“Guitar Player” mag took a recent poll asking: If you could only have a single pedal in  your rig, what would it be? Overwhelmingly, and actually not too surprising to me, most pollsters chose an overdrive pedal. I personally didn’t take the poll, but I would definitely fall into the majority. You know me, I just can’t enough of overdrive pedals!
So much to my great pleasure, Maxon has released the new ST-9 Pro+ Super Tube Screamer Overdrive. Based upon Maxon’s classic “808” circuit, and building upon the original Ibanez ST-9 and its ability to control the amount of “midrange hump,” this “reissue” adds features that have the potential of making this a truly great Tube Screamer-class pedal.
First of all, the ST-9 Pro+ sports 9V or 18V operation. 18V mode adds more headroom and warmth. This is controlled by a slider switch in the battery compartment.
In addition to the Drive, Level, and Tone Knobs, the ST-9 Pro+ also has a “Mid-Enhance” knob which controls where the mids are boosted. Clockwise moves the boost towards the high mids, while counter-clockwise moves the boost to the lower mids. To me, this is probably the most useful feature, as you can dial in the mid boost to adapt the pedal to different amps.
The ST-9 Pro+ also has a switch that selects either “Classic” or “Low Boost.” Low Boost gives a 12dB boost at 100Hz and a 4dB boost a 500Hz. This can be quite useful for fattening up single coil guitars!
Finally, the ST-9 Pro+ has true-bypass switching.
OMG!!! I love the features on this pedal! Were I to consider getting another pedal in the Tube Screamer lineage, this pedal would be at the top of my list! However, with a street price of around $206, it’s not a cheap proposition. But with it’s features, it certainly warrants a close look; and based upon my experience with Maxon pedals, their build and sound quality is undeniable. While I don’t use it much any longer, my CP-9 Pro+ compressor is a testament to that quality (I paid $250 used for that pedal), and it’s a pedal I’ll always have. As for the ST-9 Pro+, I’ll see if I can find a place where I can audition it.
Finally, here’s a great demo video that shows off the ST-9 Pro+ quite nicely:
This is a “mini-review” only because I wanted to provide feedback on it after using it, and because I only used it in a limited way. The Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay is a digital/analog delay pedal meaning it is a digital delay with an analog direct signal path – or as Mad Professor puts it, the direct signal path is made of analog amplifiers with no filtering. In other words, it’s supposed to be transparent with no tone coloration.
Okay, I’ll just cut to the chase. This is about the sweetest delay pedal I’ve ever played through! It can do really subtle, ambient stuff, but also nicely textured “The Edge-” like delay. But no matter where you set it, the delay never turns to mush. It retains your tones, and is super-sweet.
At first glance, you might think this is a typical analog delay pedal, but it is a digital delay, and thus nowhere near as dark as I’ve heard analog delay pedals, which has kept me from getting an analog delay in the first place. I just don’t get into the really dark, brooding type of delay. But I’d easily consider the Deep Blue Delay. It’s simply killer!
I only used it with a Yamaha APX900 acoustic to add some subtle ambient textures to my finger picking. I was also running the signal into a nice little Genz-Benz Shenandoah JRLT. Level was at about 10 am, Delay about noon, and Repeat at about 11 am. I wanted to get just a subtle hall-like echo. All I can say was that it performed astounding well! Combined with that sweet ToneCandy Spring Fever reverb pedal, and I was awash in ambient heaven!
I did play with higher levels of each setting, and was amazed at the overall clarity of my tone. No mush or mud. My signal stayed nice and clean, and the note separation was always retained. And with this delay, smooth is the name of the game. There’s nothing harsh in the delay the Deep Blue produces.
Apparently – and I still have to corroborate this – the Deep Blue was designed to be place in front of or in the effects loop of an amp, and can be used either before or after distortion. Pretty amazing, as most time-based effects only work well in a loop and after distortion only. The folks at Mad Professor really put a lot of thought into this pedal. The guy at the shop where I tested it at – and someone whom I trust implicitly – plays the Deep Blue in front of an old Traynor amp, and loves it.
But there is a down side to this pedal, and that’s its price. At a street price between $325 and $350, it’s an expensive proposition, and like the Spring Fever, is probably the only thing that keeps me from getting this pedal. It’s tough to justify spending that much for a pedal, but that’s just me. Once a pedal gets in the $250 range, I start getting a bit antsy. But that said, if I had the scratch to get one, I’d run out right now and grab that pedal! It’s that good! (Damn! Knowing me, I’ll probably end up getting it… 🙂 ).
In any case, it gets 4.75 Tone Bones
Pros – Absolutely fantastic delay! Decay is perfect, and note clarity is like nothing I’ve heard.
Summary: Just about the sweetest spring reverb pedal I’ve ever heard, plus the pedal sports a nice, transparent clean booster that you can even use on its own!
Pros: I’ve heard simulated spring reverbs before, and they’ve been nice, but not THIS nice! Supposedly modeled after the original BOSS spring reverb sound, but takes it way ahead!
Cons: Very very pricey for a just a reverb with boost. Also, doesn’t run on batteries
Features:
Volume knob acts as a transparent clean boost
Reverb knob acts as a “dwell.”
Mix knob controls the amount of wet/dry signal (this is a very nice feature)
True bypass
All analog except for the simulation chip
Can do the full range of spring reverb from adding a tinge of grease to heavy surf.
Price: $275 Street
Tone Bone Score: 4.5 ~ I was completely blown away by the sound of this pedal, but the price completely scared me away. If cost isn’t an in issue for you, you’ll find none better than this!
Being friends with guys at a music shop can be incredibly useful, since they’ll show off their new stock; plus, knowing that I may buy it if they show it to me, they don’t hesitate to show it off. 🙂 Luckily, I usually have enough self-control to not buy most of the stuff they demonstrate.
I have to admit, though, that I was VERY tempted to get this pedal because I haven’t heard one like it – ever! It can slather on the ‘verb quite nicely and note clarity is retained at any setting along the reverb knob sweep. Obviously ToneCandy figured out some great values for pre-delay and trail. I just couldn’t get over how great it sounded with chord progressions and single note picking!
In fact, A/B’ing it with a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue just blew me away! It sounded even better than an actual spring reverb! Fender spring reverb, at least to me, is the gold standard in spring reverb, and for a pedal to sound even better than that, well, needless to say, that made a compelling case to get this reverb pedal. Add to that a completely transparent boost, and you’ve got a great pedal that you can put at the end of your signal chain and get all sorts of usage out of it! I could feel the GAS really starting to build up.
Then I asked the price, and my eyes bulged! At $275 for the pedal, that made my GAS go away pretty quickly. If price wasn’t an issue for me, I’d totally go for this pedal, but unfortunately, at that price, I started thinking, “I could get a couple of decent pedals, or even a nice Squier for close to that price.”
Needless to say, I didn’t get the pedal, though I do have to applaud ToneCandy for coming up with a fantastic spring reverb tone. Maybe if I can find one used in the future for a lower price I’ll get it. But for now, I’ll just gaze at it in the glass case when I go to the shop…
I’ve been playing a solo acoustic gig for about 7 years now, and in all that time I’ve wanted to do lead breaks in various songs. But being a solo artist, and not having all that much time to spend on backing tracks, needless to say, lead breaks were out of the question – until now.
I just picked up a used Boss RC-2 the other day, and since playing with it, I just know that it is going to change the way I do my solo gigs forever. Even if I don’t keep this particular unit (which I probably will for quite awhile, as it does everything I need for now), I’m a total convert to using a looper!
Not that it hasn’t been challenging. Consistent tempo is tantamount to creating loops on the fly. Playing solo, I’ve gotten used to doing rhythmic embellishments, which don’t quite work all the time with a looper, and I’ve had to practice cutting off the record at just the right time. That has probably been the biggest challenge so far. But I’m starting to get the hang of it, and I’m just loving the possibilities it opens up for me!
Summary: Two independent, true-bypass pedals in a single “bastard-proof” enclosure that can be used standalone or together. Overdrive is based upon the classic Tube Screamer, but has a voice all its own, and the booster is nice and transparent.
Pros: Fantastic overdrive tone! The overdrive is super responsive, and the sustain at high drive settings is killer!
Cons: I just keep the tone pot wide open. But the cut can be dramatic when you want to reduce some highs. Just a nit.
Features:
Both overdrive and booster are true-bypass.
Runs on a single 9V battery
Overdrive controls: Drive, Tone, and Volume
Booster controls: Boost (gain)
Price: $139 street
Tone Bone Score: 5.0 ~ I admit it, I’m partial to overdrive pedals, and while I love every single one that I have, I just never get tired of them. This pedal is going on my board! I’m buying the eval unit!
Holland Produces More than Just the Dire Straits
I’ve been wanting to review gear from European companies for awhile; that is, European companies that don’t have much of a US presence, so TC Electronics was kind of out. So when I discovered Doodad Guitars by accident through some research on Marble amps – another Dutch company – I knew I had to find a way to check out their gear. So hooking up with Mal Stich of the The Alternative Guitar and Amplifier Company in Southern California got me the Check-A-Board RED overdrive/booster. I’ve been having TONS of fun with this pedal since I got it for review. So much fun that I’ve decided to keep the pedal. 🙂
Gig Report
Not wanting to lug my full rig to the church this past Sunday – which usually includes an amp head, cabinet, PRX150-Pro attenuator, my pedal board, plus a couple of guitars – I opted to go a bit more sparse. This time, I loaded up my Champ 600, a 1 X 12 cab, my Squier CV Tele; then threw the Check-A-Board RED pedal and my TU-2 tuner in a gig bag. Setup time: Less than five minutes. 🙂
This past Sunday, my drummer was traveling on business, but even without a drummer, I like to have a little dirt at my fingertips. And since I wasn’t using an attenuator, an overdrive pedal was my only option, so what better way to test the RED pedal?
I needed to pop in a 9V battery, and I have to say that I dig the battery compartment in this pedal! As opposed to many pedals that have a separate lead wire that you have to attach the battery to, then place into the battery housing, the RED pedal’s housing actually swings out completely! You just slide the battery into the compartment, swing the housing back into the pedal, and you’re off to the races! Nice and convenient!
For volume setup, I first adjusted the Champ’s volume to my normal gig volume which, in a church as most worship players will attest, isn’t very loud; especially when you’re sans a drum kit. By the way, my guitar was also set to just above half-way on its volume knob, so I’d have some wiggle room. Once I had that dialed in, I set the RED pedal’s drive to about 2pm, tone wide open, and set volume at just above unity. That gave me a nice rhythm grind, and with the drive set where it was, if I added more volume on the guitar, it wouldn’t produce too much more volume – just more dirt, which is what I wanted.
At those pedal settings, the RED pedal really sustains. That’s what you’d expect from a Tube Screamer-like pedal. But as I mentioned in my “first impressions article,” it has a voice all its own, foregoing the huge mid-range hump, and presenting a much flatter EQ response that brings out the highs and lows a bit more (just so long as you keep the tone wide open as it is a high-cut filter).
While it responds dynamically much like a Tube Screamer, its voicing is darker and has more “balls.” That’s a great combination, especially when you’re playing through a naturally bright amp like the Champ 600. It provides an overall tonal balance, and that’s very pleasing to me. 🙂
There were two things that struck me during the service about the RED pedal: First of all, even when I was wailing on the strings, the string separation was phenomenal! This pedal doesn’t know how to get mushy! Even on our closing song where I cranked the Drive – and we could play with more stage volume because the congregation gets LOUD 🙂 – my sound never turned to mush, and I was able to weave in and out of power chords and little fills and not worry about producing just a wall of sound. KILLER!
Secondly, where I had the pedal set up for most of the service, the RED pedal’s dynamic response was much like an amplifier’s, and it responded incredibly well to volume and knob and pick attack. For instance, there was one song near the beginning of the service where I stepped into the aisle to egg on the congregation to sing with the band. When I stepped out, we were in the middle of a nice, driving section of the song. I kind of got a bit carried away 🙂 and lingered there a bit too long and couldn’t get back to the RED pedal to switch off the overdrive before the softer verse section. So I turned my guitar volume down just a bit, and used some light hybrid picking for the verse section. The pedal cleaned right up, and had just a tad bit of dirt on the high-end which served as some shimmer. Needless to say, I pretty much kept the pedal on for each song we did, with the exception of a meditative, prayerful song where I had to play absolutely clean.
Funny thing, while I set up the booster, I didn’t even use it this past service. I’ll definitely use it when I use my regular rig, as I’ll have my attenuator and can set my amp to its sweet spot. Then I can take advantage of slamming the front end with some gain. 🙂
I DIG THIS PEDAL!!! At $139 from The Alternative Guitar and Amplifier Company – and I don’t say this often – but this is a must-have pedal for me! Looks like I’m going to have to buy the evaluation unit! Yeah, I know, I’m adding yet another overdrive pedal to my collection, but as Tony Stark said in “Iron Man,” “I gotta have it.” But unlike Stark, I won’t box it up and put it in storage. This pedal is going on my board!
How It Sounds
I’m using the clips I recorded for my first impressions article again. I’m actually working on a video review of the pedal, so I didn’t want to record more clips. But here’s a sampling for your listening pleasure. For this, I’m using my Aracom PLX18BB 18-Watt Plexi clone.
You know me… I LOVE overdrive pedals! I have several, and amazingly use them all, depending upon the voicing that I want, as I don’t think I’ve ever come across any two that sound exactly alike. But since I’ve been playing through really nice tube amps, I’ve come to really appreciate a great booster pedal as well. So it was very pleasant surprise to discover Doodad Guitars’ Check-A-Board RED overdrive-booster pedal that combines both OD and boost in a single pedal.
You might be thinking, “So what?” I certainly did, until I found out that you could operate either one separately or both in tandem to not only add some clipping before your amp, but to also slam the front end with more gain. That really piqued my interest!
I discovered this pedal through Mal Stich over at The Alternative Guitar and Amplifier Company (“Alternative” for this discussion) as I was searching for more information about Marble Amps, a Dutch company that makes vintage Fender clones. “Alternative” is their US dealer. I called up Mal to get info about the amps, and we had a great conversation. He shared that the amps were fantastic, but it was tough to sell them here in the states because shipping and duties are so high for such heavy gear that it makes it hard for Marble to compete in the boutique amp marketplace in the States. Then he mentioned that he was working with another Dutch company that had just released a brand-new overdrive-booster combo pedal. That got my ears up! So he graciously offered to send one to me for review.
So as a first impression, what do I think? This is a killer pedal, folks! I love both sides of the RED pedal. While the overdrive is supposedly based upon the classic TS-808 circuit, it doesn’t sound at all like a Tube Screamer (remember, I have one), but that’s a good thing, as it has it’s own voice. It can go from slightly gritty to super saturated and sustaining. But the coolest thing I dig about it is that it doesn’t compress your signal much with the drive set high. But like the Tube Screamer, at high drive settings, it sustains for days!
With respect to the booster, I dig it. It doesn’t give me as much boost as my Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23, but very importantly, it doesn’t add any artifacts either; in other words, it boosts as expected, and does it transparently. And it comes in handy when I need a slight volume jump for a lead. I guess you might compare it to the VOX Satchurator’s “More” toggle, but with this booster, the gain is adjustable. Nice! While I really love the overdrive side of the pedal, I’ve found myself using the booster a lot more because my amps just loved to be slammed with gain on the front-end! 🙂 The booster really brings out the best in these low-wattage amps!
For controls, the RED pedal has four knobs: Three (Drive, Tone, and Volume) control the overdrive section, while the four controls the amount of boost the pedal produces when the boost is engaged. The Tone control is more of a high-cut filter than a true EQ, but that’s okay. I prefer that with overdrive pedals as I usually want all my tone, so I normally have it all the way up, or if I’m playing a naturally bright amp, like my 18-Watt Plexi clone, I just dial out a tiny bit of the highs. One thing that I noticed immediately with the overdrive besides its sustain, is the incredible note separation, even at higher drive settings. That makes it a no-brainer to use when I want singing lead tones! As I mentioned, the signal doesn’t compress that much, so having that note separation is killer!
In my short time using the pedal, I’ve actually preferred to use the overdrive and booster separately. My little low-wattage amps provide enough dirt that slamming them with overdrive AND boost is just overkill. If I had higher-wattage, high-gain amps, it probably would make more sense to use both. In any case, I have some clips of the pedal. I’m using my Squier CV Tele plugged straight into the RED pedal then into my Aracom PLX18BB Plexi-clone.
PLX18BB By Itself
Overdrive Engaged
Booster Engaged
I have some more playing to do with it before I do my full review, but I will be giving this pedal a pretty high rating!
Never really been into fuzz that much, but some of my latest stuff could really use some fuzz, so I was pleasantly surprised this morning to receive Fat Tone Guitars’ newsletter this morning that featured an announcement that they’re the exclusive sellers for Earthquake Devices’ new Zap Machine Fuzz. This is a brand-new pedal, released just this past Monday, and from what I can tell, it sounds VERY COOL! Here’s a video:
Yup, you guessed it… yet another overdrive pedal. I came across this pedal while perusing the forums over at Mark Wein Guitar Lessons. Mark occasionally posts “Pedal of the Day” entries, and this was his latest. I know, lots of people complain about “yet another OD pedal.” But if you stop to think about it, there’s probably a great reason why there are so many OD’s on the market. What comes to mind for me is that no one overdrive can cover everything. Let’s face it, a Tube Screamer or TS-like OD can only take you so far tonally.
Don’t get me wrong: Not all OD’s are created equally. Admittedly, there’s lots of crap out there, which is a fallout of the boutique gear movement. I’ve suspected several boutique gear “manufacturers” of simply building gear based on kits, putting a nice paint job on them, then selling the pedal for hundreds of dollars; which is why I’ve always stressed to folks – try before you buy!
The LovePedal Kalamazoo is no exception to this rule. While it has some very cool features (I’ll list them below), you really never know how a pedal will work with your rig until you put it in your chain. But despite that, I’m really intrigued by LovePedal’s twist on the overdrive with the Kalamazoo.
So what’s to like? As you can see, there are two little knobs called Tone and Glass under the common Level and Drive knobs. I believe this is where the magic of the pedal lies. Tone is a treble content roll-off, while glass is a treble booster that doesn’t affect the lows. These are wired in series, so they interact with each other. From what I could gather from the demo from ProGuitarShops I’ve seen, these two knobs offer up a world of tonal possibilities.
Another thing that appeals to me is that I prefer a more “open” kind of overdrive to let my power tubes do the compression. To me, it sounds more natural that way. The Kalamazoo was designed to create an “open” type overdrive tone. With it, you can slam the front-end of your amp, and make that gain push the power tubes into compression.
And from what I could gather, the Kalamazoo is VERY responsive to input gain, which is demonstrated in the ProGuitarShops video.
Here are the pedal’s features (from the Love Pedal site):
9VDC Input
True Bypass LED Status
Compact Die cast Aluminum Case 4.37″ X 2.37″ X 1.07″
Controls:
DRIVE – Sets the amount of overdrive
LEVEL – Master volume control
TONE – Softens the treble content
GLASS – Increases treble without cutting bass response
STOMPSWITCH – Turns effect ON or OFF
Cost: $199
To top it off, the pedal has a mirror finish! I really dig that! My Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 booster has a mirror finish as well. Sweet! And at $199, this is a pedal that will not break the bank!
In my First Impressions article on the VOX Big Bad Wah, a reader commented that “I think this looks like the one Vox Satch pedal that they got right.” After playing with it for the last couple of days, I heartily agree. With both the voice, UK/US inductor and wah mode switches, the Big Bad Wah opens up a ton of possibilities with respect wah tone. So far, I’ve been happy as a clam with the Wah I mode and the US-style inductor (Voice and Drive don’t become active until you activate Wah II). I’ve been playing with Wah II a bit, and it really kicks butt. I dig the Drive knob that adds up to a 10dB clean boost, so you can get a nice gain boost for solos. I still have more experimentation to do, but so far so GREAT!
Having a really great wah pedal makes all the difference in the world to me. I used my Original Cry Baby only sparingly because it was so quirky, and because it was a bit noisy – even when disengaged – I sort of refused to use it on recordings. Well, with the Big Bad Wah, that’s going to change. The sweep on this pedal is perfect. It’s nice and even, which makes it incredibly controllable. It is really a joy to play.
In any case, here’s a clip that I made this morning. It’s a little minor jazz-blues tune. With this clip I wanted to feature Wah II with the darker, more “vowelly” voicing. No boost in this because I didn’t want the amp to break more. Signal chain is: Squier CV Tele –> Big Bad Wah –> Boss CE-2 Chorus –> VOX Time Machine Delay (for a little slap-back). BTW, the Big Bad Wah really plays nice with other pedals. I’ll have some other clips when I do my full review of it. But for now, here’s the current clip:
The one thing about pedals is that eventually, they wear out; especially pedals that have moving parts like a wah. It may take years, but they do wear out. It’s a fact of life.
My Dunlop Cry Baby has been on the fritz on and off for the past few months. Not wanting to take the time to replace it, and considering that it is easy to clean and adjust, I’ve occasioned to just do a DIY job on it and get it working again. No problem. But I finally just got tired of doing that, and decided to look at a new one.
About a year and a half ago, I evaluated several wah pedals but finally just went with a used Original Cry Baby, figuring it would tide me over for my wah needs. It certainly served me well, and I got a lot of mileage out of it. At the time of my original search though, the VOX Big Bad Wah hadn’t come out, so I really couldn’t consider it. But time went on, and I completely forgot about it until I saw the announcement for the new VOX Ice 9 overdrive pedal. Then suddenly, a light went off in my head, and I just nodded to myself, “That’s right. Joe helped design a wah pedal.”
So I did a bit more research, and saw an excellent video on YouTube with Joe discussing the idea behind the Big Bad Wah, and I knew I had to try it. So I immediately hopped into the car and went down to my local Guitar Center to try it out. I spent about an hour in the GC isolation room playing around with the different settings, and I have to say that Satch and VOX really did well putting their heads together on this wah pedal.
One thing that struck me before I played it was a comment that Joe had made in the video and how he described how Jimi Hendrix used a wah-wah pedal as an “extension of the music,” and the notes that were being played, and not something that was merely a rhythmic effect within an ensemble. That really spoke to me because even though I couldn’t hope to have their chops, I’ve always looked at the wah pedal in that light. So it was with great hope that when I did play it, I could use it in that way.
To make a long story short, the Big Bad Wah (“BBW”) lived up to my expectations and even more! I was thoroughly impressed! The sweep is perfect on this pedal, and unlike other wah pedals I’ve tested, doesn’t have a “breaking point” where the wah effect comes on suddenly. It’s nice and gradual. The total physical sweep of the pedal was also well-though out. It’s wide enough so you can add subtle portions of the effect in, but not so wide that you have to travel a lot to create a dramatic wah effect.
The one thing that used to irk me with my Cry Baby was how it would sound REALLY thin when I got to its full extent. Not so with the BBW. It gets trebly at the top, yes, but not so much that it’ll shatter glass, which means that in the middle of a lead, you can peg the pedal and get some great trebly voicing! On the other end of the spectrum, the lowest setting didn’t put a complete muzzle on my tone. It’s more of a compression effect, with a bleeding off of the highs. That means that your notes still stay fairly clear. Very cool!
Another thing that got me diggin’ the pedal was the different voicings. It has two: Vintage and Modern. The Vintage is a classic VOX wah tone, while the Modern includes the Vintage voice and adds a 10 db boost which is controllable via a Drive knob. Not only that, the Big Bad Wah also has an inductor switch that allows you to choose between a classic UK type of inductor, or a more modern USA type of inductor. The tone shaping possibilities with the BBW are immense!
Needless to say, I walked out of the store with the pedal. 🙂 Once I got a chance, I got a backing track going from one of my songs called, “In the Vibe,” and recorded a quick clip. I realize that I could probably have been a bit more dramatic with the wah effect in certain places, but I’m still getting used to the sweep. I’ll have better clips once I do a full review. In any case, give it a listen.
Also here’s the video I was talking about earlier:
This is a “mini-review” only because I wanted to provide feedback on it after using it, and because I only used it in a limited way. The Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay is a digital/analog delay pedal meaning it is a digital delay with an analog direct signal path – or as Mad Professor puts it, the direct signal path is made of analog amplifiers with no filtering. In other words, it’s supposed to be transparent with no tone coloration.
Guitar Gear 
