Tone. At Home.
Shane has taken a look at one of the high-end, Japanese-made Gretch guitars: the Duo Jet.
This premium guitar looks like Gretch’s answer to Gibson Les Paul reissues. It has that fat Les Paul tone when the amp’s nice and dirty, but it also offers very usable clean tones – something I’m hard-pressed to say about any modern Les Paul!
Watch the video to hear how good this sounds, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.
Dan and Mick of That Pedal Show have put together an introduction to using MIDI with guitar pedals.
MIDI is a protocol that – for guitar pedals – allows us to switch presets, control individual settings via a MIDI-enabled expression pedal, and to sync the tempo of multiple pedals together. For pedal boards or signal chains built from several different components, MIDI is an important tool for controlling everything in a live performance without tonnes of tap dancing.
What does that all mean? Watch the video to learn more, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.
Riff City Guitar and Keeley Electronics have teamed up to launch a new Plexi-voiced pedal. Rabea has one of the handwired versions, and has posted a demo to show us what it sounds like.
If, like me, you’re not in the States, this is going to be a pedal to watch for when it hits the 2nd hand market. It’s exclusive to Riff City Guitar, and the run of hand-wired pedals has already sold out. There’s going to be a run of non-hand-wired pedals too, and these also seem to be exclusive to Riff City Guitar.
Watch the video to hear how good this sounds – and how well it responds to pick dynamics. And then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.
Chappers and The Captain have done another of their blindfold challenges: can Rob tell if a guitar is a Fender Telecaster, or a T-style from another brand?
Every time someone on the forums insists that guitars don’t sound that different, or that the differences aren’t that great, I want to make them sit down and watch videos like this. It’s not always easy to tell them apart after YouTube has processed the audio, but in person – and importantly, through a great amp – the differences are real, both in tone and in feel.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed this video.
Thomas Blug – the Stratocaster King of Europe – has been working on the next generation of his all-analogue Amp1 amp-in-a-pedal. He sat down with Henning, and they’ve done a great demo of the new version.
In this video, they compare the Amp1 Mercury with some of the amps from Henning’s collection – by tone matching the Amp1. Thomas dials in the tones while Henning plays.
The results are impressive.
I lost count of how many times Henning either couldn’t tell the difference between the Amp1 and his amps, or when he simply guessed wrong. In the room, he was clearly impressed – and I couldn’t tell the difference when I watched the video either.
Henning also made an important point that’s worth highlighting. In this video, he’s running the Amp1 into the UAD OX. All too often, demos of the Amp1 use the unit’s DI out, and that’s partially responsible for the lack of interest in the Amp1 in the past.
Even if you’re not interested in the Amp1, this video is worth watching just to watch how Thomas dials in each tone he’s matching. Not only a great player, but also great knowledge and understanding too.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Henning’s video.
Shawn Tubbs has posted a demo of Joe Morgan’s MVP23 combo amp – and this one has killer tones.
The MVP23 is a 23W combo amp, featuring 12ax7 preamp tubes and an EL84 power section, with a G12H-75 Greenback speaker. It has a really neat, interactive preamp gain and poweramp volume section, which allows you to dial in your own preference of where you get the drive from.
This isn’t a master volume amp. The output volume is controlled via an infinitely variable power soak. As Shawn demonstrates, you can turn the amp down in volume without affecting the tone at all.
These controls together offer a practical, easy-to-dial and flexible setup. Oh – and it takes pedals well too (thanks Shawn for covering that!)
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Shawn’s video.
Walrus Audio’s Luminary V2 Pedal has just launched. Here’s a roundup of the launch day demo videos so far.
As an ex-guitar MIDI synth user, this pedal has really caught my interest. Guitar MIDI currently seems to be in the doldrums. Most manufacturers have pulled out of the market, and the ones that are left haven’t updated their units in a while – which means that they just don’t track as well as something like this.
All these demos showcase great organ sounds. Throw on a shimmer reverb, and I strongly suspect they’ll happily recreate the feel of those orchestral string synth patches of old.
Please head over to YouTube to leave likes and supportive comments if you enjoyed these videos.
Not long how until Marshall’s new Origin series of amps launch! Demo units are starting to go out to the YouTube gear community, and Burgs has just posted his demo of this highly anticipated amp.
The Marshall Origin series has the potential to become the de facto pedal platform amp for a generation. It’s very competitively priced, and (unlike Fender amps) it also comes as an amp head. You could get an Origin head, a Two Notes Captor, and run that into your DAW for silent home recording.
Sadly, this demo doesn’t show us how well the Origin works as a pedal platform. But if you want to hear the Origin as an a stand-alone amp, Burgs does a great job of showing us what this can do.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Burgs’ demo.
Mary Spender has recently completed a UK tour, where she was also the tour manager and (at least part-time) promoter … and she’s posted a vlog to show us what it was really like.
The thing I loved about this was how Mary shows us that it is possible to take music on the road and put on your own tour in this day and age. If you can draw a crowd, keep things minimal, and organise things yourself, the dream is in reach.
Watch the video for the whole story, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.
Adam and Tom for AStrings have responded to a YouTube comment: does the Boss Katana take drive pedals well?
The Boss Katana is an amp that’ll be on the list of possible amps for home tone fans. It’s very affordable, sounds very good, and is full of digital effects to give you lots of options.
And, when you’re ready to explore different tones, using drive pedals is one way to do so.
So how does the Boss Katana do? Watch the video to find out, and then please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment.