Jeff_H
Dean Hardtail Fanologist
Thanks to my good friend Puckboy I am able to try this pedal out for a little while. Thanks to my crappy herniated disc, I am unable to play the guitar for very long, and almost completely unable to stand while playing.
Anyhow, the pedal itself...everyone knows the specs. The amp I'm using it thru is my Jeff Seal modded JCM 800, 2 channel 2205 circuit (originally). My clean channel most resembles the chimey, bell like tone of a Fender Twin, since that's what I asked Mr. Seal to emulate for that channel. Using it of course thru the clean channel.
Crunch Mode. Very, very old school Marshall crunch type sound. Think of any band that uses a non master volume EL34 type amp and plays old school, driving rock...and this is it. There is no type of rock, blues or punk rythym tone you couldn't get thru this mode.
The volume and gain knobs work very well to let you dial in the amount of crunch you want. Through my amp anyhow, it is a very open, non compressed, organic tone. I have to say that it sounds every bit as good as the gain channel on my 800...and is quite a bit quieter. This channel will get up to the tones of say a Judas Priest or Dokken type distortion, but at this point you lose the balance in volume between your clean channel and the crunch channel.
Lead Mode. Takes over where the crunch mode left off. Takes you right from that AC/DC type crunch of the crunch mode to modded plexi or JCM 800 tone...depending on how high you set the volume and gain. I am impressed at how much this also sounds like my JCM 800 when I put the channel volume up around 5-6 and the master volume about the same...you can hear the tubes cooking when I do this with my amp, but the volume is way too much at home. Well, this thing will pull off that tone, but at more useable volume levels. I'm not talking about super quiet bedroom levels, but at levels where you're neighbors won't complain.
Great mode for heavy riffing, hard driving old school metal, hard rock type stuff. Sorry, I don't play a lot of modern metal, so I can't compare the tones, but any hard driving tone you wanted you could get.
The only thing I haven't been able to dial in is a singing, heavy sustain, syrupy lead tone. Something with some compression and real sweetness, like a Satriani "Only With You" or a Vai "For The Love Of God" type tone. That may be asking too much of the pedal, or just the fact that my amp can't deliver those tones, so the pedal can't milk them out of there either. Also, I haven't spent enough time with it to really say this for certain...It's just not there right now.
Some complain about no midrange tone knob, but I don't find this to be a problem at all. The pedal is very natural sounding. The tone knobs are also very interactive, especially when it comes to gain. I initially set bass and treb at noon, dimed the gain on crunch and adjusted the volume of this channel to match well with a switch from my clean channel. Well, when I went to add a little more bass and treble, I also got more gain...very cool.
With regard to the lead channel, I don't want to give the impression that it doesn't compreses, because it does. It also gets noticably darker in my experience...like turning down the presense or treble on your amp. Not enough to warrant it being a complaint, and I think it would be very useable in a lead guitar setting.
So, all in all a great pedal. If you have a single channel amp, or an amp where you love the clean channel but don't like the drive sound, this is a great pedal. To my ears it is very Marshally. I think it would work well with a bunch of different amps. If you are looking for a very modern, smooth, violin type singing sustain....it may not be here. I haven't found it yet.
It's worth every bit of what they ask for it. I would really like to A/B/C it to other 2 mode pedals like the Mosfet Fulldrive FD II and the Plexitone. I have a feeling that the FD would get the smooth, silky, compressed tones that I was looking for in the lead mode, but not have the sound in the crunch modes I like so much. I think it would be very similar to a Plexitone.
Is is a do it all pedal...no. Does it do more than any pedal I have tried to date...absolutely. It sounds so much like a Marshall on the crunch and lead modes it's scary. If I could just get it to compress a little more on lead and sweeten up, it would be perfect.
Just my $.02
Anyhow, the pedal itself...everyone knows the specs. The amp I'm using it thru is my Jeff Seal modded JCM 800, 2 channel 2205 circuit (originally). My clean channel most resembles the chimey, bell like tone of a Fender Twin, since that's what I asked Mr. Seal to emulate for that channel. Using it of course thru the clean channel.
Crunch Mode. Very, very old school Marshall crunch type sound. Think of any band that uses a non master volume EL34 type amp and plays old school, driving rock...and this is it. There is no type of rock, blues or punk rythym tone you couldn't get thru this mode.
The volume and gain knobs work very well to let you dial in the amount of crunch you want. Through my amp anyhow, it is a very open, non compressed, organic tone. I have to say that it sounds every bit as good as the gain channel on my 800...and is quite a bit quieter. This channel will get up to the tones of say a Judas Priest or Dokken type distortion, but at this point you lose the balance in volume between your clean channel and the crunch channel.
Lead Mode. Takes over where the crunch mode left off. Takes you right from that AC/DC type crunch of the crunch mode to modded plexi or JCM 800 tone...depending on how high you set the volume and gain. I am impressed at how much this also sounds like my JCM 800 when I put the channel volume up around 5-6 and the master volume about the same...you can hear the tubes cooking when I do this with my amp, but the volume is way too much at home. Well, this thing will pull off that tone, but at more useable volume levels. I'm not talking about super quiet bedroom levels, but at levels where you're neighbors won't complain.
Great mode for heavy riffing, hard driving old school metal, hard rock type stuff. Sorry, I don't play a lot of modern metal, so I can't compare the tones, but any hard driving tone you wanted you could get.
The only thing I haven't been able to dial in is a singing, heavy sustain, syrupy lead tone. Something with some compression and real sweetness, like a Satriani "Only With You" or a Vai "For The Love Of God" type tone. That may be asking too much of the pedal, or just the fact that my amp can't deliver those tones, so the pedal can't milk them out of there either. Also, I haven't spent enough time with it to really say this for certain...It's just not there right now.
Some complain about no midrange tone knob, but I don't find this to be a problem at all. The pedal is very natural sounding. The tone knobs are also very interactive, especially when it comes to gain. I initially set bass and treb at noon, dimed the gain on crunch and adjusted the volume of this channel to match well with a switch from my clean channel. Well, when I went to add a little more bass and treble, I also got more gain...very cool.
With regard to the lead channel, I don't want to give the impression that it doesn't compreses, because it does. It also gets noticably darker in my experience...like turning down the presense or treble on your amp. Not enough to warrant it being a complaint, and I think it would be very useable in a lead guitar setting.
So, all in all a great pedal. If you have a single channel amp, or an amp where you love the clean channel but don't like the drive sound, this is a great pedal. To my ears it is very Marshally. I think it would work well with a bunch of different amps. If you are looking for a very modern, smooth, violin type singing sustain....it may not be here. I haven't found it yet.
It's worth every bit of what they ask for it. I would really like to A/B/C it to other 2 mode pedals like the Mosfet Fulldrive FD II and the Plexitone. I have a feeling that the FD would get the smooth, silky, compressed tones that I was looking for in the lead mode, but not have the sound in the crunch modes I like so much. I think it would be very similar to a Plexitone.
Is is a do it all pedal...no. Does it do more than any pedal I have tried to date...absolutely. It sounds so much like a Marshall on the crunch and lead modes it's scary. If I could just get it to compress a little more on lead and sweeten up, it would be perfect.
Just my $.02
