I got an 1983 2204 about 9 months ago and totally fell in love with it. I had another one in the 90s but stupidly sold it. It is great to have one of these again, dead simple, plug into the high input and its rock n roll all day and night. Juice it with a TS or a RAT depending on the situation. I have always just plugged into the high input, but with what I am doing now (not just straight out rock) I am finding it hard to clean up with my just my volume knob.

I can get the clean I want by going in the low input and then getting dirt just from the pedal? Anyone else use a Marshall with the low input?

Owen wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 2:18 pm

I can get the clean I want by going in the low input and then getting dirt just from the pedal? Anyone else use a Marshall with the low input?

I believe that Scott from Kowloon has done this w/ a 70s JMP 2203 head.

My amplifier isn't a JCM800, but it is one of the early JCM900s (Mk III) that is, as I understand it, basically just an 800 with a master volume and a secondary solid-state preamp gain knob added (which I never use). It only has one input, so I use a simple volume pedal at the head end of the chain - right after my tuner and gate - to drop the input for "cleans." I made it with two jacks, a true bypass switch, and a potentiometer. It works quite well, almost like a distortion pedal. Sending a Rat into this signal chain smooths out some of the barfier sounds that tend to make it sound flat and gutless when sent into a "clean" channel, and I can bring the input volume back up if I feel like creating a complete mess.

I do not know. However, if you feed it an SG via a dimed HM2 or your rat then you will have the sound of the 80s/early 90s Australian underground.

Owen wrote: Tue May 25, 2021 2:18 pm I got an 1983 2204 about 9 months ago and totally fell in love with it. I had another one in the 90s but stupidly sold it. It is great to have one of these again, dead simple, plug into the high input and its rock n roll all day and night. Juice it with a TS or a RAT depending on the situation. I have always just plugged into the high input, but with what I am doing now (not just straight out rock) I am finding it hard to clean up with my just my volume knob.

I can get the clean I want by going in the low input and then getting dirt just from the pedal? Anyone else use a Marshall with the low input?

It depends on the level of the pickups in your guitar and where you set the drive knob, but I've always been able to get a pretty clean sound with guitar volume knob with my preferred settings.

I would suggest using the high input with lower gain settings on the amp and then a boost or drive pedal for a "more" setting. This is because the low gain imput can hafe a weird impedance reaction with your guitar or whatever your input circuit is. For me, it never sounds "right".

But hey, there's no wrong in tone. If you like it, it's good!

I have a JCM 2204, so pretty much the same amp. Such a versatile amp. I personally think the low input sounds great for clean, but I mostly use mine in the high gain input with both volumes in the 5-6 area depending on pickups (I'm mostly Fender single coils). I roll off volume for cleaner some and it works fine, though I have much better luck with that using a rangemaster clone or fuzz face clone. For me it's a compromise. I plug into high and dial in something just barely less gainy than AC/DC and use a pedal for more, or roll off a little on the volume knob for less.

I think you'll run into impedance loading issues if you plug into both inputs, even if you're using an A/B box but I haven't tried it on the Marshall.

tommy wrote: Fri May 28, 2021 2:02 pm I think you'll run into impedance loading issues if you plug into both inputs, even if you're using an A/B box but I haven't tried it on the Marshall.

Nah, plugging into both inputs wont do anything, its an either/or situation. These use switched input jacks and the chain goes:

high input > gain stage 1 > low input > gain stage 2 etc

If you plug into the high input then the low input remains closed, thus your signal goes into gain stage one then gain stage 2.

If you plug into the low input you open the terminals on the jack which interrupts the signal after the first gain stage. Any signal going through the high input would be cutoff.

I have a JCM 800 head that wasn't my main deal, but had to be when my other amp was stolen.

I needed something with clean headroom so I could do dynamics and overdrive changes with pedals and was plugging into the low sensitivity jack, using the input volume to keep the headroom and the master volume for what it does.

Something never felt right from the amp with it set that way. I could make it louder or quieter, you could hear a change from my overdrive and boost pedals, but it just seemed lackluster. Recording a dirty rhythm guitar part, I skipped the overdrive pedal and put everything at noon and plugged into the high sensitivity jack and suddenly there were mids there that I hadn't been hearing. Also it's the loudest fucking thing ever.

I know plenty of people who feel that a Marshall is a solid pedal platform, but I don't love it. You could try the other way and instead of cleaning up with your volume knob you could use a volume pedal to dial back. Or the J Mascis trick of using some kind of gain pedal (I use an eq) to actually cut gain and clean up your signal, so that that turning the pedal off lights the amp up to your desired saturated signal.

Thanks everyone for all the ideas. I ended up just dialing the preamp down some and really turning up the TS + Rat. I got an EGC with a pretty hot bridge pickup, but this gets me to where I am pretty happy.

Again, just loving the shit out of this amp. I get why it is "the standard" for a certain rock sound in my head.