The Johnson Millennium Stereo One-Fifty packs a huge variety of classic amp tones (as well as new ones), combining true analog tube warmth with digital control and a state of the art effects processing engine. If you're tired of lugging around several amps and rack of effects to produce all your sounds, the Johnson Millennium may make your life a heck of a lot easier!
Worlds of Tone
Don't let the idea of the typical digital effects processor scare you - the Millennium is an amp at heart. All the familiar controls are here - treble, mid, and bass tone controls, contour, and gain, as well as input and output level controls. No menus needed. Feel free to turn those knobs as much as you like. Since the knob values are stored digitally, they will be recalled instantly the next time you call the patch up.
All the available amplifier models are grouped into categories such as "American Combo" (Fender® Twin, Matchless® DC30, etc.) and "British Stack" (Marshall®). When you're working out a patch, cycling through the amplifier models is a snap. Each category has a button on the front panel - simply press it to step through all the choices (and the button is always lit to show the current category.)
These amplifier models go well beyond simple settings on the amp. For example, the characteristics of the tone controls change according the amplifier model in use (and if a knob wasn't present on the original amp, it will be disabled in the model.) The models also take advantage of the two real 12AX7 tubes in the preamp section. In total, there are 16 different amplifier models to choose from, plus a number of custom Johnson voicings.
Studio Class Effects Processing
The Johnson Millennium also provides a wealth of effects for you to further shape your sound, powered by DigiTech's S-DISC IITM processor. What do you get? Take a deep breath - chorus, flanging, delay, reverb, compression, wah/auto wah, graphic and parametric equalizers, pitch shifting, tremolo, rotary speaker simulator, auto pan, whammy, and phasing. Whew! And these are not your plain vanilla effects here. For example, you can have up to an eight-voice chorus or pitch shifter. The equalizers can range from three to 31 bands and a large variety of different reverb algorithms are available. Of course many of the effects are true stereo as well. Talk about attention to detail - how about a physically modeled reverb spring tank? Or being able to specify the acceleration of the rotating speakers as you change it to a new speed?
Once you pick a particular effect, you don't need to be a programming wizard to get the sound you want. Each effect has a plenty of presets to choose from so you can quickly sample the effect's range of possibilities. And if when you've found some great settings of your own, you can easily save those settings in a new preset, which you can then recall in the future when creating other patches.
Gone now are the days of scrolling through menu after menu just to tweak your sounds. The front panel has knobs for easy access to the depth and speed of the modulation effects, and the delay and reverb levels. A series of quick-access buttons are also available to jump to the effects pages for making more detailed changes. Delay times can also be entered using the "tapit" button to keep the delay in sync with the rhythm of your music. And while you're editing, any parameter that is changed from its stored setting will be marked so you can keep track of exactly what you've done.
The Millennium also gives you the freedom to order and arrange the effects at the end of the signal chain as you like. You can even duplicate effects if you want (ever want to try putting two delays in series?) You can take a look at some of the routing options.
Control your sound
The amount of control over the Millennium is unparalleled. The amp has two expression pedal inputs on the back (and with a J-12 Foot Controller, you can have four expression pedals total.) Virtually any effect or amplifier parameter can be controlled by an expression pedal or MIDI continuous controller messages, and up to 16 parameters per patch can be controlled in this fashion. Select the parameter you want to control and press the "Assign" button. You simply turn the data wheel until the desired controller is shown - that's it! Not only can you assign the pedal to a parameter, but you can easily specify the maximum and minimum range that the pedal produces. You can even assign a single expression pedal to control multiple parameters simultaneously. The Millennium can even have an expression pedal send out MIDI continuous controller messages from its MIDI out port. And the best thing about the expression pedals - how about the ability to morph between two amplifier models or two separate effects chains! Not bad, eh?
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| Want to see just how easy it is to set up an expression pedal with the Millennium? Take a look at this video (requires RealVideo player.) |
The control doesn't end there. You can easily add dynamic modifiers to the effects so that effects parameters actually respond to your playing. You also have the option of controlling parameters with one of the Millennium's two low frequency oscillators. The Millennium has a thorough MIDI implementation which is fully documented in the user's guide. Of course the Millennium also comes with a footswitch for stepping through patches and switching channels.
A complete solution for guitarists
The Johnson Millennium packs plenty of power for gigging with 120 watts RMS per channel into four ohms (60 watts into eight ohms.) If necessary, you can easily add external cabinets to the Millennium with the speaker jacks on the back panel. You also have the option of going direct with the stereo XLR outputs which features a speaker cabinet emulator. When going direct, you can disconnect the speakers if you are worried about disturbing your neighbors.
If the 2x12 combo format doesn't suit your tastes, Johnson Amplification also offers a 250W stereo head (JM250H) and accompanying 4x12 and 2x12 cabinets (J412V and J212V respectively.) A smaller 100W stereo combo - the Johnson Marquis - is also available.
If you've been searching to find all those great amp tones and just can't afford to purchase the all original amps (or have the time and money to keep them in good shape), the Millennium and the rest of the line from Johnson Amplification may offer the perfect solution. Real tube tone - incredible effects processing - fantastic simplicity - all in one package.
Need any more details? You can view the Millennium User's Guide (1304K) on-line.
Johnson Millennium Specifications:
Inputs/Outputs
- Inputs: Two 1/4" (Bright and Normal, with input level control), 1 megaohm impedance.
- Outputs:
- Two 1/4" speaker outputs for left and right channels
- Stereo XLR Recording outputs, servo-balanced
- Effects Loop, Mono
- Preamp: 2x12AX7 with 300 Volt power supply
2 Channel switchable
- Power Output: 60/120 Watts RMS per channel into 8/4 ohms
- Controller Connections:
- MIDI In, Out/Thru
- Two 1/4" Expression pedal inputs
- J3 footswitch input (1/4" TRS, included)
- J-12 Controller input
Amplifier Models
- American Stack
- Dual Rectifier
- Boogie MK II
- Soldano SLO
American Combo
- '65 Black Face Twin
- '65 Twin - Bright
- Matchless® DC30 1
- Matchless DC30 2
- Boogie MK II Combo
- Rectifier Combo
British Stack
- Marshall® Master 1
- Marshall Master 2
- Marshall JCM800
- HotRod Marshall
British Combo
- '63 AC30 Top Boost
- '63 AC30 Top Boost Dirty
- Marshall JCM800 Combo
DSP Section:
- Sampling Rate: 44.1 kHz
- A/D: 20 bit 128X oversampling
- D/A: 20 bit 128X oversampling
Miscellaneous
- Two 12" Celstion® Vintage-30 Speakers
- 200 Patches - 100 Factory, 100 User-programmable
- 1 Year Warranty
- Operates on 120 or 240 VAC, 50/60 Hz, 550W
- Dimensions: 28" W x 19.5" H x 12" D
- Weight: 70 lbs.
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Effects
- Analog Wah emulation (digitally controlled)
- Noise Gate
- Reverb
- Basic
- Dual Reverb (frequency band-splitting capabilities)
- Stereo Reverb
- Spring Reverb Emulation
- Gated Reverb
- Room Echo (Four-tap delay)
- Chorus
- Dual Flanger
- Dual Phaser
- Rotary Speaker Simulator
- Stereo Tremolo
- Auto Panner
- Delays
- Basic Delay
- Dual Delay
- Quad Delay
- Stereo Delay
- Stereo Dual Delay
- Stereo Quad Delay
- Long Delay (up to 10 seconds)
- Analog Delay
- Stereo Analog Delay
- Detune
- Pitch Shifting
- Smooth
- Dual
- Quad
- Octal
- Stereo
- Stereo Dual
- Whammy
- Harmony
- Compressor
- Auto Wah
- Equalizer
- 8-Band Graphic
- 15-Band Graphic
- 31-Band Graphic
- Stereo 8-Band Graphic
- Stereo 3-Stage Parametric
- 6-Stage Parametric
- Stereo 6-Stage Parametric
- Noise Gate
- Predelay
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Johnson Amplification
8760 South Sandy Parkway
Sandy, Utah, 84070
(801) 566-8800 (Voice)
(801) 566-7005 (Fax)
http://www.johnson-amp.com/
Product report prepared by Harmony Central®
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