OVERDRIVE- GREER AMPS Royal Velvet... Vox-in-a-Box???

$325.00 USD
AMS sale $170.00 USD

 GREER AMPS 

Royal Velvet   

It is their take on Greers own amp the Thunderbolt 30, which is a take 

on a Vox AC30. They use a transformer in the circuit to give the pedal 

some sag much like a tube amp. Supro did it with the Supro Drive 

to a very impressive effect. The layout is Volume, Gain and Tone  

 

     CONCLUSION___ 

It sounds OK as a basic medium gain OD. But WTF!!! 

If you want a Vox AC30 sound the NUX 63 Diamond 

at $60.00 USD blows it out of the water!!!!  

 

Brian Maynard Beaver

BOOSTER- XOTIC EFFECTS AH BOOSTER ___NEW___ more of a low gain OD?

$215.00 USD

 Xotic Effects  AH Booster 

This company releases about one new pedal every 3 years or longer. They do not think the buyer should be the beta tester and pay for 

a pedal that is not a 'keeper'. Any other company would not have 

so many pedals still selling years later if it was not true. 

 

The layout is Volume, Bass, Treble, Gain and 

a toggle with 3 levels of compression.  

 

    CONCLUSION ___ 

It is both warm and fat sounding 

$150.00 USD

without getting muddy or losing definition. 

It is more like a low gain OD.  

__I use the Taurus Servo as my booster. 

I leave the comp/boost off and get a similar but more transparent open vibe. 

It has a very germanium like tone which is full but not dense. Both are good. The Xotic is more OD like and Taurus is a bit quirky. The boost is bit much but for some without it is not enough.

 

OVERDRIVE/FUZZ- ATOMIC TONE Saturation Triptych ...a baseball cap? one size fits all???

Atomic Tone

Saturation Triptych

$200.00 USD

A husband and wife team started the company in 2023. It is a JHS kind of story of a self taught amateur making pedals starting around 2004. This pedal is an OpAmp OD/Fuzz with a bit of how was the Muff designed do it and how did the Tube Screamer do it factor woven into this pedal. many reviewers use the term Fuzzy Distortion for such a pedal. On the whole I avoid this as it suggests some amazing original design when more are nothing but an OpAmp pushing a selection of clipping diodes.

The layout has the familiar Volume, The Treble is more of a LPF to cut 

back the and Bass is a HPF that tightens the low end. A switch gives you 

3 types of diodes. The Saturation is a BIAS control. move it one way and it will head towards Fuzzy sounds and the other will be more Overdrive. 

 

CONCLUSION___

It is a well made & well thought out pedal. The devil is in the detail. The HPF, and LPF make a big difference. It can pass as 

a heavy Doomer to a near Tube Screamer. Anyone can find 

something in it. If nothing else it is perfect for covering 

several pedals you only need for one tune each. 

 

MULTI-EFFECTS- FRACTAL AUDIO VP-4___NEW___ released today, just effects, no amps

F R A C T A L  A U D I O |||VP4 

Fractal use true Modeling where it is done through 'Component Construction'. 

Think of it like Lego blocks where you build a sound like a house using 

blocks. The advantage is you can build the ideal sound. 

The other basic method is 'Profiling' where you in effect mic an amp 

and you get the snapshot of that amp arguably perfect or 

old and worn needing maintenance. 

It will be accurate but it represents a moment in time,

a single sample of that amp and a place.  

...Both are flawed methods.  

 

$650.00 USD

CONCLUSION ___ 

 The advantage to effects is if they sound good they are good. They are artificial in the first place. 

 So having then sonically near perfect suits Fractal's approach. They are simply putting a frame   around your guitar. A frame can be added to anything. A tube amp,other modelers etc, etc. 

 It is hard to argue that the Fractal effects are competitive to any. A Marshall should 

 arguably sound like a Marshall but what should reverb or echo be???  

  

PREAMP- FRIEDMAN IR-J___NEW___ Jake E. Lee ....simply killer!!!!

FRIEDMAN  IR-J PreAmp

$500.00 USD

It is 3rd in their series of a real Marshall preamps that can be used the same way one would use a modeler. There is the IR-X that includes the kind of 80's and 90's mods that put Metal on the map and the IR-D that goes from a classic PLEXI to a Jose/EVH type 

vibe that never, never goes out of date. Not only is the sound 

100% authentic the feel is too. In short you have the full 

tube amp experience when you play. 

   CONCLUSION ___ 

You have all the convenience of a modeler but you have 

a timeless sound that unlike a modeler will not go out 

of date before you get home and try it for the first time.  

 

$600.00 USD

thefineprint

Yes it is $100 more but... Wrong there are no 'BUTS'

It may have a couple more features but on a 

comparison page of all 3 PreAmps the specs 

are identical.

FUZZY OVERDRIVE- TAVYSH EFFECTS Harm___NEW___ awsome or crap ...dial in either

$250.00 USD

tavysh effects

HARM |||| 

Not an new idea but an impossible one. Make a pedal where from low gain to high gain including Fuzz and if you want use the pedal 

as a clean boost.

   The layout is the 'how'...

You have Filter ... it is a Low pass to cut highs, Gain, Drive, is a second gain for the Fuzz. Gate switch ..when on it works with Fuzz but off turns the Drive into boost. HPF cuts the lows to tighten any flabbiness. Treble, Bass and Volume works as expected. Boost is 

on a toggle. It adds overall punch and bite. Lastly you get clip to give you 3 levels of dirt. 

 

   CONCLUSION__ 

It does not have one killer sound  that you tweak to perfection 

to fit you and your rig. In fact you could find a killer sound 

on it but touch one other control and you will get total crap. 

On the other hand it could add a partial sound. A sound 

that added to another dirt pedal create an amazing

outcome. It is really a Swiss Army Knife kind of deal.

FUZZ- BLAMMO ELECTRONICS Scrambler... Ampeg clone

 blammo SKRAMBLER  v.2 | 

$155.00 USD

The pedal is a take on the Ampeg Scrambler Fuzz that came out in 1969. 

It was aimed at bass players until over time the Doom Metal players 

found it was killer.

The layout is Volume, Texture/BIAS and Blend which can oscillate between the octave up sound and back. A button switches it to shift between 

the octave and a glitchy mode. 

 

  CONCLUSION __

It is a typical Blammo pedal. It just works, damn making some dead on clone with no control over its not so lovable in the real world malfunctions. Pedals for your board, not your bookshelf. 

It snarls like a massive rabid dog. What's not to love???

1969  Ampeg Scrambler

FUZZ- CAROLINE GUITAR CO. Wave Cannon Zero___NEW___nasty new Octave Fuzz

CAROLINE  G U I T A R  C O M P A N Y 

 WAVE CANNON ZERO 

$250.00 USD

This is a take on the 2010 prototype of this Octave Fuzz with new added goodies. The v.1 Wave Cannon followed a different path. 

Hence the name Zero as the number before 1.

The layout is Volume, Tone, Gain and 'Havoc' that feeds 

back some signal into itself. The small knobs are for 

BIAS for that velcro thing and a second small knob for 

focal point of the mids.

     CONCLUSION__

This appears to be more a take on the Foxtone Machine than the Super Fuzz. I am not complaining, lol. It does have its own thing going on. I am happy enough with my $30.00 Behringer Super Fuzz. It is very spiky and mid focused. This is lower mid and bass heavy which is different thing. I could justify both but I have the $26.00 USD M-Vave Fuzz that does a velcro heavy low thing on the way I can stack on my Behringer to sub for that. 

Yes $56 gets me where I want to be. 😇

thefineprint

...money from the sale of this pedal goes to the Red Cross for Hurricane Relief.

  so if you love this pedal go for it, the gods have given you permission, 

PITCH SHIFTER- MOOER AUDIO Pitch Box... impressive ...ON SALE

MOOER AUDIO 

PITCH BOX

$37.00 USD
w/ free ship AliExpress

DigiTech and to some degree Electro Harmonix have owned the Pitch box/drop tuning market. We have seen some big time players play half their tunes with especially the DigiTech jobbies.

We all wonder just how good they sound. We all wonder just how much

we would use them to justify the money. I recently noticed two things by dumb luck. First that Mooer has dropped the wholesale price in I suspect 

a bit of a sale and there is video of a shoot out of it against the $240.00 USD DigiTech Drop. The Drop is the biggy for those who want the sound but not one of DigiTechs huge Morley Wha shaped pedals eating half their board. 

The layout is a knob for Pitch choice and a toggle for Harmony, 

Pitch Shift or Detune.

     CONCLUSION ___

Well the the pedal is a bit noisy, but surprisingly 

a bit fatter than the Digitech. The sound especially 

when not pushed too many semitones away from  

your guitar tuning sounds very natural. Using it  

just for a really high gain rig or especially with a 

Fuzz is forgiving since your tone is hardly natural, lol. 

HANDS ON 

So It arrived. The dropped pitches sounded natural, not artificial or synth like. The harmony thing is OK but needs to have something written for it. Not really usable for the foreseeable future. . The detue when just put on -1 does a faux double track thing that oddly adds bite and punch in spades. It is not stereo so it will not give you real double tracking but it is so usable it is worth the price of the pedal