I grew up with pedalboards, but always hated them- broken cables, power supplies, keeping up with settings or needing a different order in the chain gave me a lot of grief over the years- One of the main reasons I moved to modeling in the 90s (Rolland GP100) was to get rid of my pedals when gigging.
However, I never got rid of my tubes and I have a lot of really good amps that don't gig. One of them is a Splawn Streetrod, which has every form of tone I have ever imagined- from pure, sparkling cleans to ridiculous crunch and everything else in the middle... but as a Marshall descendant, it doesn't have verb and I like verb on cleaner stuff.
So I kept telling myself, one day I will find a perfect single pedal for the Splawn's fx loop- I needed classic reverb, but I also love spatial verbs like the Blue Sky- And while we are at it I wanted a classic 80s chorus, and although I don't use delay very much, it seems like a reasonable ask, considering we're already modulating.
In case you wonder why I didn't go with HX or Eventide, I wouldn't use 95% of what they provide, but I also wanted higher quality (especially high end) than I was able to get from those boxes.
So I waited and waited and waited and last week a buddy turned me on to the Crazy Tube Sidekick and I'm ridiculously happy (https://crazytubecircuits.com/sidekick)!
First of all, the sound quality is incredible- As a preamp alone, it brings out the sparkely high end of all of my guitars in a good way. It has a speaker emulator and will probably become my direct to DAW preamp from here on (includes an xlr output).
But the sounds are also incredible! It has 3 stomp switches, one for verb, one for delay and one for chorus- The chorus is 95% of my old Boss CE2 and the flanger setting is far more usable than my old purple Boss. The delay is basic, but extremely usable and the verbs are unreal- The plate gives me classic verb and the exciter/shimmer setting does the best of Blue Sky morphing in an excellent way.
The settings are not classic total control pots- Instead they do multiple things at the same time, and the result is many, extremely usable sounds with a small number of controls- instead of 50 different Bluesky tones, I have a limited number of extremely useful tones.
And they stack incredible well, so I have one pedal that gives me just about any fx I will ever need. So I strongly recommend this pedal for anyone looking for a one stop shop for verb, delay and chorus and they have also just introduced a small version of the pedal if you want it on a classic pedal board.
And last but not least, I'm planning on pairing it with my only other pedal for my extra light gig setup. I have a Blackstar HD dual tube preamp that gives me light crunch and heavy crunch in a single pedal, so I usually ask for any fender amp with reverb and it works fine. But I'm going to try it with the Sidekick this week to add delay and chorus and I will report back soon.
However, I never got rid of my tubes and I have a lot of really good amps that don't gig. One of them is a Splawn Streetrod, which has every form of tone I have ever imagined- from pure, sparkling cleans to ridiculous crunch and everything else in the middle... but as a Marshall descendant, it doesn't have verb and I like verb on cleaner stuff.
So I kept telling myself, one day I will find a perfect single pedal for the Splawn's fx loop- I needed classic reverb, but I also love spatial verbs like the Blue Sky- And while we are at it I wanted a classic 80s chorus, and although I don't use delay very much, it seems like a reasonable ask, considering we're already modulating.
In case you wonder why I didn't go with HX or Eventide, I wouldn't use 95% of what they provide, but I also wanted higher quality (especially high end) than I was able to get from those boxes.
So I waited and waited and waited and last week a buddy turned me on to the Crazy Tube Sidekick and I'm ridiculously happy (https://crazytubecircuits.com/sidekick)!
First of all, the sound quality is incredible- As a preamp alone, it brings out the sparkely high end of all of my guitars in a good way. It has a speaker emulator and will probably become my direct to DAW preamp from here on (includes an xlr output).
But the sounds are also incredible! It has 3 stomp switches, one for verb, one for delay and one for chorus- The chorus is 95% of my old Boss CE2 and the flanger setting is far more usable than my old purple Boss. The delay is basic, but extremely usable and the verbs are unreal- The plate gives me classic verb and the exciter/shimmer setting does the best of Blue Sky morphing in an excellent way.
The settings are not classic total control pots- Instead they do multiple things at the same time, and the result is many, extremely usable sounds with a small number of controls- instead of 50 different Bluesky tones, I have a limited number of extremely useful tones.
And they stack incredible well, so I have one pedal that gives me just about any fx I will ever need. So I strongly recommend this pedal for anyone looking for a one stop shop for verb, delay and chorus and they have also just introduced a small version of the pedal if you want it on a classic pedal board.
And last but not least, I'm planning on pairing it with my only other pedal for my extra light gig setup. I have a Blackstar HD dual tube preamp that gives me light crunch and heavy crunch in a single pedal, so I usually ask for any fender amp with reverb and it works fine. But I'm going to try it with the Sidekick this week to add delay and chorus and I will report back soon.
