Another month, another bucket list pedal. Oh, and another tweed-tone pedal too.
Rockbox Baby Blues Vintage Distortion Pedal
This has been on my bucket list ever since I tried the Marshall Vintage Reissue pedals early in 2023. Rockbox pedals used to be fairly common, but they’ve become quite rare here in the UK in recent years. This is the only Baby Blues that I’ve found for sale here without having to import it.
So what is it? The Baby Blues has a reputation for being one of the best bluesbreaker-based pedals. It’s also one the oldest bluesbreaker-based pedals, having launched all the way back in 2011 (after the King of Tone, and before any of today’s famous alternatives).
Oh, what a pedal! There’s drama, struggle, lots of help and even a mystery guest along the way. All is revealed in my First Impressions post.
Umbrella Company Hitchhike Drive
This went onto my list of known tweed-tone pedals only 24 hours before one turned up on the UK second-hand market. I can’t believe my luck. Umbrella Company are a Japanese firm. As far as I know, they don’t have a European or UK distributor.
The Hitchhike Drive chases the sound of three tweed-era Fender amps: the Tweed Deluxe, the Bassman and the Twin. It also features a switch (the Dynamic Filter) which can add a bit more compression and saturation to the pedal. Sounds like it could be quite versatile.
For the second time this month, I bought a pedal that I struggled with – but for a very different reason! This one took me on quite the journey in order to build a signal chain that did this pedal justice. For the full details – and plenty of audio demos – see my First Impressions post.
Sony WH-CH520 Wireless Bluetooth Headphones
Apart from when I’ve been commuting to work, I’ve never really been a headphones kind of guy. I have a strong preference for listening to music out of a nice set of speakers instead. And that’s partly because I think it’s a more forgiving way to listen to something.
Thing is, I often want to listen to music at unsociable hours. I find it too distracting to listen to music while working, and since the start of spring, I haven’t been travelling much to listen to music on the go.
Somewhere along the way, I’ve kinda fallen out of the habit of listening to much music at all. I got these headphones to do something about it.
These headphones may be hella cheap, but I think they’re great for the kind of casual listening that I’ve bought them for. They’re pretty comfy too. There’s been plenty of late nights (morphing into early mornings …) where I’ve disappeared down musical rabbit holes on YouTube.
YouTube’s notorious for its poor audio quality, so I don’t think it’s worth buying a top-tier set of headphones just for this. (Please, if you publish music on YouTube, please please please make it available through other avenues too. Your videos’ comment sections are full of people like me asking for this, so that we can appreciate your art fully!)
Equally, though, these headphones are good enough that I don’t feel the need to buy any better ones right now. I’ve used them to listen to movies too, and they haven’t disappointed at all.