Tone. At Home.
#CoffeeAndKlon is my (irregular!) Sunday morning magazine series, where I talk about whatever’s on my mind right now. There’s always coffee, and there’s normally chat about the Klon and its many competitors.
Today, I want to talk klones, and specifically the most important klone pedal ever released: Electro-Harmonix’s Soul Food. Make yourself your favourite morning drink first. This one is going to be a #longread … with audio demos.
Continue reading “#CoffeeAndKlon 33: The EHX Soul Food”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.
Burgs has posted what I think is the first demo of the upcoming Wampler Equater EQ pedal.
This pedal features powerful active EQ that’s able to cut or boost significant levels. The two-band mid EQ is voiced to give you a lot of ability to sculpt your guitar tone in a musical manner.
I’m seriously thinking of getting one of these. I’m looking for ways to improve my lead tone, and this might just be what I need to help me learn where I’m going wrong.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Burgs video,
Burgs has posted a demo of an interesting drive pedal out of Vancouver, Canada: the Maple Leaf Royal Drive from Aleks K Production.
In the description of this video, he says that this would be his pick for drive pedal of 2018 so far. That’s high praise indeed.
This pedal has two separate drive circuits that you can blend together to find your tone. Burgs reckons that, combined with the tone stack on the pedal, this should allow you to use this pedal with most guitar and amp combinations.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed his video.
Burgs has posted a great demo of RYRA’s The Klone pedal. Not only does he make it sound really good, he shows off how to go beyond the Klon thing and many other great sounds out of this pedal.
Despite the name (and despite how others have covered it in the past) the RYRA Klone isn’t actually a straight-up Klon klone. I have one, and not only does it sound different to my Klon KTR, the controls react differently to. I actually have both on my board atm, because of how different they sound.
This video has lots of great advice in it that I need to go away and try! Might just inspire me to rewire my board to make permanent room for the Klone too …
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed this video.
Burgs has posted a short demo of Fractal Audio’s new? reactive load box, the X-Load LB-2.
This looks a little different to the other reactive load boxes on the market. There’s a voicing switch on the front, to switch between UK and American speakers. Presumably that changes the impedance behaviour?
I’d be interested in putting one of these up against the Captor, to hear how much difference there is in practice. I think that’d be the only way to understand what problem the LB-2 is trying to solve.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Burgs’ video.
Burgs has posted a demo of Mad Professor’s new Kosmos reverb pedal.
The Kosmos is a mono pedal, featuring 11 different reverb models in a standard-sized pedal format. It also has a freeze feature – just hold down the foot switch to keep the reverb going until you lift off again.
These mono pedals are great for running straight into a clean amp, or in the effects loop of an amp – especially if the amp doesn’t have a built-in reverb of its own.
Mad Professor is one of those pedal brands that most players haven’t heard of. I’ve been using their pedals for years, and I’ve normally got several of them on my main board at any one time. (My pedal cupboard has plenty of them too, waiting to fight their way back onto the board.) Not only do they sound great, they have the lowest noise floors around and lots of input headroom – perfect for stacking.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Burg’s video.
Burgs has posted a video of him noodling on a copy of a pre-CBS Strat. What makes this particular copy extra-special is that it’s fitted with a set of pickups wound by Abigail Ybarra.
Everyone has “the one that got away” – a guitar they couldn’t get, didn’t get, or had to sell on. Mine is a Fender 2012 Custom Deluxe Strat, fitted with Abigail Ybarra pickups. It was the best sounding Strat that I’ve ever played.
If you’ve never heard of her, Abigail Ybarra has been winding pickups since the early days. I believe that she retired from Fender a few years ago. There’s something about the pickups she made in her career that just works. They’re highly sought after as a result, especially as it appears that she wasn’t able to pass on her technique to the next generation of pickup winders.
The pickups aren’t the only star in this video. Burgs is noodling a long through his AxeFX, and it sounds really good too. Close your eyes, and see if you can tell it’s digital modelling.
Please head over to YouTube to leave a like and a supportive comment if you enjoyed Burgs’ video.