Music Appreciation

...but I need to get one of those off Ebay or whatever. It sounds like a game-changer when it comes to getting that super-clean '80s tone. Another key is extreme compression--using a compressor/limiter like an effect. You hear it all over '80s records, where the guitar has been brickwall compressed (like a 20:1 compression ratio). A really clean amp helps to get that near-DI tone (I've used a Roland JC-120, which I replaced with the solid-state channel from the ADA MP-1).

You can get some of these sounds with pedals, but I have a feeling that at least a few of JWO's tones came from going DI to the board and using a lot of outboard gear. IIRC, JWO used a rack-mounted (studio) compressor, the Valley People Dyna-Mite, which is notorious for its extreme compression sounds. Some of the other parts of JWOs tone are probably studio outboard gear in racks: Roland Dimension D, lots of expensive delay/reverbs by Lexicon, AMS, etc.

BTW, in the late '80s and '90s, Roland made a Boss pedal called the Dimension C. They re-released it a couple years ago after they sued Behringer for their knockoff version, which was very popular ( the "Chorus Space C" ).