Tone. At Home.
Pedals, pedalboards, and anything to do with these little boxes of joy :)
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.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Shane’s video,
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?
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed the Andertons video.
Pete Thorn has posted a demo of Seymour Duncan’s Silver Lake Reverb pedal.
When you think of Seymour Duncan, you probably associate them with decades of pickups. In recent years, they’ve been branching out into effects pedals. The Silver Lake Reverb is the latest to hit the streets.
I like how this is a true stereo pedal. Mono reverbs have their place – mainly for amps that don’t have a built-in reverb of their own. Beyond that one use case, I think mono reverbs just fall flat as a feature effect. Reverb needs to be in stereo if you want it front and centre in a soundscape.
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Brian Wampler has posted a video of what it’s like to run drive pedals into a clean amp, and what it’s like to run the same pedals into a Dirty amp.
He’s picked an Orange Rockerverb 50 Mk 2 for this. It’s an interesting choice, as it isn’t your typical Fender-voiced or Marshall-voiced amp.
If you’re interested in running pedals into an Orange amp, hopefully you’ll find it useful.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Brian’s video.
Mike Hermans has posted a demo of One Control’s Baby Blue Overdrive pedal.
This is a pedal designed by Bjorne Juhl. If you haven’t heard of him, you might have come across BJF or BJFe designed pedals from Mad Professor or Bearfoot FX. The guy’s a legend in the pedal community, and arguably one of the top pedal circuit designers of all time.
I’ve got plenty of his designs on my own board or close to hand in my pedal cupboard. Whether it’s the Sky Blue Overdrive, Sweet Honey Overdrive, or the Uber Bee, his pedals have been at the heart of my guitar tone for many years now.
So what about the Baby Blue Overdrive?
This reminds me a lot of the Amber Overdrive – a fuzzy overdrive pedal trying to sound like a cranked Fender amp. [The Amber Overdrive is actually chasing the sound of a vintage fuzz into a cranked Marshall stack – Ed] Both designs need to be first in your signal chain, like an old-fashioned fuzz pedal. In practice, the Amber Overdrive is challenging to dial in. I haven’t found that sweet spot yet on the two examples that I’ve owned.
The Baby Blue looks like it might be a little more forgiving. Had to say for sure without trying one. Speaking of which …
New for 2018, Bjorn is hoping to ramp up production of pedals based on his designs, and bring the prices down to more obtainable levels. He’s going to be doing this through One Control, and it seems that his long association with Bearfoot FX has come to an end.
Elsewhere in the same forum thread, Bjorn says that this new version of the Baby Blue OD is built using modern components (the original ones were built using NOS components that he can’t get any more). As a result, it does sound different, and he thinks it’s closer to the sound in his head than ever before.
Unfortunately, I can’t find one to buy just yet. I’ll keep looking. I really want to put this side by side with the Amber Overdrive to see how they compare.
Henning has posted his full demo of the Chase Bliss Audio Warped Vinyl HiFi Pedal. I was intrigued by his mixed track demo from earlier. How will the pedal fare in a detailed demo / review?
It’s a long review, because this pedal has a lot of ways to shape the effect. Far more, it turns out, than Henning has time to go into. Not only are there more controls than your average chorus pedal, there’s a lot of dip switches on the top edge of the pedal to shape things even more.
This is definitely a pedal for those of you who are adventurous and willing to put in the time to explore just what this pedal can do.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Henning’s video.
Rabea Massaad has just posted a demo of the new Danelectro Cash Cow distortion pedal. It’s a paid demo (as many of these kinds of videos are), and thank you to Rabea for making that clear at the very start.
This has a thick, saturated tone to it – the kind that might be very enjoyable to just noodle on at home unaccompanied.
Rabea does say that he thinks it’s one of the darker distortion pedals that he’s played through. I’d love to hear it in a mix, to hear if it can cut through for lead duties, or whether it works best as a rhythm pedal.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Rabea’s video.
Shane’s been teasing us about the Kemper Profiler that he borrowed from Sky Music of Melbourne … and now we have his thoughts on it.
I’m going to save my thoughts on the Kemper until I’ve had time to sit down and record my own Kemper demos. For now, I agree with what Shane thinks about the Kemper – especially when it comes to pedals – but I have a lot more to share about profiling accuracy soon!
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Shane’s video.
Leo from Frog Leap Studios has posted a demo of his Line 6 Shuriken Variax, and how it enables him to perform his famous metal covers live.
It’s really cool how far the Variax has come from the early days. I had the original Variax – boy was that a long time ago – and it was so bad it ended up in the recycling. I couldn’t even give it away. But the Shuriken – especially paired with the Helix – looks worlds apart. Check out Leo’s video to see just what it can do.
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Henning’s just put up a quick demo of a very interesting piece of gear – a 40W that sits on your pedalboad. Not a drive pedal – a full-blown amp, complete with FX loop!
If you’re a gigging musician, having a backup amp of some kind is essential – especially if you gig with real valve amps. Lugging a spare amp around isn’t fun. And depending on what you buy, that’s a lot of money tied up in it, especially as you hope to never actually have to use it.
Some kind of backup that can sit on your pedalboad – just in case – has a lot of appeal.
And for us home tone chasers, if you can’t have / don’t want a traditional amp at home, this kind of thing is well worth looking at as an alternative to using modelling amps or software amp sims.
I’ll post the full review when Henning uploads it. This could be one to watch.
Please head over to Henning’s channel to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Henning’s video.