deal with the manufacter yet.

I play many styles of music, from blues to metal, and this pedal deliver all of these tones very easily. If it was stolen I would buy another certainly, 'cause of the price mostly. I think that for the price, it's the best distortion pedal you can get, and it's very versatile, which I think it's really important on a distortion pedal.

easy enough,stuff does what it says but i guess in comparison to other pedals its no where near as easy as most pedals.

Now heres my problem the distortions terrible i use soapbar pick-ups on a PRS through a marshall AVT275, now playing the distortion through clean channel is bad as the low e sounds like a fart no matter what settings i use but the higher strings do sound quite good and as an overdrive for solos i can find some use for but not much.

it looks like it can take anything

dont know

an ok pedal i dont find it useable distortion but it does help the high end strings rings

The pre-sets in the manual are good but i think theres definate room for tweeking i suggest using these then changing indivisual settings to modify.

I only use this pedal as an overdrive pedal for my Marshall AVT275 combo as i found the distortion sounds when using a clean channel terrible.
now the overdrive is very good it makes my solos sound a lot better but theres so much feedback neverless this pedla salways in my pedal board.

yup. looks like it could with stand a granade

dont know but as its marshall i would guess very good.

good pedal but a few problems but i think it all depends on your amp and guitar.

At the first look it seams so easy but when you plug it into amp... different story! Overdrive channel is pretty easy to use. "Plug 'n' Play", but when you start to play with dist ch. you need to tweak some pots. Pedal is not easy to use, and you should be aware of this before you start using it! Here is a tip when trying out dist, just don?t scoop any frequency range (just turn the contour off), and put some extra mids and treble on your amp.

I'm using this pedal on both guitar and bass!
My guitar setup is: Squier Tom DeLonge strat with Duncan Designed Invader (Detonator) pickup --> BOSS BF-2 (flanger) --> Marshall JH-1 --> Marshall JCM 800 head. I've also tried it on Haiwat head and some small Marshall MG combo. Using this pedal I can easily achieve the same kind of overdrive that JCM 800 produces it self, but I'm not sure how is it going to work on some other, lower class, or solid state amp. I'm using both modes (distortion mode a bit more frequently then OD). With the distortion mode you can dial in smoother, more saturated sound. As I mentioned earlier, I don't cut any frequency range with the contour knob, so I don't have that "muddy problems" like some guys mentioned. I can easily dial in some HM sounds, or some modern sounds similar to Senses Fail, The Used, Funeral For A Friend...

My bass equipment is: Yamaha BBN4 III --> Boss CEB-2 (bass chorus) --> Boss BF-2 --> Digitech DigiDelay --> some old parametric EQ pedal --> Marshall JH-1 --> SansAmp Bass driver --> Alto parametric 5-band EQ (rack) --> Behringer Ultrafex Pro (enhancer) --> Power Amp --> 4x10 cab. On bass, I usually go for OD, since I don't need that kind of saturation. I think this is one of the best bass OD/DIST pedals! It won't cut all of your bass frequencies off, and leave you with just a bunch of overdriven mids. SansAamp has a great OD sound, but since I use it as a preamp, I had to buy some pedal for OD sounds, and I don't have enough cash to buy one more SansAmp. With SansAmp/Marshall JH-1 combination I can dial in any distortion/overdrive sound imaginable on bass! The sound is so compact and powerful. I would suggest JH-1 to any bass player looking for a good overdrive/dist sound in a pedal!

Mine is Chinese, I have it for a bout a month, and it seems OK for now. I think I can depend on it, but, if I could, I would buy a backup!

I play in a HC/punk (guitar) and EMO/metal band (bass). This is a PERFECT match for these 2. I can dial in similar sound as my favorite bands (Funeral For A Friend, Thrice, Senses Fail, Boy Sets Fire, Finch?). I play bass for 8 years and guitar for about 2 years. I would definitively buy another one in case something happens to this one. I?ve compared it to Guvnor and Ibanez DS-7. JH-1 is way more powerful and versatile. I can dial in much more different type of sounds.

Basic stompbox...the contour/frequency takes a little to figure out a good setting

The stacked knobs could cause some problems...very close quarters there...might cause you to accidentally adjust settings you don't want moved.

BRUTAL...best distortion I've used. Better than my Robert Keeley Modified Metal Zone...better & not as noisy as my Rocktron Silver Dragon. I've seen some bad reviews for this, but it might have to do with other components people are using, and quite a few reviewers here are piss ignorant about gear.

It sounded like crap in front of my Peavey Rage 158...so did every other pedal I used...it's just not "stompbox friendly". My Blue Voodoo didn't like it either...the BV has good enough distortion but I just wanted to try it out on it. It's just not an amp built to take distortion in front of the pre-amp. My Peavy VTM-60 LOVES it! If you have an amp that has a pre-amp configured to work well w/outboard distortion you just can't go wrong with ths pedal. With the VTM on it's lowest gain setting (if you don't know about the VTM it's amp that had modification mini switches...I turned all of the gain switches to off...basically in that mode it's like an old Marshall tone that distorts, but just not much) I put the Jackhammer in front of it w/the gain maxed...the volume 1/3, bass & treble fairly low & fiddled with the the contour/frequency til it got right...the gain on the amp was about 4, the volume about 4, bass & treble about 5 w/mid on 0...EEEEEVIL...works great in front of Fender Hot Rod DeVille too...Like I said, it just depends on what kinda pre-amp your guitar amplifier has...some just don't work well with outboard distortion & sometimes others work where some don't

It's HEAVY...very handsome pedal too.

Dunno

If you have a clue this is a great pedal...there are bunch of dweebs on this site who trash various gear (not that some doesn't deserve it) But, I've been playing long enough to know that sound quality comes from strings, pickups, woods, speakers,electrical current quality, your fingers, etc... working in unision...if you have problems in the chain, crappy gear, sloppy playing, brain damage...you might end up getting some bad sounds from good gear. I tried this pedal in front of a couple of great amps that just didn't jibe well with this pedal (I've tried other pedals in front of those amps & got sucky tone too...they're just not meant to have outboard distortion on 'em...usually when you run in to that problem it's best to just bypass the amps pre-amp altogether & go in to the effects loop) Use your brain & you can make good gear sound good & sometimes get a decent tone from junk too.)
If you have any questions about this feel free to email me. My set up that works perfect is a Schecter C-1 Elite, EMG 81/60 actives (running at 18 volts/2 batteries), a Peavey VTM-60 all tube head, and two Celestion Vintage 30 12s in a sealed enclosure.

Never came wif manual. bought second hand. Prety easy to use.
contour knob and frequency need some tweaking to get right.

MArshall solid state amp.MG15CDR. Mic'ed up to PA. Wanted thE Marshal drive but didnt want to reach over and press a button. I run this pedal into my Zoom 3030. Guitars? Epi S-310 and Epi SG special.
I dun rly copy others sound. Just want to get my own sound that i feel will match most types of Christian stuff i play.
Noisy? surprisingly less than other distortions.

Sound i shall say, the distortion has a different sound to it. It definitely is darker and lacks the crispness to it. Very different from BOSS DS-2, where the distortion is actually brighter and OD is toneful.
BOSS DS-2 VS Marshall JH-1? boss wins for the ability to satisfy both tones.
Individual sounds? Marshall oD provides good tone and good tonal variation.
Ypu get what i mean? I use the OD only. haven't found any use for the Dist.

Looks solid. but it looks only. A little mistake by an indian worker, a wire could get shaken loose. I have a digital pedal to back me up. I guess tt will have to do.

none used. Still working fine.
and not showing nay sign of dying.

I play in the style of classic rock, clapton slow hand blues. i play a little hendrix but i'll us a fuzz fer that.
If lost, i might get a Boss DS-2. I realise my 3030 has a EQ section which i can use anyway. this takes away the boss's defieciency of only a one knob. And i have a sound man in chuch who EQ's everything anyway.
I rly like the ability to have tube lyk response. Where i can put in on medium low gain. strum softly with my strat, the low output single coils don distort the sound. Strum harder? I begins to have a crunchy drive. harder? lovely... reminds me of the hendrix and SRV tribute at rush bootleg or something.
Iiwsh it had a nice distortion. That was big and powerful without being dark and slightly flat. Still a 9 cos it sounds good.

its easy to use, the manual is ok not really helpful to a player with a few years behind them. but to a guitarist starting it out the manual is ok.it has suggestions which arent all that good and dont do the pedal justice. this is an out and out metal pedal. good for metallica, slipknot, korn all that stuff.

the steup im using is tanglewood pioneer>jh-1>kusom practice amp.
the amp is crap but when the jh-1 is jacked up on overdrive or distortion it sounds just as good as a marshall amp.
Some people say the distortion is muddy. i used to think that but now iv realised the distortion on this thing is made to perfection. when turned on dist. with full gain and ifyou adjust the contour and freq. knobs a bit you can get the perfect metallica sound. i think the overdrive is more hatebreed slipknot type and is also perfect for that.

ive neer used this in a gig, but its solid metal how could you go wrong. built like a tank in a tank.

never dealt with them . so ill sit on the fence with this

i play mainly metal thrugh this witha bit of velvet revolver, queens of the stone age. and its good for everything. but mind you you have to really understand what the controls are about although its not hard. if you want the perfect sound you have to get to know the pedal first but that can be said for most pedals. this pedal is a BEAST!