Tone. At Home.
“The Hermit’s Cave” is my little home recording studio. This is a general catch-all tag for anything about me and my gear.
I’m a huge fan of the Danelectro Billionaire series of pedals. I’ve now got all of them except the tremolo pedal, and I’ve been delighted with the sound quality of each and every one of them.
This isn’t the last pedal to arrive before the pandemic lockdown, it’s just the last one for me to put onto the board and spend time with. How did I get on with it? Read on to find out.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Danelectro Big Spender Spinning Speaker Pedal”I don’t have a lot of experience with Earthquaker Devices. Over here, they’re a pretty rare brand, and pricey too. I have had both versions of their Speaker Cranker pedal at various points, and I really liked them.
Am I going to like the Dunes as much?
Continue reading “First Impressions: Earthquaker Devices Dunes Drive Pedal”I’ve actually had this pedal for almost a week. Normally, I try and post my First Impressions within a day or two of plugging in a pedal. In this case, though, I’ve really been struggling to get to grips with the Paisley Deluxe.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Wampler Paisley Deluxe”Earlier this month, I picked up the Xvive Golden Brownie Distortion pedal (a JCM 800-in-a-box pedal), and I really liked it (once I got my head round it!).
With everything that’s going on right now, I wanted to buy something from my local guitar shop to try and support them, and it was my good luck that they had Xvive’s other dirt pedal in stock.
I’ve had a couple of hours with it so far. Here’s how I’ve gotten on with it.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Xvive Sweet Leo Overdrive”I’ve picked up another pedal of eBay to try. It was only £25. I don’t mind taking a chance on a pedal when it’s that cheap. Especially as they often turn out to be well worth the money.
Will the Golden Brownie follow the trend? Here’s my first impressions of it.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Xvive Golden Brownie Distortion Pedal”
This is a bit of a difficult First Impressions for me to write. After years of everything being in the same place in the room, I’ve recently moved everything around. I’m still getting to used to how everything sounds in its new location – and in my new listening position.
Anyways. The Anasounds Element has just arrived, and I’ve had a couple of hours with it through my rig. Here’s my very first impressions of this pedal.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Anasounds Element Spring Reverb Pedal”My Studio Diary is where I talk about my experience with my home recording setup. You’ll get the good along with the bad. And today, I’m definitely addressing the bad.
Continue reading “Studio Diary #19: Improving The Vibe”Winter NAMM 2020 has been and gone, and now we wait for announcements to become shipping product … and then to reach the UK, which can sometimes take months longer.
I’ve pre-ordered a couple of things that were announced at (or around) NAMM. They’re going to take up most of my gear budget this year. The PRS S2 Singlecut McCarty 594 might arrive by the summer. We already know that Neural DSP’s Quad Cortex won’t arrive until the autumn at the earliest. At least I don’t have to wait as long for the Lark (Rhett Shull’s new signature pedal from Mythos Pedals); that should ship in March.
I’m still keeping an eye out for interesting bits of gear, but it’s got to be pretty special – and at a special price. By and large, I’m only looking to pickup pedals to help me fill in the gaps in my collection, or provide complementary tones for recording with.
Finally, I may have finished my planned revamp of the home studio, but now I’m sitting down to use it, I’m finding that a few things need sorting out, and that there’s a few gaps that are nagging at me a bit. I’m going to be tackling those, but not all in a single month 🙂
Here’s what arrived this month.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For February 2020”I’m really not a fuzz kind of person. They pickup and amplify all of the noise on the dirty electricity we have here. I don’t enjoy playing through spitty, broken tones. And about the only time I use the bridge pickup on my Strat is to make sure it’s still there.
So what am I doing with one? And what do I think of Fender’s latest fuzz pedal?
Continue reading “First Impressions: Fender’s The Trapper Fuzz Pedal”Earlier this week, I picked up a second hand Cash Cow drive pedal from Danelectro’s Billionaire range. How have I gotten on with it? Here are my first impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Danelectro Cash Cow Drive Pedal”