the guy who invented fire
Fuzzy. Guitars
Well...not brand new but pedals I'd never tried before!
I just wired up a board for a local player and he brought me a few things he was interested in using, we went through 'em all and put him a board together.
Best part was getting to try a bunch of pedals I'd never used before!
I just thought I'd mention a few of them here...
Greer Relic Drive...
I thought it was a cool pedal but my AnalogMan TS-9/808 does the smooth TS thing better and my FD2 does the slightly more neutral, slightly more gain thing better but still a cool pedal.
Electro Harmonix Tube Wiggler...
Super cool analog tremolo/vibrato pedal. four really great and musical vibrato sounds plus a tremolo sound as well...lots of neat sounds if you like vibrato but are not at all interested int he Boss VB-2 type of fast chorus as vibrato...the sounds in the wiggler are more like the vibrato sounds you'd find built into old keyboards!
Wampler Ecstasy...
Sort of Wamplers Dumble in a box type pedal...Dumbles don't impress me and $149 dollar pedals that are supposed to sound like Dumbles don't either but I did find a few cool tones...The one thing I noticed was that the lows are farty and it didn't clean up all that well...just like a Dumble!!!
Malekko Chicklet Reverb...
The guy that has it loves it...sounds like digital verb to me...not impressed in any way to be honest.
Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone...
Holy smokes what a bad ass box!!! I'm not much for compressors because they are great at robbing your playing of dynamics, after all that's sort of what they are designed to do! However they do have their place and when you need one nothing else will do. The philosopher's tone is really a neat design...blend control hard left, all dry signal, hard right all compressed signal and all points in between...active treble boost/cut control, at noon it's not really there and the tone stays neutral cut the highs a bit to mimic things like the old Dyna Comps, cut them a lot to mimic things like the Orange Squeezer or boost them a bit to bring out the jangle of your clean Tele or 12 string! It has LOADS of volume and compression on tap and the added bonus in a control called GRIT...thing thing is super cool. The grit control might not be for everybody but it does add a new layer or dimension to the tone you have and if you don't like it just turn it off! This pedal is really amazing and a very powerful tool...I am more than set on comps...I have 2 I almost never use but I am thinking VERY hard about getting one of these too!
Pigtronix Aria Disnortion...
Another amazing tone tool from Pigtronix. Super small foot print and super powerful 3 band EQ (lows, mids and highs). this beast isn't high gain but the tone and feel of the grit it provides is really cool...sort of old school and spongy like a tweed Fender or old Marshall and best of all it stack like a beast ...I spent a lot of time running stuff into it...boosters, TS pedals, fuzz boxes...all of them sounded cool!
The Pigtronix stuff to me was stand out but not without it's issues...most of them seem to be designed around higher voltages (higher than 9 volts anyway) which means no batteries, which is a drag and since they are all such high current your sort of stuck if you have more than 1 of them...power strips and wall warts seem to be the answer and while we're at it the in and out jacks on the right hand side is a terrible idea for pedal board layout but the tones are so good I think it's worth dealing with the down sides.
I just wired up a board for a local player and he brought me a few things he was interested in using, we went through 'em all and put him a board together.
Best part was getting to try a bunch of pedals I'd never used before!
I just thought I'd mention a few of them here...
Greer Relic Drive...
I thought it was a cool pedal but my AnalogMan TS-9/808 does the smooth TS thing better and my FD2 does the slightly more neutral, slightly more gain thing better but still a cool pedal.
Electro Harmonix Tube Wiggler...
Super cool analog tremolo/vibrato pedal. four really great and musical vibrato sounds plus a tremolo sound as well...lots of neat sounds if you like vibrato but are not at all interested int he Boss VB-2 type of fast chorus as vibrato...the sounds in the wiggler are more like the vibrato sounds you'd find built into old keyboards!
Wampler Ecstasy...
Sort of Wamplers Dumble in a box type pedal...Dumbles don't impress me and $149 dollar pedals that are supposed to sound like Dumbles don't either but I did find a few cool tones...The one thing I noticed was that the lows are farty and it didn't clean up all that well...just like a Dumble!!!
Malekko Chicklet Reverb...
The guy that has it loves it...sounds like digital verb to me...not impressed in any way to be honest.
Pigtronix Philosopher's Tone...
Holy smokes what a bad ass box!!! I'm not much for compressors because they are great at robbing your playing of dynamics, after all that's sort of what they are designed to do! However they do have their place and when you need one nothing else will do. The philosopher's tone is really a neat design...blend control hard left, all dry signal, hard right all compressed signal and all points in between...active treble boost/cut control, at noon it's not really there and the tone stays neutral cut the highs a bit to mimic things like the old Dyna Comps, cut them a lot to mimic things like the Orange Squeezer or boost them a bit to bring out the jangle of your clean Tele or 12 string! It has LOADS of volume and compression on tap and the added bonus in a control called GRIT...thing thing is super cool. The grit control might not be for everybody but it does add a new layer or dimension to the tone you have and if you don't like it just turn it off! This pedal is really amazing and a very powerful tool...I am more than set on comps...I have 2 I almost never use but I am thinking VERY hard about getting one of these too!
Pigtronix Aria Disnortion...
Another amazing tone tool from Pigtronix. Super small foot print and super powerful 3 band EQ (lows, mids and highs). this beast isn't high gain but the tone and feel of the grit it provides is really cool...sort of old school and spongy like a tweed Fender or old Marshall and best of all it stack like a beast ...I spent a lot of time running stuff into it...boosters, TS pedals, fuzz boxes...all of them sounded cool!
The Pigtronix stuff to me was stand out but not without it's issues...most of them seem to be designed around higher voltages (higher than 9 volts anyway) which means no batteries, which is a drag and since they are all such high current your sort of stuck if you have more than 1 of them...power strips and wall warts seem to be the answer and while we're at it the in and out jacks on the right hand side is a terrible idea for pedal board layout but the tones are so good I think it's worth dealing with the down sides.
