Just wanted to share some initial sound bites that I created with a couple of new pieces of gear. The first is a Saint Guitars Messenger Baritone. Before now, I had never played a baritone, and really didn’t know what to expect. But after playing around with it for a few days, I have to say that I just love how this thing sounds. Baritones have been getting more and more popular as of late due to their very low, natural tone, and several metal players have started using them because of this. But I truly believe that a good test of a guitar or an amp is how it sounds clean. Played clean, you can’t hide mistakes. So here’s a clip that I created this morning to demonstrate the beautiful, clear tone the Messenger Baritone creates.
The guitar was played through the Normal channel of a Reason SM25 amp. As you can hear, the tone is deep, but surprisingly chimey due to the bright-sounding walnut body and neck, Adam Hernandez’ tone wood of choice. It took awhile to get used to playing the wider frets, but once I got a handle on it, I just started loving how this guitar plays and sounds!
Aracom Amps RoxBox 18 Watt Head
Aracom Amps RoxBox 18 Watt Head
You know me, in addition to just digging on overdrive pedals, I love low-power amps! When Jeff at Aracom initially contacted me, I had never even heard of Aracom amps! And I pride myself on knowing about these things! Yikes! So when I perused his site, I was immediately taken by the RoxBox. And after just a day of using it, I have to say that I LOVE THIS LITTLE AMP!!! First, because it’s a low-wattage amp, which makes it very versatile, and secondly because it comes equipped with EL-84 power tubes! There’s a brightness in the EL-84 tubes that just makes my soul reverberate, and I just dig the sounds that this amp can produce. But just as with the Messenger above, the big test for me is how the amp sounds clean. And baby, it sounds great clean! The sound bite I have here uses the same clip above, but layers on a lead part using just my Strat played through Channel 1 of the RoxBox. Channel 1 has TONS of clean headroom, and even ‘buckers have a hard time making this channel grind. This will definitely score well with the pedal freaks like myself. Anyway give it a listen:
This little amp is nothing short of impressive, and priced at $895 for the head, it’s also an incredible value!!! Kudos to Jeff at Aracom for creating an attainable hand-wired amp! Looks like I’m going to be shelling out bucks for both the Reason SM25 AND the Aracom RoxBox.
I’ve been considering changing the site for awhile and have started making some small changes. First of all, I’ve replaced the “Who Is GoofyDawg?” tab with “About GuitarGear” and put the “who is” in that page. I’m also going to be adding a “Gear I Love” page to list the gear reviews that I’ve written on simply kickass gear that I’ve either purchased myself or personally evaluated.
Not sure if I’m going to change the look and feel, but I’ve been feeling it’s time to move to a three-column layout to get more stuff “above the line” as we say in web development for content that appears above the bottom of the browser window when a page first loads.
If anyone has any suggestions on how I could improve your experience with GuitarGear.org, please let me know!
I love writing this blog. Not only do I get to share my passion for guitar and guitar gear, in the couple of years since I started this blog, I’ve met and encountered some really great folks who also share the same passion. After all, it’s why you visit, and I thank you for all the support you’ve given me! When I started GuitarGear.org, I didn’t have any idea of where I’d go with it. I just started writing; not very often at first, but then it just kind of took on a life of its own as I found other great gear blog sites, and started interacting with the general blogging community, and the people I’d meet on other sites would visit my site. That’s what has kept me going, and it’s just an amazing thing!
Of course, it’s really cool to review gear, whether I own it or test it, then share my findings with folks. And speaking of reviewing gear, in this article, I’m introducing what looks to be a real promising, new amp company, called Aracom Amps! They have a whole line of reasonably affordable, hand-wired amps modeled mostly after classic Marshal amps. From what I could tell from the sound samples, these are very nice sounding amps, and the few reviews I’ve been able to find have all been exceedingly favorable. So like I said, there’s a lot of promise in this relative newcomer to the custom, hand-wired amp space.
Jeff from Aracom contacted me the other day to see if he could buy some ad space on my site. I replied that I had never even considered doing that because I didn’t want to commercialize the site. The most commercial thing I’ve done to this point is to put “click-throughs” to Musicians Friend on some of my review pages so people could buy gear directly, but I never actually expected to make any serious money from the site. However, I did tell him that at the very least, I’d review some gear for him, and if I really loved it, like I do with Reason Amps and Saint Guitars (by the way, I just got a new baritone yesterday to test, and IT ROCKS!!!), I’d make a banner for him and put it on my site.
So I am now awaiting delivery of what I think is a very, very cool EL-84 based 18 Watt amp called the RoxBox. It’s completely hand-wired on turret board, and it comes in a head version (which is what I’ll be initially reviewing), and in two different combos: A 1 X10 and a 1 X 12. Nice. It has two individually voiced channels with independent volume and tone control, and is also switchable down to 9 Watts. So this promises to be a very versatile little amp. To say I’m extremely excited about receiving this amp is putting it mildly. The reason why I’m so excited is because the most you’ll pay for one of these is $995.00!!! Imagine that! A hand-wired amp for less than a grand! It’s unheard of! And all Jeff’s amps are very reasonably priced.
Head Cabinet
Standard Tolex: Black Levant. See options below for other colors.
– Dimensions: 19″w x 8h x 8.25″d
– Weight: 23 lbs
Combo Cabinets
Standard Tolex: Black Levant. See options below for other colors.
– Dimensions
1×10 Combo: 18″w x 19h x 10″d
1×12 Combo: 18″w x 19h x 10″d
– Weight
1×10 Combo: 36 lbs
1×12 Combo: 39 lbs
Introductory pricing:
Rox Box Head $895
Rox Box Combo with 10″ Jensen ALNICO Speaker $995
Rox Box Combo with 12″ Jensen Ceramic Speaker $995
Pretty impressive!
I had a great conversation with Jeff this morning about his amps’ price points, and he said that considering today’s economy, he wanted people to be able to buy his amps, and since he does all the work himself, and has done a tremendous job with planning his manufacturing (for example, all his amps use the exact same chassis template), he can keep the price down. With the RoxBox, he was able to keep the price point down further by using a solid-state rectifier that simulates a rectifier tube’s voltage sag rather than using a tube rectifier. Now before you dismiss this, remember that the venerable Fender company has been using solid state rectifiers in their amps for decades, and no one complains about their gorgeous sound! But besides that single piece of solid state componentry, everything else is hand-wired and tube-based.
I don’t know why I love overdrive pedals so much, despite my recent discovery of the beauty of using a clean boost. I just do. I can’t help myself. So when I hear about new drive pedals appearing on the market, I’m keen to check ’em out and better yet, see if I can play ’em; but that’s besides the point of this entry… 🙂
Anyway, I just found out about a brand-spankin’-new company called Fairfield Circuitry, who’s just come out with a new overdrive pedal called “The Barbershop.” In their own words,
“Have you ever sat in a barber’s chair wishing your tone was as slick as your freshly shaved upper lip? With the Barbershop Overdrive on your pedalboard, you could keep your moustache and sound good doing it.”
That’s pretty amusing! But the sound of this pedal, at least from the samples provided on the product page, is absolutely serious. According to the Fairfield Circuitry spec sheet, this is an original design and completely handmade from JFET’s. It has three controls: Drive for driving the gain, Sag (which I find very cool) to control voltage into the internal amplifiers, and Volume to control output volume without changing the effect. The Volume control is a very cool feature – it’s like a Master Volume on an amp. I dig it!
The Barbershop is the first of three pedals to be produced by Fairfield Circuitry. Two more will be coming out in the near future, but there’s very little information on these right now. In any case, check out the site for yourself!
And by the way, this pedal, though handmade is actually quite affordable: $175 CAN. That converts to $141.68 US! Not bad at all!
In last month’s issue of Guitar Player, Steve Cropper was spotlighted. Cropper was a great session guitarist for Stax records who wrote and played with the likes Otis Redding, and was arguably one of the great guitarists responsible for establishing the 60’s era soul sound. In the interview, he was asked what advice he’d give to aspiring rhythm guitarists. His reply was both amusing and incredibly insightful (I’m paraphrasing): “Pick the prettiest girl in the front row, look right at her, and play to her.”
On the surface, that may sound a little chauvinistic, but there’s an incredible amount of truth in that. As performers is to, well, perform. No matter how we perform, it’s always an outward facing activity. And from my standpoint, there’s nothing better at inspiring me to create on the than when I’m playing for someone, and shape my playing to describe what emotions are stirred by the thought of the person for whom I’m playing.
Mind you, it’s not a sexual thing. It’s about playing against the images that crop up when you look at someone. For instance, the restaurant that I play at every week is a nice, family-oriented restaurant. During my set, parents will bring their children to where I’m playing, to show their kids the “music man.” Seeing the smiles and faces full of wonderment is really inspiring to me, especially as I’m a father myself (of eight kids!), and I almost always change the way I’m playing when kids come to see me play. I’ll even do special kids songs just for them at times, and let them strum my guitar.
The point to all this is that when you’re playing inspired, you draw your audience in. As a performer, there’s nothing worse to me than being mechanical. The music comes out dry and worse yet, seemingly contrived. And people pick up on that. But play inspired, and you take your audience on your emotional journey.
So take Steve Cropper’s advice, and find someone in your audience who’ll inspire you. I guarantee you’ll like the results!
Summary: Truly flat EQ response, zero coloration, clean boost pedal that takes your tone and gives you more, much more of it. Can be used as a simple clean booster, or can slam the front of your amp with up to 24dB of gain.
Pros: Does only one thing: It boosts your signal, giving you more cleans, or slamming your preamp tubes into sweet, singing, sustaining distortion. No bells and whistles, just a single volume knob. Super cool stainless steel finish, with backlit lettering.
Cons: None.
Price: $149 direct
Specs:
From zero to +24 dB of transparent boost
No tone coloration
No signal distortion
No phase reversal
True bypass with quiet switching
Ultra quiet 9v power supply included
Want a pure boost pedal? One that just does what it’s supposed to do? Simple to use? Doesn’t add its own “character” and just gives you more of your own tone? Look no further. I don’t say these words lightly either. All those things are true!
When Anthony Bonadio of Reason Amps first told me about the Creation Audio Labs Mk 4.23, I was really taken by the emotion in his voice when he described the pedal, and his claim that it was the best boost pedal he’d ever used. That’s saying a lot coming from a man who rarely uses pedals. And when he offered to send his to me to try with the Reason SM25 amp I recently reviewed, I just couldn’t wait until it arrived. It arrived today, and now I understand why he feels the way he does about the Mk 4.23.
Playing it through the Normal (clean) channel of the SM25, it does what it’s supposed to do: It boosts your clean channel. It was what I expected, so it was a bit boring, though I was impressed by the fact that there was no snap, crackle, pop when I kicked it in, and it just simply gave me more of my clean tone. But where this pedal really shined was when I kicked in the Bright and StackMode channels of the amp.
Talk about a visceral response! I can’t even describe the feelings I experienced as the pedal slammed the preamp tubes, and made the amp produce sweet, singing sustain that lasted for days! I always knew that the amp could produce incredible distorted tones, but with the boost engaged, I could hear additional harmonics and overtones issuing from the amp that up until that point I had never heard! On top of that, I never lost a bit of tonal clarity, even when I had the volume knob dimed and was creating that scooped, snarling dog buzz. That’s certainly a testament to the quality of the amplifier and complex and sophisticated sounds it can produce, but it’s also a huge testament to Mk 4.23 that can push the amp into that organic, high-gain overdrive. OH MY FREAKIN’ GOD!!!
I tested the pedal with humbuckers and single coils, and it was interesting to hear the difference in how the pedal performs with both. With humbuckers, the volume boost is less dramatic, as humbuckers send a lot of gain by default. But the effect was by no means displeasing. Where I didn’t get a significant volume boost, I got a lot more gain, driving the preamp tubes even harder. The sound was absolutely delicious! In fact, it drove the amp into feeding back, even a lower volumes! How cool is that?!! The guitar I used has tons and tons of sustain, but with the amp slammed, the sustain went on and on and on. And with that much gain, the compression from the power tubes just gave the signal balls of steel. But wait! There’s more!
With my Strat, the volume boost effect was dramatic; perfect for pushing your volume into great lead levels to get over the top of a mix. I didn’t get as much drive into the preamp tubes, but I wasn’t expecting that in any case. And yet again, the booster just took my tone, and simply gave me more of it.
So as you can tell, I REALLY like this pedal. I love what it does in a big way. But here’s another thing to love about this pedal: Its price. Creation Audio Labs got tired of using middle men and retailers that would price the pedals out of many players’ budgets, so they decided to only go direct. So what used to be a $260 pedal is now only $149. Buy it direct from Creation Audio labs!
In closing, after I return this pedal to Anthony, I’m going to buy this pedal. After just using it for just a short time, I’m confident in saying that this is a pedal that will always be on my board.
In my search for a new reverb unit, I ran across this interesting unit by Valve Train. I know, it looks like an amp, but it’s a tube-driven reverb unit with a dedicated reverb tank – very cool. There’s really nothing like a good spring reverb unit, especially ones done the old school way. I’d love to try one of these. However, one issue I might raise is where to put it in my chain. Ideally, I’d run it through an effects loop, so I reverb the amplified signal. But what about using with an amp that doesn’t have an effects loop? I’ve had mixed results with reverb unit in the past that I’ve run before my amp. Maybe because they were digital units – who knows? But that’s definitely a concern, though I suppose I could run it from the amp output, into the unit, then into the speaker, though that might be bad idea considering what kind of impedance the unit can handle.
This just in:
Rick from Valve Train Amps sent me a message. Here’s his answer to my question:
Brendan,
my favorite place to put the ST is actually in a effects loop if the amp has one…
otherwise, put it anywhere in the effects chain that you like the sound… (some folks like it before overdrive pedal, some after)
because it is an active tube circuit, placing in front of a high gain amp may cause some unwanted hiss, etc…
I have a lot customers that use it in between the guitar and a tweed style amp with no other toys in the chain…
hope that helps…
Rick Gessner
Sure does! Thanks, Rick! I probably could’ve answered my own question – You have to experiment! 🙂
In any case, check out this video I found on YouTube about this unit.
Back in September of this year, DigiTech released a line of high-end pedals under the “Hardwire” brand. These are high-quality, true-bypass pedals, and I have to say that I’m very impressed. Traditionally, DigiTech hasn’t been known for really high-end pedals. They’re typically priced at the mid- to low-end, and have always had reasonable quality. Nothing to complain about, but definitely nothing to write home about either.
But with the new Hardwire line, they’ve completely stepped beyond the norm, and have created pedals that have the potential to compete with other high-end pedals. In addition to being true-bypass, the pedals operate with a higher operating voltage which gives them a lot of headroom, making them a lot less susceptible to clipping. The power conditioning within each unit also ensures a constant voltage; a boon when a battery is being used, so you don’t get performance loss as battery power runs down (though I wonder how that affects battery life…).
I’ve been so focused on off-name brands of pedals for awhile that I’ve essentially ignored what the big production houses have been creating. So I apologize for being a bit behind the curve with the timing of this review. But be that as it may, I’m glad I stumbled upon this particular pedal while I was testing the EH #1 Echo at my local Guitar Center.
After I was done testing the #1 Echo, which I really liked, by the way, I asked the helpful, and amazingly knowledgeable sales guy if he had any good reverbs in stock. GC doesn’t really carry much in the way of boutique pedals, so I wasn’t expecting much. But very much to my surprise, he pointed me to the new line of Hardwire pedals, with special emphasis on the RV-7 Stereo Reverb, explaining that Hardwire was a new brand from DigiTech. I raised my eyebrows at that…
Sensing that I wasn’t some schmuck, he didn’t try to do a selling job on me, and just simply said, “Dude, I think you’ll really like this pedal. I wasn’t expecting it to be THIS good. You gotta try it out.” So I did, and the first words that came out of my mouth were “Damn! That’s sweet!” The sales guys just grinned and said, “I told you. Surprising to come from DigiTech, huh?” That was putting it mildly, to say the least.
So what makes this pedal special? DigiTech licensed 7 reverb effects from Lexicon. I’ve worked with Lexicon reverbs for years, and they are top-notch. At my Church gig, we use a Lexicon rack for vocals, and I just DIG that unit. To have them in a pedal for my guitar is even better! Granted, it’s digital modeling, but this pedal really KICKS ASS! In all the voicings, the sound is consistent, and you can dial in as much attack and decay as you need. Attack is controlled via the Liveliness knob which is similar to a pre-delay. For those of you who aren’t familiar with pre-delay, it’s essentially a certain amount of time (usu. in milliseconds) that a reverb unit waits before it kicks in the reverb. It’s very useful to have this kind of control, because those units without it often suffer from being really wet and soupy. Pre-delay allows a certain amount of dry signal to go out first, then tail out with reverb. The net result is that you get much better note articulation.
My favorite setting was the Spring Reverb, though they all sounded dynamite! And with the fine-tuning you can dial in with the Liveliness and Decay knobs, you can get just the right reverb effect for your purposes. I had so much fun playing with this little box! I spent more time with it than the #1 Echo.
Let’s look at the RV-7 features (from the DigiTech web site):
Reverb Types
Room – Fast decaying reverb; great for a touch of ambience
Plate – Renowned studio reverb heard on classic recordings
Reverse – Reverb in reverse; gradually crescendos to full volume
Modulated – Lush, modulating, reverb ideal for chords
Gated – Unique reverb with abrupt decay; good for percussive playing
Hall – Large, encompassing reverb with warm decay
Spring – Classic “surf” reverb; great for Rockabilly too!
Tails On/Off Switch – When on, reverb tails are not cut off in bypass
True Bypass circuitry preserves your tone in bypass
Constant high-voltage operation for tonal quality and noise reduction
HardWire Pedals include the following stage accessories
Stomplock™ knob guards lock your tone in place and prevent tampering or accidental knob adjustments onstage
Green gaffer tape helps you locate the pedal in adverse stage lighting
Custom-cut Velcro® pads attach and lock your pedals to your pedalboard
The features in this pedal, plus the standard features included in all the Hardwire pedals are definitely worth a look. And you’ll actually be blown away by the price: $149.00. While higher than their $100 pedals, that’s not a lot more to ask for that much more quality and features! And just for shits and giggles, here’s a video review by ProGuitarShops.com:
Finally, I realize that this review isn’t in the format of my regular reviews, and for that, I’m sorry. I just wanted to get this out. In any case, the DigiTech Hardwire RV-7 Stereo Reverb gets:
Just read a great article on setting up your pedal board on Guitar Jam Daily. It has great information on planning out your board size and layout – something I wish I had done before I got my board, which is now too small for all my pedals, especially since I’ve gotten a wah pedal! Eek! In any case, check it out!
Okay, okay already. Another overdrive pedal. Just when you think you’ve seen ’em all, another pops up. But harken back to the early 90’s, and you’ll find Way Huge pedals gracing the boards of many guitar gods. Way Huge closed their doors in 1999, but a recent partnership with Dunlop has revived Way Huge, and the Fat Sandwich is one of the products of the partnership.
I’ve been considering changing the site for awhile and have started making some small changes. First of all, I’ve replaced the “Who Is GoofyDawg?” tab with “About GuitarGear” and put the “who is” in that page. I’m also going to be adding a “Gear I Love” page to list the gear reviews that I’ve written on simply kickass gear that I’ve either purchased myself or personally evaluated.
In last month’s issue of Guitar Player, Steve Cropper was spotlighted. Cropper was a great session guitarist for Stax records who wrote and played with the likes Otis Redding, and was arguably one of the great guitarists responsible for establishing the 60’s era soul sound. In the interview, he was asked what advice he’d give to aspiring rhythm guitarists. His reply was both amusing and incredibly insightful (I’m paraphrasing): “Pick the prettiest girl in the front row, look right at her, and play to her.”
Guitar Gear 