the amp remained fairly quiet. There is a point
on the Master past 3 o’clock that a level of
hiss comes into play, but nothing too bad in
terms of getting in the way. At that volume
things are getting fairly loud, and the hiss was
of little concern to me. Grabbing the EQ on
the amp allowed for musical but not precise
adjustments, much like on a Mackie 1202 or
a good stereo system. I believe this is a smart
design, because it doesn’t allow for extreme
EQ mistakes to be made that would negatively color the sound due to user error. Back in
the old days, a lot of equipment was built with
a simple interface that always offered a musical choice, but over time that simplicity has
been replaced with complex setups allowing
for massive flexibility… and potentially disastrous settings. I prefer the set-it-and-forget-it
nature, as it makes getting a great sound very
easy. That said, it would be nice to have a
graphic EQ onboard to aid in just a bit more
overall adjustment when necessary.
using the onboard effects and a little EQ, I
was easily able to put together a great mix
of music, voice and guitar that would project nicely in a smaller environment. It was
surprising to hear the fullness of the amp,
covering such a broad frequency spectrum
through just an 8" woofer and small tweeter
yet retaining the best properties of the
Multiac’s tone. Pushing the amp too far with
this setup did reveal that the Jam is “only
human,” and the speaker and power configuration work well as long as you respect
their limits. The good news is the XLR
Master Out is just one step away from plugging into the main system at any club, giving
you the power needed for the gig but with
you in charge of your mix. Brilliant.
Buy If...
portable, lightweight and
flexible is your aim.
Moving on, the Jam offers up a great little
set of effects, courtesy of Alesis. Like the
Multiac’s Mic Imaging settings, there are
also four different effects to choose from:
three reverbs and a delay. Working exactly
the same as an effects send/return, you can
adjust the amount of effect per channel
and the overall wetness of the signal with
the EFF RTRN control. All of the reverbs
sounded quite good as basic reverbs go,
but I found the delay to be a bit of an
odd choice because of its fairly fast and
pronounced repeat. There is no control
over the settings,
other than volume,
and only one can be
used at a time—but
this is really more
of a freebee if you
don’t want to carry
around an external
effects device. Of
course, they thought-
fully included a true
effects loop, in case
you do decide to use
a high-end device,
and when plugging in
an external unit the
Alesis effects are sim-
ply taken out of the
circuit. Nice touch!
Skip If...
you need more power.
Rating...
4. 5
ONTHEWeb
Head online to hear sound clips of
the guitar and amp in action at
premierguitar.com
SR Technologies
Street $999
srtechnology.co.uk
Because there are
six channels on the
Jam, I took the time
to plug in a mic, my
iPod and the Multiac
to play through it
like I would at a solo
coffeehouse gig. Just
Wrap It Up... I’ll Take It!
It was a real pleasure to try these two products out together. Godin continues to raise
the bar for high-quality and reasonably
priced instruments, and with the addition
of the SR Technology Jam 150 to their line,
they have increased their ability to reach
a wider audience. Now you can throw the
Multiac in its gig bag over your shoulder,
carry the Jam with one hand and still have
another hand free to call the club to let
them know you’ll be ready to roll when you
walk in. Oh Canada indeed!
