Henning has taken a look at Fender’s new Mirror Image Delay pedal. And, as Fender isn’t paying him to demo this pedal, we get his truly unfiltered opinion on this one.
https://youtu.be/_TJwGCjela4
If you’re thinking of ordering one of these, you’ll probably find this pedal very useful indeed. We’re seeing Henning’s initial impressions straight out of the box, and it’s likely that you’ll go through a similar experience when you get yours.
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Camilo Velandia has posted an interesting comparison video. He’s made a Kemper profile of his Indigo Amps El Mariachi, and then put them side by side for comparison.
Have a listen, and see whether you can hear the differences between the two.
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On this week’s That Pedal Show, Dan and Mick are looking at the effect that different speakers and cabinets can have both on tone and feel.
Everyone focuses on guitars, pedals and amps. Speakers and cabinets are often overlooked, yet they’re such an important part of why your amp sounds (and feels) like it does … and why digital modelling through FRFR speakers doesn’t sound or feel like a real amp in the room.
A great way to get an appreciation for the role that speakers and cabs play is to grab a bunch of impulse responses and experiment.
This video is a great introduction to the topic, in part because they’re not trying to put lots of different speakers into the same cab. They’ve taken the approach of doing what folks do in real life: plugging into different cabs to get different sounds.
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Sweetwater have posted a demo (from Dunlop’s Bryan Kehoe) of MXR’s Sugar Drive mini-pedal.
Looks like MXR are joining the Klon klone party … and in mini-pedal format too. It’s a very short video, making it hard to gauge how this will stack up against the other klones. But at least we know to look out for it now!
I’m tempted to get a bunch of klones and do a demo of how well they perform in the Klon’s main role. I’ve got a genuine Klon KTR, plus a couple of klones, and so far, while the klones sound good in their own right, they don’t do what the KTR does. I’m interested in seeing if there’s any out there that do.
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Over at In The Blues, Shane has posted his demo of Fender’s new Santa Ana Overdrive pedal.
This is a really good demo of this pedal, showing off what this pedal can do for a Telecaster, Stratocaster and for a Les Paul. Shane also points how the Middle EQ tone control is the crucial one for shaping the tone with the pedal.
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Chappers and The Captain have posted their latest blindfold challenge. Can Lee tell a real Tubescreamer from a pool of clones? And which ones will he like?
The Tubescreamer is possibly the most-copied pedal circuit of them all. Most pedal brands have a TS-style pedal in their range, and there’s a TS-style pedal to fit every budget.
It’s not really an overdrive pedal, and that’s very confusing when you get one for the first time. It’s more of a colour pedal, thanks to it’s pronounced mid-hump. Run it into a dirty amp to shape the overall sound, or run it after a gain or fuzz pedal to act as a great boost.
A Strat -> Zendrive -> TS signal chain in particular is a very special sound.
Over the years, I’ve had a few of the pedals in the video, and the one I use is the Mad Professor Little Green Wonder. You can’t get a sense of it from this video, but one of the great things about the LGW (and, indeed, all Mad Professor pedals) is the low noise floor.
I’d love to try a Wampler Clarksdale one day – just waiting for one to turn up at a good 2nd hand price. The J Rockett Blue Note is another pedal featured in this video that I want one day. Burgs did a demo of it years ago now that really sold me on it.
And just how good does the new Hot Rod Deluxe Mk 4 sound?
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Camilo Velandia has received his Axe FX III, and has posted several videos to show what it can do at launch. A couple in particular are of general interest, whether you own an Axe FX unit or not.
In the first video, Camilo compares quite a few of the stock amp presets from the new AxeFX III vs the older Axe FX II. To my ears, they’re almost identical.
That’s no sleight on the AxeFX III at all. Folks upgrading from the older unit will want reassurance that the tones they know and love are still there.
https://youtu.be/w5Ymqdetopc
In the second video, Camilo does a straight shootout of the Axe FX III amp models against highly-respected Kemper profiles. It’s not quite an apples-to-apples comparison, but it does reflect how the two units are used in practice.
The results are a bloodbath.
All the problems of the Kemper’s limited frequency reproduction are front and centre. The Axe FX III has all the body and definition that the Kemper has always lacked. It sounds richer, crisper, and more detailed.
I wonder how many more years Kemper can continue to ship the MK 1 unit? The Kemper’s main defence has always been that you can’t hear most of these differences in a full mix. And, indeed, a recorded Kemper is actually easier to mix that a more accurate tone, in my experience.
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Glenn Fricker has posted a super-useful introduction to sidechain compression, as part of his Audio Basics series:
Sidechain compression is one of those audio mixing techniques that makes a huge difference to your own recordings. As Glenn explains, it’s used to make a bit of space in your mix whenever you have two instruments competing for the same set of frequencies.
The classic use is to carve out a space for the kick drum. The kick drum is used as a trigger for a compressor on the bass guitar. The compressor reduces the volume of the bass guitar a little bit, so that the kick drum is easier to hear.
I use sidechain compression on my guitar tracks too. I like to turn down my rhythm guitars a little bit when there’s a lead guitar part or a vocal part. I find that it makes it easier to hear the lead / vocal parts, and it helps keep the overall master output volume from jumping too much during those parts.
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For this week’s Tuesday Talk, Mary Spender has shared her experience of driving up through California to visit the Ernie Ball Music Man factory.
It’s always cool to see how and where guitars are built. Most of us will never get a tour around a factory, so it’s awesome that Mary shared this with us. And California is just such a beautiful part of the world … 🙂
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