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.
Shawn Tubbs has posted a short demo of Digitech’s Looking Glass overdrive pedal.
In this demo, Shawn does something that I wish more demos did: he plays a Strat, a Tele and a dual-humbucker guitar too. It really gives you a flavour of what this pedal might do for you.
I do own a Looking Glass myself. Right now, it’s in the pedal cupboard, waiting for me to have the time to spend on it properly. Easter weekend can’t come soon enough!
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Ever wondered what the Chase Bliss Warped Vinyl HiFI pedal sounds like in a professionally-produced track? Henning has you covered:
I love these kind of demos. It’s very useful to hear someone try a pedal out by itself – that mimics us Home Tone Chasers noodling at home. It’s also great to hear what a pedal can sound like in a recording, for those of us who like to try our hand at creating our own tracks.
The pedal itself? I’m looking forward to the full demo, to see just what it can do.
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Yes, you read that right. JHS has taken the ubiquitous Boss DS-1 and made some crazy mods to it. And then they asked Mike Hermans – one of the top demo guys – to show what this thing can do.
It starts out with an upgraded drive circuit, complete with a three-way toggle switch for different clipping types. That alone would be a great mod in its own right.
Then, they added 3 different synth circuits that you can switch in and out independently … just in case you’re bored with overdrive sounds. Or you just want something that’s batshit 🙂
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Sam Coulson has posted a short video, showing us the rig he’s using when he’s giving guitar clinics this year.
He’s running a modded Charvel into a Helix, out to the Yamaha THR-100HD. The Yamaha’s setup as a clean platform for the Helix. It’s a simple rig that looks very easy to load in and out without a lot of effort.
I’ve got the Yamaha THR-100HD myself, and for a couple of years it was my main practice amp. It takes pedals better than any other modelling amp did at the time. You can run two amps at once out into different cabs, and that gives you a taste of that two-amp blended tone thing.
My main complaint with the THR-100HD is that it felt like Yamaha abandoned it to a large extent. It’s been a couple of years since the last firmware update, and they haven’t added any new models – or improved the existing ones – since launch. It’s become a very much take-it-or-leave-it amp.
But – unlike some modelling amps – you can use it as an amp, without hooking it up to a computer. Which means that they’ll continue to be usable long into the future.
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Pete Thorn has posted his demo of Fender’s 2018 Pedal range. If you want to hear what they sound like together in a mix, this is the demo for you.
Rather than go through every single tone the pedals offer, he breaks down a complete song, showing what he used for each part – and letting us hear them soloed out.
I love the tones Pete gets from the Santa Ana Overdrive in this video. I’ve already got the Pugilist, and it sounds great with a Tele. The Santa Ana with humbuckers … that’s a sound that I do have a need for. Not too long until pay day 🙂
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Burgs has posted a demo of Mad Professor’s new Kosmos reverb pedal.
The Kosmos is a mono pedal, featuring 11 different reverb models in a standard-sized pedal format. It also has a freeze feature – just hold down the foot switch to keep the reverb going until you lift off again.
These mono pedals are great for running straight into a clean amp, or in the effects loop of an amp – especially if the amp doesn’t have a built-in reverb of its own.
Mad Professor is one of those pedal brands that most players haven’t heard of. I’ve been using their pedals for years, and I’ve normally got several of them on my main board at any one time. (My pedal cupboard has plenty of them too, waiting to fight their way back onto the board.) Not only do they sound great, they have the lowest noise floors around and lots of input headroom – perfect for stacking.
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Danish Pete from Andertons (and before that, from demoing Mesa Boogie gear) has his own YouTube channel – and he’s just uploaded a demo of the new hand built Mudhoney from T-Rex.
He’s a phenomenal player. Give him a looper and an overdrive, and he’ll entertain for hours. This video is no exception.
There’s a really cool story behind this video. Pete had #4 of the original Mudhoney run, and he let T-Rex have it for their museum cabinet. Turns out that they took it apart, and used it as the basis for this new handbuilt series of Mudhoney pedals. So Pete’s in effect demoing a recreation of his old Pedal here.
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