Jackson Audio Releases Majestically Saturating Mateus Asato Signature Dual Channel Plexi + JCM800 Programmable Overdrive and Distortion

I teased the arrival of this pedal in my recent end of August pedal-chain update. At the time I wasn’t sure how imminent its arrival was as it had appeared and immediately disappeared off the American Musical Supply website and yet was showing as in stock and available on LoopersParadise.de. You often see that with pedal launches and then it turns out that it’s some sort of preorder thing. While as on this occasion the pedals are genuinely with several dealers already.

Many will obviously recall this as a somewhat metallic rosé enclosured pedal from NAMM - my picture of which was used by most! - while it has now transformed to the more apt Marshall-style colourway black and gold. I did not realise that Mateus Asato had been attached to this project from the very start - but you can see from the actual pedal demos - that they were recorded well before this year’s NAMM and featured and earlier prototype which has just a single sort of Master Volume knob for the Overdrive voicing - and the footswitch modes for that on said earlier occasion were more tone-modifier controls like on the Broken Arrow and Golden Boy righ-hand-side Boost footswitches.

I also somewhat unwittingly as it turns out - thought that the Drive side was going to be based on the 808 circuit of the Broken Arrow, but it’s an even better eventuality of a properly appropriate Plexi-voiced Drive - so you get switchable mode Plexi and JCM800 Channels which can be stacked too - Plexi into the JCM800. This is the most highly developed of the Jackson Audio drive pedals - combining the 6 regular control knobs - including 3-band EQ and Presence for the JCM800 Channel with 3 mini-knob controls - Volume, Tone and Drive for the Plexi Channel. It seems that the Tone stack on the Plexi Channel is a passive kind of Treble-style control where CW yields Brighter and CCW Darker tones; the main 3-Band EQ is fully active Boost and Cut.

When both channels are used together - the larger Volume control takes over as a Master Volume - so as to limit unwanted noise and deliver a more balanced output. Jackson Audio’s magical Level-Matching circuit is applied on both Channels - so you can liberally switch clipping modes while maintainaining perfectly balanced output levels.

It’s important to note that his is a 9V Max pedal as opposed to the 9V-18V of the Golden Boy. Brad Jackson has engineered the pedal to work entirely magnificently with the cleanest of amps. This means that incredibly rich and harmonic distortion textures are achieved at relatively low volumes - which is of course the antithesis to high headroom pedals.

I am both delighted and a touch sad at the same time that the El Guapo will be rotating out a very long-term favourite of mine - the quite superb MI Effects Super Crunch Box V2 - which has proved to be an exceptional saturation machine for so many years. It just can’t wholly compete with the all-round experience / delivery of these highly engineered Jackson Audio pedals. I’ve said it many times on this site - that the exceptional voicing control you have from just a pair of smart footswitches is next level ingenuity. And it’s so effortless to deploy in any live playback scenario - most players really don’t know what they’re missing!

In terms of smart mode control - these pedals are head and shoulders above anything else - particularly at this compact form factor.

The Clipping options for the two channels are controlled in exactly the same way as for the Broken Arrow and Golden Boy which I’m very familiar with. You can also press on both footswitches simultaneously to step up through the level of gain in 25% increments as defined by the maximum value set on the main Gain knob.

Here are the different clipping / mode options - first for the right-hand Plexi Side; interestingly for the first time the colour sequence and essential clipping components are identical for both footswitches / channels :

Drive Footswitch - Plexi Channel

• Amber : Vintage Plexi Voicing - from 2 Symmetrical Red LEDs
• Green : Classic Screamer / 808 Voicing - from 2 Symmetrical Silicon Diodes
• Blue : Hot Rod Plexi Voicing - from Asymmetrical 2 x Silicon + 1 x Red LED Diodes
• Magenta : Focused Plexi Voicing - from 4 Symmetrical Silicon Diodes

Distortion Footswitch - JCM800 Channel

• Amber : Marshall Guv’nor Voicing - from 2 Symmetrical RED LEDs
• Green : ProCo Rat Voicing - from 2 Symmetrical Silicon Diodes
• Blue : Suhr Riot #1 More Rhythm Voicing - from Asymmetrical 2 x Silicon + 1 x Red LED Diodes
• Magenta : Suhr Riot #2 More Liquid Lead Voicing - from 4 Symmetrical Silicon Diodes

As before, you press+hold each footswitch to enter ’programming’ mode - which simply means you can step through the clipping options in sequence - all beautifully elegant and simple to use on-the-fly - and with that essential Level-Matching circuit component and Master Volume control to keep everything perfectly balanced.

As with all of Brad Jackson’s circuits there are so many clever things happening under the surface here. Yes there is a slight price differential from the NAMM announcement - where these were estimated to go for $279. Upon completion of the project the pricing has been adjusted to what I call CBA level (Chase Bliss Audio) - to that very round $350 mark. Considering you’re getting two fully formed, multi-mode Drive and Distortion circuits here - I feel that on balance the pricing is largely justified. Of course I would like it to cost less, but for what it delivers the pricing is fair. This is exactly the pedal I wanted and expected it to be - and it’s going to live for quite an extended period on slot #22 of my pedal-chain.