I've been looking for an amp to go with my latest guitar, a Schecter. Recently I came across the Roland for sale and was wondering if I can get a few personal comments/reviews on it. Just playing on it is sweet. Clean, clean, CLEAN! I mean, this is so clean you would hate to even plug in distortion...its that clean. Seems like a great amp for all types of music, but especially for more precise playing of the guitar. Which is why I think the Schecter and this Roland would make a perfect match. The effects channel is great...but the distortion leaves me wanting more. I will probably get some dist.effect pedal to satisfy my "Smoke On The Water" memories. The owner said he can at least date it to 1989 and is asking $475 (I think he'll take $400) but said it's worth about $800 Anybody care to comment? Thanks in advance. RocketRaccoon
Go for it -- these are some of the best amps for the money(IMHO), especially for Jazz/R&B. If you need to dirty up the sound, just pick up a stomp box (I use the Boss OD-3)
They're very clinical sounding - maybe even cold to some ears. Unless you use an amp modeling system as a preamp, you're never going to get a warm, round sound out of them. And unless you get a high quality pedal, the distortion sounds will be ****e. I hear a lot of people talk about them being used for Jazz, but most of the great jazz guitar tones you hear today are either Polytone Minibrutes or custom Walter Woods amps. When I think of the Roland Jazz Chorus, I think of the clean sounds in metal bands (the opening of "One" by Metallica is your classic Jazz Chorus sound) and the tingly rhythm sounds you hear in R&B and pop. $475 is a decent deal, but I'd want to know more about the kind of music you're playing before I'd say yes or no.
great amp - the on-board distortion is the only weakness, but thats not what you are buying it for anyway. its all about the tone and to a lesser extent the chorus/reverb. i have a jazz chorus 50 - same as the 120, but w/ 1 12" speaker instead of 2. as far as solid state amps in that price range, the tone is top-notch. i also have a bassman (best tone ever!) and a fender princeton chorus, which is basically the fender version of the jazz chorus. $400 - $450 is a very fair price as long as there are no issues w/ it.
i worry about used amps because i bought an used one for 300 bucks only to have to blow up on me 3 months later. shop would not fix it for free. so i had to gut it and made it a cab. so now it's worth 100 bucks. make sure it still works fine. other than that, it's probably worth 400, not 475. get a boss gt-8 or boss gt-10. it's made for jc 120. it's great for the clean solid state amp tone.
I feel for your situation, but no shop will fix a used amp for free because it's not new or under any kind of warranty. Sold as is basically. Now if this was ebay, you could've put the screws to the seller and got your money back. That's why I'm so scared of selling some amps of mine on the bay. Buyers have all the power now if it were to break down through no fault of my own. I agree with everyone else here, $400 max and hope to god that it doesn't break down. As far as a distortion/overdrive pedal, I could give you a few opinions. What kind of distortion/overdrive sound would you be going for?
I guess I should have waited until this afternoon to start this thread. The wife came home for a break and we started talking, well I started talking about the amp and how it was sounding, telling her what I found on the web/youtube, opened a thread on CF, etc. when she said, "why research what you already own?" Damn, she bought the amp for me this morning. Damn, she can be pretty cool sometimes. Damn, damn, damn, damn...I just love my wife. Don't know what she paid, didn't ask. But the thing is, I've been looking for an amp for awhile (1yr) and this one turned up in our garage sale we had last weekend that we shared with a friend of hers. Her friend is a longtime local musician and has quite the rep, so I feel comfortable knowing it has history here in Denton. And if anything goes wrong, he'd be able to fix it. subtomic- yea. in my guitar seach thread I stated that I wanted to get back into the blues again thinking it was the genre that got me into the guitar in the first place. But as I have been playing more, I'm remembering that I can cover quite a few other genres. So, I don't know what style I'll be playing during my second stab at the guitar, but having this particular guitar and amp seems to be a safe, clean start. I'm sure there are enough pedals out there to craft a sound I'm looking for if need be. Thanks for your very objective view, appreciate it. Jayou- don't know as I'm just getting back into music and don't know what I'll be playing. Considering my age, I might just find a gig with a band that plays 60s music on a cruise. Thanks for all your comments. Fortunately for me my wife loves me faster than your replys! (face of a very happy man)
That's mighty cool of her. Mine bought me my Firebird, and that was one hell of a present. Yay for the ladies.
Yays for the ladys! Another thing: This amp has wheels! Maybe I've been out of the biz much to long and I'm showing my ignorance, but how cool is that? But wheels = something is heavy and this amp is. Who fricken cares? It has WHEELS!
Congrats on getting the amp. Nice surprise... I owned a JC 120 in the late 80's but eventually traded it for a tube amp cuz I couldn't get the crunchy rock sound I wanted. Of course we didn't have the wide assortment of pre-amps and pedals that are out there now. Gotta give the JC120 a solid thumbs up for clarity, dependability, EXCELLENT on board chorus, and gets damn loud too if ya need it.
Yeah its a nice amp. My friend has it. Nice variety of sounds after gets his pedal board hooked up. But like you were saying, the reason he bought it was for the cleanness of it. Sounds so good without distortion.
