Bought a Marshall

[gwEm]

Not sure on how the high and low jacks are wired but I just thought maybe you could plug your guitar into an A/B footswitch then a cable into each input so you can easily switch between clean and overdriven?

yes, i thought this would be a nice idea too.

but if you check the schematic you can see that if anything is connected to the "high" input this disconnects the "low" input from the circuit.
http://mhuss.com/MyJCM/JCM800_2204.gif

now, it should be possible to modify those inputs to do what you suggest. but if you try one of these amps you'll notice the gain of the "low" input is alot lower than the "high". You couldn't just A/B - you'd need to knock the master volume up at the same time.

i guess your laney is a bit more versatile about this sort of thing (doesn't it have some kind of "gain boost" switch?) and it would be interesting to compare the tone.

[stuckin93]

it dosent work like that, the low imput & high imput have about the same overall gain, just voiced different (unless my ears are completly shot after these years in a small room with a drummer!) i use an a/b pedal but just to give me a different sound & when the amp is cranked its just a frequency thning as both high & low are singing overdrive. at low volumes it seems to be low sensitivity is cleaner, but anythnig past 12 o clock & they even out. any lets face it - old marshalls need to be played wound up (i play through a hot plate so i can get some tube saturation at more reasonable volumes the amp does clean up with a volume roll off - you might need to mod your guitar with a treble bleed if you dont like the resuilt

[gwEm]

stuckin93: you must have the older version of the 2204 circuit. my amp had this too, before i changed it. you're right - in this case the overall gain was roughly the same with different voicing (i think the low input more bassy?)

my input is now like a jcm800, and i think lazyninja too, unless i'm mistaken. it has a more gain than the old circuit, but on the otherhand its less transparent.

circuit looks like this:
http://www.drtube.com/schematics/marshall/2204u.gif

as you say - high and low inputs totally independant.

i spent hours researching this amp - its my baby :))

[stuckin93]

mine is a '76 with small white logo if that helps place the circuits - & yeh low sensitivity is bass biased.

[gwEm]

thanks for the info! that is pretty interesting

[LazyNinja]

My low input has nowhere near the gain of the high input.. Even cranked up. Say, if I set up the low input with gain 12 oclock and master all the way up, it's still pretty low gain. If I then changed the input, well, I guess I'll probably have a heart attack from the volume.  :lol: I never tried the low input before it started playing up so I dont know if it's actualy meant to be like that. Oh yeah and I tried changing the preamp tubes but it didnt help. I guess the problem is either the power tubes or summat else. I dunno

I'd like to take back what I said about the Musicground. They are still pricey but they got the Rocker 30 in from London for me and they said I could take it to a rehearsal before I commit to buying it. I've already tried it but I wasnt too impressed, at least with the volume at ~3. Might have been the cheap Epiphone LP. Then the guy said take it home and play it louder :twisted: Top guys. Cant wait til saturday when I get to do that. If I still dont like it then I guess it'll be a Laney VH100R but they dont have one so I cant try.

[_tom_]

Laney VH100R seem really versatile, listen to this clip posted by someone on Harmony Central -

http://lucaonida.googlepages.com/Laneyprova3.mp3

If its anything like a GH50L then its perfect for british crunch. I posted a couple of quick clips of my GH50L in the Players forum, not amazing quality because I've only just started recording with a mic, but they give you the general idea.