It's high noon at the OK corral.
The participants are:
Gear and Recording Info:
Guitar:
Warmoth, semi-hollow, mahogany, Tele with Dimarzio Virtual PAF (neck) and Virtual Hot PAF (Only bridge position was used)
Amp:
70's Modded Fender Princeton, with 1 Weber
12F150 12"speaker
The amp was modded by my bud, amp guru, and fellow GPager, Bruce Marcolina.
with the following mods:
Stokes mod
Paul C mod
GZ34 rectifier tube
extra gain stage (from removed tremolo circuit's 12AX7)
Mic:
Beyer
Dynamic mkIII mic (placed app. 2 feet in front of the amp for a touch of ambience),
in addition to
Red Box cabinet emulator
hard panned
Interface:
M-audio firewire
Software:
Adobe Audition 2.0
No reverb, sweetening of any kind, or EQ was added .... MP3 192kbps
Lava Cables used exclusively
The first shoot
out I did
was with my '70's Fender Vibrolux, 35 watt, which has good bit more headroom.
This time
around, I choose my (moddod) Princeton, 12 watt, which breaks up pretty early and
smoothly when pushed.
I realize these effects all have many parameters, therefore
many possible tones, and variances. I could have recorded 5 clips for each of
these devices to demo that, but I chose to spend time with each device and dial up what I
personally thought was it's "best" tone.
After recording all of these I thought wouldn't it have been nice if I also
showed how each reacted to the guitars volume control... but alas... I Ain't
doin' it over :-)
All recordings start with the clean tone, followed by a lick or 2.
Amp settings remained consistent throughout. Volume 3, Treble 4, Bass 4
Vast majority of the recording took place in one sitting. A
few were recorded on a separate
day.
The exact amp settings remained, but as you know, amps, guitars, devices can
sound different at different times... must be the alignment of the stars plus
the mic placement could have been a few inches off from the previous day
All comments are simply my opinion, and not meant to offend :-) I mean who am I anyway?
This took a lot of work and effort on my part. I did this for the fun of it, and in the hopes that it may help others who may not have access to all of these devices, or the ability to hear them side by side with the same gear.
Many of these pedals are mine, but I want to thank my students, Colin, James (Mojoman from the gear page), and Jim (Jimfog on gearpage) for lending me their toys
Harry Jacobson
www.harryj.net
Analogman King Of Tone
Exceptionally smooth and natural tone. When set to lower-med
gain, the note decay allows more of the natural tone to shine through, without
the grit, unlike many of the others.
Hard to describe feel,
but this device has a mojo unlike the others I have tried. Somewhat spongy in
feel, a little like a nice old tube amp with sag.
It cleans up very well, while retaining the smooth feel, and warm sustain but
with less grit.
I
chose a higher gain setting to record, which sounds great IMHO, but doesn't demo
the less gritty tone I just described.
kot.mp3
Gain 3:00
Tone 1:00
Volume 11:00
Maxon OD9 With Analogman 808-B Silver Mod
Warm, smooth, more gain than standard TS9. Very sweet. Seems to have a little
more of a natural warmth than the Ibanez to my ear.
maxon.mp3
Volume 1:00
Drive 1:00
Tone 2:00
PedalWorx Cactus Crunch (Ver.2)
As the name implies, crunchy, a little nasty grit, in a good way. ZZ Top tone
heaven. Lots of harmonic feedback at low levels. This unit runs at 18 volts, and has a very tight bass
response, even when set high. There is a lot of variation at the end of the bass
pot's sweep
cactus2.mp3
Drive 1:00
Level 11:00
Bass Just under Full
Treble 10:00
Gas Pedals, Carb
Lots of gain, very nice throaty tone, perhaps a little fizzy but very cool
Volume 11:00
Unlabeled knob 2 Just under Full
Unlabeled Switch to right
Love Pedal Cot 50
Bias control is very cool, seems to change the compression to my ear. Cool tone, a tad bright, But without a volume or tone control it's limiting to say the least. Cleans up very well with guitar volume. But overall, too bright for my tastes, but once again I made no changes to the amp settings, I suspect it would sound very good set darker.
Bias 3:00
Barber Small Fry
Very cool and extremely flexible, capable of many varied tones Very nice feel to this as well. I wish it cleaned up a little better. Seemed to retain a touch of grit.
Volume 12:00
Tone 10:00
Dynamics 11:00
Burn 1:00
Toggle far right (asymmetric power tubes)
Internal trim
Note shape 12:00
bass 1:00
Mid 1:00
presence 12:00
Sans Amp
Built in cabinet emulator, diverse, but somewhat thin in harmonic content at times. Somewhat loose low end as well. Sounds great when pushed with a nice booster.
Presence Drive 11:00
Amp Drive 12:00
Output 12:00
Highs 12:00
(all dips up except 6 and 8)
Zen Drive
Warm, smooth, natural, singing tone with very pronounced mids. Not much high gain on tap, but just right for me
Volume 11:00
Tone 11:00
Gain Just under Full
Voice 3:00
Crowther Hot Cake
Nice, but a little bright, thin and fizzy...in this amp anyway. I have heard others get a nice tone from it.
Level 12:00
Presence 1:00
Drive 2:00
Tim Boost
Extremely versatile, sweet tone with low compression, 2 gain stages, effects loop, subtractive EQ.
Gain Full
Bass 7:00
Treble 10:00
Volume 10:00
Boost stage on
Drive 11:00
Tone 3:00
OCD
Pretty open, lower compression, a little gritty, and a tad bright at times.. (This is the new version) A little thinner in terms of harmonic complexity in contrast to some of the others. I think this sounds much better in a darker amp
HP
Volume 9:00
Tone 11:00
Gain 1:00
John Bull (Prototype ver. 2)
A cool pedal named after a fine British beer. A presence control was added to the original formula. full, thick, tone with tons of gain on tap, somewhat gritty tone, but cool. setting the presence higher creates a bit of a buzzy tone.
Gain 9:00
Mid Full
Presence 10:00
Level 12:00
TS-9 (double mod)
You know it... You love/hate it
right? The Analogman mod had a subtle, yet noticeable improvement on the tone, but I can
not rave enough about the Vaughn
dual tri-mode mod!
There are two 3 way switches. The first offers 2 low boosts to compensate for
the TS9's thinner tone. The 2nd switch is super cool. It offers a less compressed,
more natural tone as well as a clean boost. The 3rd option on each switch is
back to stock. After I heard the less compressed option, you could not pay me to
use the stock tone!
I opted for a little less gain for this clip
Level 1:00
Drive 1:00
Tone 12:00
Vaughn Mod switch 1 to far left (3dB bass boost) , switch 2 to far right (less
compressed setting)
Xotic AC Booster
very compressed, nice EQ, somewhat pronounced mids, sweet, but not much headroom
Gain 11:00
Volume 2:00
Treble 1:00
Bass Flat
Keeley Modded Boss Blues Driver
Huge improvement on the Boss, low compression, pretty gritty, still less than warm. Functions extremely well as a clean boost to push an amp on the verge. Sounds pretty buzzy into a very clean amp
Level 10:00
Gain 1:00
Tone 11:00
Keeley full switch on
DOD Juice Box
K, I know... what's it doing here? It's certainly not Boooootique. But, I had access to it and threw it in. Pretty cool, yet thin and somewhat bright. Nice for a little comic relief to just read the parameters names
Sweet (volume) 1:00
Pulp (bass) Full
Tang (Treble) 10:00
Juice (Gain) Full
Xotic BB Preamp
Very sweet, full, and smooth tone with a touch of grit, nice feel. Seems to be a bit less compressed than the AC, and it cleans up beautifully when the gain is down. This clip was recorded on a different day.
bb2.mp3 bb3.mp3 (a second attempt same settings slight mic placement difference
Volume 1:00
Gain 2:00
Treble 11:00
Bass 2:00
Love Pedal Eternity
Very sweet, great feel, harmonic feedback at low volumes. Not a
bad sound in the box
This was also recorded at the 2nd session
Level 11:00
Glass 11:00
Drive 2:00
Fuzz Pedals
Fulltone Octafuzz (? Transistor)
Pretty much a one trick pony, nice trick
Volume 1:00
Boost 3:00
Prescription Electronics Yardbox (Germanium)
Very cool, warmer, throatier fuzz tone. One of the few fuzz that I would actually use. What can I say, not a big fuzz guy here
Volume 10:00
Gain 8:00 (almost off)
fuzz 9:00
treble/bass 5:00 all bass
Fulltone '69 (Germanium)
Seemed thinner, perhaps a little harsh in this amp anyway.Very loose low end. I have heard others get nice tones from it.
volume 11:00
bias full
contour 2:00
fuzz 4:00 just under full
Love Pedal The Karl (?)
A very nice, smooth fuzz with a very nice note decay. Yet
another that I would use
Recorded at 2nd session
Volume 12:00
Intense 1:00
