The JHS Rock Boxes can make DIing the electric guitar and bass guitar very straightforward, so how well do they work in practice?

Since the Tom Scholtz 'Rockman' arrived on the scene a few years ago, there have been a fair number of similar compact multi-effects units available to carry on the trend. The advantages of this type of unit are many and various. As a tool for practising those hot licks and fast runs at home without annoying neighbours by cranking up the Marshall it's invaluable. In the studio it can save a lot of time by enabling you to plug your guitar directly into the desk and know that you're going to get a decent sound straight away, with the added bonus of stereo if you want it. Not having to lug amps, pedals and lots of leads about also makes it a popular buy and for those of us who don't like to wear headphones whilst recording. It also means you can monitor on the studio speakers when the unit is DId into the desk.

So those are the advantages. Granted, the resulting sound is not everybody's cup of tea, and there's no way that any of these units sound like that good old valve amp being thrashed, but to many people the sounds available are of high enough quality and sufficiently versatile. Most of these units have a simple compressor, chorus, delay, a variety of clean sounds, and varying amounts of distortion. In this respect, this new unit from JHS is no exception, but it does offer significantly more options to the user than it's Mk 1 version.

Controls

Measuring about 13cm x 16cm x 4½cm, the metal casing is coloured black with a clear yellow legend. The Main and Auxiliary Inputs are mounted on the front panel and accept standard ¼" jacks as indeed do the stereo and mono outputs. No surprises there. The headphone output is a stereo mini-jack (headphones are supplied) and you can also use this as an output to the desk. The Aux input is really designed for an instrument that will work at line level, such as a synth. Using it with other instruments results in a vast discrepancy in levels. You don't get the effects on this channel either.

Moving from left to right along the panel we find two pushbuttons which activate the delay and chorus functions. Each has a clear status LED: red for delay and green for chorus. Curiously, there is a depth control for the delay but not for the chorus. In a recording situation, however, you're much more likely to switch the delay off in favour of a separate DDL, as the internal one has a rather limited bandwidth and lacks a delay time control. However, for personal practice the internal delay is great for adding a bit of depth to the sound when you're using the headphones.

The stereo chorus in the unit is much more useful in a studio situation although I tended to find the right hand side a little over-modulated at times and this is where the addition of a depth control would have been a bonus.

Moving on, a 6-position selector switch gives the following sounds: A440 tuning tone, Normal Sound, Clean 1, Clean 2, Overdrive and Distortion. All have some sort of treble boost and the Normal setting is the least affected, giving quite a smooth, rounded tone while the other two get progressively brighter resulting in a fresh 'zingy' sound on Clean 2 - great for Strats in the out of phase position!

Overdrive and Distortion

The Overdrive setting has the gritty, aggressive quality of a rhythm guitar. One of the problems I've experienced with all units of this nature is a slight modulation distortion on Overdrive and lead Distortion sounds, but once the sound is embedded in the track it isn't very noticeable, and the JHS compares favourably with it's more expensive rivals in this respect. The Overdrive setting also has a fair amount of distortion on it and it's down to personal taste whether you'd want this much for rhythm guitar. You can get round this though, by DIing the straight sound from the guitar into the desk using a splitter, and mixing it with the JHS Overdrive until you achieve a good balance. For lead sounds the Distortion setting is very good and with the help of the compressor the result is a rich sustain, especially on guitars with humbucking pick-ups.

Output level is governed by a slider with the legend 0-8 and I should think you'd normally run it at about 6, which is plenty for most desks. On the right hand side panel are two small pots for Gain and Compression. The Gain alters the input level before the compressor and so will obviously affect the amount of compression you have. Sometimes these units have too fast an attack on the compression with the result that if you give the guitar a good hard strum there's a drop in volume at the start of the chord and the dynamics are lost. Fortunately, the JHS unit does not suffer from this problem even with compression and gain on full.

Side Panel

Standard ¼" jack send and return sockets are provided on the unit and this is an excellent idea for both studio and live use to patch in a DDL for instance, or a different chorus. Next to this a footswitch socket accepts a mono jack and allows you to alternate between the Normal and Lead Distortion, or between the Clean 1 or Clean 2 settings and the rhythm overdrive. This is another unexpected bonus on a unit in this price range.

Power is supplied by eight 1.5V batteries. The long life ones are the best to get and a gauge of battery wear is given by a flashing LED on the front panel which winks fastest with full strength batteries. You can also use a mains supply; however it's not a readily available type because the unit accepts a ±6V power supply from a stereo minijack input. It's always worth getting a mains supply for a multi-effects unit because they devour batteries fairly quickly. JHS supply a suitable power supply.

Conclusions

Firstly this unit may not be as cheap as it's predecessor, but it offers a lot more in terms of sound quality and extras. Furthermore, it's not as noisy as it's more expensive counterparts, particularly the old Rockman One series, and was especially quiet on the undistorted settings. When you switch to overdrive it naturally gets noisier, but then all units of this type do, and no more so than an amp with compression, chorus and distortion.

I've used an almost identical unit bought in Germany, marketed under a different name for about a year now, in fact I'm pretty certain it was made in the same factory as the JHS units and that has proved to be useful for both demos at home and professional sessions in the most demanding circumstances. The JHS Rock Box has the same basic format as my unit but with added extras and it certainly lived up to expectations. The clean sounds are versatile, ranging from mellow to bright. Delay, chorus and compression work well, and of the two distorted presets the lead is very good. You can run the Rock Box straight into an amp and with careful use of EQ get a reasonable sound. The extras of Aux input, effect send and return, and footswitch control represent real value for money and you get all this for the price of a secondhand 75W combo. No contest.

And now a similar unit designed solely for bass players: the JHS Bass Box

Lets kick off with a look at the control topography. With the same dimensions as it's sister unit, the Bass Box also has a front panel with a similar basic format as the Rock Box. Inputs, Outputs, Send and Return sockets all accept ¼" jacks except for the headphone output which needs a mini stereo jack. Output level is again governed by a sliding potentiometer and the Bass Box requires the same voltage to operate.

The chorus has the luxury of a depth control and is probably the same as the Rock Box with a fast modulation on the left and a slow on the right. To get at the depth control you need a small screwdriver and the same is true of the Hi Frequency EQ pot.

A 6-position switch gives you an A at 220Hz as well as a selection of different EQ settings: Direct, Bright, Mid, Fat, and Distortion, which should be enough to cater for all tastes.

JHS have really gone to town on the compression in the Bass Box, correctly judging it to be an important part of any serious player's set up these days.

There are three compression controls; one is a 3-position switch bearing the legend Sustain which can be set to short or long, the second is an actual compressor on/off switch with an attendant red LED, and the third a Clipper switch, also with a red LED.

The Clipper works in conjunction with the compressor and its effect is to add slight emphasis to the attack of each note. It sounds as though it reduces the attack time of the compressor, but I'm only guessing on that score.

In Use

The compression turned out to be something of a disappointment. Although there's a compression switch, a large degree of compression is present whether this switch is on or off, and in fact the difference between the two switch positions is minimal. The main variations are introduced by the 3-position slide switch. The attack is much too fast with the result that not only is there a dip in volume when a note is played hard, but it also loses all the treble. The Hi-frequency control can be set to lessen the effect of this treble loss but only goes a part of the way to repairing the damage. The compressor is basically a high quality circuit using a DBX 2252 VCA but is limited by its lack of user-variable parameters.

A variety of tones are available but I found that I was having to adjust the Hi-frequency EQ for each one, Mid, Fat and Bright. This control was in such constant use that I felt it deserved a control knob in its own right rather than the screwdriver preset.

When used with the headphones provided, the sound is quite flattering, bearing in mind the lack of real bottom end.

Conclusions

I don't think that this unit is quite as well designed as the Rock Box, due to the inflexibility of the compression section. The over-compression problem annoyed everyone who tried it. With some instruments it works well enough, but with others it is quite ill-matched: active basses presenting the biggest problem. However, to its credit, it does offer a wide range of preset sounds with a variable high frequency EQ, and a decent stereo chorus with a depth control. The circuitry is quiet enough for recording use so its suitability depends entirely on how it sounds with your instrument and your playing style.

The JHS Rock Box Mk2 costs £149 including VAT, and the Bass Box, £189 including VAT.

Further information is available from: John Hornby Skewes, (Contact Details).