HOG modded Jackhammer
Marshall Jackhammer JH-1 pedal Modded to a Hammer of God
If you have a Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer pedal, I can modify it to a Hammer of God Pedal for $65 not including shipping. The Hammer of God is the ultimate Rock distortion tone shaping pedal. Just check out what people are saying about the Hammer Of God Mod:
Initial review; Wow. Simply put, you made it sound great. OD is transparent, distortion is smooth/ natural and provides endless sustain at high setting on a clean amp. Endless EQing options intact this pedal is a motherfucker. It really is the jackhammer of the gods. Todd M.
Same Client with a more thorough review; The EQ is exactly the same as stock, it functions like a scalpel for reducing unwanted guitar/amp/tube/speaker frequencies, which is perfect.
Anyway - Today I'm playing a strat with an 18 watt Budda Twinmaster equipped with Amperex Mullard EL84s and a ceramic tone tubby 12" speaker. The amp sound is fantastic and your pedal works brilliantly. I'm setting the bass and treble knobs at zero or 1, and sweeping out a little low mids with the EQ. Your pedal is completely transparent and has plenty of boost. Kicking in the gain -the OD has a little more openness and grit and the dist has a nuanced, yet epic, singing sustain. In terms of color, both the od and distortion sounds work fantastic with a clean amp setting. They have staggering amounts of usability, range and flexibility. Honestly, this sounds like a $300 pedal. I'm pretty sure this just knocked my $250 Xotic Ac+ off the board (!). Dave, this is a fantastic accomplishment. Absolutely the Hammer of the Gods. Todd M.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dave,
I bought a HOG pedal from you at Zone Music's flea market. This thing is amazing.
My Telecaster never sounded better. Great work!
I play it through a VOX AC30 which sounded fine, but the tone I get now is so good
I can't play without it.
I'm thinking I should probably get a backup HOG from you. I'll probably
be in Petaluma on Sunday Nov. 22. Maybe I can pick one up from you then?
Herb M.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Amazing! The difference is stunning. From crushing distortion to singing sustain, I can't believe the improvement after the HOG mod. Thanks for turning this mediocre pedal into a tone monster!
Jeff Y.
Marshall Jackhammer a Bit of History
Stock Jackhammer JH-1
The Marshall jackhammer JH-1 foot pedal was released at the Winter NAMM 2006 intended by Marshall to emulate the sound of their JCM 800 or 2000 amps. It kind of worked but it also sucked the tone right out of any guitar you plugged into it. The concept for this pedal was not a bad idea, and it is made from high quality materials and parts.
But.... Marshall made a huge mistake in the way they designed the circuitry. In searching for that JCM sound they got blinded to what makes a good sounding distortion pedal in the first place. Sure you can get massive gain and scooped mids out of it but what good does that do if it sucks your tone (which it does un-mercifully). Marshall discontinued the pedal in early 2009 due to lack of demand. Nobody seems to miss this pedal too much.
Hammer Of God
Enter the Hammer of God (HOG) Mod.
I got my hands on a stock Jackhammer and was intrigued with its controls and apparent build quality but was sorely disappointed with its performance. The stock pedal has a versatile tone stack and a sweepable active notch filter that both work well. The problem was with the gain structure. I set out to make this pedal live up to its potential. With a little circuit hacking and switching out of a critical component, I cracked the conundrum wrapped in the enigma of the stock pedal unleashing viscious gain settings and impressive, pick sensitive responsiveness along with great tone. The difference between the stock Jackhammer and the HOG pedal is dramatic. With the HOG mod installed, you can adjust the volume and gain knobs to get the kind of response you would expect out of a high quality boutique gain/distortion pedal costing 3 times as much. Singing sustain, touch sensitivity, quality clean boost/overdrive, and massive distortion, it's all there. And the tone stack and active filter work better than ever. The active notch filter means you can focus the distortion throughout the mid and high ranges like a laser to get the tonal response your after. This lets the HOG modded Jackhammer emulate almost every pedal out there and its incredibly difficult to get a bad sound out of it. Since I've started doing these mods I've put the HOG head to head with dozens of high end boutique pedals and never come up short. The Hammer of God modded pedal can keep up with and/or surpass the best of them.
Details
The two modes on the stock JH-1 are the distortion and overdrive settings which switch between two distinct circuits. With the HOG mod those labels are no longer relevant (they were not entirely relevant on the stock pedal). Now both modes are drastically improved but they are still two distinct circuits. The Overdrive mode has more girth and low end responsiveness and the Distortion mode has more bite and air to it along with massively improved tonal response. Humbucking and neck located pickups can benefit from the high end bite that is available in the distortion mode. Single coils and bridge located pickups can make the most out of the overdrive mode. But those are just general guidelines and my recommendation is to try this out every which way you can think of because the settings that will work best for you depend on the rest of your rig such as guitar and amp selection. It also works well with other pedals providing a buffer for long cable runs o rlots of pedals which can suck tone all by themselves without a buffer.
;)
Standard Hammer of God and the Power Deluxe Hammer of God Hanging out at Stonehenge (not fake!)
Because of the wild success of this mod, one of my first clients called it the “Hammer of the Gods”. The name has stuck and I now call this the Hammer of God mod. The basic mod cost $100 $50 plus shipping.
Behold: The Hammer Of God mod on the DCXSound YouTube Channel