Sometime in 2013 Andy Timmons purchased an Angry Charlie from a guitar shop in Texas, and it became his main dirt channel soon after. Having a chat with him at Winter NAMM 2015 we set out to tweak it a bit to his personal tastes and needs so that it could fit even better into his live rig. The rest is history and the JHS Pedals “AT”, AKA “The @“, was born. Let’s take a look at its controls and function.
The AT has four knobs and a three position toggle switch. The “Volume” control controls the overall output level of the effect. The “EQ” control is a low pass filter that very naturally allows you to darken and brighten the overall tone of the pedal. The “Drive” control adjusts the amount of gain/distortion that you desire. The “Air” control is another low pass filter, but it is focused only on the high treble frequencies. This allows for “The AT“ to perform perfectly with virtually any amplifier as you can adjust in fine detail along with the corresponding “EQ” control.
The 3-Way toggle is called the “Headroom” toggle. In the down position you have what we refer to as the 50 watt mode. The middle position is 100 watt mode and the up position is the 25 watt mode. These replicate different wattages of a tube amplifier, so just like a real tube amp, the 100 watt is loudest, the 50 watt is in the middle and the 25 watt has less overall volume but more drive on tap. The middle 100 watt mode is clean, loud and full of power. With this mode and the drive knob under 50% you can achieve nice overdrive tones that set single coil pickups on fire with huge low-end and a powerful punch that the original Angry Charlie can’t achieve. The down position 50 watt mode gives you nice crunch/distortion that has a full frequency response. This mode is perfect for those looking for that classic British gain stage of the JCM800. The up position 25 watt mode reaches all the way into distortion territory and has rich harmonics, enhanced mid’s and more of a cutting presence. If you love gain, this is the mode for you.
This is an extremely versatile pedal that covers a large range of gain territory. If you need a single pedal that can achieve the saturated tones of a real British tube amplifier with a 4×12 cab, the Andy Timmons signature pedal is where it’s “AT.“
Oh yea, you can safely run “The AT“ at 18 or 9 volts