INTERSTELLAR|||AUDIO MACHINES
MARSLING OCTAFUZZDRIVE
$280.00 USD
I reviewed their Muff pedal and found it just OK but overall just not impressive.
This is their take on a Foxx Tone Machine.
Outside of being an Octave Fuzz I can not see the similarity.The layout is Volume, Tone, Gain a toggle switches in a
mid boost and footswitch brings in the Octave effect.
CONCLUSION___
The has excellent headroom, breadth and
is fat and very dense. Best of all the damn
thing has some serious balz.
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| $278.00 USD |
INTERSTELLAR AUDIOOMACHINES
FUZZSQUATCH FUZZDRIVE
Yes folks a Muff. An OpAmp Muff at that. Not much to add. The layout is Volume, Tone, and Gain. A toggle switch bypasses the clipping diodes as another voice.
A fat and unruly voice but a useful noise.CONCLUSION ___
It sounds great but there are countless better Fuzz pedals that sound equal to better to cover the same ground. Afterall it is just a bog standard Muff without any extras. All Fuzz pedals literally all but totally mask what guitar is driving them. Subtleties in OD's make noticeable differences. Especial an Amp-in-0a -box that can sound dead accurate to passable but pleasing to tial crap.In short a very good cheap Chinese Fuzz can sound as good. Keep in mind that the original Tone Bender had only 7 parts on its circuit board. A basic Muff is hardly a rocket science effort so prices
should not cost the price of a moon landing.
Todays' price is a sale price.
The regular price is a "please bend over" $348.00 USD.
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MOOER AUDIO YELLOW COMP
$45.00 USD
ship incl/AliExpressThere are literally 30 brands of mini pedals that are only a brand by name as they are Mooer mini pedals that the ONLY thing they change is the paint color, graphics and plastic knobs. They have done this since day one. The very best selling Mooer pedals are not on offer to these brands. Eventually all pedals become poor sellers
for Mooer and they too are on offer. One very big BUT is the Yellow Comp that
they have never re-branded for anyone.It is a one for one clone of the Diamond Compressor. It is an Optic Compressor
that literal works from light. Nothing is more organic than real light. There are two hassles with this method though. It does not transfer highs well and there is lag going from light to the circuit. The highs can be fixed with EQ and fortunately the
lag thing is simply not that bad. The big deal is that its tone is simply sweet, sweet, sweet and the pumping squishing sound that other Comps have is simply NOT there.The layout is Volume, EQ and Compression.
CONCLUSION __
Ideal for guys like what a comp can do but hate its side effects.
It sounds 100% Pro for an entry level price. A really excellent
addition as a second comp for a different sound or for Comp stacking.
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| $180.00 USD |
FUZZROCIOUS BIG FELLA
A heavy OpAmp hardclipper. A sort of son of Mr. Rat and Ms. Fuzz.
It is derived from their Demon OD and Lil Fella both boast to be OD/Dist/Fuzz pedal.The layout is Volume, Tone, Gain, a second Drive/Gain, Feedback
which is a BIAS & GATE control. A footswitch for on/Off another
for gate and 3rd, momentary for overload effects not unlike
an octave Fuzz.
CONCLUSION ___
A hardclipper Ratish OD with a octave Fuzz circuit thrown in. How can I describe it better than organized chaos.Great for a bit of theater in a live show.
$200.00 USD
WAMPLER
MOFETTA
Although it was actually not a big seller the 90's Ibanez Mostortion was perhaps the first FET OD. A FET operates like a tube so it gives you a very tube like sound. In an all tube amp adding more tubes give you dirt. In many pedals once you create enough output in the circuit often using an OpAmp you put in clipping diodes for the dirt. The original Mostortion added the diodes. The wampler gives you 2 circuits. The original and another that uses just the FETs like a tube amp uses tubes. The layout is Volume, Gain,Treble, Mids and Bass with a toggle to switch from the original cricut to the all FET one.
CONCLUSION___
I never found the Ibanez impressive and as I pointed out not many
did when it was new. The original compared to many choices of
pedals these days simply was muddy when cranked and harsh
even when backed off.A few of good ol' Brians other pedals make this sound lame.Nostalgia is not sound. The idea of the pedal is tantalizing
but the results are pedestrian.
Does it sound better than the original? Yes but no
news is better than bad news.
thefineprintIf you want a better sounding MOSFET OD then check
out the made in Americaand for only $110.00 USD ....DOD Gunslinger
FRIEDMAN AMPLIFICATION | PLEX
The long awaited amp cloned from Dave Friedmans
own JMP 50. When it comes to overdriven tones the
Marshall Plexi is the basis for more amps than any
other make. Some think the original 50 watt
and 100 watt Plexi amps have NEVER been
beaten.
Count me in sitting at the top of that list.
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| $2800.00 USD |
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| $175.00 USD |
NON-HUMAN AUDIO |||
UNCLEAN
The pedal is a simple idea but the results are not. It is 2 slightly different OD's stacked in one box. Other companies would typical put an OD with a boost in to give you this kind of a sound. In fact if they have 2 ODs they would usually be different ones all together. One is meant to use this
as it looks as a single OD.The layout is a Volume, Gain 1 & 2 and a Resonance control.The voice is fixed but the resonance control affectsboth the mids and the harmonics.CONCLUSION ___The pedal has a lot of breadth which stays intact even when
the Resonance is pushed more towards the higher frequencies.It goes from very earthy low gain to aggressive and coursesounding medium gain to beyond massive high gain.It is fat and punchy.Very different without being weird or hard to fit in many genres.One player could use it just for low gain things, another foronly medium gain and still another for near Doom.These guys could not be more different.A reasonable price for a handmade is always appreciated.
DRUNK BEAVER| BAT COLD WAR
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| $175.00 USD |
For the last 40 years when a recording says a guy has a ProCo Rat he is talking about the RAT II, not the original that they only made 300 of. Half of those ended up at the dump before the cork sniffers came in, out of dark to say it was better. It isn't better, it sounds almost the same but it has not got the balz of the RAT II. I found out the hard way by ending up with both, LOL.If anyone wanted to do a perfect clone of a RAT II they could do it both cheap and easy because all of the critical parts have never changed and are still made. No one does because as little as $35 can often buy you a used one.
Even a new one is just $72.00 USD.
CONCLUSION ___
A Rat is what is in plain tech talk a hardclipper OD. There are many. The BAT Cold War is one of them and a damn good one. BUT if you want a RAT buy a ProCo Rat II. If you want a hardclipper buy this
or a dozen others. The word is used like the word Sports Car to sell
cars without a back seat that are NOT sports cars.
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A Proco RAT II is NOT broken so why try and fix it ??? so do not ask me if some pedal that you tell me is aRat is any good or better because it may be a nice hard clipper but it is like asking me is the Corvette abetter Ferrari. That said ...if you want a good wannabe the Mosky King Rat at about $40.00 USDsounds Pro and has a choice of 4 variations.
K E E L E Y California Girls
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| $300.00 USD |
12String Simulator
The layout is Blend of your guitar with the other faux 6 strings. Chous controls the depth and Rate controls the rate of the modulation between the real and faux strings. A toggle switches in a short slap back delay the gives it a reverb effect.
CONCLUSION ___ It is a very good simulation. Great for subing for a an acoustic guitar with a similar vibe.
K E E L E Y I Get Around
$300.00 USD
Rotary Speaker Simulator
It is a take on a Leslie self powered speaker Cabinet It had a rotating wooden drum with a 15'' speaker driving it and an actual horn like Tweeter that was spun in the opposite direction with a motor. The layoit has drive to give you the low gain drive of the Leslie's amp. Blend to mix the guitar with the effect. Speed determines modulation. You can set 2 speeds and a ramp gradually speeding up if you go from the slow
setting to the high. The effect can be reversed doing the opposite.
CONCLUSION ___ It is one of the best I have ever heard.
Tsakalis Audioworks
MOTHERSHIP
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| $650.00 USD |
A Greek company with a very excellent record of high quality pedals. Check out their Room14 Marshall-in-a-Box. A killer OD.
The Mothership is a 2 channel tube preamp with a Brit vibe but unlike Friedman they are not cloning a real Marshall. You can run an Modeler type output to the house system, recording board DAW etc but it can do a standard pedal to amp thing even at the same time.
CONCLUSION __
Too many features to go thru. It would only confuse the crap out of you . Check the video. It will make some sense of it all. The price is justified but both the
Friedman Preamps are $600.00 USD.
SCIENCE AMPLIFICATION
M O T H E R
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| $300.00 USD |
A two channel pedal loosely based on old Brit amps. It uses FETS to replace tubes but is otherwise based on amps the company makes. The first channel is a basic Volume, Gain, Treble, Mids and Bass. The second is Volume and Gain but the EQ is in the form of two filters. Depth controls the fatness or tightness of the Bass frequencies and Depth softens or exaggerates the harmonics and overtones.
You can indeed use it in an effects loop to replace your amps pre. It has a faux analog speaker simulator with its own jack to take a line out to record or to replace having a mic on your cab. However having dealt with these on other
pedals I found them sounding very unpro.
CONCLUSION ___
It is indeed impressive. It is like being able to design
your own tube amp in a pedal. Even so I have several Amp-in-a-Box, like my PedalPalFX PAL800 Gold Overdrive v.3 that nail a JCM 800 that blow your tiny mind right out of the water right out of the box. I do not have to dial in my perfect OD it was done for me.
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