Tweet
A guy ended up giving me three brand new Duncan pedals as part of a trade for a guitar I built. It sounded like fun to review these, but I'm not the typical Duncan fanboi so I will not sugarcoat the review. First of all, I love made in USA products, and Seymour Duncan is an America-First company so, that's a big bonus. The build quality of all the pedals is fairly good. The Forza I guess is kind of Duncan's take on the proverbial overdrive pedal. I think it kind of does the more transparent Keeley boost thing than the 805 which is like a generic tube screamer with some added controls for versatility.
The Palladium is more of kind of a distortion pedal. I read the description with some fancy terms about drive stage or gain stage pedal, or whatever, but to me it's all worthless marketing hype. I liked the pedal a lot more than the advertising. I think Duncan really need to tone down their arrogance or something because they're not breaking new ground here. It's just a straight up overdrive, and I found it a lot easier to dial in usable tones by ignoring the hyped up manual. I'm sorry, but listen to this drivel
"The Palladium Gain Stage effects pedal is the first stompbox that actually captures the feel and responsiveness of a high gain tube amp.
Description
By focusing beyond just the tonal characteristics of Palladium, we designed an innovative architecture that captures the full-bodied depth and character previously unattainable in an effects pedal.
You can use it with a power amp or a clean guitar amp to create your ultimate high gain signature sound, and replicate your favorite classic and high gain amp tones. Or use it in front of a distorted amp to tighten up the attack for rhythms or to increase sustain and saturation for solos. However you choose to use Palladium, we hope ... More"
They should just call it a distortion pedal that does medium and high gain. To me, it's like a 5150 overdrive clone. I still have my 5150 overdrive and it's still a lot of fun to play into a clean or dirty amp. Anyway my apologies for my disdain of Duncan's pompous marketing rhetoric, but I was kind of put off by it.
The MOST IMPRESSIVE pedal of all three however, was a single feature of the Killing Floor. I don't really get this pedal and it seems like whoever designed it got it through R&D without knowing what the hell it's supposed to be exactly. It's got a low cut, 36db boost, and a high cut. My first thought with this pedal was "cool, I'm going to boost my little 5w Fender clone," but it sounded honky and like the little 5E3 circuit didn't like what it was trying to pass through.
I tried a few things, but it all kind of sucked until I was playing through my Friedman BE channel an engaged the high cut. I like my BE gain on the bright side, so whatever it did, it did really cool. I'm not sure if it actually cuts out high frequencies or compresses the high end, but it didn't do any weird compression to the treble notes, so it started sounding very cool. The knob doesn't need to be up very far. REALLY fun soloing/noodling on this setting in BE mode.
Then I figure I'd go back to the little 5E3 and try the high cut, I set the knob kind of around the lower range and went through the instrument input of the amp which seems a little brighter. There was a beautiful top shaved kind of karrang. Little single note diddly-do leads and blues noodling is sweet.
I've played with the Killing Floor a little more since but can't find much of a use for it other than the high cut thing, but I really like whatever it does. It actually has a nice flavor and character which I with the other two pedals had a little more of. It's not cool to rag on the Forza and Palladium too much because I'm glad Duncan is putting out some diverse pedals. I wish they'd just do it with more purpose instead of adding their clone to the list of boutique clones out there.
For example, the Forza would be better if it had a high/low compression button instead of those little bitty tone knobs. The Palladium, for example, doesn't need the resonance and presence control. Those are controls used on an amp to control the frequencies when the power section gets loud. Whatever the Palladium is trying to emulate sucks at it. I don't think it needs the boost either. It's pretty useful with just the bass, level, gain, mids, and treble only. It's cool that it has two mid features, but does no good if I have my EQ pedal plugged in.
The Forza is more flexible than the Katana, but the Katana has better tone. The Palladium is very cool for an MXR style 5150 pedal, but the 5150 is more straightfoward and has a cool tone of its own. Lastly the Killing Floor does something special with it's hi cut, but not exactly sure how that plays out in a professional setting or recording situation. It seems like there are probably 1-2 tones somewhere if you stumble on the right settings on the right amp, but if you're trying to do the Supercharger thing to boost your amp all these DBs or whatever, it's not too great.
One last word... I think I'll keep the Killing Floor around just because it's unique and sooner or later I'll stumble into a use for it. For now, I'm looking forward to recording some Jamie Humphries sounding solos with that high cut setting.
The Palladium is more of kind of a distortion pedal. I read the description with some fancy terms about drive stage or gain stage pedal, or whatever, but to me it's all worthless marketing hype. I liked the pedal a lot more than the advertising. I think Duncan really need to tone down their arrogance or something because they're not breaking new ground here. It's just a straight up overdrive, and I found it a lot easier to dial in usable tones by ignoring the hyped up manual. I'm sorry, but listen to this drivel
"The Palladium Gain Stage effects pedal is the first stompbox that actually captures the feel and responsiveness of a high gain tube amp.
Description
By focusing beyond just the tonal characteristics of Palladium, we designed an innovative architecture that captures the full-bodied depth and character previously unattainable in an effects pedal.
You can use it with a power amp or a clean guitar amp to create your ultimate high gain signature sound, and replicate your favorite classic and high gain amp tones. Or use it in front of a distorted amp to tighten up the attack for rhythms or to increase sustain and saturation for solos. However you choose to use Palladium, we hope ... More"
They should just call it a distortion pedal that does medium and high gain. To me, it's like a 5150 overdrive clone. I still have my 5150 overdrive and it's still a lot of fun to play into a clean or dirty amp. Anyway my apologies for my disdain of Duncan's pompous marketing rhetoric, but I was kind of put off by it.
The MOST IMPRESSIVE pedal of all three however, was a single feature of the Killing Floor. I don't really get this pedal and it seems like whoever designed it got it through R&D without knowing what the hell it's supposed to be exactly. It's got a low cut, 36db boost, and a high cut. My first thought with this pedal was "cool, I'm going to boost my little 5w Fender clone," but it sounded honky and like the little 5E3 circuit didn't like what it was trying to pass through.
I tried a few things, but it all kind of sucked until I was playing through my Friedman BE channel an engaged the high cut. I like my BE gain on the bright side, so whatever it did, it did really cool. I'm not sure if it actually cuts out high frequencies or compresses the high end, but it didn't do any weird compression to the treble notes, so it started sounding very cool. The knob doesn't need to be up very far. REALLY fun soloing/noodling on this setting in BE mode.
Then I figure I'd go back to the little 5E3 and try the high cut, I set the knob kind of around the lower range and went through the instrument input of the amp which seems a little brighter. There was a beautiful top shaved kind of karrang. Little single note diddly-do leads and blues noodling is sweet.
I've played with the Killing Floor a little more since but can't find much of a use for it other than the high cut thing, but I really like whatever it does. It actually has a nice flavor and character which I with the other two pedals had a little more of. It's not cool to rag on the Forza and Palladium too much because I'm glad Duncan is putting out some diverse pedals. I wish they'd just do it with more purpose instead of adding their clone to the list of boutique clones out there.
For example, the Forza would be better if it had a high/low compression button instead of those little bitty tone knobs. The Palladium, for example, doesn't need the resonance and presence control. Those are controls used on an amp to control the frequencies when the power section gets loud. Whatever the Palladium is trying to emulate sucks at it. I don't think it needs the boost either. It's pretty useful with just the bass, level, gain, mids, and treble only. It's cool that it has two mid features, but does no good if I have my EQ pedal plugged in.
The Forza is more flexible than the Katana, but the Katana has better tone. The Palladium is very cool for an MXR style 5150 pedal, but the 5150 is more straightfoward and has a cool tone of its own. Lastly the Killing Floor does something special with it's hi cut, but not exactly sure how that plays out in a professional setting or recording situation. It seems like there are probably 1-2 tones somewhere if you stumble on the right settings on the right amp, but if you're trying to do the Supercharger thing to boost your amp all these DBs or whatever, it's not too great.
One last word... I think I'll keep the Killing Floor around just because it's unique and sooner or later I'll stumble into a use for it. For now, I'm looking forward to recording some Jamie Humphries sounding solos with that high cut setting.
) But most of us are chasing the tones of our heroes...past and present.
Comment