Tone. At Home.
Earlier this week, I bought an MXR 10-band EQ pedal, and finally, the heatwave has abated enough for me to feel comfortable about having an amp on for a few hours.
How have I gotten on with it? Is it an upgrade over the Boss GE-7 that I’ve been using for the last year? Here’s my first impressions.
Continue reading “First Impressions: MXR 10-band EQ Pedal”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.
Continue reading “Tone Stacking: Using Another Pedal To Shape The Fender MTG:LA’s Sound”I’m keeping an eye on eBay for extra-unusual items, just in case. This month, though, is all about overcoming my fears, and starting to make good use of what I’ve already got.
Here’s everything that arrived this month, with first impressions to follow.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For June 2020”Above all others, there’s one tweed-tone pedal that I haven’t yet tried. It might not be the very first tweed-tone pedal, but it’s certainly the earliest one that I know about. It’s a pedal that’s rumoured to have graced the boards of many successful recording and touring artists.
And finally, after years of watching them go for very high prices, I finally won one on eBay. Was it worth the wait? Or will it remain forever in the shadow of my beloved SHOD?
Continue reading “First Impressions: Boss FBM-1 Fender 59 Bassman Overdrive 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”Rather than do a ‘best of’ style post, every year I’m going to do a rundown of what amps I’m using for pedal platforms, and why.
Continue reading “2019 Review: Pedal Platform Amps”August was another really slow month on the second hand market, and things didn’t pick up for September. Instead, I’ve ended up concentrating on the first guitar of my #PlayAlternative series.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For September 2019”This conversation was originally posted to my Twitter feed.
Good morning! I hope you’re having a great weekend. Got another #CoffeeAndKlon for you this week. I hope you enjoy it.
Continue reading “#CoffeeAndKlon 16: Boosting With A Graphic Equaliser Pedal”I’ve spent nearly all of June away in Scotland, enjoying a much-needed break from work out on Orkney. Just before I left, I picked up a few items to enjoy when I got back.
These are my initial impressions of the gear I’ve bought this month. I’ll delve into them in a lot more detail when I’ve had more time with them.
Continue reading “New Arrivals For June 2019”Marshall’s new Origin amp is an affordable, vintage-voiced valve amp. Boss have been making a range of affordable drive pedals since the 70s.
And together, they sound pretty damn fine.
As a reference point, here’s what the Origin can do without any pedals.
Thing is, if you’re playing at home, you’ll probably never hear your Origin sound like that. This amp needs to be cranked to deliver the dirt. That clip was recorded with both Master and Gain on 8. My 20W Origin head is just too loud to do that at home.
So, if you like what you’ve just heard, and you want that for yourself at home, you’re going to have to budget for some pedals to go along with your nice new Origin amp.
And that’s where Boss comes in. Their pedals are cheap (the most expensive one in this demo is the BD-2 at £85) and widely available (support your local guitar shop!). And they work really well through the Origin.
First up is the venerable Boss BD-2 Blues Driver.
It has the lowest gain out of all three pedals in this roundup, but don’t let that put you off. As you can hear in the demo below, if you’re playing the kind of rock that sounds best through this amp, you don’t need all the filth for rhythm work.
Next up, another classic Boss pedal: the SD-1 Super Overdrive.
This pedal will get you right up there, delivering the same amount of filth that the Origin can do on its own – only without having to crank the amp to do so. To my ears, the SD-1 sounds a little thicker than the Origin does, and maybe slightly softer clipping too.
Have a listen:
The DS-1 is a legendary pedal.
Compared to the SD-1, it offers harder clipping and reduced mids for a more aggressive tone. As a result, the guitar will sound quieter compared to the other two pedals. Thankfully, the Origin has an immense amount of input headroom, so just turn up the pedal and rock out!
The common advice with these Boss pedals is to turn down the gain, and use them as a boost into the amp’s input to get the amp to naturally overdrive.
That doesn’t work with the Marshall Origin.
The Marshall Origin has a huge amount of input headroom. You have to crank a pedal well past its sweet spot to have any chance of getting the Origin to naturally overdrive at home volumes.
The good news is that you don’t need to. Turn up the gain on your pedal to taste, and then adjust the pedal’s volume until you’ve got the same volume when you turn the pedal on and off again.
As the Origin is a bright amp, you’ll probably want to start with the pedal’s tone control at around 10 o’clock. From there, adjust the tone control with your ears.
The Origin is one of those amps that has a big say in what a pedal sounds like. It’s very suited to pedals – like these three from Boss – that are designed to work with an amp’s existing colour.
I’d happily record with the Origin and these pedals. I think the results are very usable – especially for the money! And they felt nice to play through too, which is also important.
What do you think? Comments below!