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”Marshall Origin and TC Electronic Drive Pedals
Yesterday, we looked at how well the new Marshall Origin sounds with affordable drive pedals from Boss. Today, it’s the turn of affordable drive pedals from TC Electronic.
TC Electronic are well known for their tone print pedals, especially the Hall of Fame reverb pedal and the Flashback delay. They also make a pair of drive pedals that you can find for around £40 each brand new at the time of writing.
For reference, here’s what the Marshall Origin can do on its own if you’ve got somewhere where you crank it loud:
Most of us are going to need pedals to get the amp singing at home volumes. Let’s hear how the TC Electronic pedals sound through the Origin.
The Mojomojo Overdrive
First up is the Mojomojo Overdrive pedal.
As an overdrive pedal, it gives us soft clipping with a fair bit of push in the mids. The active EQ is there to help you dial in this pedal for a wide range of amps.
The end result came out better than I was expecting.
Out of all the pedals I’ve used for this mega-Marshall Origin series, this was the only pedal I didn’t enjoy playing through. I wasn’t happy with how it felt or sounded during the recording. I’m unlikely to use this pedal again with my Origin 20W head.
The Dark Matter Distortion
The Dark Matter, on the other hand …
This pedal has been the one I’ve had hooked up to the Origin 20W the most. It doesn’t clip as hard as I was expecting it to – it’s almost soft enough to be an overdrive. It feels fantastic to play, really dynamic and responsive, and I think it counteracts the Origin’s brightness without sounding muddy at all.
Final Thoughts
The Origin is an opinionated amp, and any pedals you put through it are going to be very strongly flavoured by what the Origin sounds like.
For me, the Mojomojo didn’t suit the Origin at all – but the Dark Matter complimented it really well.
Those are just my opinions. Have you tried either pedal through an Origin amp yourself? How did you find them? Comments below!
Marshall Origin: Is It Plexi Enough?
There seems to be two debates about Marshall’s new Origin amp at the moment: is it too bright, and is it Plexi enough?
To answer the second question, here’s some sound clips to listen to:
Sorry about my ugly mug – it’s because I’m too cheap to pay SoundCloud for access to their mini player 😀
Have a listen to all four demo tracks, and let your ears decide which you prefer. 3 of the tracks were recorded with the Origin, and 1 with my Metro Plex. Can you tell which is which?
Answers below. No cheating!
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Okay, here’s what you’ve just listened to:
- The first clip is the Metro Plex.
- The second clip is the 20W Origin, with a Carpe Diem drive pedal giving it a helping hand.
- The third clip is the 20W Origin, this time with a TC Electronics Dark Matter helping out.
- And finally, the last clip is the 20W Origin on its own.
The Origin Is Vintage Voiced, But It Needs Help To Sound Like A Plexi
To my cloth ears, Marshall’s Origin has 3 key characteristics that differ from the famed Super Lead sound.
- It isn’t just that Origin’s a bright amp, it’s that more of Origin’s perceived volume is in those upper mids. Dial them back, and you’ll hear the amp start to thin out a bit. On its own, it doesn’t have a huge amount of meaty mids.
- The Plexi sound is bright and aggressive. Although Origin is bright, it’s got very soft clipping (assuming you’re in a position to crank it enough to clip at all!). That stops it sounding as aggressive as a Super Lead can.
- Finally, the Origin has so much input headroom that it just doesn’t saturate no matter what I try.
On its own, it’s not an affordable version of one of Marshall’s plexi reissues. But give it some help, and it can get close. Certainly close enough for us home tone chasers.
A Little Help From My (Pedal) Friends
For me, the Carpe Diem got pretty close – in part, thanks to the harder clipping that it has. It’s not a cheap pedal, and it can be quite hard to get hold of, but 2nd hand examples do turn up on eBay from time to time.
The Dark Matter also sounded pretty good – and I thought it sounded excellent considering they currently cost £40 brand new. The clipping is perhaps a little too soft to go head-to-head against a real Plexi, but I tell you what: out of all the pedals I’ve been using this week, the Dark Matter is the one that’s been hooked up to the Origin the most.
The end result still sounds like an Origin amp, no matter which drive pedal you use. You can’t radically change the sound of an Origin using drive pedals alone. But with a little help, the end result’s pretty nice – and a hell of a lot more affordable than a real Plexi 🙂
What do you think? Comments below!