Since 2015 NEW PEDALS EVERY DAY! Over 4400 REVIEWS!
I use other reviewers vids & then critique from them __ If a pedal appears killer I buy one __ I try it out & update the Post__ If the pedal is SH@T I literally say so!__ I publish the street price a no brainer but few do. __ I save you time finding the best pedals & you get a second opinion. __OVER 4 MILLION VISTORS__
NO ONE OWNS ME___ I MAKE ZERO $ FROM THIS
WEEHBO BASTARD LOW END DISTORTION Wheebo are not new to this site. They simply do not make a pedal that can be dismissed. It goes from a medium gain thru to a high gain distortion. It has a very aggressive low end. The whole pedal is in fact rough and aggressive. One thing that stands out is its definition. Zero mud! I must admit I love it. I have recently got an old Dod Bone Shaker that could be described in much the same way BUT the Bastard takes it all to a totally different level.
CONCLUSION What's not to like! A lot of new Metal pedals going for a liquid smooth sound with no serious low end! Personally for me Metal should show no quarter! This one does not! It takes no prisoners and when it's finished those that are dead will be the lucky ones!!! lol I love it!!!!
DIAMOND NINE ZERO TWO It is a low to medium gain pedal built with an obsession to get all the detail of tone at that gain stage right. It makes a a Tube Screamer look like a Metal pedal. lol For those who need comparison think old Fender Tweeds and brown face amps. Diamond always do things 'their way' when they get it right they nail it. Doing things different is a given with them. it looks simple but there are many different gain stage you go thru just on the one simple knob labeled gain. By breaking down a real tube amp in multiple stages you get complex interactions that tubes make. In a real tube amp not a single control works independently so boosting for example the mids may also turn down the lows or reshape the highs. The 902 addresses this masterfully.
CONCLUSION Yes by your average OD standards this seems ridiculously subtle. But others that make low gain pedals usually end up with a sound that is extremely artificial. Artificial on a Fuzz can be great but on something a delicate as the area between clean and dirty it needs to be right. I find nothing come close to this for that just before breakup sound!!!
GREENCHILD THRESHER Hey started with a Marshall blues Breaker schematic throw in some of the ol' Maxon 820. The controls are labeled level gain mid and tilt. Pull back the gain & you are still left with a serious boost pedal.
The pedal was designed to be nasty ....very nasty and it is. To be honest 'just' a OD this nasty certainly will not suit a lot of players. BUT if like me you use a few OD's having a great nasty one amongst them is a given. The pedal is beautifully built. Sturdy, compact with high end parts.
CONCLUSION This pedal has a niche of it's own. Those that love it will always love it. Everyone should have at least one slightly off the wall OD. Is this yours? I have the French Celmo Pimento Sardine. But hey! maybe it needs a partner. lol
DEAD BEAT THE VOID REVERB A California builder who moved to Brooklyn who just wants to make unique high quality pedals that sale for affordable prices. This is the third pedal company that the makers see a Plate as a great always on reverb. A good Plate reverb can be full and rich but will not muddy your sound. Unlike a Spring ...a Plate will stay tight and clean so if you push it up it will not dirty your sound. Kept low in a mix you get nice tight sound that easily rivals a Spring in fact usually it is much better. Dave Gilmour's sound was married to a plate. Nothing is more complimentary to a guitar. It is a large Plate so it will sub as a Room reverb easily. I have the Mr, Black Reverb (mini) which is a small plate so it has lot less low end. It works nearly as well overall but is a killer on dirt sounds! Recently on sale on Amazon for $60.00 USD but they are all but sold out. A simple rig. First the pedal looks bigger then it is. It is as deep as a mini but twice as wide. With just decay and mix it takes only a second to mix a great sound.
Conclusion
The Nux Oceanic is another good choice. So with it and Mr Black all being quite good you do have a nice choice. I also have the TC Electronic HOF. The same idea but although you can download a Plate it comes with a Hall which is often too much for an always on.
I have mentioned it often. In a live situation an all bells and whistles Reverb can really add some drama in a tune. BUT you can seldom leave it on for the whole tune and switching it off and having zero reverb sounds ameteur. Hence a decent always on is a must!
The VOID is definitely hard to beat. as good as the others but cheaper too.
soon as I heard it I was wowed! I saw the sale and bingo mine is on it's way! HANDS ON So it arrived at my door in a box the size of a basket ball. LOL Inside was a box nearly as big! It was the pedals box. It is a really nice box like te kind you get a gourmet pedal in but it was big enough 10 or more of the little reverb pedal. To be fair they did tuck in a power supply and 2 small patch cords. So I plugged it in. WOW!!! It exceeds my expectations by double!!! Definitely gotta have pedal!!! maybe it only has one basic sound but that sound matches anything you could get from a Eventide or Strymon!!!! No Sh@t guys it really is that good and for $60!!!
In 1979 the hot seller in Japan was the Maxon. Both the Maxon and the Ibanez pedals were made at the same plant.
Ibanez could see that this pedal was a gem.
They licensed it from Maxon and the Tube Screamer was born!!!! Well as you can see it was really actually adopted LOL.
When the 40th year came up Robert Keeley was asked to
join the fun and so then you get Keeley's famous total
hot rod treatment. It did not stop there a Catalinbread, an
Earthquaker Devices and a Pigtronix version is yet to come.
Every pedal maker makes a ts type pedal. Some boast of their mods to it ...others pass it off as all their own and still others use it's schematic as the basis for a pedal that is beyond recognition as being half ts. You can see what just 4 company's can do to change the sound let alone a thousand. A thousand is not a joke. In Venezuela there are 98 gourmet pedal builders in just one virtually internationally obscure country.
There are hundreds of guys right know waiting for nearly 2 years
to get their Analog Man King of Tone. A double OD pedal. The low gain side is in fact a Tube Screamer.
CONCLUSION
As much as the ts is loved or hated there has always been some legitimate criticisms of it's few weaknesses. Good ol' Robert has a nice fixed for all those. So if you are thinking ts ...you can't go wrong. He did not mess with the original overall tone. Even the price is reasonable.
But you have a lot of choices. Catalinbread has turned into a Brit pedal. You see what I mean ...start
with the same schematic and you can turn a ts into dozens of different pedals.
Unless you have been living in a cave over the last few years
$400.00 USD
the very high end digital market is making the ultimate amp in a box or even throwing in every effect box and then some. Most offer an endless stream of digital downloads for newer sounds as they come along. The leader of the 'do it all' is arguably the new AXE FX III. Some team up their boxes with a cheap and cheerful studio/PA type D power amp and sell the unit as an amp.The Kemper is still King of this group. I will not go into IR's but it is a way of cloning a speaker's response to eliminate a guitar speaker cab to record direct or go straight into the PA and eliminate a cab altogether. The most popular units add amp simulators as well. In short you can have 'Everything in one box'. The heart of the cutting edge emulating tech is called Modeling. It is software based and like most tech it has drifted into consumer PC's and related hardware. In a few years totally pro stuff will be silly cheap and specific hardware based units will be history. Strymon were very clever with the Iridium. The timing is perfect. A serious unit at an affordable price with I suspect a healthy profit margin.
THE BOX So the Iridium gives you 3 basic sounds (others are really derived from them.) First there is a Fender DeLuxe Reverb ...perfect choice! A little tweaking will give you everything from a Tweed to a Twin! Second a Vox AC30 ...again perfect! Third a Marshall 100 watt Super Lead (1959 model) ...it just can not get better. Again put a good Metal pedal like a REVV on this and you have the overkill sounds nailed! lol These are generally considered the 3 best classic amps in the world. I am 100% in agreement! You have these 3 and ANYTHING else can be done adding a pedal. Pretty much every gourmet amp on the planet starts by using the schematic of one of these 3 amps!.
Once you pick an amp you have a wide selection of speakers. Either the ones associated with your 3 amps or several you can get creative with. You get both open back ones and of course your typical closed backs including 4x12 Marshalls. The big selling point is that using the unit is dead simple where as others are all for Rocket scientists. Secondly. For me I would simply use the classic 3. The Vox, and Fender with it's original speakers and the Marshall stack. They add a 'room' effect. Obvious a reverb since micing your own amp adds the room you mic it in. The quality is second to none!!! In fact they are made with the higher specs than any other Modeling unit.You get a world class unit for $400.00 USD!!! Plug this thing into a track on any industry standard digital recording set up and you get a sound second to no one on the planet. Period!!!
CONCLUSION
This unit is an industry shake up BIG DEAL! There are probably a dozen video's I could add. But this is hands down the very best. The others are either messy and all over the map ...either the guy wastes time on 3 variations of the Fender patch because he is a Fender guy or you get an infomercial. There is a fine line on need to know and a bit of show off that makes a good vid. This one has it nailed.
I added the Sweetwater video ...definitely an infomercial. I put it in as it virtually a verbal read out of the circuit and features. A how to.
Most of you know I am an old school tube amp guy. But common sense tells me two things. Spend hours recording and then doing hours of post production and then pat yourself on the back because your effort sounds like this unit just plugged straight in. FACT!!!
Live this will sound probably better thru the house system then your rig to all but 3 players in your audience that night.
Bottom line? I need a backup amp! This is bullet proof just add a cheap class D pedal board amp and this. I then am never painted in the corner. I own both extremes. Even with my Marshall antinuated down to a 20 watt on stage monitor and all else going thru this box my ass is covered no matter what!
BUT!!! The winter NAMM is in January so wait! This pedal has been released just early enough to preempt it for the first adopters ...yet look fresh enough to impress most buyers at the show.
The down side????
It is a mater of time before the equivalent will be a $200.00 software package that can kill the current leader the all in one box the AXE FX III.
Newer video's DEC 1/10 IRIDIUM / KEMPER comparisons
A David & Goliath thing
and Dave comes out with ...if not a 10 ...at worst a 9.5
many will call it a tie!
In short ...in a band situation any difference would be inconsequential.
THE FINAL CURTAIN
Now if the Strymon is dead close to the Kemper
it would be good to know how close the either were to the amp's they copy.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I am going to buy a Strymon Iridium and then turn it into a conventional amp
I play gigs that where only the vocal is miked. So my custom made
Digital Modeler Amp will sit on a cab just like a regular amp.
Read the Post AMPLIFIER- MONOPRICE UNITY 200 watt amp
I will then have it and my Plexi. One will be my backup.
A Brit guitar company with many models from a few hundred to a few thousand. They focus on guitars with a retro look but spec to modern standards. They sell direct to Brit and Europe but not otherwise. A few Brit retail stores export so they are available. There entry level guitar is what grabbed me. Their thinking was why not use the Gibson LP Jr. and lately even the Gibson Melody Maker as a guide line for a new guitar. Both guitars were not intended and were never expected to be turned into Pro guitars ...but they have. So Hutchins came up with the Shade II. A small alder body with a fixed maple neck. Entry level pro hardware and a single but great sounding PU. throw on some dirt and this sucker can shred! Yes I get it. Entry level guitar? Yes, but entry level pro guitar. CONCLUSION Well you can get a lot of 'currently cool' guitars in this price range. But in a few years they will be yesterday's news and if you sell you will have to dump them. But an odd but cool Brit guitar like this is cool now and will always will be. Especially when if you plug it into a serious dirt sound and remove the back wall out of your next club gig! It can be a second backup guitar for life. A permanent keeper ...so when you buy that dream guitar ...then sell it for the next dream guitar the Shade II is always right there on a stand behind you ready for action when or if you need it! I see it as a very affordable investment. A valuable useful tool that over time will improve with age and years from now you will always get your original money back.
It comes in Seafoam Green or Black. Me? Oh! Seafoam Green I love colours. But it looks very different in black because the pickguard and truss rod cover are black,
$1400.00 USD free shipping worldwide! Fernandes BURNY RLG-55 Made in Japan
Since 1969 Fernandes has been up then down then up again. They never disappeared. They have been famous for overly well made instruments with creative ideas and just as infamous for bang on clones ...yes the infamous 'Lawsuit Models' made even better then the originals and cheap!!! Well they are back with a force. Better still they just took the 'best of' and are doing it all. They have brought back their Burny brand too. They used it for the clones. Note ...they have return to the Gibson headstock on their 50's LP. Yes half the price for a killer LP. In future cherry pick your favourite gourmet PAF pickups and you are still way ahead of the game with a 'keeper' guitar. Cool too is the Burny 'renegade status' has kept and will keep this Jesse James LP cool forever!
You can even get the Joe Perry signature model for the same price too.
NOTE: check out the site. There are endless Fernandes destinations online ...most look official or even might have been but are confusing dead ends. Just Google 'FERNANDES GUITARS LATEST NEWS and go from there. Once on the site click on STORE if you want a quick way to get at all the online goodies and direct sales too.
KORORA AUDIO SPIRA In 1964 Roger Shepard described a pedal that took 24 band pass filters and by having matching pairs move one ahead of the other and moving them forward an endless layered and overlapping glissando is created. Sound wise is really another modulation pedal but what I love is unlike Phasers , Flangers and Chorus units etc. it does not create that heavy pulsating rhythm of the endless sweep. Why?? Because I compose most of the time without effects. I find adding an effect can enhance a sound but I do not wish to rewrite my tune to fit with a rhythmic sweep or have that sweep spoil the tune. So w,t,f, is a bandpass filter???? If you slide an EQ slider on a graphic EQ you are turning up or down the level of a single band pass filter. Got it? Good. Me too. So if you had a pair of matching graphic EQ's and moved the same frequency on both units together you would be a human comb filter! LOL Next get 12 EQ's and a bunch of buddies to each push a pair of matching sliders and you won't need the Spira. Good idea ...yes? Stupid Idea yes? YES! Bottom line it kind of creates the tail end of the kind of swish you hear when EVH is let loose with a phaser. I do have a Flanger a phaser and 2 chorus units that I use very sparingly but the most effective is my Eddie Phaser sweep lol. The first video is excellent. The second is so you can hear some dirt. Unfortunately we are treated to a loud repetitive riff and a lesson on how to make the thing create the discord that you can avoid when the pedal is set up musically. Unfortunately these are the only vids on the Spira.
CONCLUSION I love its varied array of trance like harmonically pleasing sounds. Most ambient type pedals in the last few years feature discordant tones with the effect making clashing changes in pitch or gimmicky little startling sounds that make it tiresome to use more then once. This pedal is a winner. NOTE; Check out the old Post SECOND BEST GUITAR ON THE PLANET there is now a sketch of the guitar!
Designed by Black Arts for Dod in 2015 this is an Old School Metal pedal! It is huge fat and nasty with a near Fuzz like sound. Although it has quite excellent definition it hasn't that modern super tight sound. The pedal lacks for nothing! It has a quasi three way EQ with a bass, mid and treble. The knobs are stacked with the lower half choosing what frequency you wish to boost and the upper half determines how loud. Distortion controls the amount of gain and then of course you have an overall level out to your amp. Finally there is a knob labeled Depth that chops off the lowest frequencies off of the low end. This is a great idea because you can get the lowest practical lows without any mud. Modern pedals tend to slope away the lows. It is a more natural way of achieving a smooth tight and natural sound. Excess lows are simply designed out of the pedal in the original design. I quite like this pedal. The only thing is it is very Fuzz like without a trace of high gain tube sound.
CONCLUSION Is it a a one trick pony ...maybe? but hey! If so what a trick. In spite of a lot of initial twiddling you will end up with the hugest sound posible from your present rig no matter what it is. Just a massive grungy wall of sound that still manages some reasonable definition! You will get thicker then thick! ....just keep hitting those power chords! NO! It shreds terribly just the chords ...chords only please! OK...OK so I exaggerate. theeQ gives you a lot of versatility but who buys it for that??? You love it or hate it. Fo me it is a kind of a 'special effects' distortion. Use it in place of a Fuzz or if you are a serious Metal guy add it to your REVV or whatever serious modern Metal OD you have any where dropping a doubled up load of pure crush as needed. Love it ...I ordered a used one on Ebay for $75. UPDATE Well I got the pedal. It does not disappoint. One nice thing with the knobs all around 12 o'clock or a little less there are a lot of really nice medium gain dirt sounds. Definitely a bonus as they really hold their own. NOTE; checkout the old Post of THE SECOND BEST GUITAR ON THE PLANET there is now a sketch of the guitar.
I was excited to stumble on the Gasoline because I own the Thermion Heartbreaker their Marshall in a box pedal that I absolutely love. The quality of the Thermion product is second to none! Thermion are a small Spanish amp and pedal company that has been happy to sell locally for years. But if they did come to the world the world came to them. High quality and great design at a great price can not go unnoticed forever. The set up is Bass, Mid and Treble controls with the Presence, Gain Volume and Deep all allowing for overkill. A switch gives you 3 different voices Modern, Raw and Vintage.
CONCLUSION Impressive! Even when set with heavy lows it remains warm but not muddy and always tight. It does not have that edgy near metallic and urgent sound of many modern Metal pedals like Revv. It has a very controllable sound it is definitely not on the edge like most Metal pedals. It is unusually clean where most other pedals cry out for you to gate them. Definitely a contender. I for one have not found the ultimate Metal pedal. I only use one for 'wall of sound' power chords on the occasional chorus or bridge. But this one is sitting right beside the REVV G3 in my book. the REVV is not as versatile but it has one foot firmly in the classic Marshall camp. But the control ...extra fat but usable lows and general versatility of the Gasoline has me really thinking! NOTE: Check out the old Post THE SECOND BEST GUITAR ON THE PLANET it now has a sketch of it.
CAGEPNEUMA DRIVE Cage or Countdown Audio Guitar Effects. A small company that boast about both high quality parts but even those are tested to a consistency of tone. At present this is 'IT'. There are no other pedals on their site. There is also no info on the OD. Zip. To my ears it sounds like a Tube Screamer. I think this company is trying to show all entrepreneurs of a pedal company how Not to do it!
CONCLUSION
This is not the first or the last independent pedal maker with an amateur approach to marketing and selling their pedals. It is even forgivable and sometimes a bit of goofy fun. BUT with the others they had a killer pedal or two. A Tube Screamer pedal is hardly the thing to take your breath away. There are literally at least a thousand ts wannabe's out there. The 68 Pedals King Of Clone has two pedals in it. One is based on a Tube Screamer and it can eat this thing alive!!! The other half is a killer take on a Marshall Blues Breaker pedal. It is even cheaper then this pedal!!!
So I ask you w.t.f. is going on in the mind of the CAGE guys!!!!
In short Cage are a FARCE!!! and the pedal is a joke!!!
NOTE: Apologies for calling it a ts according to Countdown Audio.
my thanks to Countdown for the heads up. i like being corrected I always learn more.
Yes Cage doesn't even us an Opamp.
Sorry but I am still unimpressed. I find a good ol' DOD Overdrive Preamp/250
does a similar thing but the pedal has a lot of character and you
can go to the DOD sight and buy it for $45.00 USD.
Later if you find something special you will probably sell it quick
and even get near $45 for it.
Well these guys are new so I think it fair to at least point out
their site is laid out nice. I am sure we will get some other pedals.
the look of the pedals isn't flash but they look Pro.
More important you can see by the interior of the pedal the work is of
decent quality.
So I will keep on top of anything new and we can all have a look.
Well 68 are a small Chinese gourmet pedal maker that do the unthinkable. They make clones of great pedals ...but the build and parts are totally without compromise. Yes you get a great price but for a MIC pedal they are not an under $50 cheapie. You get a high end gourmet pedal at the prices you pay for MXR or Boss and even Electro Harmonix. There are quite a few 'Me Too' clones of the KOT. But damn it ....this one is unreal. After several listens I find the 'Clone' oddly just a shade fatter. One could argue it is just a little muddy too. But I am being hypercritical. When I say 'a shade' I mean just that! Barely perceptible. I think in a blindfold test many players would pick the 'Clone' as being the King simply because
it is just a nano bit fatter.
According to Brian Wampler even the best parts
are ALWAYS a bit higher or lower than spec written
An odd but fun company that produces some odd boxes Odd yes but they seem to pull off some delightful noises from them. In this case they went for Dave Gilmours sound when he used a Ram's head Muff and sweetened it up with a Coloursound Powerbooster'. They added the much needed volume control as have many others who have updated the pedal. With a collection of NOS for the key parts and new high end where the sound is not affected but the noise floor is. They have come out with a pedal many will want and I expect a few Floyd fans will go nuts over.
CONCLUSION Well there are 10 zillion Dave Gilmour fans. I was never one. LOL Well not until a couple of years ago ...oops! Oddly enough it was Comfortably Numb that blew me away. I was knocked over by the 'less is more' playing. A question of quality over quantity. I must confess to steering for sounds in this direction whenever I have written a melodic 'theme' type intro or bridge for a tune. It is unusually hard to get a tone like this right. It either is too bright or if mellowed out gets muddy and then the just right amount of sustain is damn hard to nail. Every era of Floyd introduces new pedals the Floyd sound with reissues a plenty to capture them. It is all a bit frustrating. I think many like me will love this box as it ties it all into a bow.
Weehbo is Eike Hintzen of Hanover Germany. The proberial one man show gourmet pedal maker.
So how good a Plexi in a box is it. Damn good.
In fact damn impressive! You can even choose between the classic '59 ...100 watt
and the '87 ...50 watt (note: 59 & 87 are Marshall model numbers)
Both vintage classic sounds are nailed!
So I will skip the blah! Ya wanna know what is the ...BIG EXTRA!
Well it is 2 pedals in one box. BUT 2 that are worlds apart.
A Brit Plexi for one and a Fender 65 blackface plus a '57 Tweed is the other.
My first thought was 'Gimmick!'
It is hard to do a great Plexi and a lot harder to do a Fender that passes the smell test!
But damn it both pedals are either better or a match against the best of the best made separate pedals out there.
Conclusion I was damn disappointed!!!! Wheebo doesn't do the the Fender half as a separate pedal! With 23 OD's on my board and a few of them superb Plexi pedals I do not need a huge pedal if it is half Plexi. lol First and foremost I am a Plexi guy!!!! BUT I love a Strat and even a Tele sound thru a Fender and this is so damn good! Final word ...the bottom line if you want a great Plexi sound or a great classic Fender sound you would be nuts not to put the PlexFace on short list!!!
JHS CHEESEBALL FUZZ Once upon a time there was an innovative company called Lovepedals that endlessly tried new and interesting ideas. The problem was that every time they knocked a new pedal out of the park they lost time and money on the pedals that just didn't cut it. In the end they went under. Probably their best pedal was the Big Cheese. Many clones have come and gone BUT! A perfect project for good ol' Josh Scott of JHS. The original is his fav Fuzz. He also has that obsession thing when it comes to a pedal that he just has to get perfect. lol
Dead at 80. No drummer was left untouched after Ginger's playing with Cream. Players with twice the skill had to stop and rethink! Less is more? For a guy with a huge kit his playing was never too busy. Self taught by listen to the Rock and Jazz from the West yet living in Africa and giving the music around him every bit of much priority to being part of his playing.
