TC Electronic Ampworx JIMS 45 Preamp Pedal Reviews

This is a fun way to get that early Marshall tone in your rig. It's tons of fun to play around with and it's good enough to gig with as well. I'd probably try to use the real thing for recording but crowds won't be able to tell the difference. I can use this as the last pedal in my signal chain and go directly to the board and don't have to take an amp to a gig if I don't want.

I have played some good Marshall tone pedals, but this is the one that I have been looking for and could not find. What an amazing representation of a JTM 45. It feels very real straight out of the box all knobs at 12 o'clock. The price too. Though I paid for and really like the Universal Audio Ruby, I paid $ for it. It is worth it, but it made me pause to think of how many more pedals like that want to afford. Now we have TC finally getting amp emulation right. Home Run!

PS. Martin at Sweetwater is a great rep.

I own @ 10 Marshall in a Box pedals (and as many plugins) and this one has ended the journey. To be clear, it's not specifically designed to go in front of a traditional amp like a Box of Rock etc. - it's a full
preamp that doesn't need an amp's front end tone stack.

Having said that, most amp-in-a-box pedals still sound like pedals. The TC Ampworx line is designed to be a desert island small box that can be used for DI applications where a full amp isn't practical, so it's in the same space as Strymon Iridium or Walrus ACS1.

Having owned both of those, the TC was the winner for me for Marshall sounds. Pros:

Best combination of warm bassy lows and glassy top I've heard in a digital JTM45 sim

High/low input volumes and eq knobs act like a real JTM45 - which is to say they don't do much. The value of the tone stack on an old Marshall is to fine tune the overdrive character, not radically alter the response. Most other digital JTM45 sims (especially plugins) create a phasey mess with the eq knobs. This is especially annoying when using external fuzz pedals - the TC takes all my fuzzes like an amp.

I prefer the IR setup to the Strymon or Walrus - simpler and gets you playing quicker. There's no computer hookup needed - one output has the IR, the other doesn't. Use whichever you need.

The included IR is a Celestion Digital Creamback in a 4x12. Usually I'm not a fan of Celestion's own IR's, I find them a bit hollow and tubby sounding. This one sounds great for whatever reason - I've compared it to my usual trusted IR plugins and it holds up well.

Only con is I wish they'd included a 2nd IR for an open 2x12 Beano tone. But this is meant to be a simple plug and play tool, and you can use any IR loader for that.

First a huge shoutout to my SE Jeff Rohlfing. He's my guy and has never steered me wrong! I was looking for a simple no frills amp pedal that I could stick in the loop of my HX Effects so I could leave my amps at the practice rooms and use my pedalboard standalone at home. For what it is and what it cost, the TC JIMS45 is perfect! I won't claim to know what a real JTM45 sounds like, I've only owned DSL's and Origins, but I will say that this sounds great for my purposes and 'feels and reacts' about the same as all the other modelers I've used. On its own it goes from clean to a nice heavy crunch up to classic metal. It won't djent as the kids say, but it takes comp and drive pedals in front really well and can reach any gain level you need with them and still sound good. I've put an Xotic SP, Walrus Ages, and the ubiquitous Boss SD1/DS1 pair in front and the JIMS reacts as it should to them. My real time based pedals sound just fine after it, and in the loop of my HX Effects it reacts to digital drives in front and modeled time based effects after just fine. Is it gigable? I'd say yes provided you can live with the simple 1/4 inch in/outs. It's basically a 2 channel amp pedal and with your other pedals you can achieve usable tones for just about any genre. It's hard to find any fault in something this affordable, and it does sound good. Are there features I wish it had? Of course but they would only raise the price. As it is you get more than you pay for in my book. Do a little research to make sure it isn't missing something you can't live without and be sure to check out Don Carr's great overview on the Sweetwater YouTube. If you are looking for a simple no frills medium gain amp pedal, I think you will be very happy with the JIMS45.

TC should have made the foot print smaller.

I needed direct inputs to record quietly and this is a pretty decent emulation especially for the price. I will be looking at other of the TC Ampworx pedals for more options. At this price its a worthy addition to my collection.

I am a big fan of TC Electronic products and regularly use several of their pedals. I was interested in this unit to add some variety to my sound. Right out of the box, it is easy to set up and sounds great. Very adjustable with lots of output options including direct and headphone. Controls are easy to use.
The only drawbacks that I have found so far are:
The unit requires 300mA of current. This is more than most pedal board power supplies typically deliver, so you may need a dedicated power supply for it. When I tried to use it with less current, it intermittently cut out.
The unit hums a bit. I have found that the only way to reduce this is to turn the gain down on my amp or on the pedal. This obviously will affect your tone.
Lastly, in channel switching mode, there is a slight period of silence when switching from one channel to the other. It is pretty minimal, but noticeable. I am still trying to decide what I think about that.
Oh yeah, the boost function is awesome!

This pedal excels at early 70s Marshall tones. I've used several of the earlier amp modelers (Strymon, NUX, Helix, etc.), and to my ears, the JIMS 45 is one of the best at low gain, edge of breakup, crunch tones and the feel is similar to how an amp feels (but there is a difference, of course). I love the simplicity... two channels and a boost; no menus, screens, scrolling through options, etc. It feels well built and the switches, jacks, and knobs are tight.

The negatives... no effects loop and the DI/Cabsim out is not pleasant sounding at all; it's unusable in my opinion. When I run the regular output into a Two Notes Torpedo CAB or to a power amp with a cabinet, it sounds really good.

It's definitely worth the price as a pre-amp pedal alone. The low gain tones are great, but if you want to run direct, I would highly recommend using a different cab sim device.

Good budget alternative to the Iridium. I only got the Iridium for the Marshall tones and that was good and with the Favorite switch I could dial in another Marshall tone. However, the Jims 45 offers more tonal options. First you can toggle between a green and red channel then each of those has a toggle to turn the boost on/off, so 4 channels total. Also on the back of the pedal there is a Pre or Post switch for boost channel. My preferred usage is to hook this up to my IKM Micro Monitors and it sounds really good. The headphones out with the emulated Celestion 4x12 Creamback IR sounds really good too. I love that that there is also a presence knob on the back for more tonal flexibility. Finally the DI out with Cab Sim sounds just as good as the headphone out for recording. This is a really good pedal if you can get past the name and look of the logo. I think JM45, M45 or Plexi 45 might have been better name options. Also, I would have liked if they used the Marshall font. Kind of how they used the Fender font for the Combo Deluxe 65 pedal. I'm really big on the aesthetics of a pedal. I think it is just important as how it functions. So I deducted one star for that. Before I got this pedal I really thought I was going to return this pedal b/c of the look it but it's so featured pack and sounds good that I am going to keep it.

Great JTM 45 sounds. Great to save on CPU tracking digitally in a studio w/o using a plugin. Check out my demo

It's a little big, but the price is pretty good. It is built like a tank for sure, I do like TC Electronics as a rule, it's just not ergonomically laid out well IMHO as there is a trim pot, and switches on the back side that aren't easy to access, and it take the manual to understand what some of them actually do. I do recommend this pedal, so don't misunderstand me, because it's probably the best one in this 'line of pedals' that TC is going to do. I give TC a 'Tried Hardest' award for this pedal and I can, do, and will continue to use it, but trust me - If looks were all that mattered, this pedal would be a 10 but that's not how this works entirely.

The tone of this pedal is very impressive and extremely easy to dial in. However, there is noticeable latency, especially on the clean channel. Also, there is a delay between when you press the switch and when the sound actually changes. As a direct recording tool, I think it would be fine if you're not changing sounds during the performance and you nudge the take afterwards for it to be on time.