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Posts Tagged ‘Effects’

Gear Review: Barber Direct Drive

Posted in buying gear, distortion, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 10, 2009| 3 Comments »

4.75 Tone Bones - Almost perfect but not quite

Barber Direct Drive

Barber Direct Drive

 Barber Direct Drive

Summary: The Direct Drive is a nice, fairly transparent overdrive that maintains your amp’s tone that can produce mild grit to over-the-top, searing gain that sustains for days. 

 

Pros: As overdrive pedals go, this pedal sounds great, and with internal trim pots you can adjust the bass response and presence. This ain’t a Tube Screamer clone by any stretch of the imagination. Plus, it’s handmade and at a GREAT price!

Cons: A little noisy with single coils and P-90’s.

Price: $119 direct

Specs:

Volume, Tone and Drive knobs
Internal Trim Pots to adjust bass response and presence 

Tone Bone Score: 4.75 – I really like this pedal! It’s fairly transparent and clear, and except for a bit of noise with my Strat and PRS SE II Soapbar, this OD delivers great tones at any volume!

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know I have a thing for overdrive pedals; especially in a small home studio like my own, a good overdrive pedal really helps get that drive tone when you have to play at bedroom levels. Unfortunately, not all drive pedals behave well at low volumes. I would have to say that a lot of my overdrive purchasing decisions have been driven (excuse the pun) by how well they perform in low volume situations like a home studio. I’ve played several drive pedals over the years, and while almost all sound great when an amp is pushing some serious air, there’s only a select few that perform well at much lower volumes. So I’m happy to say that the Barber Direct Drive falls into the latter camp!

Ease of Use

What could be more easy? Three knobs for Volume, Tone and Gain. Just dial in the amount you desire of each, and you’re off to the races. But the Direct Drive also provides a cool push-pull pot with the Tone knob that engages what Barber calls “Fat Harmonics” mode for what they call the “Expensive California” amp tone. It’s another way of getting more high-end sparkle and emphasis on overtones and harmonics; much like the Fulltone OCD that has it on all the time. But wait! There’s more! 🙂 Inside the box are internal trim pots for adjusting bass response and 

How It Sounds

It’s certainly fatter sounding than a Tube Screamer, even though Barber claims in their manual that a certain knob setting is an “808 killer.” I tried the Direct Drive at that setting, and it’s close, but sorry, no cigar. But that’s not a bad thing! The Direct Drive has a very distinct personality and definitely a sound and voice all its own! I did mention in the Summary that it’s fairly transparent. It is, but nowhere near as transparent as the Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire which is just about the most transparent overdrive I’ve ever played! But again, that’s not a bad thing. The overdrive characteristics are a bit tighter than a Fulltone OCD and much more even EQ-wise than a Tube Screamer; like I said, it has its own voice.

Here’s a clip I recorded. The rhythm part features a Strat. The Direct Drive’s volume is at unity, tone is dead-center, and Drive is about 10 am to get just a tiny bit of overdrive. The solo employs my Prestige Heritage Elite. The box’s volume is still at unity, tone is about 1 pm, and the drive is set to dead-center. This produces a nice, smooth grind, and lots of sustain.

By the way, the cool thing about that clip is that it was recorded at bedroom level, with my ribbon mic about 2 inches from the grille cloth! For the pedal to create that drive sound at that level is amazing!

Overall Impressions

This is a real kick-ass pedal, and I do have to say that in low-volume situations, this has got to be one of the best sounding drive pedals I’ve played. I dig it!  This is not a pedal I’d just at high gain, gig volume situations. It’s not that the tone is bad, but even though Barber has removed some of the compression characteristics in the later models (the old ones were pretty thick in comparison, apparently), it’s a bit too tight at high gain, especially when you need to punch through a mix. Besides at that volume level, I tend to stay away from my overdrive pedals altogether and just use my Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 booster (the best, most transparent booster on the planet, IMO) to slam my pre-amp tubes. 

But for general overdrive duties, this is a great pedal. I actually love its fatter tone when playing in low-volume venues, and for a street price of $119, and being hand-wired to boot, this is a pedal that I don’t think I can ignore! Neither should you! 🙂

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New Gear: Lovepedal Releases Its New Mini Line!

Posted in announcements, buying gear, effect pedals, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 4, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Lovepedal has been around awhile, and has been known for creating some killer pedals; among them the awesome “Church of Tone,” Plexi-in-a-box drive box, and the Eternity drive, an incredibly versatile overdrive pedal. Just recently, Lovepedal released a line of four pedals that while diminutive in size, create huge tone. These are the Echo Baby, a nice straight-forward delay; the Amp 50, which is a miniaturized version of the Church of Tone pedal; the Pickle Vibe, a VERY nice vibe pedal; and finally, the Mini Buffer, a signal buffer to live on your pedal board to bolster and condition your signal chain. Each pedal measures 3 5/8″ long X 1 1/2″ wide X 1 1/4″ high. As Lovepedal puts it, these are small enough to fit on a keychain. 🙂 Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but that’s pretty small nonetheless. Check ’em out at lovepedal.com! Here’s a cool video to make you salivate a bit…

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New Gear: Reinhardt Amps “Willard” Distortion

Posted in buying gear, distortion, effect pedals, Effects, fuzz, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 30, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Reinhardt Amps Willard Distortion Pedal

Just ran across this brand-new fuzz pedal from Reinhardt Amps, called the "Willard" distortion pedal. This pedal is pure 80’s fuzz, a sound that I came to love! From the video, it’s clear that this pedal is capable of producing some serious hair, but it also retains a lot of clarity. Built around a true NOS LM308N op-amp chip and based around a big-box Rat of that era, this is a very nice-sounding distortion box. Check out the video below:

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New Gear: VOX Time Machine

Posted in buying gear, delay, effect pedals, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, new gear, pedals, vox, vox time machine, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 27, 2009| 4 Comments »

VOX Time MachineCan’t believe I missed the announcement of its release – I’m usually good about keeping on top of new gear – especially since VOX has been coming out with some pretty awesome stuff as of late. But here it is, the VOX Time Machine Delay. As with the other pedals of this VOX line, this pedal is the result of a very close collaboration between VOX and Professor Satchfunkilus (Joe Satriani). This pedal completes the three pedal line.

The Time Machine Delay features two delay modes (Modern and Vintage) and two EQ modes (Hi-Fi and Lo-Fi). The Modern delay mode provides a transparent delay to retain your orginal tone, while the vintage mode mimicks a vintage analog tape delay. The Hi-Fi/Lo-Fi switch does something similar to the delay modes. Hi-Fi retains your tonal color, while the Lo-Fi mode delivers a “distinctive EQ, combining both high-pass and low-pass filters” to blend better in a mix.

But the thing that I think is pretty incredible is that the pedal has up to 5600 milliseconds of delay – that’s almost 6 seconds! With that you could really do a nice lead loop that you can play over! Damn! Six seconds is a LOT of time. There are lots of layering possibilities with that! That length of delay alone compels me to try the pedal out!

While there are several demos, there aren’t a lot of reviews. Reviews on Harmony Central are mixed. Sound-wise it gets high marks, but one user did point out that the switches seemed a little “rattly,” with no click. Hmmm…. that could be a potential problem. But so far, I haven’t seen any quality issues – but the pedal’s new, so that remains to be seen.

The pedal ain’t cheap, coming it a $199 street, but it has some really great features that definitely worth consideration. Me? I’m really leaning towards the TC Electronic Nova Repeater, mainly because it’s no frills and the tap tempo function using the strum of your guitar is friggin’ awesome – it’s also only $150 street. And based upon the venerable, Nova Delay, it’s a known quantity. However, to be fair, I’m going to have to an A/B to see how the two pedals stack up.

For more information, go to the VOX Time Machine web page.

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Gear Announcement: New Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man

Posted in announcements, buying gear, delay, effect pedals, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 23, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man Old and New

When I first saw the pictures of the new Deluxe Memory Man, I wasn’t too impressed only because I didn’t see the actual size difference between the old and the new version. But Electro-Harmonix has done it: They’ve made a DMM with a smaller footprint. I’ve played the DMM before, and really dug it. There is a certain mojo about this analog delay. But I never considered it because of the real estate it would require on my already space-starved board (though admittedly, it’s time to get a bigger board if I want all my pedals on a single board). Now, with it’s smaller size, this is definitely a pedal I’m going to consider – especially since I’m in the market for a good delay pedal. In any case, here’s the press release from EH:

The original Deluxe Memory Man is considered to be the finest analog delay ever designed. Organic and musical, it has been used by rock and Roll legends and countless musicians since its introduction in 1978. With the desire to make a flawless and smooth transition, Electro-Harmonix proudly announces the “new” Deluxe Memory Man in our rugged and pedal board friendly die-cast enclosure.

Exactly the same components are used in order to maintain the superior analog sound with exactly the same performance qualities. In this case, downsizing to a more rugged chassis was important and only second to maintaining the legendary sound. The exact same sound!

The original Deluxe Memory Man will still be available for a limited time. Musicians in the US and UK can now choose to get the new Deluxe Memory Man, or opt to get the classic. Musicians in the EU can now choose to get the classic original (as right now they only get the die-cast)

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Follow-up: Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23

Posted in booster, clean boost, Creation Audio Labs, effect pedals, Effects, gear, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Mk.4.23, Music, musicians, overdrive, pedals, Tone, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 11, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 Boost

Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23 Boost

If you read this blog with any regularity, you’d know that I have this thing about overdrive and distortion pedals. Not that I’m a shredder or let alone a virtuoso at guitar. I just love tone, and there’s something about overdrive that never fails to bring a smile to my face. But ever since I started playing with some great amps, and now that I’ve got a great new speaker in my Hot Rod, I’ve been relying less on overdrive for my grind tone, and much more on the natural breakup of my amps. Enter the Creation Audio Labs Mk.4.23, what I consider to be the best clean boost on the planet.

A lot of pedal manufacturers claim to have transparent boosters, and I’ve tried several that come close, but the Mk.4.23 totally delivers true transparency. You get the natural tone of your guitar and amp – just a lot more input gain that will send your pre-amp tubes into saturation. Mm-mm-good! I already wrote a review of this pedal, but thought I’d do a follow-up on how I’ve been using it over the past few months.

I’ve been using the Mk.4.23 in a few different ways (in order of how much I apply it):

  1. First, I use it by itself with the volume dimed on the pedal into my drive channel to slam the front-end of the amp, and seriously overdrive it. In this mode, I usually don’t use any other effect in front of it, though I might use a compressor with my Strat to fatten up the tone. That way I know that I’m getting my guitar’s and amp’s true tone.
  2. Then I use it by itself to boost my clean channel when I need just a bit more volume when I’m doing a clean lead break to get over the band. In this mode, the volume’s set just past unity gain. I also set the volume knob on my guitar to about it’s midpoint so I can fine-tune the volume via my guitar.
  3. Finally, I use it in conjunction with one or more overdrive/distortion pedals to add even more gain to what the other pedals have to offer. Using it this way doesn’t really add any appreciable volume, but the effect is that the overdrive tone gets super thick and raunchy. It’s not all the pretty when playing chords, but single notes absolutely scream!

For such a simple pedal, the Mk.4.23 has really changed the way I approach achieving different tones. For more information, check out Creation Audio Labs’ web site!

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Stack it up!!!

Posted in booster, clean boost, compression, Creation Audio Labs, distortion, effect pedals, Effects, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, overdrive, reason amps, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 10, 2009| 2 Comments »

Late last night, I was lurking (and posting) on my favorite gear forum The Gear Page, when I ran across this thread: Stacking ODs? where a player was asking if anyone had stacked any overdrives. I’ve been doing this for years with different pedal combinations, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Through my experiments, I found that stacking works best on amps that have a much more open distortion character; that is, the power tubes don’t compress too much. For instance, I tried this on an Aracom Custom 45R that KT-66’s in it, and the compression was so intense that it sucked away all the tone. When Jeff swapped out the tubes with 6L6’s, it was a totally different story. However, I’ve gotten the best results with amps based on either 6V6’s or EL84’s. These tubes don’t compress the signal as much when they saturate as their bigger siblings and maintain a much more open distortion character.

To hear what stacked OD’s sound like, here’s a clip I took out of a song I’ve been working on. Here’s the signal path:

Strat -> Tube Screamer -> Holy Fire -> Mk.4.23 Booster -> Reason SM25

The TS overdrive is set at about 2pm, the Holy Fire’s overdrive is set a 12, with distortion just past 2pm, and the Mk.4.23 booster is dimed for an extra 24db of boost. 🙂  The SM25 is StackMode (both channels run in a series with an extra gain stage), with gain at about 12. Here’s what it sounds like:

This is the raw, unmastered track. It’s really aggressive, but as you can see, it’s not super-compressed.

Update

I’m probably going to buy a Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret in the next couple of days. This pedal was made for stacking, much like the Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire. It’ll be interesting to see what it’s like on my board.

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New Gear: Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Blue

Posted in buying gear, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, overdrive, pedals, Tone, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2009| 2 Comments »

Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Blue Image c/o Seymour Duncan

Seymour Duncan Twin Tube Blue Image c/o Seymour Duncan

Seymour Duncan is known for its outstanding pickups, and I’ve known they’ve made pedals for awhile, but haven’t really paid attention until they came out with the Twin Tube Blue (SFX-11). This is a very cool little preamp/overdrive box that sits – gain-wise – right in the middle between their Twin Tube Classic and their Twin Tube Mayhem.

Run by two 6111 mil-spec, USA Philips-Sylvania tubes, the Blue can get you some nice, pre-amp snap, to sweet, sustained gain. Here’s the description from the Seymour Duncan site:

Too often, inexpensive tube gear runs in “starved plate mode,” where the tubes function like clipping diodes and do not actually amplify. The Twin Tube Blue’s high-plate voltage and 100% vacuum tube signal path allows the tubes to operate at their fullest potential and provide maximum dynamic range. This means you get the most gain and all the smooth tone you expect from a high-quality tube preamp. Two channels provide versatility. Like all Seymour Duncan stompboxes, the Twin Tube Blue is true bypass and features a fully encapsulated toroidal transformer for quiet operation. Heavy duty steel chassis.

Sounds impressive, huh? Here’s a video:

At about $229 street, it’s a bit on the pricey side, but it sure sounds good. Check it out at Seymour Duncan!

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New Gear: TC Electronic Nova Repeater Delay

Posted in buying gear, delay, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, pedals, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Imagine a TC Electronic pedal for under $200! That’s right! It’s the Nova Repeater Delay. It has the same great quality you expect from TC Electronic, but at a great price. As TC Electronic puts it, the Nova Repeater is a “no-frills-with-a-sound-that-kills” type of pedal. In other words, it doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles. You dial in your settings and play. The most useful feature I dig is the tap tempo you can do strumming your guitar! You hold down the tap tempo button, strum your guitar, and the pedal picks up the tempo you strum! Very cool! When you hold down the tap tempo to set your tempo via your guitar, the pedal shuts off the signal to your amp, so you can set your tempo practically noiselessly. The TC Electronic dudes are awesome! Here’s a video:

I’ve been wanting to get a simple delay pedal for awhile now, and this one looks very promising. However, TC Electronic announced this pedal on March 27, 2009, and it hasn’t hit the stores yet! Damn! I was going to lay down the $149 for this sight-unseen! Oh well, guess I’ll have to wait, or get the Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret first… 🙂

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New Gear: VOX Tonelab ST

Posted in amps, Amps/Amplification, announcements, effect pedals, Effects, GAS, gear, gear find, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, Music, musicians, pedals, vox, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on April 7, 2009| Leave a Comment »

VOX Tonelab ST

VOX Tonelab ST

I got my first introduction to VOX Tonelab boards when I saw a dude playing one direct into his PA at a casino a couple of years back. I was amazed at how awesome it sounded, and completely changed my opinion of using models in a live situation. Since then, I’ve played with some of the Tonelab series boards and Valvetronix amps, and have generally been pleased with them. But with the Tonelab SE, I think I’m going to take a really good look at this new offering from Vox.

  • First off, it’s nice and compact. It’s their smallest footprint yet!
  • 50 Presets and 50 User programs.
  • 33 amps and a 11 cabinets – more than you’ll ever need to customize your sound.
  • I’ve always dug the fact that it has an on-board expression pedal to adjust a bunch of different parameters – but most of all, to use as a wah (the wah is actually pretty sweet on these units).
  • Finally, at $199 (street), there’s tons of value in this little unit!

For more information, check out the VOX Tonelabe page.

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