A Guitar And Gear Support Forum

Picked up a Roland JC-120 on the local used market yesterday. Probably paid more than I should have all things considered, but I was listening to some sound clips of some much better players than I playing through one and started to covet and look for one for the last couple of weeks.

This particular one has seen some shit in its time; it looks a little rough but that doesn't bother me. Based on the serial it looks like it's a 1985. Speakers are not stock, minimal research indicates that they're Pioneers of unknown vintage, probably just some stereo system woofers from the 80's. They sound pretty good, not sure if it'd be worth trying to swap them out with some other hyper-clean speakers or trying to track down some replacement OEM Roland ones.

So my history with solid state amps is generally not very good. I had a Katana 50 that I didn't like and sold, I had a Mustang that I didn't like and sold, I have a Spark which is okay but I rarely use, I had a Champ XD which I actually quite liked and probably shouldn't have sold but I did, had an old 70s Peavey Deuce which didn't really work and which I wound up scrapping and turning into an open back 1x15 cab, and a bunch of acoustic amps. I also have a vintage Roland Blues Cube which I bought in a moment of panic when I thought tubes might be hard to come by but which sees very little use too.

One of the acoustic amps is a Roland Acoustic Chorus AC-100, which I actually quite like. The only problem with it is that when I used it for our jams the XLR output was too noisy. I wound up getting a Fishman Performer and using that instead although I still have the AC-100 upstairs if I want to play acoustic amplified in my room for some reason (which I almost never do). I liked the way that amp sounded though, and I especially liked the stereo chorus with the three speakers in it. That, and it's reputation as a rare well-respected solid state amplifier made me curious about the JC-120, and listening to some really good players playing through them made me covet one.

So I got this one. It's got some minor issues. Cosmetically it looks pretty rough although I've seen worse. The back panel wasn't really attached, I am gluing some new little side pieces of wood on to reattach it although it's not really a functional piece except that all the back panel labels are printed on it. The tolex is a little scuffed and the grill cloth is intact but a little dirty, all the metal is tarnished.

Turning it on though and it's what I had hoped: Mega-clean and the stereo chorus and tremolo both sound lush/wide and great. It's not as loud as I expected for such a large and high-wattage amp, I'm wondering if that's the fault of the speakers (it caps out maybe a little over 100db, which might not be loud enough with our drummer although I'll be mic'ing it through the PA anyway so I guess it's not a huge deal). But yeah I know SS amps aren't as loud as tube ones, but I feel like that 50W Katana was louder than this one). It is weird though with a decibel meter to see how distortion tricks your ear into thinking it's louder: The more distorted something is the more loud it sounds even if it's not, with the fuzz on and real fuzzy ~90dB sounds louder than 100db clean.

Hopefully it doesn't fall apart on me. I'm also wondering if I could have just used the AC-100 as my clean electric amp. It doesn't have tremolo but I probably won't use that that much anyway, and it does have chorus and reverb (with some more options as to intensity, the JC-120's is just on or off for the chorus). It also has a vocal channel and the JC-120 just has a boring channel 1 with no FX (and there's actual some kind of circuit problem with that one on this amp that causes some gross digital distortion at high volume so I'm sure I'll never use that channel).

Anyway, here she is in all her glory.

Happy new old amp day!

For two short years, I had a 1983 and a 1986 Roland JC120. I'd use he '86 for small gigs and both for larger rooms (like Princeton University's athletic complex).

I equate these amps to a big blank canvas - what comes in, goes out. The exception is when you kick on the chorus and reverb, which is lush. The downside to me was, they sounded bad when things need to be loud and I traded mine for a brand new 1987 Marshall 2523 (small head 50w) and two non-matching Marshall 4x12's loaded with Clestion Classic Lead 80's. I still have my top cab to this day.

andrewsrea wrote: ↑Fri Aug 18, 2023 11:14 am Happy new old amp day!

For two short years, I had a 1983 and a 1986 Roland JC120. I'd use he '86 for small gigs and both for larger rooms (like Princeton University's athletic complex).

I equate these amps to a big blank canvas - what comes in, goes out. The exception is when you kick on the chorus and reverb, which is lush. The downside to me was, they sounded bad when things need to be loud and I traded mine for a brand new 1987 Marshall 2523 (small head 50w) and two non-matching Marshall 4x12's loaded with Clestion Classic Lead 80's. I still have my top cab to this day.

Yeah, I think if I had to choose only one amp this wouldn't be it, it's kind of a one-trick pony. That'd probably it'd be the AC-15 or one of the Twins. But I am eager to see how it does in a band setting and how I can use that sparkling clean and also to see how well it works with my pedals compared to the other amps.