Category: On The Gain Stage

Overdrive, distortion, fuzz – the glorious sounds of dirt and filth!

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TIL: The Amber Drive And Golden Cello Are The Same Drive Pedal

When it comes to pedal manufacturers, I’m a huge fan of Mad Professor pedals. I’ve owned pretty much all of their older (pre-Simple) drive pedals over the years, and I’ve probably logged more hours playing these pedals than any other brands’.

So I was floored when I recently read that the Golden Cello is actually an Amber Drive with added delay (a la the Bluebird Overdrive). How did I miss that?!? But it’s true.

The reason I hadn’t noticed this before? I’ve always used my Golden Cello with the delay turned up a bit (it’s endless hours of fun with an ebow), and it’s an older delay design that doesn’t feature a dry signal blend. ie, the delay colours the sound quite a bit.

Turn the delay off, and hey presto: the two pedals are identical.

So if you’ve always been curious about the Amber Overdrive, but found the second hand prices too high, keep an eye out for a Golden Cello. In my experience, the Golden Cello often goes for rock-bottom prices.

I guess I’m not the only one who didn’t know about this!

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Tone Stacking: Using Another Pedal To Shape The Fender MTG:LA’s Sound

In my opinion, Fender’s MTG:LA pedal is a bit of a conundrum. I think it’s got just the one sound, and if that sound doesn’t work for you or your rig, the pedal’s EQ controls can’t save the situation.

I love it with my Strat and my Tele. I don’t like it anywhere near as much with my Les Paul.

Thankfully, we’re not limited to what the MTG:LA can do on its own. We can give it some help, in the form of a second pedal to shape the tone a bit more. And I’m really liking the results.

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First Impressions: Mythos Pedals’ Lark (Rhett Shull Signature) Overdrive Pedal

Back in May 2020, my pre-ordered Mythos Lark drive pedal arrived. It’s been on the practice board most of the time since then, sharing time with various other tweed-tone pedals that I’ve been looking at.

How has it gotten on? Here’s my First Impressions of this drive pedal. It’s a bit of a long read …

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New Arrivals: March 2020

This will be the last regular “New Arrivals” for the time being.

Partly thanks to the UK Government following scientific advice that was based on an outdated model of the wrong disease, Britain has failed to contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus before it became widespread. We’re heading for a lengthy social lockdown (at best), with the serious economic hardship that inevitably follows.

Don’t worry, the blog’s not going anywhere. It’s just that there’s more important things right now than buying guitar gear.

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