FUZZ- COLLISION DEVICES Singularity ___ NEW ___ fat extra Jumbo big Fuzz w/knob

COLLISSION DEVIVES| SINGULARITY FUZZ 

$180.00 USD

All I can find is that these guys are a boutique pedal maker from Angers ....

France??? Yes, ...right there.

The Fuzz sounds like it is either OpAmp or silicon. It does not have that gritty germanium thing.

It is a massive basically Doom Fuzz with just a single big knob.

Oh, yes, and a toggle to cut highs with 3 choices.

CONCLUSION ___

It looks cool but more I can not say. 

I lied, It sound quite good in an OpAmp 

sort of way & has a very liquid glassy sound.  

Much different than our usual thing.  

 

 

AUDIO INTERFACE- FOCUSRITE Scarlet 2i2 V.4 ___ NEW ___ world class, affordable!

 FOCUSRITE Scarlet 2i2 V.4

I did some serious research on the last version. It was unanimously the best value for money interface for home recording from all reviews. One guy had after years with V.3 moved up to the king, a UA that was 4 times the money. He said while recording he could notice the difference but he found a month later on any finished product that he could not hear any difference on music he made once it was done with several tracks. So he said he caved into the more is better or indeed if not better it was cooler, LOL.

$200.00 USD

Now with V.4 the specs are easily as good as UA so now is very good timing if you want to get into the DAW thing. This model is ideal in that it has two inputs if on occasion you play with someone else and even if you don't, sh@t happens :-) It also allows for stereo. Once again you may think you won't need it but at some point you might change your mind. 

OVERDRIVE- MENATONE Red Snapper mini ... same 1996 pedal in a mini box

MENATONE

RED SNAPPER mini 

$140.00 USD

Brian Mena started his business in 1996 with this pedal and is still making it. 

He has a B size version with an added cut for the highs which for me is not needed. The circuit and parts has remained the same. Every pedal is still handmade by Brian. 

He is world wide known for his other business. Hand made tobacco pipes, LOL. Brian works to live but does nit live to work. He enjoys what he does. 

He keeps it simple. He does not do any marketing and simply makes a pedal after you order and ships it out. it can take up to 3 weeks.

The RS is low gain to medium crunch pedal. it has a fabulous organic rich sound. At its lowest gain it is one the sweetest crisp sounding Boost pedals on the planet. Pushed hard it is fat, chunky and has incredible balz.

CONCLUSION 

It started by using the Tube Screamers topography 

but has no comparison. It has no buffers and no

compression even the tone control was tossed. 

It was the first and completely transparent OD.  

You Love it or you move on. 

 

NOTE: You can go to the site for audio samples but Brian does not dumb down a pedal to fit a box. 

It is hand wired through hole build.  

The original was 3 knobs in a very large enclosure. This does indeed sounds like the 1996 original. 

                                                                                           @ 38:49

OVERDRIVE- ThorpyFX The Dane MkII ___ NEW ___ small size, big sound, Large $

$290.00 USD

ThorpyFX The Dane MkII

Andertons Store's Danish Pete Honore's signature pedal. A low gain transparent OD with a boost. Version one is 5 years old. It was primarily designed to specifically work with a Tele. It has superb touch sensitive dynamics.

The layout is Level, Boost, Gain, Tone, Bass and a toggle with a second 

higher gain boost.

CONCLUSION

The size is very welcomed and the new graphics have dropped 

the confusing and obtuse lettering and graphics. You can get 

a great wonderful chunky and punchy sound. Great for

chord work and flatpicking. Sustain is all but nonexistent.

the fine print

It is probably the best low gain to a light medium gain pedal made. It is a neutral as vanilla ice cream ...nothing to perhaps love but musically it fits into any tune in any style without being a problem of being to much or too little gain.  In other words it does not bring your attention to itself. All other transparent pedals either are a prefect fit for a genre with narrow range of anything outside of that genre and/or you use it and love with its But it doesn't and But it is too issues. 

I think Thorpy pedals are designed not around what the guy loves than what the guy totally hates. They simply have no character, like a beautiful day but the sun  casts too many shadows. There are no shadows in a Thorpy. A session players dream 🙉

GRAPHIC EQ- IRIN Band Controller Equalizer ...compact 10 band ___$25

IRIN INSTRUMENT 

 BAND CONTOLLER |EQUALIZER

$25.00 USD
(AliExpress/includes free shipping)

Those that do not think they need an EQ don't own one or they would find out if it was gone they would have to replace it. They could even wish the one they have was better or it had memory so they could get an instant change to fit a pedal or indeed a stack of pedals with the right sound. 

I use 3. One with memory on my high gain and Fuzz channel and two on my clean sound channel. One is set to give my overall clean sound a Silver-face Fender sound which is very bright and scooped. I use it for Strat sounds on and my Semi for chime and more definition.

I have a 5 band and two 7 band EQ's. My Crunch channel does not have an EQ and I would like to put the non programable 7 band in it and get a new 10 band to use for my faux Fender sound. I can get more detail in the sound cut the extreme lows right out and the very, very highs that only show up when single coil hiss can be heard. In short a kind of a gate on hiss. 

   BASIC SPEC

It is a small pedal. It fooled me because 10 band pedals are usually fairly big and visually it looks about the same. 

It is 10.8 cm x 7.5 cm ...or 4 1/4'' x 3''  If you sat a Boss pedal sideways on it the Boss pedal would not cover over the last fader. In other words it takes up the space of an average pedal. You can cut or boost a sliders output by plus or minus 16dB  (A Boss for comparison is 15dB)  

 

CONCLUSION ___

There is nothing on the company. They do not appear to make other pedals or even mixing boards. A few reviews, none criticizing the unit. Not surprising there are no video reviews. Guys do not clammer to watch EQ reviews by any makes of EQ, lol. 

The good news is most graphics EQ's are bought by HiFi aficionados they get very picky about headroom and noise. The odds of this made by a HiFi manufacturer seem to me very probable. I think most company's farm out their EQ's because companies making other pedals keep dumping old models for new ones but the EQ is always the same model with no end in sight after 10 years and still unchanged. These companies making analog EQ units have had about 40 years to get it right. They are truly trying to get these transparent to the point of invisible. 

I think it is harder to get something deliberately distorted  

to have the 'right' dirt when no one can easily define or agree on it, lol.  

   

HANDS ON

It arrived in 7 days. 

It is built like a tank with a bit of heft. The faders are nice and 

firm but move fine they click in nicely at the center détente.

The sound is clean but not antiseptic or the least bit metallic 

and the range is much more than most will ever use. I can not 

hear any smearing from the cross fade of the faders. In other words

zero mud. My first impression is this is an easy 10 out of 10 sound.

My pricey Source Audio EQ does not sound one bit better!!!

FUZZ- DAREDEVIL PEDALS Real Cool Fuzz ... re-issue early Stooge sound

DAREDEVIL PEDALS|REAL COOL FUZZ

$180.00 USD

 

Eleven years ago Johnny Woter was asked by clients if he could make a Fuzz that had the early Stooges sound. The best he could find out was that it could be an Asheton Fuzz which was based on a Fuzz Rite. Working with the Fuzz Rite topology, a lot of critical thinking  and a few dead ends he came up with a unit. Johnny makes what gets ordered so for a few years there wasn't any interest but now there is a lot. 

CONCLUSION ____

Cool Fuzz, is. It does the Fuzz Rite garage band thing without that pedals tendency to go into a bit of a fizz or nasal thing. It is the adult version of a garage band noise. Not for children under 10 without adult supervision. But? 

If you want that Pee Wees Playhouse sound this is not for you.

the fine print

...first we went through the King of Tone followed by the Klon thing. 

Finally everyone has bought all and sold several before finally 

deciding that they were not getting better but different, lol. 

The new thing is the Fuzz thing. tank god!!! the great thing about 

a Fuzz is there really are some very different sounds and choices 

and no one has the god of gods Fuzz thanks to so many different religions. 

OD- SHIFTLINE Stages Dynamic Drive ___ NEW ___ transparent low gain to high gain ++

SHIFT LINE

 STAGES _DYNAMIC DRIVE

$210.00 USD

This company has been around since 2008. The staff are both players and engineers. This is not a trail and error sell taught  group. Nothing wrong with the self taught guys as they invented most of the classic gear in Rock. On the other hand guys are now trying to refine their sound. The best results are to use the old with the new. 

The Stage has many features. They are laid out in an intuitive way but the layout can use some explanation. The layout is Level, Gain, treble, mids and bass. A toggle gives you a choice of gain stages. Add to that it has a high pass filter that tightens the lows ideal for really heavy sounds.

CONCLUSION ___

It is a DIY Amp-in-a-box. You can literally sculpt out your own sound. We all say we want that but in reality we want some super heroes sound but with a few tweaks.

The damn thing can be made tight yet can still have a lot of breadth.

The harmonic detail and note separation is as good as it gets.

OVERDRIVE- IDIOT BOX Redrum V2 ___ NEW ___ Rat & HM2 blended into new toot!!!

$130.00 USD

IDIOTBOX EFFECTS 

 REDUM V2 OD

This company has a knack of taking the near unusable and turn it 

into a pedal that even those with all their facility's could love 😮

The layout is nice and simple with Gain, Level and Tone. 

 

CONCLUSION ___

A Doom pedal that doesn't doom the player.

You are not even Doomed to over pay. Seriously aggressive fat but unusually tight. 

As a one man show or stacked it is ideal.

OVERDRIVE- JOYO R-24 Rigel PreAmp ___ NEW ___ Thrash-in-a-Box

JOYO |  RIGEL R-24 PREAMP  

$95.00 USD

Virtually a Thrash Metal Overdrive. One size fits all. Really, it actually does. The idea was to give you enough bells and whistles to sculpt it into a Peavey 5150 a Mesa Dual/Rec or whatever.

The layout is easy to use but like many pedals the labels are confusing. It has Volume, Treble, Mid, Bass and Gain. Feel control I expect is a dynamics setting for your touch. It has a bright switch and 3 different voices with different gains. 

  

CONCLUSION ___ 

The oversize box is unnecessary and looks unconvincingly pretentious. The chrome 

plated plastic knobs also cheapens the look. It does sound very good and the 

controls are both useful and effective. If it was compact I could be tempted. 

My $44.00 USD ...MOEN Metal gives me the same basic sound and I only 

need this clichéd kind of sound on a few tunes. For a start I don't 'chug' 😒

Faults aside if you need a good straight ahead cover it all Metal pedal

there is plenty to tweak certainly enough to get good sounds out of any rig.

TREBLE BOOSTER- KING TONE Rise v.2 ___ NEW ___ not grandads '66 RangeMaster

KING TONE RISE 

 Treble Booster 

$265.00 USD

Just a year after the first one and we get the new and improved v.2. Just

enough time to hear from Tony say ''l love this  but''. Yes it can give you 

the classic germanium or now Iommi's much loved silicon model.

The layout is Volume, gain and tone but added to it is both a light Fuzz 

and or a low gain OD. The original worked well because guys were diming 

their amps and often adding a Tonebender. The combination is the magic. 

This one adds the magic back in even at lower volumes and a dead 

clean amp.

CONCLUSION ___

It is the extra Jumbo large bottle of secret sauce and is

scary good and impressive. Owner builder Jesse Davy

has been bringing us his magic pedals since 1999.

The thing is it sounds killer and once you see the

video it all makes perfect sense.   

 

OVERDRIVE-NUX 650D 6ixty 5ive Overdrive ___ NEW ___ Bassman-in-a-Box

NUX| 6ixty 5ive Overdrive

$50.00 USD

Part of the company's Reissue Series. This amp became more famous when Marshall took the schematic and cloned it to become their first amp the JTM45. 

A pedal being a pedal is usually beeped up a bit more in the gain so this could have been called a JTM but ....?

I had this amp in the late 60's . I used it to record but not in my band as they drowned it out and pushing it flat out made it get muddy.

The layout is Level, Gain, Treble and Bass with an internal trim pot to cut or boost the highs.

CONCLUSION ___

It nails the amps sound quite good. I have never been a fan of even the JTM variation of the amp. My thing has and is the amp following it the totally original JMP 50 often referred to by its model number 1959. 

It has the infamous EL34 tubes that make a Marshall ...a Marshall!!! 

NUX do that pedal too. They call it the PLEXI Crunch. It is a killer pedal!!! It loves a Tele :-)

All said and done I can not fault the NUX 65. I also love some 

variety and it has a bit of the 6L6 bright thing that has me tempted :-) 

 

Oddly the basic circuit is used to make the Timmy and the Jan Ray. With a bit if tweaking including the trim pot you can get a clone of either so close its scaredy.  

One last thing of critical note is that Robben Ford first Dumble ODS was based on this same amp. No two Dumble's are a like. They sound at minimum as different as 3 different Fender amps with the same name made years apart. I mention this to make the argument that as a pedal this is as good a sample of a Dumble as any other pedal out there. Finally if you can use it as a booster. You can even dial in a killer SRV ...Tube Screamer type boost.  

amp starts at 7:13

A MUST WATCH ___ the Abbey Road Story ___ History of studio tech

THE ABBEY ROAD STORY

A HISTORY OF RECORDING  INNOVATION

OD- ATOMLABS CREATIONS Gov Noir Distortion ___ NEW ___ Marshall Guv'nor clone

 ATOMLABS CREATIONS 

GUV NOIR DISTORTION 

$110.00 USD

A Scottish company makes a clone. There are no mentions of NOS parts like Marshalls own reissue. 

The layout I imagine is Gain, Bass, Mids, Treble and Level.

The pedal is aimed at your bookcase as an ornament or your desk as a paperweight. The daring will use it as a door stop. 

CONCLUSION ___

It has some balz with a really nice thick sound. It lacks serious sustain, in fact barely any. The casing is killer ...for a DAW interface sitting beside you laptop. For a pedal board it is a farcical useless gimmick.. Just plain stupid!!!

The price with shipping and duty will certainly make it $150 or even more. Reasonable for a quality desk ornament.  They could have done with a classic sloped front small metal case, kept the vibe and made it worth getting ...WTF!!!!

OVERDRIVE- PedalPalFX PAL800-V4 ___NEW ___ 2 year waiting list ??? who knows?

 PedalPalFX 

PAL800 GOLD OVERDRIVE V4 

$200.00 USD

Version 3 had a 2 year waiting list. Yes, V.3 is that good. It is pedal designed to literally be the pre-amp out of a Marshall JCM 800 by using FET Transistors to replace the real tubes. They even went so far as to tune every transistor just like you would BIAS a tube on each pedal before they shipped it to you. If that is not enough it has a switch for the best 3 mods that the guys in the 80's had done to their 800. YES!!!! #34 is the Slash mod. 

     A HEADS UP

This pedal was designed in every way to give you the exact sound of the actual amp. 99% of all other makes give you the sound of how it sounds on the recordings that turned you into a JCM 800 lover in the first place. They are compressed, have added EQ and are gated etc. I have several of these MIAB pedals and love them. But unless you own the amp or this pedal you do NOT have the real tone.  

 

 CONCLUSION ___

Yes the above is a demo of the original without the upgrades adding the classic 80's mods that you can switch on. I own the first one from 2016 when it was released internationally. I put YouTuber Phillip McKnight onto Pedal Pal. It was his video of V3 that started the 2 year wait. 

I will never sell my original 2016. It is called the Emulator a big size pedal in a silver paint. In fact I was using it yesterday. I pretty much have used within every 48 hours since I owned it. Will I get this one to have the mods???  At this second I am telling myself to calm down and wait 2 or 3 days and then decide, LOL.   

...OK times up I ordered one, LOL