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Any amp over 5 watts can pose problems to us apartment-confined guitarists. The JHS Little Black Amp Box is a solution to this problem though, at least if you have an FX Loop. Here’s how to use it.
The Little Black Amp Box has to be used in the FX Loop of your amp. Connect it last in your FX Loop signal chain by running a cable from the Output of the Little Black Amp Box to the Return of your FX Loop, and from the Send of your FX Loop to the Input of the Box, or the next pedal in your chain.
How to Power The Little Black Box
You just hook it up in your FX Loop and it’ll function as a volume attenuator without needing anything else.
Keep in mind, however, that the Little Black Amp Box doesn’t act as an attenuator. You can’t put it between your amplifier head and your amp cabinet.
The manual stresses this as well.
Where to Put The Little Black Amp Box in Your Chain
But what if you had a bunch of pedals that you wanted to put in the FX Loop along with the attenuator?
I haven’t had any issues with setting up in this way. And I always have more than 3-4 pedals in my FX Loop at all times.
The Black Amp Box goes last (the cable from the Return goes into the Output of the Black Amp Box).
Features of the Little Black Amp Box & How to Use Them
The Main Dial
How to Use The Little Black Box
I show how to set it up in my video at 01:50.
1) Turn Your Amp and Pedals Off
Whenever I’m messing around with equipment like this and I’m not 100% familiar with it, I’ll usually work with really low volumes. I think this is a good practice.
2) Run A Cable From the Return of the Amp to the Output
If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve gotten a much longer cable, ie, a minimum of 15-feet. 30 feet would be even better.
Using a longer cable provides more flexibility in pedal placement, especially when integrating with complex setups.
3) Run A Cable from the Send of the Amp to the Input
4) Start With A Low Volume on Your Amp & Black Box
It doesn’t matter whether you’re using a solid state amp or a tube amp. I would start with a low volume. After you’ve turned it on, you can figure out where your levels are at.
5) Turn Your Amp and Pedals On
6) Gradually Increase the Volume of Your Amp & Black Box
Now you can turn everything on and figure out where you need to increase everything to. I find that the JHS Black Amp Box has a solid amount of range.
In other words, if you set your amplifier to 4, you can use the main dial on the Black Amp Box either to increase the volume extremely loud, or dead quiet.
It’s not like when I use my MXR 10-Band EQ as a volume attenuator (which it isn’t really built for, by the way but I wanted to try it), and I was unable to get as much reduction as I wanted. I have a video on this as well if you’re interested.
2 Tips for Using the Little Black Box
1) Mark the Inputs and Outputs on the Pedal
When you first begin using the Black Amp Box, you might struggle to know which side is the input and which side is the output.
I’m not sure why they didn’t include this information directly on the pedal. The 1-page manual – which I show in the next image – does show where the Input and Outputs are.
If I had to guess, I would say they never included an input/output marking because they had to save costs, but this is only my speculation.
2) It (Could) Affect the Sound of Your Other FX Loop Pedals
The instruction manual for the Black Amp Box says it could affect the sound of your other pedals if you have others in the FX Loop. I talked about this in my video at 03:46.
Be mindful of what you’re doing and how it may impact the sounds of your other FX Loop pedals.
Do you have any questions, tips, or thoughts on how to use the Black Amp Box? Maybe it has some other more interesting applications.
Let me know in the comments what you think.
Other Articles You May Be Interested In
- 1 Underrated Way to Use An EQ Pedal (MXR 10-Band EQ)
- How to Turn On Your Guitar, Amps & Pedals With 1 Switch
- Why I Still Use REAL Guitar Amps Rather Than Amp Plugins
