Winston Psmith

Just a thought - I don't even click onto sties like that, because of the potential for malware.

I have to say, I'd rather make the occasional contribution than anything else. All the issues previously addressed regarding credit cards, etc., but this site is valuable enough that I'd want to help keep it open. Some of the best people I know hang out in here!

This could mean that we finally get to see some of the products that were still in the planning stages. Apparently, there were some very cool designs that never made it into production, so there may yet be some cool new pedals waiting to appear.

It looks a lot like a South American/Andean Instrument called a Charango, but that would be an odd choice. Next closest thing is an antique cousin of the Guitar, called a Cittern, but that's more of a Northern European Instrument? Got it! Allow me to introduce . . . the Cuarto! The first two I pulled out of memory - I used to work in a Music store that featured Folk, World, and Exotic Instruments. The Cuarto I found by searching on "10-string Cittern."

I would definitely wear that onstage . . .

If you have that, who needs a Pedalboard? It's almost as if someone designed an FX module inspired by one of the ARP 2600 RI's!?!?! All those sliders . . . Seriously, if $$$ were no object, I'd order the damned thing.

Therein lies madness . . . Couple of thoughts, watching this - First off, the website describes it as a DIY kit, but there are number of sites selling what appear to be completed units? I'd want to be sure which I was ordering, especially as they're not cheap. Second, it really wants to be part of a Modular Synth rig. All those CV I/O's on the top panel want to connect to something, and some functions are only available by patching in other CV devices; your Guitar won't do anything useful with those jacks. There are a number of true Analog and Virtual Analog Synths that feature Audio In jacks, which will allow you to process your Guitar through some of the Synth's functions, particularly the Filter Section, and any onboard effects. In that regard, you're not turning your Guitar into a Synth, you're just using parts of the Synth as an effects Processor. If you're curious about the Roland TB-303 he keeps referring to, check out the Behringer TD-3-SR. It's a clone of the original, at a fraction of the absurd prices for an original, vintage model. ($129.99 for the Behringer at Sweetwater, versus $2,500+, wherever one turns up.) BTW, you CAN'T patch your Guitar through the TD-3-SR. The original TB-303 was a Groovebox, arguably the UR-Groovebox, but IMHO, $130 is a fair price for how it sounds. Final note - Banana plugs allow you to stack plugs, so you can have one CV Out, say an LFO Out, controlling more than one CV In, let's say Osc1 Pitch, and Filter Frequency, so you get Pitch Vibrato and Filter Sweep clocked to the same LFO Waveform and Rate. The trade-off can be that there's only so much Voltage to go around. Yes, I've been doing this far too long . . .

Very likely it has something to do with the color, or stain. There's a demo video of a black model, which the video calls an EF261S-BL. That's one of the mid-sized bodies, in what they called the Santa Fe series, back when I was selling Takamine Guitars. Very nice model.

@Scott Fraser- Well understood; I still have an old Digitech RDS 1900 in my FX rack. I'm also fond of long Delay Times, and I have a few boxes just for that effect. FWIW, the max Delay Time on the DD-500 is supposed to be 10 seconds, but if the DSP is much like the DD-200, I suspect that some of the Delay types, especially the DSP-intensive ones, will offer shorter Delay Times. Haven't gotten to try one yet . . . My old DD-20 offers 23 seconds of Delay Time, and easy access tweaking. Used ones show up for around $120+/-. Not exactly pristine sound quality, but they're not bad, AND you can store up to 4 favorite Delay sounds in User Memory. Not really flashy, but functional. If you want Delay Time, well worth the footprint. The Pigtronix Filter Pro only offers 10 seconds of Delay, but it has some functions that make it worth deep diving. Another casualty of Pigtronix' aggressive efforts to put out new gear before people are through with their old gear. Lot of discontinued products . . . Either version of the Akai Headrush, the silver E1 or blue E2, will give you just over 23 seconds of Delay Time, or Looping, but you're stuck with a Mono In jack. I have the blue one, which offers nearly 36 seconds of Looping in Extended Mode; you can't, however, extend the Delay Time. I also have an expanded Lexicon JamMan with 32 seconds of Delay, Sampling, and Looping. Not the most intuitive device, but I'm not likely to give it up anytime soon. Surprisingly, the discontinued Boss ME-25 had a 6 second Delay onboard. Kind of an entry-level device, but it had some useful features. Mono In, like most Guitar MFX.

@Caevan O’Shiteand @KuruPrionz - The DD-200 really lets me shape the Reverse Delay in a way that other boxes haven't. The only drawback is the 2.5 second Delay Time. I have to admit, I got the DD-200 for the oddball effects. I have plenty of Delay effects available, but this one is a lot of fun, and different enough to justify adding it to the collection.

The Chaos pedal had some serious issues, so I returned it in exchange for a nice used Boss DD-200 Delay. It happens . . . The DD-200 is a little different. It's not so much trying to model specific vintage Delay devices, as it is trying to present a variety of Delay effects, including some classics. The real fun, at least for me, is in the outliers. Briefly, you get the usual Time, Repeats, and Effect Level knobs. There's a Tone control, a Parameter control, which varies depending on which Delay algorithm you've selected, and a Mod Depth control. The Mod Rate is fixed - Boss claims to have selected the "perfect" Mod Rate setting, so you can only control the Depth, or intensity of the Mod effect, and Modulation is available with all of the different Delay types. Before I go on, there are two serious misrepresentations of the the DD-200 that I've caught online, and that I'd like to correct here. First up, Maximum Delay Time: I keep seeing info claiming the Max Delay Time is 60 Seconds, because there's an onboard Looper that will capture up to a 60-second Loop. The real Max Delay Time varies, depending on which Delay type you've selected, but NONE of them reach anywhere near 60 seconds. 3-5 seconds is the longest Delay Time for any of the Delay types, and some are even shorter. Reverse Delay only goes to 2.5 seconds, and the Tera Echo effect only goes to 700ms. (FWIW, the older DD-20 offered 23 seconds of Delay for all of the Delay Types.) That's the second misrepresentation I've often encountered; it's NOT simply a jacked-up DD-20. I have the DD-20, and like it very much, but they're not the same thing, at all. Back on track. There are the usual suspects - an Analog Delay, a Drum Echo (think "Oil Can" Delays like the Binson Echorec), Tape Delay, a Standard Digital Delay, Dual Delay, Lo-Fi (not very impressive), and a very nice Reverse Delay. There's the now-obligatory "Shimmer" Delay (really, you can hardly find a Reverb effect without it), which adds an Octave-up effect. This seems to be a "love-it-or-hate-it" effect for a lot of users. IME, it's not as obnoxious as some of the Shimmer effects I've heard in other devices, and you can dial it back with the Parameter control. YEMV, of course. Boss' Tera Echo effect is intriguing, to say the least. It sounds a lot like the choppy, Filtered sound The Edge gets at the beginning of U2's "Mysterious Ways." Run one of your favorite Delay pedals into a thick, chewy Phaser sound, and you're close. It's a lot of fun for Guitar, but it works MAGIC on Synth sounds! Pad Echo has the echoes fade in and swell behind your playing. It's not a Ducking Delay, it's contouring the Attack Envelope of the Delay Repeats, without compromising you direct signal. Very nice for textures and well, Pads. This effect was made for Ambient Guitar. Pattern Delay is a not-too-distant cousin of the Slicer effect. It claims to be 16 Delays, which would be a hell of a lot of DSP?!? I think it more likely it's a form of Multi-Tap Delay, with fixed Taps. Strum a quick chord, or just pluck one note, and you'll hear a pattern of echoes. You can't really do anything to change the pattern. Longer Delay Times stretch it out so you can better hear what's happening, but that's all. The larger, more expensive DD-500 allows you to dive in somewhat more. The Reverse Delay is possibly the sweetest Reverse Delay I've ever used! The Parameter control lets you contour the Attack Envelope of the Reverse Echoes, which smooths out the Reverse sounds in a way you have to hear to fully appreciate. Hendrix and Adrian Belew fans, take note! The best things about it, for me, are the Tera Echo, Pad Echo, and Reverse Delay. I got this thing a couple of days ago, and I've spent hours sitting on the floor with it, chained in with other Delay effects, when I haven't been at work. The worst thing - it makes me want to dive in to the DD-500, which has MUCH more programming depth. Ah, well, time to get to useful things for the day.

Glad everyone seems to be enjoying their knock-off Klon . . . I mean Clone. I'd seen a video a while back with one of those, and the person doing the demo was very surprised at how much he liked the sound of the clone.

@Caevan O’Shite- It's the used The Heritage that comes with a case. Like I said, if I had $1300 to spend, it would be on its way here.

Couple of thoughts . . . First up, I have to agree with @KuruPrionz - If you have $1300 to spend on a Les Paul model, look for a nice used Gibson. You can even find a brand-new Gibson for $1300 - Gibson Les Paul Tribute Having said that, I tend to look for good used gear, because it tends to hold its value. If you buy a used Guitar for $1300, it'll very likely still be worth $1300 next month, or next year, if not somewhat more. New gear depreciates the moment you walk out the door with it, and it can take a very long time to appreciate in value again, if ever. As far as used Guitars, here's one that I'd grab, if I had $1300 to spend. The Heritage Guitars were made by Luthiers who'd worked on some of the iconic Gibsons, and stayed behind in Kalamazoo to keep doing what they did best. Yes, it's better than a Gibson, IMHO. The Heritage H-140 used I can almost guarantee you that if you don't buy the Heritage, someone in here probably will, at that price . . .

Have definitely run into the issue where bright sunlight washed out all the displays on electronic gear, even under a tent. My bandmate also had an issue where her iPad overheated right before an outdoor set, displaying a cartoon thermometer, which neither of us found amusing at the time.

Side note regarding MFX in general. Very often, if you're monitoring the Output through a dedicated Headphone Out, that will engage some version of a Speaker Emulator, which you may not be engaging when using the Main Outs into an Amp or FRFR system.

@Lokair- Have to agree on the travel and potential allergy issue, after you mentioned Ocean City, Maryland. The Maryland/D.C. area has been experiencing a vicious pollen/allergy season (see @Caevan O’Shite's remarks above), on top of a period of drought, and it's very possible that you had an allergic response to the pollen and the dry air, as you came from Pittsburgh through Maryland, and back again. I work outdoors, for the most part, and I've definitely felt the pollen in the air, as well as the greenish-yellow dust on everyone's cars.

I'll have to check that one out more closely when I get home later. You don't often see a Dirt box of any kind with Dual In's, a VERY useful feature if you're running Stereo Synth sounds into it.

The same fellow, Todd Wolfgram, originally designed the Helium, too. He does a video demo of the Malekko Chaos where it sounds almost controllable. I had one of the earlier, not-quite-prototype models, when Studio Electronics first released the original CHAOS and Helium pedals. There were . . . let's say, conflicting labels on the "Hair" and "Dimension" switches on some of those early models. FWIW, as much as we all enjoy and admire Andy's video demos, I have to say his approach to the CHAOS is a bit . . . restrained. Here's a video from a British fellow who digs into some of the nastier tones - Malekko CHAOS pedal 2 It's louder than hell, and it is NOT a pedal you're going to kick On mid-tune for a solo, unless you want to startle your audience or blow a speaker. For the next week or ten days, I'm still catching up with my work, and my Music life, so I've barely had time to sit down with the new toy, and it's going to take some tweaking. My plan is to put it in the pedalboard with the Bumblebee, the Infinite Jets, the Syntax Error, and the Space Spiral. Not a "normal" Guitar sound to be found among them . . .

I'd been looking for one of these for a while now. I'll let Andy tell you about it . . . One thing to note - around that 1:45 point, where he starts playing the G&L clean, then kicks on the CHAOS pedal, you'll hear quite a boost. It's a feature, not a bug, as they say. Malekko Wolftone CHAOS pedal . . .

The most 'naturalistic'-sounding OD pedal I've played is the Boss BD-2 Blues Driver. Very responsive, don't have the compressed, squishy sound of a TS OD, and they're relatively affordable. Sweetwater & Zzounds have them reduced to $89.99 right now, so it may be that the Waza Craft version has cut into sales of the original?

Pedalboard (underneath everything else), Guitar Synth (in soft Pedaltrain case), Looper (Kaces gig bag), KB Amp (under Looper), Guitar Stand, and coffee cup. The random piece of rack gear was scavenged from the studio where I was performing that day, its not part of my set-up. My live set-up for Novparolo fits on one Pedaltrain 1 pedalboard, and we usually go direct to FOH, so it's even more compact. IIRC, that folding cart was around $50US at Costco? Well worth the money.

Fast playing through a Phaser or Flanger set to a very slow rate is very cool sound. Add Distortion to taste . . . Fast playing through a Delay effect, OTOH . . . unless you're very careful about timing, everything tends to come crashing together in a flurry of notes.

Have to agree with @KuruPrionz on the issue of tone woods. I see a of lot laminated Guitar bodies out, even on U.S.-made Gibsons, and a bunch of unrelated woods being marketed as "Mahogany". FWIW, Mahogany is my favorite tone wood for a solid-body Guitar, and I've been able to feel a difference in Guitars made with those other woods. They feel "spongy", for lack of a much better description, softer than they should be, and they seem to absorb the tone of the Guitar, like a sponge, rather than projecting . . .

To address the OP, a lot of those names were bought out a while ago. IIRC, Fender owns, or recently owned, the Gretsch name, and moved much of their production over to China; they also own Guild. Epiphone consolidated much of their production line to their own plant in China, much like Behringer, instead of having a handful of Korean producers. I think Gibson brought back Kahler, although I'm less certain about that. This dovetails into the thread about the Marshall name being acquired. For the most part, what's really changing are licensing agreements; they're selling names, not product lines. A current MIC Gretsch has little or nothing to do with the Guitars that made the name famous; it either stands on its own merit as a Guitar, or it doesn't. The same can be said for Marshall Amps, anything current with the "Fender" name on the headstock, or any of the recent reissue lines. For the money, a lot of those import Guitars are much better quality than the cheap imports that were available when I started out, but OTOH, a $500 starter Guitar isn't exactly cheap. My one semi-hollow is a 2005 Ebony Epihone DOT, from the Samick plant in Korea. At the time, a U.S.-made 335 was running somewhere around $1200+/-, but my DOT was $300, new right out of the box, at my nearest GC. The only thing I did to change it was to install Schaller strap locks.