What pedal are you playing today?

Paul Gilbert yes, but I don't think it's supposed to be based on the colourbox. I remember reading that the PG-14 is based on two older pedals that JHS did - the haunting mids (sweepable mid boost/cut) and the super bolt (which is a FET simulation of a cranked supro). Then they did some circuit tweaking to put emphasis on frequencies that work with Gilbert's ears (since he has some hearing damage that apparently kills certain frequencies).
 
All week it has been this into the clean channel on my Marshall VS100:

2333-TH.jpg

With this in the loop:

hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AG-AoAC8AGKAgwIABABGH8gFyghMA8=&rs=AOn4CLDDNg5SQyd4yN0iO1I8CW0LaS4tuw.jpg
 
I found a used Plasma Pedal for cheap, and I've been dicking around with it all day. It's an oddball for sure, very different from anything I've used before . . . sort of half way between a fuzz and distortion. It has a gated grittiness that really jumps out at you, and the gating gets very heavy when you roll your guitar volume back. You can hear the differences between changing guitars and all the notes in chords somehow despite all the gain. The EQ seems very powerful. I thought it would be useless, but having a blend with this pedal is really nice . . . it can be used to tame things down a bit, or if you put a gain pedal before it the clean blend can kind of make it sound like you're running the plasma and your other gain pedal in parallel (which again is useful for taming the craziness a bit). Not a hundred percent if I'm going to keep it or resell it yet.

iu
 
I found a used Plasma Pedal for cheap, and I've been dicking around with it all day. It's an oddball for sure, very different from anything I've used before . . . sort of half way between a fuzz and distortion. It has a gated grittiness that really jumps out at you, and the gating gets very heavy when you roll your guitar volume back. You can hear the differences between changing guitars and all the notes in chords somehow despite all the gain. The EQ seems very powerful. I thought it would be useless, but having a blend with this pedal is really nice . . . it can be used to tame things down a bit, or if you put a gain pedal before it the clean blend can kind of make it sound like you're running the plasma and your other gain pedal in parallel (which again is useful for taming the craziness a bit). Not a hundred percent if I'm going to keep it or resell it yet.

iu

I was basically held at gun point to buy the other version of that. Really fun, but I enjoy putting a really strict compressor before it. Even without the compressor, the fact that it limits your dynamic range to 100% or 0% is crazy
 
I was basically held at gun point to buy the other version of that. Really fun, but I enjoy putting a really strict compressor before it. Even without the compressor, the fact that it limits your dynamic range to 100% or 0% is crazy

It's not quite 100% or 0% . . . like if I run the guitar volume up all the way and the voltage knob all the way up I'd say it's limiting your range to about 50% of what it normally would be (and then the blend can be used to add in some clean signal to expand that a bit more. But yeah . . . I don't think it would work for me at all as my only (or even primary) gain pedal. It's an interesting and very unique flavour to have though for a few songs here or there. I think that this one is more flexible than the yellow plasma coil pedal because of the blend knob (the yellow one has a bunch of octave up/down options I think instead?). Without the blend it would be tougher for me to love.
 
I found a used Plasma Pedal for cheap, and I've been dicking around with it all day. It's an oddball for sure, very different from anything I've used before . . .

I've seen the Wet Leg guitarist is using the Plasma, weird interesting distorted sound, very unique
 
I've seen the Wet Leg guitarist is using the Plasma, weird interesting distorted sound, very unique

Unique is right! It's really strange to play with. Palm muting for example, doesn't work . . . you get some crunchy stuff going on rather than chug. Backing off the guitar volume just cuts your signal out rather than reduce the distortion. There's a strange high frequency crunch that can't be dialed out. But all that said, it is capable of some cool noises where it really makes you sit up and go 'what he hell was that?'.

Do you know of any recordings or live shows where they're using the pedal? I'd be interested to see if they've figured out how to make the pedal work as more than just a special effect occasionally.
 
One technique I've discovered works really well with it is my patent pending Big Bend technique.

Bend a major or minor third up really slowly. Maybe do some killswitch shenanigans in there. Almost sounds like a synth through a Digitech Whammy
 
Do you know of any recordings or live shows where they're using the pedal? I'd be interested to see if they've figured out how to make the pedal work as more than just a special effect occasionally.

I think you have to find on YT the most recent live videos from the new album, keep an eye on the blonde guitarist in the most noisy breaks, I think she uses it , I saw an interview to some guitar magazine too where she talks about the plasma
 
The way you guys talk about the Plasma pedal reminds me of the settings I like on the "Industrial Fuzz" Fuzz Factory model in the HX Effects. I would probably really dig it.

Today I'm playing bass through a couple of presets I made for the EHX HOG. It's my "coolest" pedal and I love it to death. I'm curious about the new, fancy POG3, but unless something bad happens I'm not looking to replace this.
 
Back
Top