cool new effects

[Caevan O’Shite]

9 hours ago, hurricane hugo said:

yeah, I love those things. first saw one here:

 

 

Oh, they were missing one of my very favorite pickup combinations for clean and clean-ish tones- the Heavenly lush super-cluck of all three pickups on in parallel!  💖💖💖✨
        
 

[Dannyalcatraz]

#1 that’s a beautiful guitar

 

#2 that’s an unusual configuration!  The only other HB/P90/P90 I’ve ever seen is Reverend’s Six Gun HPP (and 25th anniversary version).

 

 

#3 that’s a BEAUTIFUL guitar

[hurricane hugo]

On 8/13/2022 at 8:06 AM, Caevan O’Shite said:

That is interesting! And for cheap, too!

The PMT HCP's Coil Tap/Fader Mode Coil would be pretty cool! There was something similar going on under the hood on some Peavey guitars in the late '70's/early '80s; and that was pretty cool.


I have found that I like the sound of a humbucker at the neck-position when the inner-coil (nearest the middle) is either not as strong as the outer coil (nearest the fretboard), or actually, physically lower away from the strings than the outer coil; a chiming, almost quasi Strat single-coil bell-tone...

And to some degree, the same but reverse for a bridge humbucker- stronger emphasis on the outer coil, closer to the bridge, than on the inner coil. I understand that one way or another, Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstein had a bridge-humbucker like that.

Perhaps the PMT HCP's Coil Filter Mode would provide a similar enough effect; I might really like that!
        
 

Bumping this because it happened over the weekend and got buried at the bottom of the page. First time (and probably the last) I've ever done this here for anything, but the HCP sounds like something many of you might wanna know about, especially for $23.  https://www.amplifiedparts.com/products/potentiometer-pmt-humbucker-control-coil-filters

[Mark Schmieder]

I just ordered a used Supro Delay that should arrive tomorrow. I already have the Minifooger Delay, and sold my Memory Man Deluxe and MXR, but the Supro strikes me as being the most applicable to reggae music, and I truly love the Supro Flanger that I bought in FEB -- a completely different sound from my MXR Flanger or the TC Electronic SCF (which I only use for Chorus, and mostly on bass guitar due to its transparency across the frequency spectrum).

[Caevan O’Shite]

 

10 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

...the Supro strikes me as being the most applicable to reggae music...

Just curious- how so? The Filter control? Expression-pedal applications?
      

 

10 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

I just ordered a used Supro Delay that should arrive tomorrow. I already have the Minifooger Delay, and sold my Memory Man Deluxe and MXR, but the Supro strikes me as being the most applicable to reggae music, and I truly love the Supro Flanger that I bought in FEB -- a completely different sound from my MXR Flanger or the TC Electronic SCF (which I only use for Chorus, and mostly on bass guitar due to its transparency across the frequency spectrum).

Aaahh... ! I see that it was designed by Howard "Mick" Davis, who worked at Electro-Harmonix from 1976 to 1981, and designed the following EHX pedals, many considered iconic, influential, innovative and desirable classics:

Deluxe Memory Man
Deluxe Electric Mistress
Talking Pedal
Clone Theory
Frequency Analyzer reissue
Attack Decay
Deluxe Octave Multiplexer
Polyphase
Stereo Polychorus (redesigned reissue)
Soul Preacher
Deluxe Big Muff
Guitar Synth (rackmount version)
Ambitron
Boomer
Panic Button
Blaster
Silencer

He's got many other impressive credits, but we'll get back to the Supro Analog Delay here...

I'd say that his designing it pretty much guarantees a stellar echo pedal.
       
 

[Mark Schmieder]

It's supposed to have the best S/N of any delay pedal -- especially ones with long delay time. It gets panned a lot because of that, being accused of being cold and clinical, but in the audio demos it sounds warmer to me than the MMD and MXR, both of which I sold because they sounded harsh to me (but my MMD was a modern reissue).

 

Lots of different echo effects in reggae, but slapback is one of them, and I feel like this pedal does short delays the best of any modern pedals, capturing what the BOSS pedal is best at, but I'll never go near BOSS pedals again due to bulkiness, reliability (in my 1980's experience when I was mostly-BOSS-based), and noise.

 

The feedback loop is also highly controllable and the expression pedal can help there too. That's a big part of reggae delay effects. Especially in dub music.

[Caevan O’Shite]

11 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

It's supposed to have the best S/N of any delay pedal -- especially ones with long delay time. It gets panned a lot because of that, being accused of being cold and clinical, but in the audio demos it sounds warmer to me than the MMD and MXR, both of which I sold because they sounded harsh to me (but my MMD was a modern reissue).

Very nice. It DOES sound VERY warm in a VERY good way; in fact, attempting to cop the warm, smooth, darkening tone of its repeats with my Strymon El Capistan was harder than I expected. (They ARE different animals- a genuine analog BBD echo pedal, and a digital simulation of a tape echo machine.)

I am rabid for tape-echo sounds, but this Supro DOES sound VERY, VERY nice, and I can easily imagine really enjoying one; I might wind up getting one eventually!
 
By the way- on the matter of Reggae echo sounds and pedals:  El Capistan Dub/Reggae Echo insanity
     
 

[Mark Schmieder]

Wow, thanks for the El Capistan advice on dub/reggae. I have been interested in that pedal before, but didn't know it would be good for that genre.

 

My Supro Delay arrived yesterday, but I don't know when I'll have time to try it out, as I lost a gazillion hours the past two days unsuccessfully trying to find a cause and solution for Digital Performer suddenly no longer letting me go into Sequence Mode for audio editing and crossfading of tracks, in projects that have both Audio and MIDI. A complete mystery and I may be the only one experiencing the bug as no one else has chimed in yet.

 

Anyway, if I am successful in getting my new custom Upright Bass pickup installed today, with a proper practice session for an upcoming sub gig, maybe I'll have a chance to put the Supro Delay through its paces later today. I usually start with a Strat and the '57 Custom Champ, then the '65 Deluxe Reverb, to hear a new pedal fairly unbiased. It will get used on the very project I was struggling to edit, as it's a dub reggae song, with no guitar part yet.

[Caevan O’Shite]

48 minutes ago, Mark Schmieder said:

Wow, thanks for the El Capistan advice on dub/reggae. I have been interested in that pedal before, but didn't know it would be good for that genre.

 

My Supro Delay arrived yesterday, but I don't know when I'll have time to try it out, as I lost a gazillion hours the past two days unsuccessfully trying to find a cause and solution for Digital Performer suddenly no longer letting me go into Sequence Mode for audio editing and crossfading of tracks, in projects that have both Audio and MIDI. A complete mystery and I may be the only one experiencing the bug as no one else has chimed in yet.

 

Anyway, if I am successful in getting my new custom Upright Bass pickup installed today, with a proper practice session for an upcoming sub gig, maybe I'll have a chance to put the Supro Delay through its paces later today. I usually start with a Strat and the '57 Custom Champ, then the '65 Deluxe Reverb, to hear a new pedal fairly unbiased. It will get used on the very project I was struggling to edit, as it's a dub reggae song, with no guitar part yet.

Yeah, the El Capistan cops just about everything that various classic, vintage tape echo machines did and do. And it's VERY, VERY versatile.

The repeats can get darker and darker with each pass, like the Solid State EP3 Echoplex; or, depending on control-settings, brighter and crisper with each repeat, as the tube EP2 Echoplex can.

Best of luck with your problems and projects!!

I really like the smooth, warm, clean, liquid tone of the repeats on that Supro Delay!

By the way, I forgot to post the demo-videos that I was referencing when I tried to duplicate the sound of the Supro Delay pedal with my El Capistan (I could come VERY close, but not quite 100%):
 

 

 

[Mark Schmieder]

Yep, those were two of the best demos I found when I was deciding whether to buy the pedal. Pete Thorn in particular is my favorite demo artist.

 

The Expression pedal control will be perfect for dub/reggae, as we often don't want maximum effect until the end of a phraselet/lick.

 

This is an amazing pedal! It doesn't affect the basic timbre of the instrument, which was a complaint I had about the MMD and MXR as well as my Minigfooger. The latter does take an expression pedal and it's why I kept it, but you can't switch which parameter it affects. It does go to 1000ms though. And it seems to go even lower for slapback settings, than the new Supro pedal.

 

Maybe I'll keep both, or assign the Minifooger to keyboard duties. The Supro's a long-term keeper for sure. So glad I discovered it!

 

It's nice to be able to set the filter, for when you want the delayed sound to not soak up the entire frequency band.

[Caevan O’Shite]

KittycasterFX Groovy Wizard Fuzz Driver

I really like how very dynamically responsive this seems to be, how well it cleans-up and vice versa; it might be just the thing for when I want clean-to-mean-to-scream fuzz for some of my volume-swell and 'faux backwards recording' playing...
 

 

 

[hurricane hugo]

Looks like Fulltone's going under:  https://www.gearnews.com/fulltone-to-close-according-to-online-rumours/

[Caevan O’Shite]

35 minutes ago, hurricane hugo said:

Looks like Fulltone's going under:  https://www.gearnews.com/fulltone-to-close-according-to-online-rumours/

Yeah. Unfortunately. Particularly so for Fulltone's employees.

And there are several Fulltone pedals that I'd really like to have- pretty much 'best in class' items, even fairly unique- but I currently cannot afford to buy ANY pedals or anything. The prices for new/unsold pedals that various sellers might have in stock, as well as used specimens, are certain to skyrocket.
   
 

[surfergirl]

Some may know that I am not a Mike Fuller fan, but he does make some good pedals at a good price. I have 2b and he has some others I would considered. If he can't survive it makes me wonder if anyone except Boss, MXR and EHX can.  

Sad for the employees. I wonder he considered selling to them. 

[Winston Psmith]

I don't own any Fuller pedals, but at this point, I'd be reluctant to buy a new Fuller pedal as an orphan product, unless I were buying it for its investment potential. If something breaks, if it fails, if it's just plain wrong, there's no company to back up warranty claims, much like buying Vintage gear from defunct makers.

 

Honestly, if I were a major retailer/distributor like MF, or Sweetwater, I'd have to look very hard at any remaining Fuller stock, for that same reason. What do they do with returned Fuller gear that should still, in theory, be under warranty, once Fuller shuts down, and who pays for the return, or the refund?

[Caevan O’Shite]

11 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

I don't own any Fuller pedals, but at this point, I'd be reluctant to buy a new Fuller pedal as an orphan product, unless I were buying it for its investment potential. If something breaks, if it fails, if it's just plain wrong, there's no company to back up warranty claims, much like buying Vintage gear from defunct makers.

Unlike Mike Fuller's personal interaction skills, one thing that I can say for Fulltone pedals is that they very rarely ever fail.

They've long had a five year warranty; what's the warranty period on most other pedals? They currently still have the five year warranty and related info up on the site.

I have owned seven Fulltone pedals- I currently own six, as I gave one wah to a good friend whose Morley and Cry Baby wahs had broken down repeatedly (the Morley seemingly for the final time).

We're talking some as long as fifteen, maybe eighteen years plus, including some gigging for four years or so...

The only time one of my Fulltone pedals has been broken was when I accidentally dropped my second Clyde Deluxe Wah onto the other pedals on a board and cracked its plastic jack housing for an external power-supply plug. I can still run it on a battery, or even tape-up a PS plug to hold it in place; if I decided to, I'm pretty confident that I could get it repaired either by an authorized or recommended tech, or even just do it myself.

With the expected exception of the wah, none of my other Fulltone stomps has ever even needed so much as a spritz of CAIG DeoxIT D5- unlike some other maker's pedals that I have.

 

11 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

Honestly, if I were a major retailer/distributor like MF, or Sweetwater, I'd have to look very hard at any remaining Fuller stock, for that same reason. What do they do with returned Fuller gear that should still, in theory, be under warranty, once Fuller shuts down, and who pays for the return, or the refund?

I expect that Sweetwater, for one, will stand behind any new or 'open box', 'demo', or 'refurb'  Fulltone products the way they generally do. I don't KNOW that, but I'd be surprised if I'm wrong.

I couldn't blame anyone for avoiding Fulltone pedals for a number of reasons- not at all!- even if the manufacturing site wasn't shutting down and being sold.

I bought MOST of mine- maybe all?- before some of the more recent and most troubling Mike Fuller incidents to make shockwaves and incur boycotts and angry reactions.

But if I could afford to make any such purchases right now, there are several Fulltone pedals I'd really, really like to have for very specific reasons, that I would not hesitate to buy. Maybe used? Maybe discounted "Blems"? As they're among the most solidly built pedals in the history of stompboxes, that set the bar higher and influenced the entire industry, I personally wouldn't be very worried. But I also wouldn't fault anyone for not buying any of them- for any reasons.
  
 

[hurricane hugo]

this is a teaser; the unit's going to premiere Friday.

 

 

[Larryz]

I had a Silvertone piggy back amp just like the one shown in the video...sold it to my harmonica player back in the 70's.  He still has it and it's still a classic collector for some reason.  I have heard they are great for recording.  I hope the pedal does a good job as collectors want a lot of money for the real thing these days.  It was one of my 1st amps and I replaced it with a Fender Twin Reverb as I needed a more powerful amp back then.  I'm just wondering if this pedal will go direct to the PA or recording equipment, as I don't really see it improving the sound of just any old amp? 😎

[Mark Schmieder]

The Fulltone comments gave me a sick feeling, so I re-examined the ones I own, two of which are upgrades to Custom Shop models from owning the regular models previously. Sure enough, even without considering the Fulltone story, I found that I much prefer the newish EHX Glove to the OCD Germanium so will soon part with the latter now that I have the former. I find it warmer and more musical in general.

 

I plan to soon replace my Clyde Wah with the Vox Hand-wired Edition. Now I just have to decide how to remove the taint of the Custom Shop MDV-3 Mini DejaVibe Vintage Rotary Vibe/Chorus. I liked having it in an expression pedal format, and even got rid of my phaser pedal afterwards as I prefer this effect overall. Never really dug phasers on guitar but do you them on keys, where the classic EHX Nano Small Stone Phaser thrills me. I'm more inclined to use Aguilar Filter Twin Bass Envelope on bass guitar.

[Caevan O’Shite]

22 hours ago, Mark Schmieder said:

The Fulltone comments gave me a sick feeling, so I re-examined the ones I own...  Now I just have to decide how to remove the taint of the Custom Shop MDV-3 Mini DejaVibe Vintage Rotary Vibe/Chorus. I liked having it in an expression pedal format, and even got rid of my phaser pedal afterwards as I prefer this effect overall.

Since you like the sound of that for your guitars, why not just tape, sticker or paint over the brand and model names on the pedal? Said "taint" is only skin deep in this specific case, you like the sound, just not the name and its association... 
 
 

[surfergirl]

From Josh Scott, JHS pedals.

https://guitar.com/news/industry-news/jhs-pedals-josh-scott-fulltone-closure-boutique-industry-end-of-era-impact/

[Caevan O’Shite]

50 minutes ago, surfergirl said:

From Josh Scott, JHS pedals.

https://guitar.com/news/industry-news/jhs-pedals-josh-scott-fulltone-closure-boutique-industry-end-of-era-impact/

I saw that, too, and it was pretty good, if a little dry and slow and probably NOT interesting to people who don't use pedals and such.

I posted the following on Josh's (JHS's) YouTube video:


           
 

[surfergirl]

2 hours ago, Caevan O’Shite said:

I saw that, too, and it was pretty good, if a little dry and slow and probably NOT interesting to people who don't use pedals and such.

I posted the following on Josh's (JHS's) YouTube video:


           
 

At about 18:50 he caught my attention. As a surfer and also working the surf industry, we are dealing with the same issue hand built or machine built and hand finished. Altho it's been settled for several years, why pay $200 or $300 more for the same board. I think there is still a market for hand built/boutique product's whether it effects, amps, guitars, furniture, surfboards or other, but it doesn't necessarily mean better. 

[Caevan O’Shite]

Here's a really cool variation on the vintage Treble Booster theme, based on a Treble Booster that César Díaz modified for SRV and later released as the Díaz Texas Ranger pedal- the Pedal Pawn Texan Twang:
 

 

 

 

        
 

[hurricane hugo]

Variable coil-split mod for humbucking pickups. Won't do everything the HCP does, but still very worthwhile and you might not have to spend any additional cash:   https://www.premierguitar.com/diy/mod-garage/spin-a-split-wiring

[Caevan O’Shite]

Has this, the Mattoverse Electronics Air Trash, been posted about here before?

I like this...
 

        
 

[Winston Psmith]

The Air Trash reminds me of Catalinbread's discontinued Heliotrope, one of my favorite Crapulators. Part Ring Mod, part Fuzz, part "BOB"-knows-what?

 

Catalinbread coyly described the Heliotrope as an "Analog Bit Crusher" - there is no such thing, of course - because they weren't sure how else to describe what they'd come up with. This sounds like a close cousin.

[Caevan O’Shite]

8 hours ago, Winston Psmith said:

The Air Trash reminds me of Catalinbread's discontinued Heliotrope, one of my favorite Crapulators. Part Ring Mod, part Fuzz, part "BOB"-knows-what?

This sounds like a close cousin.
       

The Heliotrope has a lot more ring-mod in its mix, a LOT more, than the Air Trash does. (An aside- though I love its sound, I can't help but dislike the pedal's name!) I think I could use the Air Trash a lot more often than the Heliotrope, maybe even almost as often as 'normal', classic overdrive and distortion sounds; well, almost almost as often...

I'd say that the Recovery Effects and Devices Bad Comrade also belongs in this conversation- and in a club for malcontent troublemaker pedals; perhaps along with the Heliotrope and Air Trash as The Inner Squared Circle of the Hellfire Crapulator Lodge.  

The WMD Geiger Counter would take Dues; the Lastgasp Art Laboratories Octavella Upper Octave Feedback Fuzz would take down the Minutes. The Red Panda Particle, Adventure Audio Outer Rings, Alexander Radical Delay and Syntax Error would all be Charter Members...

The Recovery Effects Bad Comrade really appeals to me; I think I'd be able to use that more often than the Heliotrope, too.
    

[Winston Psmith]

The Heliotrope takes a lot of knob-twisting to find a sound, but I really like it.

 

I had a Bad Comrade, and after having it for a while, I lost interest in it. It just wasn't versatile enough for my purposes. Same thing with the Civilian Version of the Geiger Counter, although the full version seems MUCH more interesting.

 

I think the Malekko Scrutator or the EHX Mainframe would give you more variety of sounds, and more control. The Syntax Error is a lot of fun, capable of some very pleasing sounds, and others that'll strip the paint of an old truck.

 

Red Panda's Tensor is very high on my list, as it emulates some of the more interesting Tape Forward/Stop/Reverse effects of the Digitech Space Station. (I have a Space Station, but it never leaves my Music room.)

[Dannyalcatraz]

I splurged on the full version of the WMD Geiger Counter, and I have to say, for a craptulator, it’s full of crap!😜  There’s soooo much it can do, so many ways to mess your sound up…

 

And if we’re talking The Inner Squared Circle of the Hellfire Crapulator Lodge, the Metasonix Ass Blaster is either the president or the jerk they kicked out and blackballed.😂