Pedal Effects: Order and troubleshooting pedal boards - Part 2

Standard pedal board order

We've already seen a bunch of things that can affect our tone outside our pedal board, now it's time to see which is the recommended order for pedals and how to plan and troubleshoot your pedal board.

I am assuming that you took already care about cables, power supplies, etc. and you are ready to arrange a bunch of pedals in a pedal board. After a few tests, you can go frutrated, not being able to guess the right order to make it sound as expected. Then, the question comes up: Which is the right order for a pedal chain? and, what follows is my answer, based on my own experience dealing with bunch of pedals of different category, family and maker.

Please, to better understand some terms, see the set of articles named: "Pedal Effects: What they do?", where you will find a description for each category and family of pedals.

Take a look to this chart:

This is the most generic aproach to pedal boards order. You know which families of pedals belong to each category so, it's easy to imagine which are the basis building blocks in your pedalboard.
The arrows in red are alternative paths. Its quite usual to chain Modulation and Time effects inside the amp's FX Loop, in the case, the input of the amp's front end is the output of the Gain Pedals.
But, this is a very generic rule and, as like any good rule, it has exceptions.

These are my own rules:

1. If your pedal board has a Wah, place that Wah on the very first place, your guitar should be directly linked to the Wah. There is people that likes Wah after gain pedals and, there is people that uses a pair of Wahs, one at the beginning of the chain and one more after gain pedals to use one or the other depending on the wanted sound. Wah before gain is smoother and your are distorting a filtered signal, while after gain is harder and you are filtering a distorted signal. To my taste, a wah after gain sounds synthetic, thick and exagerated.
2. If your pedal board has a vintage Fuzz (and very specially, a Germanium one) place the Fuzz the first in the chain. Only exception is if you also have a Wah and that your Wah is designed "fuzz friendly" (like all Real McCoy stuff). In that case, the Fuzz must inmediately follow the Wah.
3. If your pedal board had one or both of the pedals mentioned in points 1 and 2, your tone has been altered for the rest of the chain. Place a clean Buffer after the Wah, Fuzz or Wah-Fuzz combo. You can also use whichever other pedal (that suits your needs) having a quality buffer active. This will help to re-balance Impedances and restore some tone loss.
4. If your chain has a mix of true bypass and buffered pedals, tyr to use- a single buffer in your chain or maximun two buffers, one at the beginning and one at the end or, just after the return from FX loop. Remember that most of Boss' pedals are Buffered, same happens with Maxon's, Ibanez', Visual Sound, etc.
5. Usually, the Tuner can be placed in the very first place of your pedal board, before the Wah or Fuzz but, be sure your Tuner is true bypass and check that isn't affecting the tone of your wah or fuzz. This will serve also as a pedal board general switch, to mute everything together.
6. After that Tuner-Wah-Fuzz.-Buffer combo, you can start chaining rest of pedals following the schema pictured above. You are interested on having Signal followers as close to the original signal as possible (after the buffer and before gain pedals).
7. Rest of Signal Recovery effects can be placed where they will help the best on the chain. So, it all depends on your particular chain and which pedals are having some lost of signal properties.
8. If you have modulation effects, be sure to check them in both positions, before and after gain effects. In my experience Phasers and Vibes work better before gain pedals, while chorus, flanger, tremolo and vibrato work better after gain pedals but, you must test every pedal after and before, since your personal taste has a lot to see with all this.
9. When stacking gain pedals, I usually prefer to stack from the cleanest one to the dirtiest one so, a light overdrive goes before a medium overdrive and this one before a hard overdrive, etc. They are being usually arrange in two ways: from lighter to harder or, from harder to lighter. From lighter to harder, you are more smoothly pushing the following pedal and, the last one is the one that gives the final color to the tone, there is an increase on gain (drive, distortiion) but not so much bump in volume. In the oposite way, from harder to ligher, there is a bump in volume after every stacked pedal, what can be not so useful.
10. If you have an EQ pedal, try it after the tuner-wah-fuzz-buffer combo, to sculpt the source sound before it reaches the rest of pedals. Try it after gain pedals if you wanted to change the voice of the already processed signal, instead.
11. If you have a Volume pedal, place it just before Time Effects, after gain pedals, to avoid to cut echo and reverberation tails. In that way, you can push hard your pedals and maintain control over volume with that pedal. Think on this as if that volume pedal was the Master volume on an amp.
12. Place Delay before Reverberation, always. Some people likes to have a delay pedal before gain pedals and, one more at the end of the chain. Maybe you are interested into distort echoes, who knows it.

This rules are the mainstream directives I follow when building my own pedal boards and, they usually work fine. But, to be honest, the best order is just the one that more satisfies yourself, you are the master of your own tone so, experience, try and choose.


Analyzing my own pedal board

This schema shows my recently rebuilt pedal board:

The first pedal is the Tuner. This tuner is a signal follower and should be as early in the chain as possible. Since it is True Bypass, isn't affecting the tone of the rest of pedals when switched off.
When switched on, it mutes the pedalboard, allowing you just to tune your guitar in silence.
It serves as a global switch to mute everything together. Since it's place way before time effects, the tails of those effects aren't affected so, the sound mutes in a very natural way.

Second pedal is the Wah, a signal follower also. This wah is based in a vintage design and, it's of type "fuzz-friendly". What it realy means is that the impedance at output is that worst impedance level that a vintage fuzz of germanium expects. I have no fuzz chained after the Wah so, what at the end is doing is to unbalance impedances, what delivers a bad signal to the rest of pedals in the chain. Therefore, I've placed a clean buffer just before the wah.

Third pedal is a clean Buffer, a signal recovery pedal. The Buffer helps to restore some of the lost high-end and to re-balance the impedance levels that are being affected by the Wah. It enhances the quality of signal, passing it to the rest of pedals. There is no gain or volume increase, just a clearer and definer signal.

Forth pedal is a compressor, a gain pedal. Compressors work better at the beginning of the chain, as earlier as possile, since they raise both, the signal level and the noise level so, they are quietest before the rest of noisy pedals. A compressor can be a good weapon to reduce the high dynamic range of single coils, maintaining a more stable average level, taming the excesive peaks and prolonging the sustain of tails.
It works also awesome to give an extra push to whichever other gain pedal, making the signal more thick and defined, since the average level of signal is more stable. But remember, stacking gain pedals is equal to stack noise, also!.

Fith pedal is a phaser, a modulation pedal (out of standard place?). I find that a phaser works more subtle before gain pedals, otherwise, the effect is too much psychodelic to my taste. This phaser in particular works equaly well before or after gain pedals but, as I usually place phasers in that position, I leaved it there.

Sixth is my ligher overdrive pedal, a gain pedal. This is my transparent overdrive, used just to drive the tubes to the break up point, where when picking softly the sound is pristine clean but, breaks when picking harder. My rule is to go from the lightest gain to the hardest one.

Seventh is my medium overdrive pedal. This is my bluesy overdrive, over the break-up spot of my tubes but, before real distortion-like effect.

Eighth is my hard overdrive pedal. In fact, this is some kind of vintage-gain amp in a box. The sound is close to a cranked Marshall JMT45.

With the nineth, distortion units begin. This one is my hard british distortion, more in the league of hairy-distortions ('80s and '90s) and, one of my favourite distortion pedals of all the times.Is slightly less gainy that the next one.

The tenth is my high gain distortion. A Soldano SLO-100 emulation but, not so tight and powerfull sounding as the Triple Wreck (that I think I should choose, instead).

The eleventh is a chorus, a modulation effect. Contrary to phasers and vibes, I find that chorus usually work better after gain pedals. I didn't checked this chorus before gain pedals. I have to. In this position is delivering an outstanding sound so, I am not very worry about it.

The twelveth is an special booster, a signal recovery pedal. The design of this booster is based on the pre-amp section of an EchoPlex (a Tape Echo unit). I find that an slight touch of this pedal in your chain adds I-don't-know-what to the sound that makes it just better. I usually prefer this pedal after the rest of gain pedals, to give an slight bump of clean volume to the already processed signal but, since I had a Tape Delay emulation pedal at the end of the chain, I wanted to create a "virtual echoplex" by combining the pre-amp section (modeled by the EP Booster) together with the Tape Delay section (modeled by the Faux Tape Echo). I tried it and it worked really nice so, I am leaving it there.

Last pedal is a Tape Delay, a time effect. This is emulating an old Tape Echo unit and providing an outstanding delay sound that helps me to bring back some ambience to my sound.


Building your pedalboard

You can see that I've practically followed the rules mentioned above but, you realized that I've made exceptions, also. As mentioned, the right order is the one that best suits you.

My recomendation is to start building your pedal board pedal by pedal. Don't throw everything over and start linking everything without thinking a bit over what makes sense.

Focus first on the head of your pedal board, specially if you are including a Wah, a Fuzz or both.
Try first every pedal alone (guitar to pedal, pedal to amp, that's all) to be sure you get the signature sound of the pedal, noise level, etc. Then, you can try to insert it in your pedalboard and test if its sounds went to bad or if this insertions ruined the sound of the surrounding pedals.
With every new insertion, check again the rest of pedals. Sometimes you will be surprised.

If facing problems with pedals A into B, try B into A, instead. Sometimes, some issues related to impedances will be over if you just swap the position of the two pedals in conflict.
If after trying every place with a pedal, you find that there is no position where the pedal delivers its best without ruining the tone of the rest of the chain, seriously considere to kick off that pedal to Saturn.

Try to achieve Unitary Volume level (same volume on output than on input) for each pedal, this is the best way to avoid extra bumps in volume or gain when switching on two or more together.

Try to always stack pedals with input impedances greater than several KOhm (idealy, equal or more than 1 MOhm) and output impedances lower than 1KOhm. This will help you to avoid impedance issues and therefore, to maintain the wanted order in your pedalboard.

If one of your pedals is based in a vintage design (some reissue or original one), it's very possible that will have some issues if the preceding pedal (or some of the preceding pedals) is a buffer or has a buffer active.
If a buffered pedal affects this one, you should choose to move the vintage pedal before the buffer or, to move the buffer after the vintage pedal.

Log all the tests you are doing and their results. Conflicts between pedals, etc. This will help you the next time that you will need to rearrange your pedal board (because you are substituing some units, by example).
Sometimes, a couple of pedals are incompatible when placed in a certain order. It's good to log this situations to be recalled later. This will save you a lot of work, next time.
By example, I know by experience that Fulltone OCD V3 and Ibanez Tube Screamer TS-808 have some impedance issues and that one must go before the other to fix the issue but, at this moment of writing this lines, I don't remember which one should go first in the chain. I have to take a look to my notes for this.

While building your pedal board, do it directly over the floor or a table, don't fix the pedals to the pedal board. You will surely need to swap pedals order more than once so, be sure you have freedom of movements there. Once your tests are finished and the order determined, firmly mount everything in your pedalboard (don't forget to write that order before dismounting anything).

OMG! I've been Wamplerized!

I will share with you a dream I have all the time: Would I ever find a Pedal Maker that can bring me a consistent line of outstanding pedals?.

During the '80s I was close with MXR gear.
Currently I was even closer with Mad Professor' stuff.
Now, I am closer than ever with Wampler pedals.

Since the first time I've heard the first Wampler pedal, I new my ears were in tune with Wampler's ears.
I have no other way to describe it, how Wampler understands the sound is how I understand it.
I already had the Ecstasy Overdrive, the Pinnacle Distortion and the SLOstortion (this one, I like it less) and, was in love with the Plexy Drive from the very first time I heard it.
I revisited several Youtube videos, one and other time, carefully hearing the nuances and, I've took a decision: I want those pedals.

Well, credit card is now exhaust and, I will finish to pay everthing in a couple of years but, what the hell!, I haven't every Wampler's pedal but, I have the ones that I wanted more, except for one that I have to buy a bit later (the Sovereign!).

This afternoon, I've removed the whole pedalboard, except the Wah and, started to chain my new wamplerized pedal board. This is more or less the current chain:

1. Real McCoy RMC4 Picture Wah
2. Wampler Clean Buffer
3. Wampler EGO Compressor
4. Mad Professor Tiny Orange Phaser (until Wampler makes one!).
5. Wampler Ecstasy Overdrive
6. Wampler Paisley Overdrive
7. Wampler Plexy Drive
8. Wampler Pinnacle
9. Wampler SLOstortion
10. Wampler Nirvana Chorus
11. Xotic EP Booster
12. Wampler Tape Echo Delay

Even that I would love to have all Wampler's line of pedals, there is just one that I really miss: the Sovereign. This one is only available in an specific music store, because an agreement between Wampler and such a store so, I have to wait for a while.

I made a short test of every pedal, testing the chain for issues and, I loved what I've heard.
Mad Professor's Forest Green Compressor was the best I've ever tried before the EGO. The EGO sounds even better. It's really versatile, from tones closer to Dyna Comp and Ross to a really transparent compression, it has outstanding control over the attack and compression and a tone that helps to get exactly the tone you are looking for.

About the Ecstasy, I've already talked and, even demoed it. Same for the Pinnacle and SLOstortion so, I will omit those for now.

Well, the Paisley has gratefully surprised me. I was expecting something not so interesting. It has three different voices but just one cursed me. Some kind of mix between a TS and a Dumble sound, really nice, warm and organic. Sweetly bluesy.

The Plexy Drive has that British voice that we loved from mythical bands as Led Zeppelin. Crunchy but sweet, pure Rock. How I love this unit, man!.

I wasn't very sure on to buy that Nirvana Chorus but, I hadn't such an effect so, I thought: why not!.
Well, Youtube videos sounded to me a bit thin and digital but, not in my rig!!!!.
This Chorus is incrediblely well sounding!. Tone control can give you that warm lush tones of analog chorus and, I just loved the sound, during this short test.

Ah, Ah, Ah. The Tape Echo Delay, ah, ah, ah!.
Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay, is without any doubt the best Delay of that kind I ever heard but, man, it's Wampler's time!. The Tape Echo Delay is an outstanding delay unit that sounds as heaven.

Well. This was a very short test. I am surprised that most of pedals sounded way better live than in Youtube's, even if those were played by professional guitar players and, professionaly recorded.
It's incredible the work that the Buffer does after the Wah, it's day and night.
I am planning to review those new pedals in a near future but, this will be after I am more done to each pedal and, after I check that the current pedals order is the best for my needs.

I will come back to you all soon... or not... er... not, not... I have to play... I love that sound... I need to play... I will write at some time in the future... I guess... don't stop this... switch on this one... hummm... and this one... oh my god... lovely... lovely... er... good bye!.


Video (updated 10/07/2012)

Well, I did a short test of the pedalboard to check the goodness of the chain and, I think everything is on its place. I hope this is the last Pedal Maker that I ever try and, last set of pedals of each kind. As I said, I am missing the Soverign and when, possible, I would like to have the complete Wampler's offer but, this will take some long time.

I am proud of a couple ideas I have when planing pedal's order. First one was to use the Buffer just after the Wah and, before the rest of pedals. This works incredible well. Just take a look to the first part of the video and you will hear the difference. The second idea was to move the Xotic EP Booster just before the Tape Delay. The idea was simple: isn't the EP Booster based on the pre-amp section of an EchoPlex?. Is the Faux Tape Echo an emulation of a Tape Delay like the EchoPlex?. What about if I put the pre-amp with the tape delay together, will it work like a good EchoPlex emulation?. Well, I dunno but, I love the results, in any case.

After building the clean tone, I am just playing a bit every pedal, to check how they work and... it works for me, I love every pedal (not so much the SLOstortion but, it does its job).

Pedal Effects: Order and troubleshooting pedal boards - Part 1

Introduction

Somed ay, we will have that kind of fever for having a big pedal board, with every kind effect ready to be used in that amazing song that we are going to create some day in the future. .
Some people will finally find a good use for each pedal and will wisely use them along a complete gig and, sure, that people needs a bunch of pedals in their chain, while others will end with one Wah, one Overdrive and one Delay and, will have their job done. Every guitarist walks his way in his tone chase.

But, even having just a couple of pedals we can face several issues. Put an old Wah together with an old germanium Fuzz and we start the tone sucking dance, by example. Even a single Wah or Phaser can be a mess.


This is time to see which kind of issues we can face when setting up our pedal board, which is the "normal way" to arrange pedals and what happens if we change that order.


Don't suck my tone,  please

Well, there are some many ways to go wrong with our tone that, sometimes, it seems better just to directly plug your guitar to the amp and forget all this but, ok, ok, we love pedal effects, right?.
Let see which kind of things are sucking our tone, first.


Cable, True Bypass and Buffers

In a previous entry in this blog, we already discussed which kind of issues are derived from a guitar cable
(see    ) so, I will not repeat that part. Just, think that a cable will roll off more high-end while increassing its real or virtual length.
Pedal effects are their own meters of cable inside. The wires that link their components to produce such an interesting effect are more cable virtually added to the length of cable that links our guitar with our amp. As we increasse that virtual length, we are rolling off more and more high-end frequencies, until the loss can be clearly heard.
 
True bypass pedals are linking input to output jacks with a very short couple of wires. That also increases the length of our virtual cable but, in way less amount than when the effect is switched on.
A True Bypass pedal isn't routing our signal inside its circuits so, we are saving some issues here.
The drawback is that if we have a bunch of pedals in true bypass mode and long cables between our guitar and pedalboard, patch cables between pedals and between our pedal board to the amp, we are building a really long virtual cable and, that can usually become in a clear lost of high-end frequencies.
 
That kind of issues derived from long runs of cables (virtual or real) can be fixed with a good Buffer, Line Driver or Booster and, lost of high-end frequencies can be restored with the use of some Treble Booster at the end. But a such a pedals can create other issues with old designed pedals if they are placed in the wrong spot.
 
Buffered pedals are affecting always to the length of the virtual cable, since the input is routed to the guts of the pedal effect. Since buffers change the relationship between input and output impedances, we can have impedance related issues and, we can have tone sucking issues, when the signal is being affect by part of the pedal's inner circuitry.
 
 
Impedance
 
Impedance is a very complex thing, and it is from a mathematical point of view also. The Impedance is some sort of mix of a Resistance and a Reactance, where the Resistance is defined by the Real part of the Complex Number, while the Reactance is the Imaginary part of that Complex Number.
You can go so deep as you wanted with the complete physics behind that or, go simpler, as any common guitarist should do.
 
To make it simply, the impedance for AC current is somewhat the equivalent to a Resistor for DC current.
One ideal pedal effect should have an infinite output impedance and a zero output impedance, to achieve the most transparent tone, preserving the whole frequential content.
 
The guitar is a mix of an inductance, a resistance and a conductancy that finally delivers a complex signal, with an impedance of around 1 MOhm. Amps inputs are usually prepared to handle this level of impedance. This is usually called Hi-Z instrument level line.
 
Mics are usually working with way low impedance levels, of around 600 Ohm or less. Same happens to electronics instruments, as keyboards and so on.
 
So, when there is a high mismatch between the impedance that the pedal was designed for and the impedance that reaches its input, we are facing impedance issues.
 
Think on a chain of pedals. The first pedal needs to work with an impedance of at least 1 MOhm and, leave a low impedance on its output. Next pedal, should be prepared for a high impedance also on his input. If the input impedance of such a pedal is lower or close to the output impedance level of the first pedal, we are facing impedance issues.
 
When you start to stack pedals, a good practice is to first hear every pedal alone, to get the signature sound of that pedal. Then it's easier to see if once you insert it into the pedal board, the sound goes to worst.
This is not always an impedance issue but, to be sure, it's a good idea to read the technical specs of each pedal and to draw some chart seen which are the output and input impedance levels for each pedal.
The chain will work better with the highest input impedance pedal de first and the lowest output impedance pedal the last. This is very generic and you will be often forced to reach some compromissed solutions.
 
At this point, just get the idea that one of the things that can change the order in our pedal board is just the need to troubleshooting some impedance issue.
 
To use a Buffer or Line Driver, that usually creates a big difference between input and output impedance levels to better preserve the frequential range of our guitar' signal just before a pedal that was designed for a low impedance (like many fuzzes and vintage wahs) can be worst than the tone sucking produced by such a pedals. In that case, the Buffer can work better after those pedals. You just need a buffer in some point on your chain to rearrange the impedance levels. You should find the best spot, when it does its best and makes wrong nothing else.
 
 
Batteries, Current Adaptors, Power Supply
 
When you run all your pedals with batteries, usually, everything is fine. After or before, you will decide that you are expending too much money on new batteries or, that you are fed up of one or more of your pedals running out of battery while you were in that awesome solo (wasn't nobody there to record it? hell!).
 
And then our monster called Noise comes. One of the main sources of noises is coming from your mains plug. A bad quality ground is a bad reference for a clean signal, by example but, there are other kind of noises that can travel along your electricity lines, as Radio-Frequency noises, electrical parasites, inductions from powerful engines, etc.
 
If you are thinking on buy a Power Supply unit to feed your pedals, you should considere a quality unit that can provide isolation of your mains line. This is usually achieved with a toroidal transformer.  In the first part of "Guitar Amp: How it works" set of articles, I've described the basics of a transformer. A tranformer isolates the line on the primary from the line or lines on its secondary. So, you have a way to reject some of the noises that are coming in your mains line.

A better power supply unit will have isolated outputs,  so whatever that's happening in one output (one pedal) isn't affecting the rest of outputs (pedals). This is specially a MUST when you are mixing PNP and NPN devices, with oposite electrical polarity. When you mix an old Germanium fuzz, that works with oposite polarity than your rest of pedals, you need to run this pedal electrically isolated from the rest.
A good way to achieve this is to use a power supply unit with a transformer and isolated outputs.
A good example of such an unit is the Pedal Power 2 Plus by Voodoo Labs.
 

To better fight against the remaining noise, your entire rig can benefite of the use of some Voltage Adaptor unit. Those units, usually include high quality filters to minimize the impact of RF and other electrical noises present in your electrical lines. Additonaly to this, they have safety circuits to protect your equipment from Peaks, Overloads and other anomalies that can ruin your rig. Finally, they maintain a regulated constant flow of filtered voltage level, to let your rig to work within an stable electricity flow.
Voltage Adaptors are expensive, specially those specialized for audio (as Furman high-end line).
 
If you cannot go for a Power Supply of the quality of the mentioned one from Voodoo Lab, be sure you run in separated power supply devices your negative and positive polarity pedals.
By example, you can use as single AC adaptor with several not isolated outputs to feed your pedals (way cheaper than a Power Supply unit) but, if you have some pedal with oposite polarity (classically, a germanium fuzz), run one more separated AC adaptor for that single pedal. This will reduce your noise.
 
Finally, I would like to mention that to use the powerful and durable battery isn't always the best.
Paradojically, most effects seem to work best with the old radio shack batteries, nothing alcaline or rechargable, or long duration, etc.
Specially, old effects and reissues of such an effects work better with that kind of old battery designs and, even better if the battery is mostly worn (discharged). This is very usual with old fuzz designs, by example.
 
The Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2 Plus unit, has two of its outputs that can be switched on to emulate the use of worn batteries, as a curiosity.
 
Anyway, noise reduces your dynamic range, because the floor noise goes closer to your signal average level and, usually not good for our ears. Therefore, noise can be considered as a kind of Tone Sucker.
 
 
Cables
 
You can take a look to the articles I've already posted about cables. I will not repeat its content.
It's just curious how many times we are expending a lot of money in Guitars, pedals and amps (usually in that order) and we forget the importance of a good cable.
I am not talking about to expend a big amount of money but, just to get a quality cable, that can preserve your guitar' signal characteristics without noise or microphonics.
If the cable that links our guitar to the pedal board and, the pedal board to the amp is usually being forget, we go even worst with patch cables, buying the cheapest cable we can find on the store.
 
Once more, moster Noise visits us.
Just be sure to link all your gear with quality cables (not necesarely the most expensive, just of quality).
 
 
Jacks
 
Jacks are everywhere on our rig, linking everthing together. Please, use quality jacks and, maintain the contacts always shinny and clean, for a better transference of your signal's quality. Use that kind of dirty-remover for metals products for that or some contact-cleaner spray that can be found in a bunch of places.

Pedal Effects: What they do? - Part 5

Other effects

While I was covering the main families of effects that are being used in electric guitar's world, I wasn't talking about more arcane effects, maybe not just developed with guitar in mind but used for some one in some song.

By example, the Theremin is an instrument itself. The theremin has two antennas, first antenna controls the volume of the signal while the second one controls the pitch. It was designed to be played as an instrument itself so, one hand should be moved near the tone antenna to select the notes while the other hand should give the right volume level to each note, being moved around the second antenna.
As you can imagine, to control an instrument of that kind isn't easy and, even that there are some Theremin virtuosos around the world, is not a wide spread instrument.

First time I've heard the Theremin was in "Whole lotta love" by Led Zeppelin. Those incredible sounding howlings (with hard echo repeat) were really amazing. Nowadays, I can see Joe Bonnamassa using it (very well) in "I've got Paid" but, I see very few people dealing with such an effect and, I think its mainly because: it's damn expensive to have a good theremin, it's very difficult to imagine where its sound can suit one of your songs, needs a dedicated amp (and probably a dedicated effects chain, at least one delay).

If you are curious about this effect, watch this video of "Whole Lotta Love" played live. Not the version that I like more but, that Theremin can be clearly heard around minute 2:45.



But you will probably love more the more uptodated sound of this incredible song performed live by Joe Bonammassa. The first Theremin hawling can be heard around minute 4:36. When used just to accentuate some specific (and short) parts, wisely, it's an outstanding effect that I love.



I would like to see some kind of Talkbox-Wah-Theremin pedal that can be inserted in your chain with stereo outputs: one dry signal and one wet signal (with blend control). With the talkbox's tube we could control the Theremin pitch and, with a Wah rocket we could control the volume of that signal. That's why I call it talkbox-wah-theremin. Hey pedal makers! I am callenging you to build something like this! and, please, send me one for free in pay back for the idea!. LOL.
What about, theremin, wah and talkbox modes in same pedal?. LOL.
I think Zachary Vox is the only one really skilled and crazy as hell to achieve an exciting box of that kind that can be of real use. Zach, come on, move your brain's machinery.
I have to stop this, right now!.

Other arcane effect could be the E-Bow. The ebow is some kind of device that alters the magnetc field of our pickups, making them to pick up the sound of our strings, even without actually touch them. Since this device is continously feeding that changes, we can achieve violin-like eternal sustain but, this is a very very difficult effect to use, even more difficult that to use a violin-arch to play our guitar (as Jimmy Page did in "Dazed and Confussed").

If you are curious, just watch this youtube video to understand what the ebow does. The sound is coming from your pickups but, it seems a completely different instrument, right?. Don't think that it's easy to play, in any single way. This man is a real master of such a device use.



I am quite sure I am missing some other effects but, in the case of these ones described above, they cannot be considered Pedal Effects, because they cannot be chained on a pedal board and, most of those will need a separate rig (amp, effects) to be able to use them.

Nowadays, I see young people very excited with Kaoss Pads. The Kaoss Pad is just a Midi Controller. The sound of the guitar is being traduced into Midi Notes. The intensity, velocity among other parameters can be all them controlled with the help of a digital pad that is installed on the guitar. This works like a Pad-Mouse (those seen in many lap tops) and, depending on which area we touch and how, some midi parameters are being modified.
Of course, the ouptut of this pad is just a train of digital data that is sent to a midi instrument (maybe a synthetizer, maybe just a PC with a DAW software that has several software synths available, ....).
So, we have our real guitar signal going the typical analogic audio way and a midi digital signal that goes to whatever other midi devices.
For sure, it can be interesting for MIDI stuff but... like in the case of midi guitars, it just sounds so digital and synthetic that is just the oposite to a guitar. I recognize that can be an interesting thing to record some midi stuff with a guitar, if you don't have the skills to play a keyboard (as in my case).
As with many other weird effects, I expect that some day, someone will bring to us to interesting song using the Kaoss Pad, as we had with "Whola Lotta Love" using the Theremin.
Let the people investigate and experiencing it!.
If you are curious, take a look to this video. You can see that there is some wide field for experimentation with some device like this one:



What we usually recognize as a pedal effect is some small unit that can be switched on/off with our foot, that is stackable in our pedal chain and that, modifies (on-the-chain) the sound of our guitar. And, in this case, it doesn't really mean if the effect was designed for an organ, a trumpet, a guitar, a bass guitar or whichever other instrument, if it can work in our chain, it can be considered a guitar's pedal effect.
We will see that, to have in mind the instrument for which every effect is designed has consecuences and, one of the worst ones is the impedance match. While mics, organs, keyboards and many electronic musical devices have a very low impedance, guitars have high impedance and then, to use pedals designed for low impedance instruments in a high impedance instrument brings some drawbacks. But we will talk about this later.

Pedals: comparing several gain pedal effects

Introduction

Ok. I agree with you. Best gain sounds are always coming from the tubes of your amp. You are damn right BUT, this is always you can crank it without issues (disturbing neighborhood, etc) AND, your amp can do just some kind of gain textures, that's all.
This is when a good gain pedal can come into help, when you need different gain textures from those that your amp delivers and when you cannot crank your amp. But, they should sound really good, to forget that you are playing thru a gain pedal.

Currently, I have several gain pedals and, I want to choose the ones of each kind that make me happier and sell the rest so, I went to some kind of comparision to see how each one works alone and together with the rest. All them are similar but, all them are different also.


The List

This is the list of pedals that I was comparing and retesting during this session.

Overdrives

Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive
Mad Professor Little Green Wonder
Wampler Euphoria
Fulltone Plimsoul

Every overdrive has its own soul.
The Sweet Honey, when gain is well controled has a cristaline sound, with a warm voice, outstanding dynamics and nice break-up sound. It's a low-medium gain overdrive, by design. I would place it in the list of Dumble-alike. Not because the sound but, mainly because it can go very compressed if not tweaked with care. It's awesome for warm clean pieces with a touch of break-up.

The Little Green Wonder is on the league of Tubescreamers but, way more controllable so, you can enhance what you like of TS and remove what you don't like of TS. Nice for solos, blues and everything that needs to cut the mix with presence and attitude. Can go from very dynamic to very compressed and, by design is a medium gain overdrive, even that can go really hard.

Wampler Euphoria is three different overdrives in a Box. The Crunch mode is similar to those tones you can achieve from a Xotic BB pre-amp, by example, maybe more crunchy and British to my ears than the BB.
The Open mode is a transparent overdrive but, can go from clean boost to middle-high gain. The Smooth mode is in the league of Dumbles, sweet, a bit dark, with a clear compression that tames the attack and with a thick grain when going gainy.
I choosed the Open mode for this test but, I am still not sure which is the mode I like more and, it will depend on which overdrives do I finally choose.

The Fulltone Plimosoul is more gainy than I have expected. I thought this pedal was a blues break-up type. It's voiced very similar to a TS but a TAD darker, with a big bump in middle-low frequencies. It's difficult to maintain it clear just with your picking, if you don't roll off your guitar's volume control.
Probably, this is my first rejection, right now.


Distortions

ProCo RAT Whiteface reissue
Wampler Pinnacle
Wampler SLOstortion

Those distorsions sounds very different but, the SLOstortion is far away from the other two, that can sound closer.

The ProCo RAT Whiteface reissue is less gainy than its modern and cheap version: the RAT 2. Has a similar sound but the RAT 2 has way more gain and attitude, while the WF sounds more polished and sweet. Even that this pedal can go from a bit dirt clean boost to fuzz territories, I like it more as a pure distortion pedal, where it sounds really organic and helps tubes to explode in wonderful sounds.

The Pinnacle, has a lot of gain on its input, way more than the RAT and, it's voice is quite well strident. This is like to play with a bright guitar into a British amp loaded with a 4x12" cab full of Celestion V30s.
The modern mode can tame a bit the excess of high end. But, anyway, this pedal perfectly cuts the mix and has gain enough to make your solos really easy but, always maintaining an outstanding definiton of the notes.

The SLOstortion s the gainest of all but, its sound is really dark, sometimes can go very boomy and confussing. Always I hear it, it remembers my an small closed back high gain combo. Interesting for certain niches, it's probably the distortion type that I would use less.


Guitar

I wanted to test the Fender Stratocaster with classic single coils, because a gainy guitar is very stright forward to use with gain pedals but, the weakness and strongness of those kind of pedals are more noticiable when playing whith weak classic single coils.
Also, single coil induces more noise in the line so, it's also interesting to see how every pedal deals that noise.
From all them, I've found the noisiest the Pinnacle, even having less gain than the SLOstortion.


Amp

I wanted to check all this with a classic clean amp. It's quite easy to make a Marshall to sound as a Marshall (Pinnacle, by example) but not so easy to do it the same with other amps. The Fender Princeton Reverb has a clean tone and many other limitations. The grain of 6V6GT tubes is very different from the grain of EL34s or EL84s, by example. The distortion coming from those tubes is always darker, grainer and compresser, compared to the crunchy bright gain of ELs. Finally, the rectifier creates some kind of SAG compression that tames some strong attacks, sweetening the sound but killing a bit your picking dynamics.

So this amp, together with those weak single coils should be a real challenge for those pedals. Right?.


The Video

I am going first to check the textures of every Overdrive, repeating same lick and hearing and feeling the differences. I recognize that, in the video, they can sound very similar (except for the Plimsoul). That's becasuse I set up every pedal very close to the break-up boundary, to maintain the sound under the break-up with soft picking or to trespass the boundary under hard picking. That helps me to see the dynamic range of each pedal and how it react to my intentions.
I've maintained the gain really low becasue, I planned to stack those overdrives with distortions later.
I preserved the guitar volume at full all the time and, the settings for each pedal were maintained from the beginning to the end of this video so, any change in their sound is due to the interaction with other pedals.

In the second part of the video, I am testing the three distortion pedals, with more or less the same riff (I tend to loose my concentration, when playing the same once and once more).

The third part, I am stacking every one of those overdrives into every one of the distortion pedals, to evaluate if they help in any way to the distortion pedal.

Las part, I am stacking the four overdrives, first in couples, then from three to three and, finally all them together. It's interesting to see that, sometimes, you can get better distortion sounds (more organic) just stacking overdrive units.

There is no Noise Gate active during all the session, just to see how every pedal or combination deals with noise. The only other active pedal was the Deep Blue Delay, to give some ambience.

Pedals: Wampler SLOstortion

Introduction

None of my 3 amps is a high gain one. Well, maybe the Marshall 1923C can cover tones beyond a JMC800 but, this is not a kind of high-gain monster like the Soldano SLO-100 is.

Even that this is not my usual vibe, from time to time I missed some sound on the style of Soldano's, Diezel's or Boogie's way. I am not thinking on to spend money on such an ampl that will use really few times so, some kind of Soldano-in-a-box, Diezel-in-a-box or Mesa-in-a-box pedal interested me a lot.

For sure, I know that for the real thing, you must have the real thing but, at the end it doesn't matter really to me if I achieve the exact tone of those amps, I just want a high gain pedal that can have same gain characteristics, even if the tone isn't 100% accurate. I will never enter in discussions about if this is or not the best Soldano-in-a-box pedal ever made, because this is sterile for me. I just want to check if this pedal has an use in my pedalboard, if it has a nice tone and if it is compatible with my rest of pedals. And, that's what is in the background when I face a review or test like this one.


Presentation

Wampler's way. Once more the pedal unit comes wrapped in bubble plastic inside a fabric bag. The box is that kind of white annonymous type that boutiquers use but, with a nice decal in the front that sets it a bit appart.
As ever, the user's manual is just a single sheet of paper, with a very generic description of the unit.
There are no recommended settings this time.
At the bottom of the box, a sticker with Wampler's logo, as usual.


Controls

Volume

This one sets the overall output volume of the pedal. Very easy to find the Unitary Volume Level. Not a big range over Unitary Level (but, we have the boost switcher for this).

Gain

Sets up the range of amplification and distortion of the unit. Very easy to tweak.

Boost

Sets the amount of boosted volume, when the Boost is switched on.

Treble

This is a treble's roll off control type. Is the control that less impacts in the final tone but, helps a lot to define and clarify the sound.

Bass

This helps to conform the body of the signal. Has more impact than Treble but way less than Middles.

Middles

This is the most important control in this unit. You can imagine it as a kind of that Contour knobs that you can find in Mesa-Boogie amps. This sets up some kind of pre-ecualization that changes the overall response of the unit. It also has a big impact in gain and volume.

Boost pedal switch

This switches on a boost section after the amplification stage that increases the volume of the unit in a real high range controlled by the Boost knob. This is a clean volume increase, not a gain increase.

Mode Toggle Switch

Two modes are available: crunch and overdrive.
Crunch mode provides a hard overdrive-like tone, not so British as a Marshall's crunch but, crunchy anyway.
Overdrive mode provides those solo singing tones that we are mostly expecting from a pedal of this kind.


Playing it

I've integrated this pedal within my pedal chain, between the Wampler Pinnacle and the ProCo RAT, just to check if there is any kind of incompatibility, as some impedance issue or whatever else anomaly. Everything seems to work flawless and the pedal smoothly integrates in the rest of pedal board.

This time, I challenged myself. I wanted to check this pedal to evaluate how it works with different types of pickups so, I've choosed the PRS 513 to test this pedal. The 513 has the hability of do its job with whatever pickups' configuration so, I can easily swap from single coil to half-humbucker (medium-output humbucker) to full-humbucker (high-output humbucker). In that way, I can compare how this pedal deals with each type of pickups.

Yesterday, I did a short test so, this is my second try on this pedal. During that test, I've realized that the most important knob in this unit is Middles. I leaved all controls at noon and started to tweak Middles knob, since this control creates the overall voice and gain range of this pedal.

When moving Middles to the left (rolling them off), there is some kind of mids scoop behaviour but, the sound seems to have more presence of mid-high frequencies range, more on the way of a British amp, if you want.
When moving Middles to the right (rolling them on), ther is some kind of mids bump but, way darker, as if mids-lows were increased. Also, gain goes harder and the voice of this distortion unit remembers me to an small high-gain combo, as the Mesa-Boogie 5:25, by example. The sound becomes darker and a bit boxy, as if we were playing in a closed-back combo.
So, I prefer Middles knob to be a point before noon, more or less at 11:00h.

After setting Middles, Bass control is the following one to tweak. This helps to finish the body of the sound, avoiding to go muddy or confussing. I prefer Bass knob just a bit before noon, let say 11:58h.
Last tone control to tweak is Trebles. This one helps a lot to clarify the sound and, its amount will depend on the other two controls. I prefer this one past noon, more or less between 1:00 and 2:00h.

Once the foundational tone is selected, with Tone knobs, to find the right amount of gain is just a kid's game.  One of the things you should take into account is that all controls are highly interdependent so, changes on tone controls modify the range of gain available and, therefore, the output volume, as well.
So, after every tweak, remember to re-check your volume, if you wanted Unitary Volume Level.

As with the rest of Wampler's pedals I've tested, this unit seems to love to be recorded. When I was mounting the video, I realized that the SLOstortions sounds even better recorded than in front the amp (and, it sounds good enough). Some of the boxyness that I can feel "live" seems to disapear while hearing the video.

As with the rest of Wampler's pedals, is quite easy to achieve an Unitary Volume Level, even after every tweak, you only need to move a bit the knob right or left. There is not that big jump that I find in Mad Professor's gain units.

From all high-gain amps, the SLO-100 isn't the darkest one or the one with the highest saturation or the one with the bigger lows. It's some way more refinated and clearing sounding, as the Peavy 5150 is.
So, don't expect total doom on this pedal. Is producing just a liquid distortion that makes soloing really easy.

I wanted to check the amount of floor noise that this pedal adds to the signal (or raises from the original signal) so, I didn't use the ISP Decimator G-String (Noise Gate) to remove the noise.
Even being a high gain pedal, the floor noise was really comfortable and reasonable, even with single coil pickups, what says a lot about its design.

Well, I wasn't excited with the Crunch mode of this pedal, since I have other units to do that job but, I recognize that is a very usable mode. But, in my case, I prefer British crunch and, this unit is not exactly providing that, is giving Soldano's crunch. Fully usable but, not my beer.

The Overdrive mode is was had the most interest in my case and, I loved it. As I said, this will be not my number 1 distortion pedal, because my style is more classic but, I am happy to have this pedal for other stuff that I like to play from time to time and, it's very welcome for certain themes.

If you are expecting a deeper sound, as Diezel or Boogie deliver, this is not your pedal. Please, check Wampler's Triple Wreck (some kind of Recto-in-a-box), instead.

Enough writting. Better to see/hear the videos.


Videos

Alright!. I split the take into a pair of videos. First one is describing controls and testing in deep how every control affects to the Sound, always in Crunch mode. Second video is all about the Overdrive channel, not going so deep with controls but, checking several different settings with all kind of pickups: single coil, medium-output humbucker and high-output humbucker.

Each video is about half hour long so, go for a beer, some pop corns, sit down comfortablely, roll up your volume's control and push over those videos!. Or, leave it for a better time.






Conclusions

It seems that my ears are in sync with Wampler's ears, at least when discussing about gain boxes.
Once more one outstanding Wampler pedal that delivers interesting tones.
I am not in the aim of discussing if this is the best SLO-100 in-a-box pedal ever made. This lacks interest to me. What really interest me if this pedal gives me high-gain tones that I can use in my own themes and, it does it with ease.

The pedal seems to have no issues with impedances and smoothly integrates with the rest of pedals of my pedal board. The floor noise is surpresively low for a high-gain unit as this one, comfortable even with single pickups and without Noise Gate switched on.

If you are expecting some deep and creamy high-gain sounds, with excesive lows as the Diezel's or Mesa's deliver then, this is not your pedal. Please, check the Triple Wreck, instead.
The sound is more close to the clean and defined high-gain that a Peavy 5150 can deliver, by example.

Definitively a good weapon to have ready for those high gain solos.

Pedals: Wampler Euphoria Overdrive

Introduction

Usually, gain pedals are the most swapped in a guitarist's pedalboard. We are always getting something that seems to be the definitive one but, after a while, we always find that pedal as lacking something or having more than we wanted.

The thru is that best driven sounds are coming from tube amps. Period. To use a gain pedal to emulate another amp character or to push harder the tubes tends to fail on long time but, you know what, we will continue testing gain pedals the rest of life. It's the cursed life of the guitarist.

In my case, I love the sound of my current 4 overdrives: Fulltone OCD V3, Mad Professor Little Green Wonder, Mad Professor Sweet Honey Overdrive and Fulltone Plimsoul. All them are different and, all them have something that I love and something that I hate.

By example, the OCD has some impedance issues and, depending on the pedals that are stacked before or after, the sound, volume and (specially) the gain ratio change. It's one of the best Overdrives around but, when it works without issues.

Both overdrives from Mad Professor are awesome in sound's department but, they also have some issues. Those overdrives probably have a Gain knob that is logarithmic so, to achieve the unitary level is really difficult, fact that goes worst when I swap my guitar and / or amp. Any little change needs to reset the controls, beginning from scratch and, since Gain knob is hard to tweak for Unitary Level, it becomes a real mess.

Plimsoul is too much gainy for me to consider it as an overdrive. The sound is really good but, I see it more like a distortion than like an overdrive. Still not sure if will stand in my pedalboard.

From those, the OCD is the all-purpose overdrive, works well as a light overdrive as well as a hard overdrive and works really good with other overdrives (when it works fine). The Little Green Wonder is voiced in the league of Tubescreamers but, it removed what I hate from Tubescreamers and its way more versatile. The Sweet Honey Overdrive is a warm and light overdrive, that I dig specially for Blues stuff or, when what I want is just a touch of dynamic break-up in the sound.

So, I am still after an overdrive that can be as versatile as the OCD but, without the issues of the same and, without the issues (constant reset) of Mad Professor's and, this is my new try: Wampler's Euphoria Overdrive. Why?. Latelly, gain pedals from Wampler seem to be in tune with my own taste. I bought the Pinnacle and inmediatelly loved it so, I am gonna give one more try to other Wampler's pedal.


Presentation

The pedal unit comes inside a white carton box with some frontal sticker that makes it more attractive than other pedals from other Boutiquers.
Inside the box, a signature thing of Wampler, the pedal comes inside a fabric bag and it's being wrapped in bubble plastic.
In the bottom of the box, we can find a Wampler' sticker and the "User's Manual" that, you already guest it, is just a single sheet of paper (but way more attractive than in others Boutiquers).
Wampler includes again 4 sample settings that allow you to test different possibilities of this pedal.
Thank you, again, Wampler.


Controls

Volume

Well, this one sets the overal output volume of the pedal and, it's quite easy to achieve Unitary Level (and go way further).

Gain

This one controls the amount of saturation (level of amplification) of the inner amplification stage(s).

Bass

More than just control the amount of basses, this control gives the overall body to the sound but, also the distortion grain. It's being placed before the amplification stage(s).

Treble

This is a typical treble cut-off filter but, treble is affecting also the high frequencies that we usually see as Presence so, it can sound really harsh if overdone. This seems to be a common design in Wampler's pedals, as per my short experience with them.

Toggle Switch Voice

This switch allows to select three different voices for the foundational tone of the overdrive.
Smooth is voiced to mime the character of Dumble amps.
Open is the transparenter of all voices and very plain frequentialy.
Crunch is voiced to mime the typical British driven sound.
This makes this Overdrive as if you had three very different overdrives in a box.


Playing it

I've integrated the pedal on my pedal board, just before the rest of overdrives and, after the Phaser, just to check if there are impedance issues and, if it stands up in a big pedal board.
No issues detected by now. The pedal seems to smoothly integrate with the rest of the pedal board.

When I bought this pedal, I wasn't aware that this was the take of Wampler's about that Dumble sound (think on Robben Ford), in the way as Hermida's Audio Zendrive is. If its name has the adjectiv "Transaparent Overdrive", that's what I was expecting and, not a pedal emulating a Dumble amp.

I resold my Hermida's Audio Zendrive because, even that I loved that sweet sound, I hated how the pedal was killing my attack. I love my attack, I want to make tubes to explode when I pick hard. The Zendrive, had a lot of compression during the attack phase of the sound, maybe it's a Dumble characteristic but, not my beer.

So, I was affraid that I would go in same troubles with this Euphoria pedal. I've first started with the 4 settings that Wampler propose to test the pedal's versatility and, just the first one is "Robben Ford's tone". Well, If memory doesn't fails, the Zendrive sounded to me sweeter and warmer, even silkier but, with that ugly compression that flattened all my attack. The Euphoria didn't sound to me exactly the same.

In one side, the kind of distortion is more rude. Depending on the settings of Bass knob, the distortion character seems as it was built based on little balls that grow as soon as you dial in the Bass button. It's difficult to explain but, my sensation is that the grains of distortion are bigger, when rolling on the Bass control.
In other side, the compression type was more like the sag that a tube rectifier produces but, not so heavy as the compression level present on Zendrive.
So I would probably prefer the sound of the Zendrive but, I prefer way more the dynamics of the Euphoria.
They don't sound exactly the same but, I am not disapointed with the sound of the Euphoria. I find it more useful than the Zendrive, in my particular case.

Fortunatelly, this overdrive isn't just a Dumble emulation. After checking the Smooth Voice, I wanted to check the Crunch Voice and, it sounded damn right to me.
The Crunch channel is really convincent and brings you the best British Crunch sound.
In fact, Wampler has the most exciting plexy-in-a-box pedals that I've never heard so, no surprise that the Crunch mode sounds really good.
Not only I am not disapointed with the crunch channel but, I think it's really helpful.
Maybe, running it over a Marshall make the trick so, I need to recheck this pedal with other amps, specially with the Princeton, to see if the crunch is still so fantastic.
What I can say is that individual notes jumped out of the speaker with ease, on this mode.

And, finally, here we have the transparent overdrive, at the end. The mode is called Open and, I think is the flattest equalized voice of this overdrive. If Bass Knob is not overdone and gain well controlled, it can bring a nice transparent overdrive that set tubes in their sweet spot, while fully preserving the tonal signature of your instrument and amp.
Not disapointed with this mode, also. Very useful and interesting voice.

I find that the hardest thing of this pedal is to achieve the best compromise between the settings of two knobs: Gain and Bass. Bass is helping to the overall body but, also hardening the distortion textures so, I've found myself rolling a bit Bass when I've increassed Gain and, viceversa.
Even this, I've found the sound more grainy while playing in front the amp than when editing the demo video, where I loved the sound and didn't noticed such a grainity. Maybe the compression of mics help to it and, this ensures a good sound in Studio, anyway.

As any gain pedal, it increases a bit the floor noise that, in this case, I hadn't controlled with the help of the ISP Decimator G-String noise gate, because I wanted to hear everything, the good and the bad.
The noise level didn't raised spectacularly, anyway. Was very reasonable.

I would like to add some particular note about the Tone control. Usually Tone controls are cut-off filters that roll off to ground some treble frequencies but, those frequencies are below the range of frequencies named "air". Last ones are usually tweaked with a Presence control that can sound really harsh if overdone.
I've found that Tone controls in the two tested Wampler pedals are not limited to the trebles below the air range but, that they include also the highest frequencies so, be carefull when rising the Tone, because trebles can go really piercy and harsh.


Demo Video

This is my very first contact with this pedal so, I didn't prepared a demo session thinking on what to do and in which order and, neither what to play. It's easier when you already know the textures of the pedal to find something more appropiated for each voice mode but, I was suspecting that I would like this pedal (because of several youtube videos I already heard) so, I've jumped down without net.

Anyway, at the beginning of the video, I am testing the 4 settings recommended in user's manual, just to get an overall idea of this unit's possibilities. Later, I am focussing in how Bass and Gain knobs interactuate and, how the grain and thickness of distortion changes. Then, I leaved the Bass and Gain knobs in a fixed position and checked the Tone knob.

After testing all this in Smooth mode, I wanted to check Crunch mode and, finally Open mode.
At the end of the video, I am leaving exactly the same setup (except for volume knob, that needs to be readjusted when changing mode) and playing more or less the same riff to check how the sound changes depending on the mode.

About 30 min. of video so, take a beer some pop corns, wear your headphones, roll up the volume and hear it!. Or wait until you have more free time.



Conclusion

I was expecting just a transparent overdrive, in the way as the Timmy, by example so, I went scared when I read the "user's manual" saying that this pedal is Wampler's personal take of the "D" sound (D stands for Dumble).
Dumble tone is awesome, without any doubt but, not for everybody and not for every work so, I've thought: "Oh, no. One more Zendrive!". Fortunatelly this is not a Zendrive and, not just another Dumble-in-a-box pedal.

After selling the Zendrive, I wanted to check the Dumkudo, because it had 3 different voices, being one of them the Dumble one. I liked the sound of the Zendrive but I hated its compression that flattened my pick attack. So, I always wanted to test a Dumkudo, and see if its approach to Dumble sound was different from Zendrive's but, I leaved this idea sleeping on my chair (and pressed under my bottom).

On this sense, the Euphoria approach seems more based on Dumkudo's approach than in Zendrive's itself. Dumkudo has also three voices but, not sure at this time if they are remotelly similar.

Fortunatelly, I've found the Dumble's voice more dynamic than in Zendrive and more tweakable, to runaway from that excesive compression level. They don't sound exactly equal but, I find more useful the tones that I can take from Euphoria and I am not in the fight of which pedal does better the emulation of a Dumble amp. This really doesn't matter to me. My concern is more about which pedal can help me better and I don't mind what it sounds like, if it works for me, it works. Period.

Crunch and Open voices are fully usefull and really good so, even if you don't dig Dumble's voice, you have still two different overdrive textures to test. I am quite sure you will like at least one of them but, I see you probably using each one for different stuff.

This pedal is like to have a Timmy, a Zendrive and a Plexy Drive in a single pedal. This is just to help you to take the idea. For sure, the Open Voice isn't a Timmy, the Crunch voice isn't a Plexy Drive and the Smooth voice isn't a Zendrive but, they are similar and sound fantastic.

My impression right now is that this one will be easily my main overdrive unit and that will last long time in my pedal board but, as I said on the introduction, this is never granted for an overdrive.

Pedal Effects: What they do? - Part 4

Category Modulation Effects

Modulation effects create a secondary signal modulating the input signal. The way as every pedal modulates the signal depends on the effect itself.

Family Phasers

Phasers are copying the original signal and, rotating its phase, across several de-phasing stages and, finally blending original signal with dephased signal or providing just the dephased signal (100% wet effect).
As a result of that cycle of phase rotation, some frequencies are reinforced, while others are being practically cancelled so, despite of the washing sound hear, volume can go up (reinforcement) or down (cancellation), depending on the source note and cycle spot.

The most famous phase pedal effect of all the times is the MXR Phase 90. The Electro-Harmonix Small Stone was also very appreciated and, has an slightly different implementation that results in some different sound.

Some phasers (specially vintage ones) have just one knob to set up the phaser's character, while others provide a higher number of knobs to set up different phasing characteristics as: Phase (effect width), depth (blending dry/wet), speed (sweep speed or lenght of the cycle), etc.

Chorus, Flangers and Vibes are all based on phaser effect but, with some differences.


Family Chorus

Chorus effect is doubling the original signal and, the second signal is being modulated in several ways. As in the Phaser's, the signal has an slight change of phase but not so noticiable as in phasers. Also, the second signal is slightly detuned, to create the sensation that a second instrument is making the chorus to the first instrument.
From the very beginning, Chorus had more controls available than original phasers, even that the control are more or less the same seen in phasers, what changes is the range of speeds that the chorus pedal has (speeder), compared to a Phaser and, that detuning feature.
Well, one of the widely used chorus had just a single control knob: the MXR Micro Chorus but, the epitome of those pedals seems to be the Boss CE-1 (Chorus Enssemble 1), that provided warm and lush chorus tones.


Family Flanger

Also based on Phaser effect, the flanger work in a different speed range (slower) so, the sweeping of a flanger is slower than in a Phaser. Additonaly to this, the flanger includes a regeneration stage, that gets the output of the flangered signal, feeding back the input signal (that has now the original guitar signal plus the already flangered signal).
Flanger is the hardest sounding effect of this family and creates that Jet-alike type of sweep.
I was hardly ussed by Eddie Van Hallen but, it's also present in many records and many different instruments (I can remember the flanged batery bridge change in 'No Quarter' by Led Zeppelin, by example).
One of the most famous flangers was the MXR M-117 but not the unique mythical unit around.


Family Tremolo

The Tremolo effect is affecting the loudness of the signal during a cycle. It drops the signal every X time in a cycle, resulting in a trembling sound.
When Leo Fender built his first Vibrato-loaded amps, he failed naming the effect, the vibrato channels of well known Fender's amps is really a Tremolo effect. Nowadays, it is difficult to change that wrong naming.
To make things even more confussing, Leo Fender gave the name Tremolo arm to the floating bridge's arm used in Stratocasters. The whammy arm of a floating bridge is just a Vibrato effect and, not a tremolo effect but, imagine, who can fix this error!.

Some of the first Tremolo pedal effects were also named Vibratos so, be sure what do you have on hands.


Family Vibrato

The vibrato, instead of changing the loudness of the signal is affecting slightly the frequency, shifting a bit the pitch up and down during a certain cycle. Results are quite similar but, not exactly the same as with a tremolo.
The whammy bar of a floating bridge is the most understable vibrato effect. By moving down or up the bar, you are pitching down or up the sustained note. A vibrato pedal does this permanently and at regular periods.
Read Tremolo's description to be aware of the confussion between Tremolo and Vibrato effects.

Let say that the chorus is a mix of vibrato and phaser, with modified speed range.


Family Vibes

The vibe is an special take of the chorus effect, and its between a phaser, a chorus and a vibrato pedal in-a-box. Even having some common ground with all them, it has a very distinctive sound, very similar to the effect that a Leslie rotating speaker delivered in Organs.
Many other Rotating Speaker effects are quite similar to the vibe effect.
The sweep of the vibe seems to be deeper than the sweep of a phaser, creating the sensation that the sound rotates 360º around your head.
This amazing effect is the basis of "Machine Gun" by Hendrix (a true master on the use of this pedal effect).
The most famous vibe effect of all the times is the Dunlop Univibe, even that current edition doesn't seems to be so accurated to the original one, as Boutique's pedal designers claim.


Family Talk Box

This is a really interesting pedal and, maybe the most human one, since we can modulate the sound of our guitar' signal just with our mouth!.
The Talk Box has two inputs: the guitar input and our mouth input. The signal coming from our mouth modulates or sculpts the guitar' signal, producing really interesting sounds.
To achieve this, a tube exits from the Talk Box unit that should be inserted in our mouth (usually, supported with a Mic' stand). The sounds we produce in our mouth are send down the tube to the vox, where a membrane, working like any mic, transduces the air changes into electrical signals. That electrical signals will be used to modify the guitar' signal, producing interesting effects.
First time I clearly heard that effect was in "Show me the way" by Peter Frampton but, of course, that effects' wizzard called Gilmour used it for some Pink Floyd songs (as Dogs from The Wall, by example).

The drawback is that, usually, a Talk Box isn't an chained effect but, the output usually needs to be routed to a separated amp. I think that just the Banshee Talk Box allows you to stack this effect in your chain (but memory can fail here). Just be sure to check how your Talk Box should be connected in your rig before buying one, maybe you cannot have to amps working at same time.


Category Time Effects

Time effects are copying the input signal and creating several images of that signal delayed in time and, decreassing in loudness.


Family Reverb

Reverberation effect tries to emulate the echos obtained in a reflexive room. Depending on the place you are playing, the room can sound very dry and the amp can sound very in your face. Reberberation effect allows to move an step backwards the sound of the guitar and helps to place it within the mix space.
First reverberation effects applied to guitar world was the spring-reverberation. The signal was driven to a can that had several springs, the mechanical movement of those springs was transduced to electric signals and the result blended with the original signal. This is the typical guitar's amp reverberation that we can see in a bunch of amps.
Reverberation echoes are a bit confussing and the first echos produces sub-echoes that, produce sub-sub-echoes, etc.
But nowadays, any versatile reverberation effect includes a wide toolset of different reverberations: Hall (open spaces), Room (small rooms), Cathedral (Cathedral behaviour), Slapback (just a quick echo), etc.
What does new versatile reverberation effects want is to mime the reflexion patterns that some specific spaces have. Some do it in a very good way, some sound very digital.
One of the best reverb effects are found in TC Electronics stuff, that had a lot of experience designing reverb units for Studio Environment.


Family Delay

Delay pedals are quite similar to Reverb pedals but, instead to try to emulate the reflexive patters of some loved spaces, the delay generates just echoes of the input signal, with a certain cadence and with a certain decay time.
Delays are based in the first Echo Units, as the EchoPlex, that used a magnetic tape to record the sound and then, to reproduce the recorded sound slightly after in time.
First Echo or Delay units that had a good use for the regular guitarist were all Boss pedals (like the DD-3).
First delay units were analog and, therefore, their hability to delay the sound in time was very limited.
When digital units came, the delay time went longer.

Analog delay units have a warmer and lusher sound but, they can sound dark, also and, they are not so good for everything, because they can create some kind of veil on your sound.
Digital delay units sound clearer, brighter and more defined but, the drawback is that they can create sound's artiffacts (well known as digititis) that can sound mettalic and synthetic, when overdone.

Maxon AD-999 or the MXR Carbon Copy are two good examples of analog delays, while the well known Boss DD-3 and DD-7 are clear examples of Digital Delays.

Most of modern delay units, despite of having several delay emulations (tape delay, among modeling some delay units used in Studio), can have a looper feature, that allows us to record a short riff and make the unit to repeat it while we continue playing over the riff.

Pedal Effects: What they do? - Part 3

Category Gain Pedals

Even that most of our gain needs can be obtained with the proper amp, not everybody can have more than one amp and, even having just more than just one amp, not always it is possible to crank the amp to obtain its best.
Some Gain pedals help the tubes to break earlier at lower volumes, some copy the sound of a cranked amp, and others work just like emulations of very particular amps.

Anyway, it is difficult to see a guitarist without at least a single gain pedal in his pedal board.


Family Dynamics
There are some pedals that are modifying the dynamic range of the signal. The Dynamic Range is the difference between the highest peak of the signal and the average signal level.
This family of pedals is not always well known or understood.

A compressor is a pedal which focus its attention on the volume envelop of the signal (search ADSR Curve, for further info). What at the end does is to flatten the peaks, to raise the average signal level and, eventually, to increase the release time of the note. Usually, a Gain control will increase the average signal level, an Attack or Compression control will slightly or hardly flatten the peaks and, a Release control will maintain the tail of the note to add sustain to the sound. A compressor can be used to balance the average level of music, avoiding high differences between peaks and valleys.

A sustainer is some kind of specialized compressor, more oriented to the tail of the sound, to provide more sustain but, without affecting the attack phase (peaks).

For sure, there pedals that have both effects together but, some are very specialized in attack phase (compressor) or release phase (sustainer).

A Noise Gate is also a very specialized compressor that works as an electronic gate. In every signal, there is a certain amount of floor noise. Such a floor noise becomes more and more evident when we begin to stack gain pedals or raise the gain in our amp.  Pedals are treating all the signal the same and, are not able to distinguish what is noise and what is music.
A Noise Gate is some kind of electronic gate that will allow to trespass the gate to such a signals that reach some determined level. The level where the gate opens is usually called Threshold.
Once the gate is opened, it will close when the sound level goes down to the threshold value during a certain time (take into account that we are talking always about few milliseconds in dynamics).
What the noise gate does is to use a downward compressor for the noise, dramatically reducing its level. Since the difference between the sound (above the threshold) and noise (below the threshold) are now higher, the noise is less perceived.
Some Noise Gates have full controls to configure the different values of threshold, gate open time (how much time must a signal be raising the threshold for the gate to be opened), gate close time (how much time must a signal drop under the threshold to the gate to be closed) and, even downward compression ratio.
The drawback of Noise Gates is that the boundaries between noise and signal aren't stable in time and clearly defined. Sometimes some of our signal drops down below the average noise level. If we force the threshold really low, part of the noise will pop up and, in an intermittent way, what is really ugly.
If we raise the threshold, we can loose the subtle of the tails of our sounds.
So, a Noise Gate well setup can be awesome but, a Noise Gate of bad quality or wrongly setup can be a real hell and, way worst than support the noise.

All pedals affecting dynamics are affecting the signal level (volume envelope) in one or more ways and, because they tend to raise the average signal level, they are prone in increase the floor noise (in the same amount as the signal is being pushed).


Family Equalizers

Equalizers are gain pedals that drop or raise the signal level but, of certain range the frequencies.
The audible spectrum is divided in several bands and, for each band, the equalizer allows us to raise or drop the signal level, therefore enhancing or reducing some particular frequencies.
The equalizer is, probably, the most important weapon for a Sound Engineer. It is the tool which one the engineer is able to let every instrument be clearly distinguishable from the rest in the mix.
So a equalizer in a pedal format should serve for the same. The equalizer will help to enhance those frequencies that better differentiate the guitar' sound from the rest of instruments, dropping the levels of those frequencies that can be in fight with other instruments.

But, equalizers can also serve to emulate signature sounds of some amps. Every amp has its signature way to enhance or dismiss every band so, with a single equalizer we can achieve a wide range of well knows sounds, without having to change the amp or the guitar.

Used after overdrives, distortions and fuzzes, can help to fine-tune the resulting sound to our taste and, this can dramatically change the sound of our distortion.

Being a gain pedal, the use of an equalizer increases the floor noise, as well.

Family Overdrives

The boundary between a booster and an overdrive is tinny but, while the booster wants an increase in gain, volume or both, without specially coloring the signal, the overdrive wants it.
There are two types of overdrives: overdrives that push the tubes to break and, overdrives that emulate the sound of a certain drove amp.

Overdrives that push the tubes are used to help an amp to break-up early and to produce their wanted harmonic distortion before the spot (volume level) where they would naturally do. The good thing is that we are achieving the best distortion character possible, the one generated by the amp. The drawback is that, even being early that spot, the amp increases clearly its loudness and, maybe we cannot go so loud in our environment.

Overdrives that emulate drove amps, doesn't need to change the loudness of our amp, they just deliver a sound similar to a certain amp (which they emulate) going overdrive.

The most famous overdrive of all the times is the Ibanez TS-808 (this one pushes but coloring), widely used in lots of recordings and, very often seen in pedal boards, even today. Another highly used overdrive was the Boos SD-1 (this one emulates).

The epitome of current days seems to be the Klon Centaur but, to get the best from this pedal, you need a good amp that can be pushed hard, otherwise, the sound of the Klon can be sterile.
Another well acclaimed overdrive is the Tim (or the Timmy) and, the Fulltone FullDrive and OCD are both widely used today, also.

There are overdrives for every taste and need. Overdrives that push tubes usually work better in tube amps while overdrives that emulate a driven amp work better in solid state amps, where there is no way to obtain that kind of sound.

The most of designs are based or on the Tubescreamer (Ibanez TS-808), or on the boss SD-1.
The way as those distort is different, the harmonics that they produce are of different order, being the TS warmer and undefined, while the SD-1 is cool, thicker and defined.
Lately there is a wave of new designs trying to emulate the driven sound of mythical amps that are really hard to have (because of their limited units and prohibitive price).


Family Distortions

Once more, the boundaries between an overdrive and a distortion can be really tinny. Let say that a distortion pedal wants to go further than the drive level of an overdrive, to produce highly saturated distortion. While overdrives try to preserve the foundational tone of your guitar, adding just a bit of color and those exciting harmonics that tube generate, distortions forget all that and go for producing a wall of sound, with highly distorted and colored sound (on some units, it doesn't matter what guitar are you playing and to which amp are you plugged, you get the sound of the distortion, that's all).

For sure, some distortion units want to give you in-a-box the amazing sound of high gain amps, that were set away producing their own signature high gain distortion sound (as the Soldano SLO-100, the Peavey 5151, the Mesa Boogie Triple Rectifier, Bogner XTC, etc.).
Some have their own signature sound and, not particularly copying a determined amp.

Some distortions are so sweet (MXR Distortion+) that, most than a distortion unit seem an overdrive and, most of the distortion units are able to deliver some kind of colored overdrive at very low gain levels.

Once more, the best distortion we can get is always from our amp cranked to the max but, distortion units allow us to fake this, using the clean channel of our amp at any volume level.
While overdrives are more sensitive to gain and volume levels of our amp (because they want to push the tubes), distortions will generate their own sound, independently of the volume that we setup in our amp.

One of the most famous distortion units is the ProCo RAT, a very organic type of distortion, that can go from light overdrive to fuzz territory and, everything in between. Very classy and widely used in recordings.


Family Fuzzes

Probably, the first pedal effect used with electric guitars. During the time of big orchestras, the guitar had not the protagonism that they have today. They were just creating some pads to support rest of instruments. The Fuzz was designed to provide a sound similar to a Sax and, was firstly designed to be used with keyboards (electronic organs).
Guitarists liked the idea to make their guitar to sound as a Sax so, they tried it and "Satisfaction" was reached.

There are mainly two kind of fuzz units. The one drived by a set of Germanium transistors (that have reversed polarity) and the one drived by a set of Silicium transistors. As in the case of the TS compared to the DS-1, the germanium units deliver a warmer, more organic and wild sound that the silicium units, that can sound cooler, more synthetic.

Even this, they are two main voices: British and American. British fuzzes are voiced brighter, with less gain (more as a dirty overdrive), thinner in body and sometimes harsh. American ones are thicker in body, more obscure in sound and with way more gain.

British models are based, more or less, in the first Vox ToneBender model, so you will see a lot of MKI, MKII, MKIII tones around. The ToneBender was in fact based in the Maestro Fuzz, designed in USA. The Electro-Harmonix Big Muff is maybe one of the thicker fuzzes around.

Fuzzes started to highlight when songs like "Satisfaction" of Rolling Stones started to climb the Hit Parade lists. Jimmy Page used very often a ToneBender MKII fuzz.
Prices of clones built with same components and same specifications as vintage units have prohibitive prices today. 

A vintage fuzz is awesome if it is the only pedal in our chain but, it can be a real headache if we have to integrate it in a full-equipped pedal board. In one side, the reversed polarity of germanium fuzzes require to use isolated power sources, to avoid the mix with "normal" polarity pedals. In other side, since the Fuzz was initially designed for organs, the impedance levels (way lower) were appropriate for such an instrument so, when we are stacking that fuzz, we can have some impedance-related issues with rest of pedals and, even a pedal before the fuzz can dramatically change its sound.
This is way most of people that loves fuzzes try to keep them in a separated loop and, out of the circuit the most of time.

Fortunately, not all the fuzzes available today are just re-creations of the mythical vintage units. There are some people there creating their own designs from scratch and, providing units that work flawless with rest of pedals, because the design is now created for a guitar, instead of an organ.

The fuzz is the most synthetic sounding of all the gain pedal families. Its the gain pedal with the highest sustain and thicker wall of sounds of all (except for very vintage units). Very used during '60s to '70s and, not so favored nowadays.