A dramatic amp mod as well as the simplest in the Epiphone Valve Junior Head Tube Guitar Amplifier is known as the “JP1 Mod”. The name derived from the jumper labeled JP1 on the board.
It basically morphs the tone of the guitar amp from one with no definition, dark, to an instant edgy and more present tone. To my ears things came to life using the Fender Telecaster compared to the raw un-modded amp I had.
The patient is in the house. Before taking the scalpel and start the surgery, I thought of shooting a quick reference video for the newly receive out of the box Epiphone Valve Junior head. We will use this to compare the tone for each mod as we go along in our face lift journey.
I was particularly stunned on how dark this guitar amp sounds! In the video I have a Fender Telecaster (Mexican) that sounds crystal clear through my Gabriel V18 or V33 guitar amps. Bright, beautiful upper mids, etc. The overdrive was nevertheless EL-84-ish but without any definition or character or identity. i guess that’s what should be expected from a $150.00 (shipped) head, right?
The speaker cabinet has an AlNiCo Blue Celestion speaker , and has an open back. But even with this speaker the amp is simply too dark.
But the amp has potential. And we’ll discover that as we will start modding it. Stay tuned!
Welcome to our first video on modding the Epiphone Valve Junior guitar amplifier. I ordered a head version from Musicians Friend specifically for this. It is a very exciting project to me and hopefully will make your life easier modding it by watching these video tutorials.
I don’t know how many times it happened that I spent so much time on trying to guess how to open a unit just to be able to get to the heart of the problem and fix it. Yes, even pulling the chassis out of an Epiphone Valve Junior can be intimidating for the first comer.
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