Rocktron Juice Extractor

they only thing that i see would make this thing hard to understand is if you had no idea of parametric eq-ing. the response curve button is iffy, too, but was easy to see that it was a mid shift type switch after pushing it a couple of times. other than that its a no brainer and the hush is an added plus since most the cranked amps going thru it are noisy as hell when jacked into the juice extractor as a load.

the sound is awesome. i have only had this piece of gear for 4-5 days and have only pumped 2 of my amps into it. i have 2 peavey 5150's one is the original head and the other is the combo. i also own a peavey vt classic from the dark ages and will not be running it thru the JE, although it is part of the chain and i will get to that later. the last amp i own is a highly coveted peavey classic 20, which if you plug an extension speaker into the provided jack, will disable the internal 10".
the ones i have used the JE with are the 5150 combo and the classic 20. first off the classic 20. this little amp has killer tone, period. the only thing i didn't like was the lack of an effects loop. i like to run a small amount of chorus and reverb and sometimes delay very clean and reverb for dirty tones. only problem was with the classic 20 you would have to put all that into the pre signal chain and that killed the way the classic 20 reacted to dynamics. well, plugged into the JE, the classic 20 was killer, i cranked the hell out of it and just dialed in the eq on the JE, added a little chorus and reverb with an alesis midiverb 4 and had an extremely mean el84 tone, studio quality. very responsive and totally dynamic, the onboard hush kept a nice loose gate on the noise and the tone was very alive. next was the 5150 combo. i had to physically disable the 2 12"s by removing the back cover of the 5150 and pulling out the 1/4" plug and then running it into the line out. with the eq on the 5150 low to high at 10-2.5-7.5, the resonance and prescence cranked, reverb off, and the pregain jacked the JE pumped out serious tone even efore the parametric was used. the JE has like 6 line level outs on the back, 2 of which i run thru my rack which consists of the alesis midiverb 4, a nady 2 15 eq, and nady compressor. so in turn i have 3 levels of eq'ing into the compressor mainly to focus the sound and also as a gate after the eq, then into the MV4 to get effected. this time i ran into an alesis ra-100 power amp into the vt classic(i have it rigged as an external 212 cab via, internally switched jacks that bypass the combo's normal amp) an the sound was amazing. so much gain and so focused, i also had a pair of headphones into one of the line outs from the JE itself and the tone was so monstrous, total harmonic response and dynamically filled, this is big hair and shred at its finest. the only drawback was you can hear the soud of your amp coming from the JE itself, whisper quiet, but nonetheless is there.

i would depend on it for gigging, but i got this thing to only record with. i use a line6 pod for D.I., but sometimes can sound too compressed and not as dynamic as my normal rig of 5150's. i hate to mic cab's mainly because i have a wife and kid and all my amps tend to be "too loud". so the JE afforded me the chance to get killer tone, at no expense for the volume.

well, i am fairly new with rocktron, but now am in love with their products. i have a midi pro hush on its way and own 2 other hush products: a superc and the hush pedal. i wrote rocktron an email and they responded in the same day. i wish their website was more informative for their discontinued products, but hey, they are owned by ghs and not like their own entity, so they are at the mercy of ghs.

great piece of gear, seems the only people that use rocktron are the ones that either take a chance at used gear at a pawn shop or musicians that know exactly what they are looking for. i 'd like to think i fall into the latter category.