Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer

It's realy ease.

On my super amp it sounds perfect.

Yeah...

So so...

For Metal its oki.

The Jackhammer isn???t that difficult to use. After a couple of minutes I pretty much got a sound I was happy with (Upgraded by Von Lehmann).

I have my Jackhammer plugged into a clean Blackheart amp and it sounds great. My Jackhammer was recently upgraded by Von Lehmann. I found the original sound of the Jackhammer was not really that great. You could get a good sound out of the O/D mode but the distortion was a bit to messy and I notice a bit of noise (it could also been my home power supply). After the upgrade I found that I could get a really good sound very quickly on both modes. The noise improved a lot and it is much better to play. I can play songs from bands like AC/DC, Linkin Park, King of Leon, The Killers, Bloc Party to the slow and clean distortion of Coldplay. I have found that with this upgrade I can also get a good metal distortion.

It is very reliable never had a problem with it. Works like a charm.

I bought it straight from the shop but later I got it upgraded by Von Lehmann and found them easy to talk to and deal with.

After the modification:
I play a lot of Alternative Rock and don???t mine a bit of metal and I find that it is a great match for me and if you are planing to buy or have a Jackhammer I truly recommend it to be modified by Von Lehmann because it was really worth it.

Is rather 'knob twiddley' at first but with time you get used too it and can change tones completely with relative ease. Contour/frequency may be a bit overkill when you have these built into your amp anyway but be patient and it can be a nice touch.

I run this with either a hot rod deville 2x12 and my Gretsch Corvette G-Love signature guitar or thru a Vox AVD-T 100 head and 4x10 Marshall cab with a Fender FMT or Burns Brian May 'red special'.

Have too say...agree with previous comments on the Distortion sound. Find it very murky and sloppy almost. OD sound though is wonderful. I play everything from Bloc Party/Muse/Pearl Jam through too Thin Lizzy/RATM/Pink Floyd and find the Od setting enough for most of these. Have tried/had Ibanez tubescreamer,Boss Od/Ds pedals before and didnt like them at all.

I run my amps VERY clean and with odd settings...Bass@12,Mid@2,treble@2 with a fair amount of compression which really tightens up the sound but do realise that most people will use a classic Rock 'scoop' eq in general.

This is my second time owning this pedal...but only 'cause my first one was stolen!! I gig about 150/200 nights a year and never had a problem with the reliability of this pedal. I t has taken serious abuse...from drink being spilled in it too a cab falling on it and still the thing gave me the finger and kept going!!

Should always have backup though..mine being another Jackhammer!!

Only dealt with Marshall once and took an age so i cant give them good marks i'm afraid but issue was sorted in the end.

Because of it's Jekyll and Hyde persona between OD/Dist i would suggest haveing a definate idea of what your looking for when trying this pedal out. It wont suit everybody but those who do like it will love it. It isnt a good pedal for Metal,Thrash,Death Metal in my opinion but classic rock and alt rock it's perfect.

In the end...it's pretty cheap and punches above it's weight but only if you use it as an OD pedal and stay clear of the Distortion.

Not so difficult to use, it has on O/D switch, gain, bass, treble, contour and freq. Needs a little time to figure it out, but when you figure it, it's easy.

I'm using it with Cort X-11 into a Peavey Renown 400. I heard about JH-1 and it interested me because I heard it wasn't like a regular dist pedals, and when I tried it amazed me. I wasn't expecting that kind of sound from Marshall pedals... Before I bought it, I was using a Gibson Epiphone S-310, and tried it with that guitar. It sounded really great.

Only objection that i have is that it needs a little more treble.

I like to experiment with sounds, and I really like this configuration. I don't think I will trade this pedal for another for a long time...

I've bought it about a year ago, and it fell from a height of 50cm, and it's like a rock. A scratch was left on it. It's the most reliable pedal I have for now, it's made all from metal.

They only introduced me with the pedal and their opinion was helpful to some limits.

I play Rock, Hard Rock, Metal, and it's almost a perfect match. It's a universal pedal, I even play blues with it. I've been playing it for a year. I have digital delay, wah-wah and a chorus pedal and I combine it. I sounds very, very good. If I would lost it or had stolen, I would definitely buy another one.

Very easy, 2 modes Overdrive and Distortion, Gain, bass midd and treble very self explanatory

I???ve tried and played with many different distortion pedals... but the Marshall jackhammer is by far the WORST!, probably the worst distortion I???ve heard in my life! no real tone, just a loud fuzzy mess!, the only part of this entire pedal I would say anything positive about is its overdrive, it does provide you with a fairly nice crunch when playing with the distortion on your amplified. Having said that, for what you pay the overdrive is AVERAGE at best! You would be better off buying a different pedal specially designed for overdrive. My advise STAY CLEAR OF THIS PEDAL!

My set up is a Kramer 5150 EVH, with digitech GNX3000 Fx's box and a marshall mg 50watt amp.

well for the hole 1 DAY that I owned this pedal before taking it back for a refund it did not break.

overall this pedal was a total dissapointment! horribal distortion... average overdrive and one BIG waist of money!

The mode switch, The Gain and Volume Dial and the Bass and trebble dials are self explanatory. However the Contour dials did and still do confuse me.

I literally fluked the settings on those. The manual kind of helped but it comes down to you interpreting the instructions properly

Im running my Epi Zakk Wylde Bullseye through this and into my Marshall Zakk Wylde Ministack.

For starters IMO you can forget about the Distortion mode.
Its just way too compressed and Muddy.

I use the O/D mode and have the Gain at full 100%
Volume is set as per needed to get equal volume between on and off.
Bass is at full 100%
Treble is a little past 1 oclock (about 70%)
Contour Frequency centre knob is just past 9 oclock (about 20-25%)
Contour Volume outer knob is at 5 oclock (about 95%)

With these settings and my amp set at Bass 8, Contour 4, Treble 3, I have pretty much got the sound I was after.
This sound I seeked lies somewhere Between "The Darkness" and "Zakk Wylde"

I will admit the sound I was able to get was a little more on "The Darkness" side of things than "Zakk Wylde" but I am very happy and think its anything but the Harsh and Brittle tones others have claimed it has.

I actually removed my Boss MT-2 Metal Zone from my pedal board to put this in its place.

I am no longer into the hard edged metallic sound it puts out and wanted something smoother which this gives me.

Yeah Definately If the Marshall tone is not your bag then this aint the pedal for you but if a nice JCM800 roar is then go ahead and try this pedal and I reckon you will be satisfied.

Im only giving it an 8 though because I really was disapointed by the flat muddy tone of the Distortion mode.

I dont gig any more so this pedal wont see much if any road action. But I would say its built tough and well.

Cant comment. no dealings in regards to this item.

I did once contact Marshall for an email or E-book of the manual to the ZW mini stack. cause i didnt get one whan i bought it (display stock) and never heard from them.

I play Metal and Hard rock. Kind of Sabbath meets Tool meets Black Label Society. This pedal gives me the tone I wanted for that.

I thought of maybe a Boss DS-1 but had some people tell me they were too weak and not too good for heavy stuff. I kind of just had a brain click one day and thought id try this pedal out so I got on here and read some reviews then tried it out and like what I heard.

As I said in my review of my SV-1 Supervibe I REALLY like the way the switch is mounted on an angled face and the knobs are set back on a lower platform which keeps the swith very accessible and the knobs out of the way of stomping feet.
I have some MXR pedals too and with the flat mounted switch and knobs all on one flat surface can sometimes = squashed knobs.
A big + to Marshall for the style of switch mount.

Only minus is that the Chrome knoba and small position markers make it hard to see where ya are dialing them in at.

Probably the most difficult part of my gear to control. Too many knobs, doing almost nothing but F***** up my sound. It takes me too much time to make a good sound. The volume knob is very difficult and it causes me troubles during gigs because there is a volume difference between the clean and the dirty channel.

Its o/d is almost perfect. I would give a 10 if it was only for o/d. But the distortion is !@#@&$*%(.
But, in general, it's got a pretty nice sound.

It is reliable! Made with metal, it's built like a tank.

Never dealt with them.

Really easy to use. Have to be retarded to not figure it out.

I was completely shocked at how good this sounds. I bought it for $40 on a special sale but definitely worth resale. It's very versatile all the saturation you could need. If you know how to manipulate it with the settings of your amp, you can get any sound you want. I'm playing with EMG's through a fender hot rod deville. EMG's are going to give you a much hotter saturated sound as well, so that's part of the reason there is so much saturation.

so far so good

never used

nothings perfect.

This pedal is relatively easy to use, although the contour / frequency knobs can be a bit tedious if you haven't used anything similar before. The manual is pretty self explanatory, gets to the point and even gives you a few instructions for different sounds.

I WAS using this with my Jackson JS30RR rhoads v, into a randall 75 watt amp. It's not even close to the level of distortion i expected / wanted, at best you will get a hard rock sound out of it. I play thrash metal, melodic death, and so on so i needed something with a little more grunt. Other then that if you are into blues / hard rock i highly recommend it, great sound for those genres.

I can definitely depend on it, most solid pedal i have ever used. Built like an absolute tank, and i would have total confidence in using it without a backup.

Haven't dealt with them.

I play metal and surprisingly this really doesn't deliver. I expected it would be a great choice for my genre of music, but i suppose in the end it wasn't. If it was stolen i wouldnt replace it, seeing as A) i have a boss metal zone on the way, and B) i'd just get something else.

7 knobs to tweak make this pedal not the easiest to use upon first sight. On the other hand it is the most versatile distortion/ overdrive pedl I know and it is very easy to get a good sound out of it, no matter which guitar and which amp you use.

So for those of you using a standard configuration like a Fender Strat through a Twin Reverb or a Les Paul through a Marshall JCM 800, this pedal might be confusing. For all the others this pedal is what you need. It can give you a first class overdrive and/ or distortion sound with any quality guitar and amp, you might use.

I am using this pedal in front of the "normal" channel of my VOX AC30CC1. I am playing Rickenbacker and Burns guitars. The sound quality of this pedal is superior. I have compared it to many other pedals: VOX Cooltron, several BOSS pedals, several Ibanez pedals, Hughes & Kettner Tube Factor, MXR Distortion etc. - the MArshall Jackhammer was by far the best sounding and most versatile pedal of them all. You could get a similar sound out of a BOSS pedal - but only with an additional equalizer.

I have owned it for about two years, so I cannot tell yet. But it appears to be solid as a rock.

Great. The best distortion pedal on the market as far as I can tell.

Ease of use:
Takes a bit of getting used to, and it is pretty touchy. However, tweak it a bit and you'll bet what you're looking for.
Manual:
Uh...says thanks for buying and gives a few suggested settings...not much to it, really.

Sound of favorite artists?:
Well, I thought the idea was to sound like yourself...
Setup:
Dean Zs, Dean MLs, Dean V 79 reissue, all stock as a rock. H&K amps, greatest clean tones in the world. By and large, absolutely KILLS any solid-state distortion on the planet. Does it beat a good tube driver? Uh, no. For the money though, it does a great job.
Sound:
Depends on what you're trying to do. If you're looking for a pretty fair approximation of several Marshall tones, GET THIS BOX. However, if Marshall sound is not your thing, or you absolutely must sound JUST LIKE a SuperLead, then don't. Basically, I find a very good copy of most Marshall series in this little box. It is a bit weaker than a Super Lead for gain, a bit too dirty for a "light" Plexi. Good voicing, not too harsh. A bit too touchy on bass response in the distortion mode.
Noise:
There is a bit, depending on what you're doing. I found ZERO noise on the OD setting, regardless of gain. Distortion setting, though, gets a bit noisy after about the 2 o'clock position. My Hush (pedal version) keeps it clean and singing without any buzz or fuzz. Anything less than about 2 o'clock, and you'll get sweet ring and easy feedback (distortion mode)

VERDICT:
Great toy if you like the Marshall sound. BAD IDEA if you want it to do anything else. I love mine.

Built like a bomb shelter. No issues at all.

Gig without backup plan = stupid

Never had to talk to them....

Honestly, I think that this little guy is as well made as a solid state box can be. It's tough and sounds good. Really, what else can you ask of a pedal? Hard to compare this with other distortion boxes...most of what I've played with in the past have been tube-driven, and there really IS no way to compare them. One thing I wish it had is a presence and saturation control. The sound is "tubey," but NOT tube sound. A bit of saturation control may give it a bit more shimmer. In any event, very good overall.
My experience:
About 20 years playing, 15 or so gigging around in bands. I use an expansive pedal box with all sorts of wonderful toys inside. I use this one mostly for Iron Maiden and similar tunes in which Marshall tone is REQUIRED. It gets me through pretty well. My own tunes get the tube treatment.

Well. let's see, it has two modes, jcm 800 and the plexi, but don't take my word for it it all comes down to tweaking. Important:1.you need to tweak 2.do not have a flat EQ after (on your amp) this.
you will need to do some tweakin but with the tweaking you can get all the sounds in the world.
the manual explains good how it works but you got to experiment with it, then you see its' full power. my first effect box was a magicstomp so now I think everything is easy to tweak:D. when I first got it I sucked with tweaking but now I can do anything with it.

well artist sounds can you copy all youll' ever want. from norvegian blackmetal to 60'rock. zakk wylde and arch enemy if you have the right eq or pickup combination (I find the EMG 81 and 85 togheter good for archenemysounds you can prolly get closer with a good EQ before). The OD\Dist; I use both of them, mostly dist with treble at full bass at 12 , contour both ca. middle.on my amp a little bit treble and 1\4 mid, flat bass. Remember to listen to the front of the speaker not the sides because on the sides you get a sound with more bass and more mid-tone. I like it better than boss mt-2, a buddy of mine has it and we compared. the noise is as expected, not too loud but would be fun if it was lower,. but you only hear it after 2/3 full gain. If you buy this and regret it I'll eat my hat. 9 cos a little too much bass on dist ( I tweak it away though)

this is heavy metal, I love it. really good and solid, the only thing you need to be careful about is the double pots, you might kick them crooked but all you nedd to do to fix them is take them up, out some grease on and bend back and put them back together.

I've already gigged with it twice and going to gig with it december the 7th.

This is my little screambaby

metal and hardrock are the most common of my styles, best match ever. you can create your own sounds in a flash and others' in a dash XD
Its been a year since I got it and it still sounds wonderfull, own a modded strat type guitar with EMGs 81,SV,89 (85 split version) onboard booster and 700hz(fat)control. boss pw-10, yamaha magicstomp, roland cube 30, Crate VTX212B, Boss FV500h, zoom g1x, boss ns-2. boss tu-20.
I cant live without this pedal, but I would like to get another one (maybe this or a metalplanet) for having two different sounds with quick switching.
I wish it had cooler graphics:D.(I painted on it so no more problem)
I am the main song & riffwriter in my band and it gives me the tones that I'm after, silky and max distorted at the same time, with a booster in front it gets really cool fuzzy.. always a pleasure to play.

This is a very versitale, really good pedal, but it takes time to get the best out of it. In fact it took me about a year... But now, I can get almost all the sounds I want.
Good advices: use it with good stuff. With a thin sounding guitar or amp it will sound thin and harsh. With a good axe (like a Les Paul or Strat) and a good tube amp it'll sound huge. First get a good, well balanced clean sound on your amp, so you can compensate if you lack middle or treble (you won't feel like having not enough bass). Set the volume about 9 o'clock on the pedal, so it won't be too loud. The overdrive will give you a more open, crunchy sound, whiler the dist mode a heavier, compressed, bassy sound, so compensate it when you switch between the modes. As the manual suggests, turning the contour and frequency full anticlockwise will give you the natural midrange without scooping mids. The contour is basicly a reversed mid knob, but frequency is a bit different. Below 11 o'clock it acts like a reversed presence, from 12 to about 4 o'clock gives you variuos scooped metal sounds, and when turned full clockwise, it acts like the presence knob full down.
So, it's quite difficult, but when you understand how the knobs work, you can get almost any sound you want.

On good stuff, it sounds wonderful. Tried it on numerous tube amps, with my friends Strat and my guitar. Always sounded wonderful.
I use it with an Epiphone Les Paul Standard and a solid state Fender 212M amp. The Fender has a nice clean, but the overdrive sucks. With this pedal I can get really good Marshall-like sounds, from crunchy blues to heavy metal - always sounds thick and has great bite. It doesn't make my amp sound like a tube amp - and never will -, but gives me really good, alive, bity sound. I can get awesome Peter Green, Gary Moore, Dave Gilmour, Santana or at the heavy side Guns or Metallica sounds in minutes.
The problem is, if you count something good on the overdrive, it'll suck on the dist mode. Also, it sounds very different at different places and volume settings, so if you count a great sound at home with low volume, it won't sound the same at your rehearsal room. Ergo you always have to tweak the knobs when you go to new places, but as I sad, after understanding the working of the knobs, it will be easy to get good sound again in 3 minutes.
At high gain settings it can easily feedback, but it's not noisy at all.

It's really dependable and rock solid, I'd gig with it without a backup.

Never dealt with the customer support, and never tried to repaired it.

I've benn playing for years now, but only since a year have quality stuff. I play blues and also have a rock/metal band which plays quite interesting things like mixing traditional metal with moderner sounds and "hippy-style" quiter passages and numbers. It serves me well, as I can get classic blues and rock sounds. It really helps me to evolve musically. If it was stolen or lost I'd buy it again. Wish it had a memory where you could store the different sounds, but oh well it's a pedal, not a multieffect.

i didn't much care for the double knobs. on mine, if you turned the contour knob, the frequency would turn right along with it.

this thing sounds thin, brittle and harsh. all i was looking for was a warm thick overdrive bordering on distortion, kind of a malcom young meets johnny ramone sound. Problem is, the jackhammer doesn't do warm or thick. i tried this thing every which way, and didn't like any of the tones. ran it through a peavey ranger and butcher. those two amps run the gamut from clean to dirty and the jackhammer sounded bad in both of 'em. there are several metric tons of gain on tap here, they just sound bad.

i got it used on ebay, so i blame the seller for the knob twisting problem i had, not marshall. seems rock solid to me.

never dealt with 'em.

i play punk and rock and roll type stuff. this pedal is not suited for that music at all. maybe this is an amazing unit for your nu-metal, i wouldn't know. if you don't do modern metal, avoid this thing.

If you do your settings in bright light and don't have to make any adjustments "on the fly" you will be ok. It would be a fabulous pedal if the OD and Distortion could be selected by a switch and had some ability to set the levels, contour, etc...for each channel. It has small knobs within knobs that can be difficult for large hands like mine.

I have a very large collection of pedals from cheap to very expensive and this pedal is a really great sounding pedal. I have a 1969 plexi 50 watter and the OD channel is right there. Of course, I am running the pedal through a very good sounding, warmed up, EL84 tube head and 1-12" speaker cab with an eminence lady-luck inside. The distortion sounds larger than life kinda like a JCM 800 series with slightly more bass and compressed. You can turn the bass down and treble up to compensate.

This is a very good pedal. If you are using a thin sounding, sterile solid state amp, do not expect it to sound as good as my setup will.

Works well so far...ask me in a couple of years.

I don't use customer support for less expensive items which can be easily replaced. Just not cost effective to bother with an item like this.

I would class this pedal as a future classic that will be an investment grade pedal. It nails the sounds of two of the most historical rock sounds ever...a Plexi and the badass JCM800.

very easy to find the sound you want

the manual is very clear, it explanes wat every butten does so you kan vind your own sound very easy

onley thing is that the markers to show the level of gain(for example),
wil wear off a bit fast.

the best ever, i used it on a kustom. and it could make it sound like a big marshall. now that i have a big marhsall is sounds even better.

i play on a gibson flying v and in my opinion this is the best set up ever, gibson-marhsall.

it has a overdrive and a distortion stetting on it. the distortion i barley use becouse i dont play metal but is sounds dam good, a mercyless pounding marshall. on the overdrive setting you get more led zep, black sabath sound. old school overdrive, i use this the most. and if you turn the gain a bit lower you have a briljant blues sound.
so screw the marshall blues braker or the guv'nor, this thing has them both and more

mine broke one time, i don't know the couse. but sinds it was fixed (like a year ago) i never had problems with it. i dont use a back up.

never delt with them, a lokal shop fixed it for me for free. it was stil in the warenty

the best overdrive/dist. pedal ever. but one thing if you don't dig marshall you'll wont want this pedall. the sound is marhsall over and over again. if you love marhsall like me. than it is the best ever.

I already owned a Boss Metal Zone before buying this pedal, so I will compare the two pedals in this review. The Jackhammer has the same controls as the Metal Zone, with one difference - the Jackhammer has two modes, Overdrive and Distortion.

On the Distortion mode, the sound is very dark and bassy. I had to turn the treble all the way up and the bass all the way down. Even still, the Distortion mode is too bassy/flubby, and doesn't do well on any fast guitar playing. The Metal Zone is way better than the Jackhammer's Distortion mode.

On the Overdrive mode, the sound is much more trebly and less bassy compared with the Distortion mode. I use the pedal only on the Overdrive mode, for playing classic rock type stuff (like Led Zeppelin, Hendrix). I'd give the Overdrive mode 10/10.

Overall, a 9/10 because the Distortion mode isn't that great.

Solidly built, I don't forsee any problems.

I've never contacted Marshall about anything before.

A very good pedal for the price, if you want to use it for the Overdrive mode. Again, if you are after heavier metallic sounds, get the Boss Metal Zone, instead.

It's quite tricky to get a good sound out of this unit... Mine is the original version without any upgrades... It comes with a multi-lingual manual...

First of all, I'd like to point out my set up: Peavey Envoy 110, Marshall Jackhammer, Crybaby535 Q, Schecter C-1 FR (Mahogany body, OFR, Duncan custom (b), and Duncan Jazz (n)).

This pedal has 2 modes Overdrive(OD) and Distortion. The overdrive mode is really more for overdriving(boosting) a dirty channel of an amp. It can sound good too on its own, but you won't get "In Your Face" distortion. It's more suitable for classic rock and blues tone. The distortion mode, on the other hand, is meant to be as a stand alone distortion. You can get great hard rock and heavy metal tone on this mode.

This pedal is not noisy, unless if you use a very high gain pickups (X2N, Invader, Active Pickups, etc) and dial the volume and gain knobs to the max...

My fave metal settings:
Mode: Distortion.
Gain: MAX.
Volume: 3 O'Clock.
Bass & Treble: Bypassed
Contour Frequency: 1 - 2 O'Clock.
Contour: 12 O'Clock.

Yes!! I've had this for 5 years... Never had a problem with it... I've used it on a gig, no problem at all... It made of solid steel construction, and a heavy pedal too... It is very dependable...

N/A

I've been playing for 7 years. I play stuffs from hard rock to neo-classical, stuffs like ACDC, Van Hallen, Stratovarius, Dream Theater, Yngwie, Symphony X, etc...

I love the versatility this pedal gives. I've had this for 5 years, and i dont think its going anywhere until its broken. Yes I would not mind buying it again if it happens. I use this pedal as my main distortion tone. It gives punchiness for riffing, and for soloing, my notes are very clear and not blur together. Love this pedal!!

It's not easy to use. There are too many knobs for a newbie to get a good sound from it. I've had it for a year and luckily quickly got a "hot spot". So I stick to it and try not to move any knobs in order not to lose the good sound, which I describe further.
There is a manual with some presets, which aren't very good. There should be more.

Riffs - very good, especially on Dropped D tuning. Although palm mute and harmonics could sound better. But still a nice pedal for a rythm player. 9/10
Lead guitar - crappy. Especially on neck humbucker. The good sound is very hard to find. Blues tones, however, could be easily found by simply turning down volume in your guitar. And, as long as you're playing blues, it sounds very good.
But I play metal mainly, so overally I give 6 out of 10, because it's a pity it doesn't provide me with a good metal lead sound.

I surely can rely on it. Hard as a tank. However, I scratched it here and there but they only gives him better looks. I'd be suprised if it broke inside due to damages from outside.

I'm playing mainly metal and rock, some blues and jazz. See Sound Quality section above.
I've been playing for nearly 3 years.
If it were stolen I wouldn't get a new one.

Very good pedal. I like it knobs. you can play with them and get to many sounds.it will be good to take paper and draw on it in which position knobs are placed. to remember after it.there is 1-1,5 mm difference between to knobs. so you can change the position of knobs easily. it has good metallic cover.great pedal.

For getting good sound you must have good amp. but its really good if you dont want to take your amp. quality is really good. from small overdrived sound to good distortioned sound. the range is too big.

yeas, i am using it without backup. its great. you can jump on it and it wont damged

I dont know. ))

I play from blues to trash. so it suits my music. i use a processor too. its great . i am playing on this pedal for a 6 monthi played on my friends Jackhammer. now i have my own JH1 . i would buy again it if it would be stolen.you can kill someone with this pedal))
ITS GREAT

This pedal is very fiddly to use due to the poor construction of the knobs. You will never keep the same sound twice. It is impossible to get a good sound as there is not one at all.

Sounds rubbish. The Distortion mode is so dark sounding - it will not cut through at all. The overdrive is stale like boss ds-1's


It is not that noisy though

It is solid but the rubbish sound means low score

n/a

No good. I have seen guitarists use these in bands and I just do not understand why. why did Marshall stop the Shredmaster?

The two knobs of contour and bass treble on this pedal are probably the worse design I have ever seen. It seems that it is impossible to get a sound decent out of this really. It gets a four due to this.

How does anyone use this pedal for anything, and why did Marshall discontinue the Shredmaster for this? It sounds terrible and mushy. The OD setting is the only one that comes close to being any good but you will never have the same setting twice on this pedal. Lacks any sort of dynamics or mids as well.

Built like a brick s**t house. Only a 7 because of itssound

N/a

I would not use this. I was given by a mate and then sold it for ??30 to some nu-metal loving guy. Says it all. The quality of the actual build saves it from a 1.

I usualy find it easy to create a good sound with my setup, but this thing is quite difficult. The contour is messy and doesn't realy bennefit the pedal creating better sounds, it take the sound from muddy to muddy with less top end and more or less mids.

I use 2 strats 1 with EMG's the other a 2006 Deluxe into a big stone phaser, delay, Big Muff into Fender Hot Rod Deluxe.

I bought this thinking it would be a good addition as a distortion peddal, but in the Distortion/JCM2000 mode it is muddy and unclear, without the crisp, boomy sound of a real JCM2000. In the OD/JCM800 mode you can get a decent overdrive sound as long as you keep the Contour at o'clock, the gain up and volume down.

It is solid as a rock, but i never trust any piece of equipment that relies on complex circuitry to do whatever it may do. The 8 is for construction not reliability of it's function.

If you are a tweaker i'm sure you could get some good sounds out of it. As i said the distortion is Crap, Buy a RAT.

Not so easy to use. The real nightmare begins when you start messing with the contour/frequency controls using the distortion mode. It just takes so much tweaking to get your tone in the sweet spot.

Like others have said, the overdrive on this thing is pretty raunchy! I originally bought this pedal as an alternative to my crapped out Metal Zone, and may end up just getting the Metal Zone fixed and back as my main distortion (plus a Big Muff) but still keep this in my chain as an overdrive/booster. Still, I think it is a decent alternative to the Metal Zone, and I actually enjoy the fact that the distortion mode is bassy - I use a Boss Enhancer EH-2 after the Jackhammer to clean up the lows and squeeze out some higher tones when needed. Perfectly giggable, nice looking pedal too. Probably a good idea to jot down the settings in a notebook, so if you lose them you can come back to them. It'll take hours to get used to the contouring/frequency controls but once you've got it you're sweet to go.

No problems whatsoever. This thing weighs half a KG!!!!! The actual casing is stronger than anything Boss has produced - very very solid! Even the knobs are heavy duty.

Cheap. Good for heavy stuff. Really good for gritty rock-n-roll overdrive. May not sound great out of the box, but spend some time with this thing and you will be surprised!

It's quite a hard-to-tweak unit, I would say.

First off, the dual pot on Gain/Volume and Freq/Contour are something that may need some time to get used to. Secondly, the Contour control is a nightmare. Probably designed for huge versatility, it's very touchy.

I use in the following configuration with the following setup:

Tom Anderson Drop Top -> Cry Baby GCB95 -> T-Rex CompNova -> Jackhammer -> Mesa/Boogie Quad Preamp -> Volcane One.50 (a custom made tube poweramp) -> Engl 2x12 (Celestion V30)

I mainly use it to get a different flavour of crunch from my setup, and does the job pretty well. I get a very Marshall-like tone out of it. The trick (for me) was to use Dist mode, keeping the highs low (LOL) and the Contour/Freq almost flat. Every attempt to touch the Contour ended in a awfully sounding mess, the same goes for the Treble.

I got a very touch-sensitive, bluesy crunch tone, good for soloing and also for rhythms. Adding some drive with the CompNova gives a raw tone that screams "Rock & Roll", very nice for open chord rhythms.

It isn't noisy, but I use it at relatively low gain setting so I wouldn't expect it to be.

Strangely enough, I have tested it with a JCM800 and the whole thing sounded like crap - it's not the first time that I feel like Marshall OD's aren't at their best with Marshall amps.

It's made of metal and look pretty sturdy. I wouldn't care too much.

The knobs look like cheap plastic crap, but they're out of foot reach, so they shouldn't fear any harm.

Never dealt with them.

I'm just a rocker, been playing for 15 years.

If it were stolen I'd probably have another one. I just needed a pedal to give me a good crunch tone, I got it, don't think there's much more to say.

Too bad for the Contour control - I'd love to get a good old Treble-Mid-Bass tone set instead.

It's very easy to get a bad sound out of this and very hard to get a good one.

Place to start IMO is OVERDRIVE mode.

Dano U2 into Crybaby into Jackhammer into Boss Delay into Park 50W Bass amp (today - Class A valve arriving tomorrow).

Previously I had just used it to get a mild crunchy overdrive. Had it on all the time (as an amp simulator I guess). Worked well for this, very british libertines-esqe sounds.

Today I got a wah pedal, found a nice tone spot, and turned the gain up in O/D mode. Was getting THE sweetest harmonics I have ever produced. Really enjoyed playing, kinda sonic youth meets Jimi Hendrix (neighbours might disagree with that analysis).

Sound got a bit tiring after a while though.

Would be surprised if it broke

Very Versatile pedal. Used to own a Boss DS1. I Like the Jackhammer much better. Can't think of many styles this won't be useful for.

Not a beginner's pedal IMO as is hard to use well. Can get lost in the controls if you don't know in your mind what sound you're after.

Well... I find it quite hard to get the sounds I want out of this box. There are too many controls! Seven in full. And they are hard to tune. For example if you turn the "upper" knob like the TREBLE it also changes the position of the BASS knob beneath. You must hold the BASS steady to only let the TREBLE spin. Don't want to think about me fiddling with those knobs under a gig...
The manual seems to be good.

I play through a Yamaha guitar with soapbar humbuckers and a Fender 100 watt transistor amp. I find this pedal very metalish, you can get crazy distortion sounds out of it. I play mostly '60s and '70s rock like Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Frank Zappa and Thin Lizzy. Also Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, U2 and RHCP. I managed to only get one or two tones that had some sort of connection to the early rock. It just did not fit my style. In DIST mode I couldn't get any nice sounds.

It weights about half a kilogram and is completely made of steel. Fantastic! I love the design on the Marshall stomp-boxes and they are rock solid. I would give it a 10 if the controls weren't that weak. The pedal button is very nice, but the controls are poor.

Never dealt with them.

As I said this pedal does not fit my music style. I've been playing for a few years now and have a few distortion pedals. This one wasn't as good as I hoped. Next week I'm getting a Marshall Bluesbreaker II because of the warm tube-overdrive like sound i missed in this box. If I lost my JH-1 I would not get a new one, just complaining about the money I lost.
So for the past months I have barely touched it. Now I'm looking forward to the BB-2 arrives :-)

Fairly Simple Turn the Knobs And Push The Foot Switch

Good Metal Sounds
I tend to Get Alot of feedback when i use alot of Distortion (not Good as its a metal pedal)

Its Fucking built like a tank
I gig It and rehearse cwith it at least once a week

Never Needed There Help

I got it dirt cheap and use it loads Its all good :)

easy enough.

I give it a 7 because of one thing: noise. It is way noisier than, say, my MT-2, or some of my valve-driven pedals. This is most unfortunate since outside the noise, I really like the tone. With the contour disabled (by turning both knobs completely counter-clockwise), I really like the sound of it (I am using a very nice single channel JTM clone). But as I said earlier, it is very noisy. I'm hoping somebody will come up a with a mod for this pedal to get rid of the noise. I think it has a lot of potential. The noise isn't so bad that it renders the pedal unusable. I think most non-musicians wouldn't notice it. But as I said, compared to a MT-2 it is very, very noisy.

In overdrive mode, with the gain set low, it is good, too and not as noisy. Though it can do high gain tones (not nu-metal), it has served me better as an overdrive pushing my already distorted amp further.

Its a very sturdy pedal, very gig worthy.

I just hope someone with the skills will look into this pedal and see what can be done - Aramat? Keeley? I'll even let you use mine as a prototype if you so desire.

Not hard to use, just a pain to get a good sound out of it.

Waayyy too much Bass. Ok, I did finally get some decent sounds using the OD...could almost match my amps (Peavey Classic) OD sound. I liked using this more for blues and older classic rock. This is a decent sounding pedal for the most part once you find your eq settings, but I also found this pedal to be very frustrating. Kinda like "touching cotten"... It is almost the shit, but it just as easily turns to shit. If you are paying full price for this pedal, I would recommend the Nady TD-1 or Ibanez Tube King for that price range. I have found that the Tonebone Hot British and the Maxon ROD 880 to be the cream of the crop when looking for a pedal with that Marshall Sound in a pedal. Another decent pedal is the Digitech Hot Rod Distortion (which is easier to get good sounds out of).

I am sure it is very reliable. I sold this pedal. Built like a tank!

This is a pedal you will either love or hate or both at the same time.

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 !

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.

N/A

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!