Tone. At Home.
In 2019, Fender released not one but two tube-based drive pedals: the MTG Tube Distortion Pedal, and the MTG:LA.
I’ve had both pedals for several months. During that time, I’ve also played quite a few other tweed-tone pedals from Boss, Mythos and Lovepedal, which has helped me with my understanding quite a bit.
How do they compare? What are the differences? I’m going to try and answer that in this blog post.
Continue reading “Side By Side: Fender MTG & Fender MTG:LA”Back in May 2020, my pre-ordered Mythos Lark drive pedal arrived. It’s been on the practice board most of the time since then, sharing time with various other tweed-tone pedals that I’ve been looking at.
How has it gotten on? Here’s my First Impressions of this drive pedal. It’s a bit of a long read …
Continue reading “First Impressions: Mythos Pedals’ Lark (Rhett Shull Signature) Overdrive Pedal”My green Strat is back from the shop. It’s been in for some more mods. What have I had done to it this time, and am I happy with the results of the upgrades I asked for?
Continue reading “The Green Strat Is Back”Earlier this week, Mad Professor announced a limited run of pedals: custom modded versions of three of their popular pedals. [Ed: they’ve added a fourth one since]. It was right at the end of the month, I had a bit of cash spare, so I ordered one the same day.
Continue reading “#CoffeeAndKlon 27: The Big Tweedy Drive With Super Tweed Mod”
This one’s a bit different – an overdrive pedal made specifically for acoustic guitar. What do I think of it? Will I be able to gig with it? Let’s find out.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Fender Smoulder Acoustic Overdrive Pedal”This will be the last regular “New Arrivals” for the time being.
Partly thanks to the UK Government following scientific advice that was based on an outdated model of the wrong disease, Britain has failed to contain the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus before it became widespread. We’re heading for a lengthy social lockdown (at best), with the serious economic hardship that inevitably follows.
Don’t worry, the blog’s not going anywhere. It’s just that there’s more important things right now than buying guitar gear.
Continue reading “New Arrivals: March 2020”I bought one of these last year, and first time around, I didn’t get on with it at all. Although I planned to, I never actually sold it on. With the country in lockdown thanks to the 2020 pandemic, I’m not going to be selling it any time soon.
So, I dug it out and put it back on the board for a bit. Am I going to be just as disappointed second time around, or am I going to actually like it this time?
Continue reading “Second Bite: Fender’s Tre-Verb Pedal”Back in November 2019, I picked up a set of Kinman pickups from Knighton Music Centre. I’d taken my wife there so that she could look at their impressive range of acoustic guitars, and while I was there, I spotted a promo poster for Kinman pickups.
I didn’t even know you could get these in the UK.
I bought a set, brought them home with me … and then they sat on the shelf here for several months. I’ve finally had them put into my Strat. What do I think of them? Read on to find out.
Continue reading “First Impressions: Kinman Impersonator 54 Noiseless Pickups For Stratocaster”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”