OVERDRIVE- LPD PEDALS MACH1 ___NEW ___ Ltd. Ed. ___buy NOW!!!

LPD PEDALS| MACH1 

$200.00 USD

Lawrence has another Ltd Ed. We get a pedal with a Bogner/ Boogie/ Kitty Hawk vibe. 

But like many of his pedals it can easily be sold out by guys that buy them all. 

Except for the high headroom switch the layout is classic:-)

CONCLUSION

First if you do not want to wait. I swear ...some 

guys must be ordering 2 because once their 

buddy hears the LPD pedal they have the  

guy wants one.

OVERDRIVE- VICTORY AMPLIFIERS Victory V.1 Series Pedals ___NEW____ impressive!!!

VICTORY AMPLIFIERS|

V1 SERIES PEDALS

Victory teamed up with Thorpy to make pedals of their amplifiers.

This is an overview . I will do them all separately as videos are available.

The price for any pedal is $250.00 USD.

the fine print

FIRST ___the Brit pound has tanked on the monetary market to $1.12 USD

So the pedals Stateside may eventually drop to $225.00 USD ea. 

My only immediate caution is the Duchess pedal like any Fenderish pedal

will not sound good thru many amps as it is all about having an unrealistic 

neutral clean sound on your amp. If you have a Marshall Amp it is always 

going to sound Marshall where a Fender amp with a Marshall 

sounding pedal will still sound Marshall.

PEDALS- PRS Pedals ___NEW____ sneak peak ____Yes PRS now makes pedals ???

PRS| PEDALS

NOTE: I will do individual in depth reviews when we have some good videos.

Yes they have got into the pedal game. They do a an Overdrive basically a 

medium gain with rumour says is a Klon??? Why? 

Next is the Compressor. It is very transparent with no identifiable classic tone 

like the original MXR/Ross style nor is like the Origin Cali 76 with that really 

full and warm old school analog studio Comp vibe. Lasty the Flanger once 

again clear clean and transparent with a hint of the much loved 

Electro-Harmonix Electric Mistress.

Prices ???  

Ovedrive _$250.00 USD|||Comp  $220.00 US|||Flanger $350.00 USD

I have reviewed over 2200 pedals so with some authority I can say there are much better ones that to be fair are more pricey. Even so  there are dozens and dozens that are equally as good for the same money or less. These are obvious very large pedals. A beyond stupid marketing decision gimmick. As for construction they are 'thru-hole' but like Electro-Harmonix the parts are made in Asia and assembled in the U.S. Keep in mind a 'part' can be the entire circuit board with all the parts soldered on it. In short I could put one together, LOL.

CONCLUSION

First it is always good to see a new maker enter the scene. 

Paul Reed Smith is never afraid of trying again. We might 

get smaller and cheaper.

For now we get more "Me Too" pedals. Useable, inofensive 

noticeably thin sounding and boring ...and not competitive.  

 

the fine print

The very best news is that PRS are not totally stupid. 

Pedals MUST be getting even more popular.

for them to get into the game.

The theatrical Modellers are not crushing them. 

Even the top pros if for nothing else but to be cool

have a few pedals sitting beside their modeler.

_That said what these pedals have to offer 

is too little, too late and too expensive! 

AMPLIFIER- BLACKSTAR AMPED 1___NEW___ 100w pedal amp, Marshall/Fender voices

$500.00 USD

BLACKSTAR| AMPED 1

A full hundred watt pro amp. The choice of amps is taken from a list of
tube types. For example EL34 for a big Marshall sound or 6L6 for a classic clean Fender. The layout is gain, voice ...to choose UK or USA voices, bass, mid and treble, master volume with 3 volume settings, rehearsals and, bedroom are covered. Lastly reverb ..basic digital ...and the 6 tube types. Outputs for recording and or a line out to the house system.

CONCLUSION

Simple and all the voicing's are Pro. The perfect pedal platform.

Nothing offering similar power and aimed at the pro are less than double the price with either none or no significant voice choices.

With the Amped 1 you get Pro sound, compact, portable & 

very reasonable price. Killer value for money. 11 out of 10. 

 

GUITAR-RICKENBACKER ELECTRO A-22 ....it gave LEO Ideas

RICKENBACKER| ELECTRO A-22

Back in 1931 George Beauchamp came up with the idea of new guitar. 
popular Hawaiian music fad in Pop 

Its music involved virtual playing bottle neck style guitar which played both conventionally but also by resting on your lap and not wrapping your hand around the neck but playing straight on. it was the birth of the Lap Steel guitar.

It was adopted by bands that would have typically been Pop Jazz bands especially as featured instrument and need to cut. Making it electric was an obvious answer. George was perhaps the first to see you did not need 

much of a body so he made from banjo size bowl from aluminum.

He teamed up with Ric and by 1934 it was on sale. 

It was soon nicknamed the 'Frying Pan' but was 

officially the Electro Hawaiian Lap Steel Guitar. 

It morphed into being used in Country music.

Ten years later a young Leo Fender was converting P.A. amps into Steel guitar friendly amps. He soon decided to make his own amps since it was not much more work. It was not long after he thought why not make the guitar too and 

package it with the amp. It's success led him to think players 

just might buy his Tele idea.

FUZZ- WALRUS AUDIO Eons Five-State ___SO NEW THE PAINTS WET!!! ___ bought one!!!

WALRUS AUDIO EONS| FIVE STATE FUZZ 

$230.00 USD

So you take the King of the Muffs the Ramshead  add Bass & Treble ...a Germanium and LED clipping to it's basic Silicon mode. You then add a bass boost to that, then a BIAS control that goes from 3 volts to 18. Now use them independently or mix some together and what have you got? 

An hour of indecision? No! Besides that.

CONCLUSION

What's not to like? 😇 

You get at it's core one of the most loved Fuzz pedals ever. Then if you to want make it weird or make it wonderful or just make it fit your taste and your rig.

The perfect hamburger with all and any of the condiments. 

.

HANDS ON

So I had it a week and nailed the Big Muff Rams Head thing. More important are the sounds I need. 

I got a killer germanium Tone Bender and a killer Baldwin Burns (AKA Robert Fripp) Buzzaround. I got a great Doom Style LED type Fuzz and finally using the blend of all the voices setting I got a killer 

massive tear your face off wall removing sound. That one is for the last tune of the night. It also let me 

pull 4 other Fuzz pedals off the board and as a bonus free up my killer Colorsound silicon ToneBender 

to put in a different loop where I was using an OK but not killer Fuzz. :-)

BEHRINGER PEDALS ___ JUNK ???___ MADE IN SWEATSHOPS WITH SLAVE LABOR ?

 Uli Behringer a Swiss engineer and musician had a dream of making the cool high tech gear he saw around him in the 80's. At 16 he had already built his first synthesizer. So he set out to build his own Synthesizers, Drum Machine, Boards etc. In the first few years it was all made in Germany. It soon became evident that even using better tech than other makers it was not enough to keep the prices low. By the 1980's the bulk of all electronic parts were made in China. So it made sense to move to where the parts are. Parts are one thing but building complex tech needs well trained workers and cutting edge gear so from the beginning he knew he needed his own factory. He went to Hong Kong where at that time commerce, well educated employees and industrial methods were already based on the Western model.

The company grew exponentially never being able to keep up with the orders, so he made another which also was not big enough. In the end he decided to make a massive state of the art facility incorporating the best tech and 'green' technologies.

$100 million dollars later he got his

dream factory.

This is the sweat shop where your junk plastic $21.00 USD Behringer pedal is made, LOL

RIP OFF ARTIST? If you make a new kind of 'wheel' are you a thief. Ever since some caveman designed and sold 'the Pointy Stick' the next guy came along and made a better one. It simply how it works, just like yours but either better or cheaper

YOU CAN'T PATENT ELECTRONIC CIRCUITS?

No and I will tell you why. Let's say you design and build a brilliant guitar wireless rig that everyone can afford. So you make them and suddenly you are being sued by 'Big Ass Garage Door Open Inc. because part of your design they already use to open doors with. WTF ???

COPYRIGHT

You can however Copyright Ideas and how your device uses that idea to
make a product. Boss did that with the Boss OD-1 they made a Fuzz like thing that created asymmetrical tube like distortion. When very shortly Maxon came out with the Tube Screamer they did not want to but had to make theirs produce Symmetrical Distortion. It isn't amp like but it makes a killer booster. 

Boss then brought out their more famous Boss SD-1. 

It uses the more elegant Tube Screamer topography BUT it uses ...surprise?  asymmetrical distortion, so it does not infringe on Tube Screamer with its symmetrical distortion that was making the ts the bigger seller. Double irony :-)

Sorry guys no guitar making machines yet?  >>>

TRADE DRESS

This as you can see in the example below is illegal. You can not use graphics, symbols and fonts with the clear message it is really the same thing.

Trade Dress
infringement
pedal.

FORGERY

A nobrainer. It is illegal to clone a product and sell it as that exact product even if it is exactly the same not just looking the same.

FAKE !!!

 

.

 

...Even though it sounds identical

 

 

 

NOTE:

Moogoo are the parent company of Mosky, Demon FX and also make a few forgeries.

If you find any you want one see if Mosky has one in the same box and same layout of the knobs, switches, jacks LED, etc. If so it is the same pedal usually cheaper or even ridiculously cheaper.

OVERDRIVE- JACKSON AUDIO 1484 Twin -Twelve ___NEW ___'63 Silvertone-in-a-Box

JACKSON AUDIO| SILVERTONE  1484 -TWIN TWELVE   

$250.00 USD

The Sears Roebuck Dept. Store ...Silvertone amp came out in 1963 but
was gone by 1967. Old ones are still used by Jack White, Dave Grohl, Billie Joe Armstrong and Dan Auerbach. Sears stuff was budet but they had good warranties that they did not want to have to honour and so they had a higher standard than the brand names that made their stuff. In short you got good sh*t. Needless to say headroom was never an issue back then so the amps all distorted very easily. Fortunately in a damn cool way. The layout is volume, bass, treble and gain.

CONCLUSION 

I am not crazy with a current trend of bring anything meant to have a retro vibe out in the needlessly large enclosure. Even so it does look cool, lol.

It has a pleasing just before breakup right thru to high gain sound. Jackson have

always as a rule been pricey but do indeed give you dirt sounds with very detailed

harmonics in the tone. It does sound authentic and dare I say irresistible. 

 

BOOST- CRAZY TUBE CIRCUITS Super Contact Booster ...4 classics boosters in one

$200.00 USD

CRAZY TUBE CIRCUITS|SUPER CONTACT BOOSTER

Booster can be magic in pushing your amp or a dirt pedal. CTC has done is put their take in 4 classics in one pedal. 

You get the pre from from the EchoPlex, the MXR Micro Amp, the DOD 250 Preamp which is a grittier take on the MXR and the ZVec Super Hard On which is a Rangemaster style, Tony Iommi , Brian May kind of booster.

The layout is volume, selector switch to chose which pedal clone you want. A button to give you 18v if you want more headroom and a button 2 choices of extra boost.

CONCLUSION

It's a brilliant idea. You get a very clean sound you can use as an always on kind of pedal and 2 that are a real bonus to get the chime from a Strat or single coil and a real in your face sound for Metal or the the Brian May thing. Boosters are often 

about feel and subtle tones that you have to actually play. Not like an OD 

that can transfer fairly well on a video. 

 

OVERDRIVE- ALLPEDALS JEFF LOOMIS Triad ___NEW___Crunch, Dist, Delay & Verb in 1

ALLPEDALS JEFF LOOMIS TRIAD

$325.00 USD

Ol' Jeff has been in many bands and his music is a variety of Metal genres with a Prog Metal sensibility. This is a 'fly rig' in a pedal. 

The layout give you level, tone, gain and boost for the OD section. Then level, delay length and delay time for both Plate Reverb and Echo delay.

You have footswitches to go from Verb, to Delay. Another for boost and a 3rd for Drive. There is a loop to add other pedals and another to for puing the Verb & delay in the amps effects loop.

CONCLUSION

It sounds excellent. I love the fat open sound with generous lows but still reasonably tight.  Like all signature pedals they work best for one person. This can be OK but it gets a bit complex with a multi-effects pedal. You could love some of it but you might hate some of it.

REVERB- JHS 3 Series Octave Reverb ___NEW____ they make 3, good, better & why ???

 JHS 3 SERIES OCTAVE REVERB 

$100.00 USD

This is your basic Star Wars in a box Reverb. For years the sound is referred to as a 'shimmer reverb'

The layout is reverb, octave and decay. Two knobs for 'how much of' and a 3rd knob 

for how long.

This is the 3rd reverb released in the 3 Series. Every reverb pedal has a chip in it that contains the 'instructions to create it's particular reverb sound. So all 3 of these pedals are exactly the same pedal with simply a different set of instructions. 

On the one hand this is a good idea as it keeps the cost down You also get a totally 

Pro sound because you could put several crap reverb sounds on that same chip. 

 

CONCLUSION

GOOD!

The thing is if you do not have a reverb it makes more sense to buy one you can have as an always on like you would do if the reverb was built into the amp. 

The JHS 3 Series one simply called 'Reverb' is perfect for that. The second called 'Hall Reverb' can if kept pulled back can do this too, plus turned up a bit is great for a ballad or similar. It can even be dimed for some spacey ambiance things. The Octave starts in 'never ever' land and goes from there. The 'Octave' pedal has a great sound if it's  one of several  on a Strymon but if 

it is all you have then WTF ...why buy it??? 

BETTER!

 

I bought the 'Hall Reverb" version. I have yet to use it for it's near 'shimmer' sound 

I use it's verb amount knob at 9 o'clock as my always on and 10 for ballads 

or things a bit 'spacey' I am never without the right verb sound for any tune.

 

$100.00 USD

the fine print

Just when you thought it was safe? Before buying any check 

out the Fender Hammertone Reverb. It gives you a Hall, Room 

and Plate. The Plate on it alone is killer. You also get studio

like dampening control. It allows you to use bigger sounds 

without making your guitar get washed out which verbs can 

easily do at faster tempos.

TREMOLO- JHS 3 Series Harmonic Tremolo ___NEW___ 100% Pro ...cheap!!!

JHS 3 SERIES HARMONIC TREMOLO 

$100,00 USD

Today JHS also released an Octave Reverb 

...I will give it a separate Post. 

 

First what is tremolo. Not too weird just turning your volume up then down in a constant rhythm or in pedal speak modulating the volume. Harmonic tremolo is the same but every other time it varies by just letting the highs thru then just the lows then just the highs etc. A kind of faux Leslie sound is created. The Leslie did it mechanically using a spinning metal horn and wooden drum spinning around a speaker. 

The layout is volume, rate and depth and a switch to go from Harmonic tremolo to standard tremolo.

CONCLUSION

The voicing and clarity is superb. More money on some high end gourmet pedal will NOT sound better. Yes more money gets you more features but they are usually all 'Star Wars' movie sound tack deals. In short not usable to play a normal tune on. 

Less money on a tremolo gets you less, a lot less. 

In short this is a total steal!!!

OVERDRIVE- KERNOM Ridge Augmented OD___NEW___Wedding band-in-a-Box ???

KERNOM RIDGE AUGMENTED  OVERDRIVE

$300.00 USD

The company wants you know it is the first in the world, WTF!!! 

The layout is volume, gain and two tone controls one before and one after the gain and a separate EQ and uses a 30 volt charge pump to give it high headroom The are a dozen pedals with theses features some 6 years old.

It claims it has both symmetrical and asymmetrical clipping. Which is tech speak for when the 'Mood' /gain knob is turned down the Tube Screamer comes in.

It has memory and it can be address by MIDI. But the pedal only holds one preset???? It can be used for vocals or ANY instrument.

CONCLUSION

WTF!!! this pedal can do anything except give you one 'perfect' sound Because that sound comes in a pedal that does just that ...one perfect sound.

The Ridge is for a guy in wedding band or a lounge act that takes requests from the audience. Yes it will give you a 'get you by' for anything but if that is all you want buy a modeler. 

Can this pedal give me a killer Vox AC30, an Orange amp, Supro, Marshall JTM, Plexi, JCM800, or a Soldano, Mesa Dual Rectifier, Peavey 5150,  ENGL Fireball, or even a Rat II. 

Name 3 players you love that you think they would put this pedal on their board ???  ...and your grandfather doesn't count, lol

 

FUZZ- RITUAL DEVICES Grimalkin ...first impression ...11 out of 10 ? ...maybe 12

RITUAL DEVICES|GRIMALKIN 

$215.00 USD

This is from a small Brit company with a short but familiar history that make a series of pedals. Their new Fuzz has come up with a recipe based off of the familiar to most OpAmp style Fuzz but the not so well known ancient Jordon Boss Tone.

In 1925 Jordon invented a device for reading radiation from the then new gadget the X-Ray machine so doctors could follow safety procedures for it's use. They soon had the market covered and even very much alone for decades. It expanded it's use even further after the Nuclear bomb came along. Looking for new markets a creative employee came up with the idea a transistor amps then soon after a new gadget ...the Fuzz came along. The Boss Tone was simple two transistor and at $30 the only budget Fuzz out there. Better still it has its own gnarly deep buzz sound.

So the 'Grim' has a layout of volume, tone and gain and 2 separate knobs act as a grain boosts.

CONCLUSION

It is a very nice balance if the two sounds. The Jordon can border on a 'garage band' thing and an Octave Fuzz can take over and you lose control. With one Fuzz pushing the sound an octave up and the other doing the contrary you get a massive control. It has a beautifully nasty sound yet manages to stay tight without loosing girth or control. It quite simply checks all the boxes for a Fuzz that has the control of great OD is still massive and in your face. 11 out of 10 :-)

.

OVERDRIVE- NOCTURNE El Pescadoro... blues-in-a-box

|NOCTURNE|

|EL PESCADORO 

$300.00 USD

This pedal gives a whole new meaning to an AIAB. 

Today about 99% of all tube amps use 12ax7 preamp tubes but before the end of WW2  there was a variety but most notable were the OCTAL so called because it's 8 pin configuration. By the mid 50's all new amps had moved in to the small but robust 12ax7. Early Rock and R&B came from young players who like those today seldom have much money so why not buy used. A popular choice was the Gibson EH-150.

In the early days of recording the only studio FX were reverberation or 

Gibson EH150

even a simple slap back echo made by 

miking the singer or player true a small PA

system rig and putting in a reverent space 

like a concrete room and then mike the room and blending it with the dry sound.

A classic example is the sound of Chuck Berry singing my Maybeline with both the voice and amp capture this way.

So Nocturne has caught the sound in their box. You get both the amp and the verb.

The amp layout is gives you gain, a mode switch with fixed voicing that can work well with not just electric guitar but banjo, upright bass etc. Another switch gives a mellow or bright tone. Finally another adds just a bit of dirt.

The Reverb side you get a wet/dry control, another for voicing to find the sweet spot for your instrument and add swell control to affect the bloom of the verb. Another knob brightens the tone. Finally another imitates the kind of reflective surface. Is it concrete, wood, plaster or even metal.

PA with amp, speaker cab and mic is your Reverb

CONCLUSION

It is indeed an unusual piece of gear that literally capture the complete ambiance of amp and verb and without precedence. The result is stellar and very rewarding. For Blues. country and all Americana the sound is magic. Why go for a Fender Tweed if you have an equally and perhaps better choice and a chance to actually get 'your' sound and not be a 'me too' guy.

BOOST- WALRUS AUDIO Emissary Parallel Boost ...the TS for TS haters

WALRUS AUDIO| EMISSARY PARALLEL BOOST 

$170.00 US

This little box of Tylenol has been around for 4 years. The biggest selling OD is the Tube Screamer. From the get go it was designed to be just a dirty boost. Guys were having SRV syndrome. Their Fender combo was just much too clean but if it wasn't they still needed  them left clean because they needed a cleanish sound to play all those chords accompanying the vocals. 

The Tube Screamer removed the lows and put a poke at around 1k in the upper mids that gave you cut and definition. The actual dirt part of the pedal was however symmetrical distortion only pushing the even order harmonics which is unnatural as the tube amp is all about asymmetrical distortion pusing all the harmonics. It was also a bit muddy sounding. 

Guys like SRV fixed that by cutting all the gain but boosting the level. He got basically a Boost pedal with a 1k poke and any muddy lows removed. 

Shortly after the ts came out many players discovered the Marshall stack which when cranked had the same problems, muddy lows and not enough poke. So everyone was happy with their ts. Well almost everyone, OK many were and are not.

The Walrus  boost simply takes the basic dirt out of the game and gives you that 1k boost. It also adds a lot of sparkle/presence to the highs. 

Part 2? Some guys are happy with their rig but like most of us some sparkle never hurts. They are however disappointed that their sound is bit thin. The 800Hz aka Mr. Fat comes to the rescue. 

Either way you won't need the tylenol any more, lol.

Yes on paper a good graphic EQ can solve much of this and give you many more shaping options, but it is not problem specific, easy to use or is even meant to kick in a bit nasty breakup like many boosters do. 

Then of course some guys are happy with their rig as is but when it is time for a solo they need to push that guitar up in the mix.

CONCLUSION

Many players will find even just a bit of boost hard to live without. Whether you use it as something to punch your way thru the band or even as an always on pedal to make their entire sound pop. Other boost brands often give you a fixed voice and as often as not use a good dose of these frequencies but I like the academic and honest tech here. In short your problem is in these two basic frequencies so ...here you go ...just fix it.

I picked 2 vids. The first is more of a DIY fix the problem. The second is a "I need to be heard!" "So stand back!"