JCM 2000 DSL 100 - a few findings, EQ tips

[GuitarIV]

Had rehearsal yesterday and I was in love with my tone. Like for the first time I really loved what I heard and I could spot myself sitting in the band mix perfectly.

What has changed?

Two things: first of all the cabinet. So far I was using another guitar players Marshall 1960 412 with the G12T-75s (which I despise with all of my heart and soul). He moved recently and took the cab with him. So my other guitarist loaned me his ENGL 412 Standard Cab with the Celestion V60 speakers that are being produced solely for the ENGL Standard Cabs.

The other thing that changed was my OD pedal. I replaced my Boss SD-1 with a KHDK Ghoul Jr.

Now I believe that the OD pedal was really less of a factor than the speaker cab, however I also played with my EQ settings a bit utilizing a trick I found in a YT video.

My biggest issue with the DSL 100 was always that it sounded way too trebly when you crank it. If you use speakers that emphasise the high end it gets even worse.

The ENGL cab helped to beef up the low end and low mids so I gained some body compared to the Marshall 412, the Celestion V60s are still scooped sounding speakers not so far away in character from the 75s, but I believe the bulkier construction of the ENGL made a difference.

Anyway I still had some annoying treble frequencies going on I only once really heard when I took my earplugs out. Ouch. You don't wanna pierce your audiences eardrums with that.

So what I did was this: I backed the treble control off to about 9 o'clock on the dial and used my presence control to fine tune the high end.

Bingo. I was left with a full cutting sound that sat well in the band mix but didn't pierce.


Now keep in mind I am using a fairly saturated tone, we play a lot of old school hard rock. I still have a lot of dynamics and can easily back off with my volume and tone controls, but this now does the trick for me:


Red channel, OD2 mode. I keep the gain on 9 o'clock, so 3 on the dial. This thickens up the character of your distortion but doesn't make it muddy because the gain control is set so low. Next up kick on your favourite OD pedal, I know people like to crank the volume control on these but I found keeping it at halfway with the gain control off or set at 9 o'clock gives you enough additional saturation without overpilling on the distortion. Tone control set to taste.

Now here's the crucial bit: crank your mids past 12 o'clock, this is your cut control, how well you sit in the mix. I keep the bass boost knob in the out position because it adds too much rumble (the newer DSLs have that fixed by having a dedicated resonance control), I keep the bass knob a little bit backed off, shy of 12 o'clock.

Turn your treble control almost all the way down. Use your presence knob to fine tune the high end.

Last bit: a chunky cabinet helps a lot.

Just wanted to share, maybe someone finds this useful. If you have any EQ tips for the DSL series, feel free to share. It's an underrated amp and it has its quirks, but I feel if you take the time to tinker it can hang with some of the best amps out there for a very low price. Especially if you buy used. I certainly had no problems anymore to keep up with my guitar players Powerball.

 

[BftGibson]

Cool..just scored DSL 50 last night will using it on 425a-1960bx-1960bv (first run gt75/vintage in X pattern)

 

[paul-e-mann]

Had rehearsal yesterday and I was in love with my tone. Like for the first time I really loved what I heard and I could spot myself sitting in the band mix perfectly.

What has changed?

Two things: first of all the cabinet. So far I was using another guitar players Marshall 1960 412 with the G12T-75s (which I despise with all of my heart and soul). He moved recently and took the cab with him. So my other guitarist loaned me his ENGL 412 Standard Cab with the Celestion V60 speakers that are being produced solely for the ENGL Standard Cabs.

The other thing that changed was my OD pedal. I replaced my Boss SD-1 with a KHDK Ghoul Jr.

Now I believe that the OD pedal was really less of a factor than the speaker cab, however I also played with my EQ settings a bit utilizing a trick I found in a YT video.

My biggest issue with the DSL 100 was always that it sounded way too trebly when you crank it. If you use speakers that emphasise the high end it gets even worse.

The ENGL cab helped to beef up the low end and low mids so I gained some body compared to the Marshall 412, the Celestion V60s are still scooped sounding speakers not so far away in character from the 75s, but I believe the bulkier construction of the ENGL made a difference.

Anyway I still had some annoying treble frequencies going on I only once really heard when I took my earplugs out. Ouch. You don't wanna pierce your audiences eardrums with that.

So what I did was this: I backed the treble control off to about 9 o'clock on the dial and used my presence control to fine tune the high end.

Bingo. I was left with a full cutting sound that sat well in the band mix but didn't pierce.


Now keep in mind I am using a fairly saturated tone, we play a lot of old school hard rock. I still have a lot of dynamics and can easily back off with my volume and tone controls, but this now does the trick for me:


Red channel, OD2 mode. I keep the gain on 9 o'clock, so 3 on the dial. This thickens up the character of your distortion but doesn't make it muddy because the gain control is set so low. Next up kick on your favourite OD pedal, I know people like to crank the volume control on these but I found keeping it at halfway with the gain control off or set at 9 o'clock gives you enough additional saturation without overpilling on the distortion. Tone control set to taste.

Now here's the crucial bit: crank your mids past 12 o'clock, this is your cut control, how well you sit in the mix. I keep the bass boost knob in the out position because it adds too much rumble (the newer DSLs have that fixed by having a dedicated resonance control), I keep the bass knob a little bit backed off, shy of 12 o'clock.

Turn your treble control almost all the way down. Use your presence knob to fine tune the high end.

Last bit: a chunky cabinet helps a lot.

Just wanted to share, maybe someone finds this useful. If you have any EQ tips for the DSL series, feel free to share. It's an underrated amp and it has its quirks, but I feel if you take the time to tinker it can hang with some of the best amps out there for a very low price. Especially if you buy used. I certainly had no problems anymore to keep up with my guitar players Powerball.

View attachment 65445

Glad to hear you found your sound! What I used to do with a DSL50 when I owned one to get the best sound was use greenback speakers and JJ KT77 power tubes and JJ 12AX7 preamp tubes, also had a TS9 style pedal on all the time set as a clean boost to pop the mids up on the amp across the board.

 

[Michael Roe]

My biggest tips for using a DSL are:
Never use OD2!
Set all tone controls to around noon or 11 to 1 for taste.
Set gain on OD1 to a little less than you think you need and compensate with more volume. If you need more gain then use a pedal.
Leave tone shift off.
Use Svetlana power tubes.
If the amp still sounds a little anemic, then put a BBE in the loop with the knobs at 1 O'clock. Before engaging BBE pull volume and gain down a notch.
The DSL has two channels but think of it as just a single ch amp and use OD1 only. If you need two channels for clean/dirty, get a JMP-1 and use DSL as a power amp.

 

[What?]

This is with a DSL-50. If you find that the green channel has too much low mids and mushiness, try this for a sort of classic hard rock sound. Gain at 6 or better, extra gain switch ON, volume to taste. Treat the presence and high controls as a pair for balancing the treble, at around 3. I prefer a little lower on the presence to dial away harsh glare when playing with a bright bridge humbucker (aiming for the warmer side). Also treat the mid and low controls as a pair for controlling that low mid hump. Start with them way down at around 1. Bring them up to no more than around 1.5-2 and balance to taste. Listen for any mushiness and boom and get them balanced out with just enough thickness. Try adding the mid shift switch if you aren't getting to where you want to be (getting rid of boxiness), which will require bringing the mid and low up a bit. And if the bottom still isn't quite fat enough, try engaging the low switch and rebalance the mid and low controls. What I get from this is a pretty thick and not too gainy hard rocking tone. I'm at around 5 on the volume.

What I have found with this amp is that dialing in sounds on it is not exactly intuitive. Definitely do exeriment with the full range of controls. It can get in the neighborhood of alot of different sounds, but finding them isn't exactly an easy process.

 

[What?]

The above eq range also works well on the red channel. I was just jamming on an old tune by The Saints and my settings were very roughly, deep on, eq [2, 2, 1, 2,] mid shift on, volume 8, gain below 1. Sounds meaty but not boomy, just cutting enough, bright top, more than enough gain, and about loud enough to rock it with a drummer. There is some very unintuitive range in this amp. It can do alot of things pretty well. Hell, I can make the thing sound nearly dead on to a good old Silvertone 1484 by using the green channel with the lows dialed way down. I definitely couldn't do that with my Fender amps.

Edit: Maybe what I thought was a Silvertone all these years was a Marshall DSL.

 

[Lukas]

My biggest tips for using a DSL are:
Never use OD2!
Set all tone controls to around noon or 11 to 1 for taste.
Set gain on OD1 to a little less than you think you need and compensate with more volume. If you need more gain then use a pedal.
Leave tone shift off.
Use Svetlana power tubes.
If the amp still sounds a little anemic, then put a BBE in the loop with the knobs at 1 O'clock. Before engaging BBE pull volume and gain down a notch.
The DSL has two channels but think of it as just a single ch amp and use OD1 only. If you need two channels for clean/dirty, get a JMP-1 and use DSL as a power amp.

Haha And this is for what kind of music? If you wanna play some ballsy metallica I’d use O.D 2 and the tone shift... I have and it sounds great.

 

[Lukas]

 

[Lukas]

Tube screamer set as such and knobs on head set as such and it’s a metal monster. If your playing rock I wouldn’t set it like this of course but just saying OD2 can sound awesome also.

 

[What?]

There are no rules with this amp (or any amp). Utilize all controls according to your ears. One thing I have noted to myself, as alluded to above, is that bringing the entire eq range way down or way up can pretty drastically change the sound of this amp, as it does with other amps. Try setting all eq to around 1, adjust for balance, adjust for volume and gain, then adjust eq more for preference. Try the same thing with all eq starting around 5, and the same with all eq starting around 10. You can get different sorts of sounds that way. And do try the mid shift and 'boom' buttons, adjusting eq to balance out what those buttons do. And try both the green and red channels with these different eq ranges, with and without the gain boosts. Compare what you hear to various tones on recordings that you like. This amp can get in the neighborhood of lots of sounds (and nail some tones). The general sound quality could be more focused, tighter, and less boxy, but it is still a cool amp and very versatile. And volume changes the sound drastically, as it does with any amp. Lower overall eq settings at higher volume will have less compression, and higher eq settings at higher volume will have more compression. This is NOT the most articulate amp that responds to touch response well. But in general, with moderate compression, touch response is in the sweet spot. At high compression, touch response goes down. And the higher the compression, the more things round out in the highs and the less dynamic the lows become. Any way, try playing lots of different things with this amp and explore it's controls. Maybe it does what you want, maybe not, maybe there are some surprises in there. But sticking to rules of don't use this control or that control isn't going to inform you on what this amp can do.

 

[Michael Roe]

Haha And this is for what kind of music? If you wanna play some ballsy metallica I’d use O.D 2 and the tone shift... I have and it sounds great.

I used the amp for Metallica, Megadeth, Judas Priest, AC/DC etc. Keep in mind though, that the BBE adds the balls. I don't currently own a JCM 2K DSL 100 but have owned several over the last 15 years. Currently have a JCM 2k DSL 50. I noticed in your pic you have the Vietnam made DSL 100. Maybe that one is voiced a bit different? I do have the DSL 20 and it doesn't sound exactly like a JCM 2k version. Keep in mind though that with Marshall amps the player/pups/guitar can make quite a big difference.

 

[Lukas]

I used the amp for Metallica, Megadeth, Judas Priest, AC/DC etc. Keep in mind though, that the BBE adds the balls. I don't currently own a JCM 2K DSL 100 but have owned several over the last 15 years. Currently have a JCM 2k DSL 50. I noticed in your pic you have the Vietnam made DSL 100. Maybe that one is voiced a bit different? I do have the DSL 20 and it doesn't sound exactly like a JCM 2k version. Keep in mind though that with Marshall amps the player/pups/guitar can make quite a big difference.

Pickups make a huge difference yes. I find myself playing my SG with passives less and less, for metal anyway. It sounds wimpy compared to emg’s. I own the DSL 40CR also and I’d say it’s voiced similar to the 100H. The 100H isn’t mine it’s my buddies I installed all new tubes and biased it. But after I was done I put the tube screamer out front, dialed it in very similar to my 40 and it sounded mint. I do own a JVM also but that’s completely different than the DSL’s and every knob is set differently than the DSL. The thing that surprised me on my buddies older 100H is the lack of a master volume. I found just the volume very very sensitive. Went from quiet to literally ear piercing loud in the house. My JVM and 40CR I run the masters at 1/2 so noon and dial the volume from there and it’s not so touchy. Still a wicked head tho the 100H. I do have a short clip after biasing it but still can’t figure out the easiest way to post a damn vid, and I’m not even a geezer lol.