Guitar
The first gear review and video I ever put together was to do with the Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix fuzz, which you can read here. I pointed out that these fuzz units had been deemed problematic, nay, even unusable. Well, heck, I bought this one back in 1989 and threw it into a drawer after one rehearsal, but this was before the day when we all talk about input impedence and have booster pedals to deal with such issues. After lying fallow for nearly twenty years, the JH-2 finally found it's purpose as I have gradually rediscovered my inner sonic terrorist in the last few years.
The first thing you've got to know about this bad-boy is that it is a poorly thought out Fuzz Face semi-re-ish that employs whatever transistors were lying about at the time, with little modification to the basic circuit - and the transistors put out nearly fifty times the gain as those they replaced. This makes the JH-2 both unwieldy and awesome; the secret is to turn your guitar's tone pot down to nothing so the fuzz's harmonics can dominate. If you don't attenuate your tone the fuzz has a little battle with the signal and the whole thing folds in on itself resulting in a dark, dull, dying tone. Roll that sucker back and be rewarded with crazed harmonic grunge! This thing is like five Fuzz Faces hooked up in series.
Honestly, it makes my new Fuzz Factory clone sound a bit trite and conservative (!). For my money, I've rarely encountered a fuzz that was so excellent for creating textures, each note constantly evolving through harmonic envelopes as it sustains. And although the back-plate text suggests one should use a fresh battery or a power supply, the JH-2 sounds and feels best with a near-dead dollar-store cell.
In the last demo, I concentrated on the JH-2's direct-recorded sounds. For this demo I wanted to check it out through two different heads and focus on the amplified tones and textures on offer. I used my Garnet stencil head and my Jet City JCA20h heads through my Carvin 4x10 cabinet, employing different eq settings and mic placement for each take. I used my '62 Kay Speed Demon for one track of open G tuned grunge and otherwise used my '93 Gibson ES335 for everything else (various pickup and tone knob settings). The bass is a cheapo Squier Jazz and was run through the same rig (including the fuzz, set to minimum). I had a rare bit of privacy around the house (read: landlord's family), so I was able to amplify, but only at the most polite of volumes. Even still, the tone was very much alive and each note interacts with the fuzzes wildly exaggerated harmonic spectrum; this thing will generate feedback recorded direct(!), let alone at living room volumes.
Given my usual time limitations, I worked pretty fast to compose and record this (less than two hours), and ended up with a Jesus-and-Mary-Chain-meets-J.-Mascis kinda' vibe which is a pretty honest representation of my formative fuzz gods. Hope you enjoy.
- Pedal Time! 1967 Vox Tone Bender
guitarz.blogspot.com Another great vintage fuzz pedal (yes, I'm quite into pedals lately, and mostly in fuzz boxes), the Vox Tone Bender. Even more than in the field of early electric guitars, the dawn of effect pedal is both full of myths...
- My ,uh, Funky Fuzz Factory Clone.
Fuzz Factory clone: note the radically cross-threaded DC jack...oh, dear. I've been fearing writing this article, because having this built for me turned into a bit of a nightmare; the builder, who will remain nameless in this piece, took...
- Ephemera And Updates
Garnet Stencil head. 4x10 open-back cabinet comes this week! Lookout Vancouver! Hello everybody. Once again I have let a significant period of time go by without posting anything new. I know how much this makes me crazy when I'm...
- Joe Gore Pedals Codpiece: The Embiggener
What's in a name? A hell of a lot, it would seem... There's nothing quite like receiving a package that you've been waiting for, semi-patiently anticipating the joyous christmas-morning like rush of tearing open a parcel containing...
- The Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Jh-2 Fuzz
The much maligned JH-2 fuzz Here's one for the fuzz-heads and guitar-geeks! I offer for your edification, the Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix Fuzz, considered by many to be the steaming doggie coil of the fuzziverse. I purchased this stunning...
Guitar
Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix fuzz, revisited.
 |
| Much maligned and misunderstood, the Dunlop JH-2 just needs a little patience and understanding.... |
The first gear review and video I ever put together was to do with the Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix fuzz, which you can read here. I pointed out that these fuzz units had been deemed problematic, nay, even unusable. Well, heck, I bought this one back in 1989 and threw it into a drawer after one rehearsal, but this was before the day when we all talk about input impedence and have booster pedals to deal with such issues. After lying fallow for nearly twenty years, the JH-2 finally found it's purpose as I have gradually rediscovered my inner sonic terrorist in the last few years.
 |
| Not yer' cork-sniffer's transistors: wildly overamped, and fully capable of gonzo. |
Honestly, it makes my new Fuzz Factory clone sound a bit trite and conservative (!). For my money, I've rarely encountered a fuzz that was so excellent for creating textures, each note constantly evolving through harmonic envelopes as it sustains. And although the back-plate text suggests one should use a fresh battery or a power supply, the JH-2 sounds and feels best with a near-dead dollar-store cell.
 |
| I love the backwards in/out jacks...Holy counterintuitive, Batman! |
In the last demo, I concentrated on the JH-2's direct-recorded sounds. For this demo I wanted to check it out through two different heads and focus on the amplified tones and textures on offer. I used my Garnet stencil head and my Jet City JCA20h heads through my Carvin 4x10 cabinet, employing different eq settings and mic placement for each take. I used my '62 Kay Speed Demon for one track of open G tuned grunge and otherwise used my '93 Gibson ES335 for everything else (various pickup and tone knob settings). The bass is a cheapo Squier Jazz and was run through the same rig (including the fuzz, set to minimum). I had a rare bit of privacy around the house (read: landlord's family), so I was able to amplify, but only at the most polite of volumes. Even still, the tone was very much alive and each note interacts with the fuzzes wildly exaggerated harmonic spectrum; this thing will generate feedback recorded direct(!), let alone at living room volumes.
Given my usual time limitations, I worked pretty fast to compose and record this (less than two hours), and ended up with a Jesus-and-Mary-Chain-meets-J.-Mascis kinda' vibe which is a pretty honest representation of my formative fuzz gods. Hope you enjoy.
- Pedal Time! 1967 Vox Tone Bender
guitarz.blogspot.com Another great vintage fuzz pedal (yes, I'm quite into pedals lately, and mostly in fuzz boxes), the Vox Tone Bender. Even more than in the field of early electric guitars, the dawn of effect pedal is both full of myths...
- My ,uh, Funky Fuzz Factory Clone.
Fuzz Factory clone: note the radically cross-threaded DC jack...oh, dear. I've been fearing writing this article, because having this built for me turned into a bit of a nightmare; the builder, who will remain nameless in this piece, took...
- Ephemera And Updates
Garnet Stencil head. 4x10 open-back cabinet comes this week! Lookout Vancouver! Hello everybody. Once again I have let a significant period of time go by without posting anything new. I know how much this makes me crazy when I'm...
- Joe Gore Pedals Codpiece: The Embiggener
What's in a name? A hell of a lot, it would seem... There's nothing quite like receiving a package that you've been waiting for, semi-patiently anticipating the joyous christmas-morning like rush of tearing open a parcel containing...
- The Dunlop Jimi Hendrix Jh-2 Fuzz
The much maligned JH-2 fuzz Here's one for the fuzz-heads and guitar-geeks! I offer for your edification, the Dunlop JH-2 Jimi Hendrix Fuzz, considered by many to be the steaming doggie coil of the fuzziverse. I purchased this stunning...