apierz
Active member
- Build Rating
I Love Dead & Company and among Mayer fans few pedals have been subject to as much speculation as his JHS Box It Later. Pretty much anything else he has put on his board has been ID'ed and is clonable/obtainable (if at an inflated price) but a Dumble circuit that had never been officially confirmed had remained a mystery until recently. I was super stoked to get this PCB and slightly less stoked to discover its not much more than an op-amp boost with an effects loop.
On its own: Without anything in the loop, its a fine enough boost. Unlike the Fumble boost, I didn't notice a change in feel or sound between the two knobs. This isn't too surprising since they are just sitting on opposite ends of the effects loop with one controlling how much of the first op-amp gain stage makes in into the loop and the other how much of the signal goes to the second, bigger op-amp stage. JHS says the input should have an effect on impedance, and thus some changes to the tone in addition to volume, but it wasn't noticeable to my ear. One is a B2K and one an A100K so I guess you have some finer grain control with one over the other.
With an overdrive in the loop: One of the ways Mayer is speculated to use his A Box Later is to have one of his TS10s in the effects loop to get a different sound. I tried it with an 808 clone, but putting it in the effects loop wasn't doing anything noticeably different than just using the gain and volume knobs on the 808. I suppose if max gain and max volume on an overdrive isn't enough for you, this can raise the ceiling for both.
Modulation/Time effects in the loop: probably more useful to more people would be to use it as an effects loop with effects that don't have their own volume controls. I tried it with a chorus pedal and a reverb and it can definitely get those effects to whatever volume you need. That isn't something I need, but I can see it being useful to someone who wants to turn on a bunch of effects at once and/or adjust their volume quickly.
Build:
Five stars for the PCB, one star for my build. I ordered my enclosure from Tayda right away and used the original build docs to make my drill template. That version had the side jack holes in the wrong place and, never having done a side jack enclosure before, I didn't notice something was off until it arrived. I had to do some very ugly things to get it boxed up with the send and receive jacks. I included a gut shot, but I am not proud of it. The current version of the build docs looks like they have corrected the error.
There are boosts I like better, but the build isn't too difficult, the parts aren't hard to find, and an effects loop with volume controls on either side might be something you need.
On its own: Without anything in the loop, its a fine enough boost. Unlike the Fumble boost, I didn't notice a change in feel or sound between the two knobs. This isn't too surprising since they are just sitting on opposite ends of the effects loop with one controlling how much of the first op-amp gain stage makes in into the loop and the other how much of the signal goes to the second, bigger op-amp stage. JHS says the input should have an effect on impedance, and thus some changes to the tone in addition to volume, but it wasn't noticeable to my ear. One is a B2K and one an A100K so I guess you have some finer grain control with one over the other.
With an overdrive in the loop: One of the ways Mayer is speculated to use his A Box Later is to have one of his TS10s in the effects loop to get a different sound. I tried it with an 808 clone, but putting it in the effects loop wasn't doing anything noticeably different than just using the gain and volume knobs on the 808. I suppose if max gain and max volume on an overdrive isn't enough for you, this can raise the ceiling for both.
Modulation/Time effects in the loop: probably more useful to more people would be to use it as an effects loop with effects that don't have their own volume controls. I tried it with a chorus pedal and a reverb and it can definitely get those effects to whatever volume you need. That isn't something I need, but I can see it being useful to someone who wants to turn on a bunch of effects at once and/or adjust their volume quickly.
Build:
Five stars for the PCB, one star for my build. I ordered my enclosure from Tayda right away and used the original build docs to make my drill template. That version had the side jack holes in the wrong place and, never having done a side jack enclosure before, I didn't notice something was off until it arrived. I had to do some very ugly things to get it boxed up with the send and receive jacks. I included a gut shot, but I am not proud of it. The current version of the build docs looks like they have corrected the error.
There are boosts I like better, but the build isn't too difficult, the parts aren't hard to find, and an effects loop with volume controls on either side might be something you need.
