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Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

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  • Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

    I've actually had this pedal for about 8 months now but I realised there weren't that many reviews of it online. I think it's a shame that such a brilliant pedal hasn't gotten more attention so I wanted to put down some of my thoughts about why I like it so much.

    1. The Blend Controls. The Blend control on the VG work differently to many other compressors, you start with a fully compressed sound at 0 and blend your clean tone back into it. This solves the main compressor woe of losing all your top end sparkle and brightness, as can have your fully compressed sound with just a touch of your own tone to breath some life and sparkle back into it. It's a small twist on the formula but I think it makes it a lot more musical (and useful to country chicken pickers!) than the standard blend controls on other comps.

    2. The EQ switch. This one works along with the blend knob, you can choose whether to blend in your Full clean tone for a beautiful rich studio compressor sound, only your high end for a bit more jangle and sparkle, or just your midrange which might be the most useful mode for high gain players. For jazz sets I run it in Full to get a really rich, huge sound that fills out my clean tones.

    When I was practising for a rock set I realised the real value of this switch: I was running it in front of a few drive pedals, and when I clicked it on in Full range mode I found the boost to the lows added a bit of woofiness to my drive sound, but flicking it into Mid mode meant that only my midrange was being fed through the pedal resulting in a really tight, clear distortion tone that still had all the sustain and consistency that compressors are best at. The mid setting allows it to live with distortion and drive in a way that I've struggled with other comps in the past, it's REALLY good.

    3. The volume. Not much to say but there's a freaking huge clean boost on tap here. Even at 12 o'clock it's boosting you way past unity gain. Whatever circuit they are using for that boost helps it sound very warm and big and helps balance out how precise and even (EQ wise) the compressor part of the circuit is. It completely destroyed my need for a clean boost on my board.

    It's also a very quiet circuit, even with the Sustain cranked up and the pedal volume fairly high it doesn't produce much noise. (It IS a compressor, if you have single coils or noisy pickups or pedals before it, it'll still amplify a lot of background noise)

    The only small gripe I can find with the pedal is that the Attack knob doesn't have much range. I haven't noticed a gigantic difference between different settings, its just enough to give you a tiny bit of control over your attack. The pedal has a pretty quick (fixed) release time which sounds smooth and level, no over-the-top rubber-y squish sounds to be found here.

    TL;DR: I like it a lot. If you love compressors at all it's extremely worth checking out. If you aren't a fan of compressors because they make your sound too dark, or they don't work with your drive pedals then the unique way the blend knob and eq switch work might just be enough to change your mind on this type of effect and is thus worth checking out anyway.
    Originally posted by BigAlTheBird
    I just got oiixed in the mung by a Canadian.

    Timmy - 1
    Andrew - None

  • #2
    Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

    You're doing a good job of selling this pedal. That mid setting makes me really want to try one out.

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    • #3
      Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

      The idea of having a bandpass for the effected signal is inspired. Very cool idea!
      Why don't you take your little Cobra Kais and get outta here?!
      My collaborative PROGRESSIVE ROCK PROJECT, As Follows.

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      • #4
        Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

        Great review! I have been using the Vise Grip for a boost as well as a traditional compressor. It does great at both.
        Administrator of the SDUGF

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        • #5
          Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

          Good Job!


          www.CelticAmplifiers.com

          "You can't save everybody, everybody don't wanna be saved."

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          • #6
            Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

            Originally posted by TwilightOdyssey View Post
            The idea of having a bandpass for the effected signal is inspired. Very cool idea!
            Thank you. It's actually the un-effected (affected?) signal that has the band pass filters available, so that the compressed signal is full range, but the parallel blend can allow a little emphasis to break through. You can use it for more radical tone-shaping as well, by cranking the parallel highs or mids setting, so that that tone becomes dominant and it relaxes into the full range sound as the note decays.

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            • #7
              Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

              Thanks for the clarification!
              Why don't you take your little Cobra Kais and get outta here?!
              My collaborative PROGRESSIVE ROCK PROJECT, As Follows.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                Is it a similar circuit to the Doubleback?


                Sent from my TARDIS using timey-wimey talk.


                Do what I do. Hold tight and pretend it's a plan!

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                • #9
                  Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                  As far as I know yes it's the same basic pedal. The only difference being they increased the headroom. It's good that it's smaller. I rehoused my Double Back into a smaller housing otherwise I'd have considered it.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                    Last night I plugged a 12V power supply into my Doubleback and it didn't fry. Actually it sounded damn good.
                    The Doubleback manual doesn't say anything about 18V power supply, but this within spec for the Visegrip.

                    Can anyone confirm the Doubleback won't fry at 18V?

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                      Originally posted by frankfalbo View Post
                      As far as I know yes it's the same basic pedal. The only difference being they increased the headroom. It's good that it's smaller. I rehoused my Double Back into a smaller housing otherwise I'd have considered it.
                      How difficult was it to rehouse the double back? Is the pcb inside small enough to simply drop it into a smaller case? I don't own the DB so I can't look, but am considering one (much cheaper than the vise grip).

                      Also can anyone else chime in on the 18v question?

                      Thanks! Hope you don't mind me reviving this thread for my first post

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                        If I remember correctly, I dremel'd off some superfluous PCB material in the corners to make it fit, which can be a dangerous game if you don't know where the traces are.

                        But it's in a mid-sized hammond style enclosure, flipped sideways. I ditched the battery compartment of course. There's still room for a battery but I won't use it that way anyway. It's not that much smaller, but it literally helped me fit another pedal onto my board by rearranging things. It does not rehouse into a small sized box, the size of the Vise Grip. So if that's the real size you want (with top mount jacks) then the Vise Grip is the only way to get that size.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                          Originally posted by frankfalbo View Post
                          If I remember correctly, I dremel'd off some superfluous PCB material in the corners to make it fit, which can be a dangerous game if you don't know where the traces are.

                          But it's in a mid-sized hammond style enclosure, flipped sideways. I ditched the battery compartment of course. There's still room for a battery but I won't use it that way anyway. It's not that much smaller, but it literally helped me fit another pedal onto my board by rearranging things. It does not rehouse into a small sized box, the size of the Vise Grip. So if that's the real size you want (with top mount jacks) then the Vise Grip is the only way to get that size.
                          Thank you! I think I'll take my chances with the original enclosure. Just trying to find a less expensive alternative for my keeley tone workstation (of which I mostly just use the blended comp and would only mildly miss the overdrives ), with the end goal of budgeting for an SD vapor trail

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                          • #14
                            Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                            I had one and returned it cause I thought he attack control was nofunctional-it did nothing- am I wrong?
                            "Anyone who understands Jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it." - Yogi Berra

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                            • #15
                              Re: Seymour Duncan Vise Grip Review

                              Well, I didn't test your pedal, but on mine, it does. Try a really dead clean sound and play with it, you'd hear it. It is subtle, and on a super gainy sound, it would be hard to hear.
                              Administrator of the SDUGF

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