Tone. At Home.
Overdrive, distortion, fuzz – the glorious sounds of dirt and filth!
A couple of weeks ago, I bought a second-hand Leo Jr overdrive pedal.
I’ve been after one of these for a long time. Now that I have it, was it worth the wait?
Continue reading “First Impressions: ToadWorks Leo Jr American Overdrive”It’s been a quiet month.
The second hand market … is a bit weird right now. It’s become all-too common for asking prices to be close to (or even above!) the original retail price. It isn’t just rare or vintage gear that’s seeing high prices, either.
Instead, I’ve focused on trying to make the most of what I’ve already got – especially my Telecasters. I think it’s been a month well spent.
Continue reading “New Arrivals – February 2021”It feels weird to write ‘2021’. While it always takes a bit of time to get used to writing down the new year each time around, this year it just feels plain weird. 2020 was one of the hardest years many of us have had to face, and it seemed to go on forever. [So far, 2021 is shaping up to simply be Season 2 of 2020 – Ed]
This month, I’ve been focusing on things that will help me hit my 2021 New Year Resolutions. Oh, and I found another tweed-tone pedal too.
Continue reading “New Arrivals: January 2021”
As regular readers will know, tweed-tone pedals are kind of my thing. Good, bad, or indifferent, I’m always on the lookout for an opportunity to try as many of these pedals as I possibly can. The Catalinbread Formula 5F6 is one of the few that’s in regular production.
The day this was delivered, I was pretty down on it over on my Twitter account. Has anything changed now that I’ve had a bit more time with it? That all depends on what kind of guitar you play …
Continue reading “First Impressions: Catalinbread Formula 5F6 Drive Pedal”I had a plan for December: keep an eye out for outright bargains or ultra-rare pedals on the second-hand market, and spend more time enjoying what arrived last month.
Then, when writing up my Annual Review blog posts, that all changed. Looking back over the last 12 months made me realise that there was an obvious problem, and I needed to sort it out. So, I have.
I hope you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year. We filled our house with music, and it’s what gets us through these historic times.
Continue reading “New Arrivals: December 2020”
In my first impressions of the NABLA Custom Black Tweed, I said that one of the things I didn’t like about it was that I found the tone to sound very dull. This morning, I was going back through my New Arrivals posts, and I was reminded of another tweed-tone pedal with a top-end that I didn’t like at first: the Mythos Lark.
I thought it’d be interesting to throw them both on the board together, and explore them side by side. This isn’t a ‘best’ kind of review: it’s about understanding the options that each pedal offers … and yes, about exploring the top-end of them both.
Continue reading “Side By Side: NABLA Custom Black Tweed and Mythos Lark”
This arrived all the way back at the start of December, and since then, it’s barely been off my practice pedal board at home. Although that sounds like a really good thing, the reality is a little more complicated than that …
Continue reading “First Impressions: NABLA Custom Black Tweed Overdrive Pedal”
Late 2020, Wampler Pedals launched the Wampler Belle, which comes in a fetching green. They also did a limited run of these in the Claymore finish, as a tribute to the late Alex Abernathy Clay. Same circuit, just a different finish.
Here are my (long overdue) first impressions of this delightful overdrive pedal.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Wampler Belle Overdrive (in Claymore Finish)”November 2020 is mostly about what didn’t arrive this month, alas.
I ordered a couple of cool pedals from Italy at the end of October, and they only just didn’t make the cut (they arrived 1st December 2020). They’ve both awesome pedals, and I’ll have a lot more to say about them soon.
Another shipping target for the Neural DSP Quad Cortex has been and gone. Both the first and second batch were expected to be in backers’ hands this month, but once again that didn’t happen. With Christmas right around the corner, this is surely going to slip into 2021 now.
The other thing that didn’t arrive? This post. It disappeared without trace from WordPress. Twice. That’s happened a few times in recent weeks. Not yet sure whether it’s WordPress or my new hosting arrangements.
So what did arrive? I got a couple of cool things. Oh, and the world got several COVID19 vaccines too 🙂
Continue reading “New Arrivals: November 2020”Here’s a pedal from (probably) my all-time favourite designer, made by one of the classic American boutique pedal makers, that chases one of the three most famous archetype amp sounds of all time.
Read on for my first impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Bearfoot FX Emerald Green Distortion Machine Overdrive Pedal”