Tone. At Home.
Pedals, pedalboards, and anything to do with these little boxes of joy :)
I recently picked up another tweed-tone pedal: Catalinbread’s Formula 55 overdrive pedal.
Is this going to be the 5e3-in-a-box pedal that I can recommend to anyone who wants the sound of a Tweed Deluxe without having to buy one of these expensive amps? Or is it going to be three out of three for disappointment with Catalinbread pedals?
Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Catalinbread Formula 55 Overdrive”I recently rewired my home studio rack to replace unreliable home-made cables with professionally-made ones that would be noise-free.
Unexpectedly, the rewiring also revealed that I’d been losing some of the treble from my guitar without realising it. While testing all of the different signal paths that I have, I discovered problems with two of the signal chains that I use the most:
In this blog post, I’m going to explain the problem I found, and what I’m doing about it. I’ll also include audio samples, so that you can hear the problem for yourself.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #34: Gigrig G2 Goes For A Service”Over on Twitter, my friend Alessandro asked for opinions about Mad Professor’s Little Tweedy Drive.
Yes, I have opinions about this particular pedal. I wasn’t a fan when I first got this pedal. Will that change, when I take a second look at the Little Tweedy Drive? Read on to find out.
Continue reading “TweedTalk #3: Mad Professor’s Little Tweedy Drive”After a couple of months with no new (to me) gear, May has been a very busy month.
There’s a few items I’ve been after, both professionally and for home use. All of these things needed to be imported: some because they’re not sold in the UK, and some because they are sold here but are constantly out of stock.
With the UK government threatening to illegally break its own treaty and start a (doomed) trade war with Europe, I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get them if I didn’t act now. On top of that, rampant inflation means that buying later means paying a lot more.
Now that they’re here, what do I think of them? And how was the import process? Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “New Arrivals: May 2022”A couple of months back, I bought the MXR version of the legendary Timmy overdrive pedal. Since it arrived, I’ve been far too busy using it to write about it 😂
If you’d like to know a bit more, here are my First Impressions of this pedal.
Continue reading “First Impressions: MXR Timmy Overdrive Pedal”I recently bought a new compressor pedal: Fender’s The Bends. It has a reputation for being a very boring compressor pedal. That’s good: I’m a boring guitar player, and I like boring gear. The question is: is it too boring?
Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Fender’s The Bends Compressor Pedal”
Back in March 2020, I picked up a second hand Paisley Deluxe (Paisley Drive Deluxe? Even Wampler’s own marketing uses both terms …), and really struggled with it. And that has bugged me ever since.
A lot has changed since then. Will that make any difference, or will it still be a pedal that just isn’t for me? Details below 🙂
Continue reading “Second Bite: Wampler Paisley Deluxe”The Christmas break is always good for getting me to wire up and fire up the home recording studio, and the end of 2021 was no exception. It was a good reminder of just how much I enjoy making music (rather than just noodling around).
So, this year, I want to at least try and have a bit more purpose when I choose which new (to me) gear to try:
Last year, we had one month when there were no new arrivals to write about. I wouldn’t be surprised if we have several more this year. But not this month 🙂
Continue reading “New Arrivals: January 2022”
Back in May 2021 (where did the time go?!?), I picked up a second-hand Tone City Sweet Cream Overdrive pedal. I’ve finally put it onto my pedal board, to see what it can do.
Is it a outright clone of the Sweet Honey Overdrive, or does it have something different to offer? Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Tone City Sweet Cream Overdrive”
I recently picked up a new (to me) factory-modded Amber Overdrive pedal, made by Mad Professor.
This is the third pedal in their Custom series that I’ve tried. I really enjoyed the first two. Will I enjoy this one as much? Read on for my First Impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Mad Professor Amber Overdrive With Midas Touch”