Digitech Whammy Ricochet Pitch Shift Pedal

With the trend of shrinking pedals, Digitech has graced us with the smallest Whammy pedal ever. It raises a few question with its release. Is a whammy a whammy if it doesn't have a rocker? Do we need another pitch shifting pedal with everything else on the market? Does it still have the same mojo as the original? Well, I guess that's what we are here to find out.

Haven't We Seen This Before?

Yes. Yes, we have. The EHX Pitchfork, the BOSS PS-5 (and others), even Digitech had a similar pedal with the Drop, so why come out with this. Well, the size is one reason. The original Whammy pedal is huge. As large or larger than your wah pedal. This pedal makes pitch shifting in a manageable box. Although if that's all you wanted then the Drop would be enough. So what sets this pedal apart. Like the Dirty Robot, what sets this apart is control. The effects other than your basic pitch shifting are what need to be stressed here. The speed of the shift can be adjust independently. This allows for unique and flexible effects. While it looks like something we seen before, it has some new feature under the hood.

It's New And Old

Yes, it has a lot of new features and the pitch bends are smooth and track well. But there are some that are fans of the original. It had tracking issues that made it an effect in and of its self. That voice is still in this box. You can switch between the polyphonic tracking or the original tracking of the old whammys. This is a smart move. This pedal can replace your old clunky whammy rocker for good. Not to mention, it makes recreating the exact pitch-bending speed super easy. No longer do you have to develop those killer ankle muscles.

There Is Still A Little Room From Improvement

Yes, this pedal is a solid offering from Digitech. It is well needed and timely, but it seem to have overlook something. There is a interesting LED arrangement on the left. I don't dislike this. It is a visual reference that might be helpful, but what would be more helpful is an expression out. Yes, there are other Whammy pedals that can help you out, but why not make a pedal with a bit more flexibility. It would be a welcome replacement for the column of lights in my opinion.

Conclusion

Although their is some room for improvement, this is still one of the best pitch-shifter pedals. It sounds great, and you can still get those old sounds out of it. You can emulate a trem-arm and make other cool sounds with it's flexible controls. This is pedal is a welcome addition to the whammy line, and it might be just what you need if you can live without using the rocking motion to control the pitch.

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Ugly Truth: MXR Reverb

Can you believe that MXR has been making pedal for a million years and they've never put out a reverb? Ok, So maybe not a million years, but for a company that has been around as long as I've been buy pedals, its a wonder that they haven't made some type of Reverb just so that they have an option for the MXR loyal. Now they have, what do we think about it?

It's Limited

With features like 6 different types of reverb (with 2 shimmers!) you might not call it limited right off the bat, but look a little closer and you realize that when you compare it to the BOSS RV-6. It comes up wanting. This pedal is not stereo (unless it has a stereo input... which it does! So disregard) and there is no expression input(Edit: there is one! JK everybody.). Yep, looks like the RV-6 mops the floor with this pedal. Looking online and the only price I can find is $199. Seems like a bit much for a pedal that comes up lacking compared to the $150 RV-6 (or, you know, covers its bases compare it it...)

Other Things

Look, I like MXR. They have provided us with some great pedals, but sometimes you feel like some things are left overlooked. The power jack typically found on the top of most pedals are found of the side of most of MXR's (and not always the same side) The selection of the reverb type is done by pressing a button. This isn't a major make-it-or-break-it thing, but it is out of the ordinary. It's not like you can't fit six modes on a rotary switch (BOSS has 8!). So, what gives? Don't want to stray away from the three-knob motif established by the Carbon Copy? I mean, I dig motifs as much as the next guy, but this just doesn't make sense to me.

Conclusion.

I dig it. I want to hear these shimmer settings. They might be the only thing that saves this pedal from being too little too late. Reverb pedals are always exciting to try out. A subtle setting is important, but just as important is the limits of these pedals. Most any reverb will give a little verb, but they distinguish these pedals. The EHX Holy Grail adds a bizarre metallic sound when full tilt. The RV-6 by BOSS will drone and swell. Let's wait and see what this pedal will do when pushed.

Edit: I did here these two shimmers (pad and epic) They sound amazing... is it worth an extra $50... pretty darn close...

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Hands On Review Of The Electo Harmonix Crayon Overdrive

There has been a lot of talk about this little pedal. Most web-stores don't even have the Crayon on there sites yet. A local store selling through Reverb.com was able to hook me up with one. The main thing is that everyone wants to know what other pedal it sounds like. Well I've tried it out and I can now tell you. However, that would be blowing my load a little too soon. So here's what owning and using this particular pedal has shown me.

It's Pretty Good. 

A lot of people liked what they heard from the EHX video demos. The Soul Food was a huge hit, so when they debuted a new light/medium overdrive peoples ears perked up. The Four knobs are a departure from most of their small drive pedals. Giving us Bass and Treble to manipulate is a step up. The clipping is musical and satisfying. The Bass and Treble are responsive and flexible. The Gain take you from clean to filthy with a twist. There is plenty of meat on these bones too. Playing a Tele through a Vox AC15 you'd expect twangy and spanky, but with this pedal engaged you plenty of grunt to thicken up that Tele sound.

The Name Is A Little Silly, Considering...

This pedal is one of the best clean boosts with the gain dialed back. It really preserves the sound of your guitar when playing through it. It doesn't jack with your tone in a bad way. Tube screamers will always add that mid-hump, but this pedal, when set correctly, will give you your tone right back to you, only louder. But not much louder. Much of the volume remain hidden until you start to add gain. But that is the reason to buy an overdrive, right? Besides being named after a childish art utensil, "coloring you tone" is considered a no-no, so when the hype video said the pedal did just that, well, it was a little bit of a face-palm moment.

It Gets You Close To That Sound With Minimal Effort

If you look at my pedal board, you will see that I like stacking my gain pedals. I have a Soul Food almost always on and cranked up to push the next pedal (Tube Screamer/OCD/Super Badass). Some times I'll run the TS into the OCD to get really noisy. I like combining Overdrives with other pedals to simulate the effect of a overdriven amp while keeping to bedroom levels. Not to say that other pedals need  a another in front of it, but this pedal has gotten pushed-a-little-too-hard (in a good way) sound all by it's self. There are a lot of things that I like about the Soul Food in this pedal, but mixed with better EQ and great clipping section.

In Conclusion

If you are in the market for a single pedal to do must of the heavy lifting of your dirt section and don't want to full with stacking different pedals, then this might be right up your ally. What the Soul Food lacks in flexibility, The Crayon Does rather well, with the bonus of being transparent in the best way possible. This pedal is a little more than just the "pre" section of you gain section. It has the grunt to be your entire overdrive section. It does play well with other though. Especially if the other pedal is heavier. All in all this pedal is a great box. Even if it turns out to be heavily "inspired" by another pedal, this pedal is a great addition to an already pretty stellar list of pedals in EHX's line.

GMF Bullseye Pedals

GMF amps is a little company that mostly produces an acoustic DI. This DI has been featured by Guitar Player magazine, but for most of the guitarist community, they are an unknown. A visit to their webpage will only bring you information about the DI and a small line of effects that are now in development. In fact, this company relies on Kickstarter campaigns the fund the production of its effects. This actually makes a lot of sense and seems to limit the cost of the units. In stead of taking a gamble on mass production, or charging a mint for small batch pedals, GMF will know exactly how many unit they need to sell. This could change the way small effect developers create and distribute their products.

A Closer Look

Lets start with the Distortion.

GMF Touts "Proprietary circuits" for each of their designs. This is somewhat of a good sign considering how many cases of effect companies cloning each others circuits (I'm looking at you, EHX) However, there is something that look a little suspicious. Maybe it's the model name "DS-1" that has has been everyone's first distortion pedal ever (the Boss DS-1). I'm not say that it is a DS-1 clone... MXR has that down, but that could have called it anything else and it would be better.

There is a Chorus

 So this is the Bullseye Chorus. Organic and lush, this chorus is a reminder of more classic effects. The pedal is warm, like a CE-2 with the added benefit of a level knob. Fans of the old school will probably appreciate this pedal for it's subtle qualities. However, dramatic 'warble' sounds are possible with this unit as well. This really is an expressive unit. GMF's description states that you can use this unit with a varity of instruments, and I believe that claim.

And a Delay

The DL-1 is a simple analog delay that seems to fit in with the rest of the lot. Warm, analog repeats are present. The delay time might be limited, but super long delays are for the digital units. If you are looking for a warm, vintage sounding delay, then this might be a option for you.

The Reverb

Those looking for the Fender verb in a can may see themselves picking up one of these units. The Two knobs make this pedal very simple, however limited. The unit emulate a spring reverb, and calls to mind the spacious sounds made by a clean Fender amp. There isn't much you can do to improve on that.

Conclusion

These pedals may not be game changing in them selves, but the space saving design (they are about the size of two 'micro' pedals side by side, and top-oriented jacks make them pedal board savvy. The option to power them with a 9-volt or a power adapter is nice to see in small pedals. These pedals are what the big effect companies try to be, relevant.

Ugly Truth Review: Boss RV-6 Reverb

I was able to sit down recently with the new reverb pedal from Boss. I was quite excited because the demo the made this pedal look like a pedal with more than just a subtle effect. Reverb is something that not all player enjoy. I never used reverb much for a long time, because I saw it as something that made everything sound mushy. I played a lot of punk/rock/metal tunes that didn't quite jive with jangly reverb, but now my style of playing has changed (or at least I play more types of music). So I've found my self using the reverb on my amp, and then I used the reverb on my Line6 M5. So My attention was peaked when I saw all the features of the RV-6.

It's A Reverb Pedal

Yes, it's true, this pedal is exactly what it says it is. The Shimmer and Dynamic settings are new and very enjoyable. I found myself spending the most time with these two new settings. This is probably due to the fact that I, and most other people, are familiar with the other types of reverb. But with is neat is that these effects are more of a "special" effect than an emulation of what amps already do. This pedal does reverb just as well as its older sibling, the RV-5, but has more to offer. The stereo operation is still intact, and the sound quality is just as good or better than before. There really is no setting that is "to far" that you can't make some musical noise out of it, unlike the EHX Holy Grail (not saying that 'to far' is always 'to far'). If you like a good reverb, this pedal is probably the best and most flexible I've played in a long time.

It's More Than A Reverb

I've talked about the new feature of this pedal, and there are several, but the most exciting to me was the fact that you can set the pedal for 100% wet signal. I've become a little more versed in the world of ambient noise and like the idea of a pedal that makes just that. These features, as well as the expression pedal input, suggest that this pedal can do more than just make reverb. In fact, much of my time with the pedal was making strange noises with it. I've mentioned the Holy Grail reverb earlier. That pedal is great when set at reasonable levels. Once you start to crank it, however, thing take a turn for the unmusical. This is not true for the RV-6. Run this pedal full bore and you still get usable, if not a bit "over the top" reverberations. The Expression capabilities are a fun thought. Being able to swell reverb is something that seems applicable in certain situations. No longer is a reverb relegated to subtle "after-note" effects, but can actually made a big difference in the tone and vibe of your playing.

Conclusion

I like this pedal. It may be the most excited I've ever been about reverb. Everything sound great and the controls are dead simple. It's really easy to dial in a tone you're looking for. If you are in the market for a reverb, then you should check this one out. If you like to make weird noises and you want a pedal to help with that, then you should check this pedal out. Other pedal that create just a fraction of this pedals range sell for what you'd pay for this unit or more. Do your self a favor and take a good look at the RV-6 from Boss. It's a reverb that gives you a lot more than "reverb".

The Ugly Truth About TC Electonic's Dark Matter Distortion

If there is anything in the world that gets my attention, it is guitar gear that's cheap. I'll rummage through a whole heap of junk to get to a great pedal that is reasonably priced. There are tonnes of great options in the $150-200 range, but lets get real, I got about $50 to spare, so I'm looking a lot lower than a car payment when shopping for pedals. That being said, I came across TC Electronic's Dark Matter Distortion for $50 and did a double take. Normally priced north of a hundred US bones, the Dark Matter is one of only 2 distortion boxes made by the highly praised effects company. These people put out quality stuff, but they are more known for their Hall of Fame reverb and Dito Loopers, than their dirt.

If you watch their promotion video about the Dark Matter Distortion, then you notice that they came how uncompressed the pedal sounds. This was great news because the only real complaint that I had about my current distortion pedal is that it tended to get rather compressed when the gain was turned up. If you've read about my adventures with back-orders, you know that I originally ordered this pedal online. It never came, but I was able to find it at a local music store. I ran through a clean fender amp and used a double humbucker equipped guitar. Setting the EQ flat on the amp, I started the pedal off with low gain. These sounds are nice. Compared to the Rottweiler, this pedal can actually clean up quite a bit. It's not going to be a very "clean" boost, but if you want to punch up a lead with more volume and a bit of dirt, this could do it.

Where this pedal comes alive is when the gain is past noon. It wants to rock. I found myself messing around with heavy metal riffs and chunking along like I knew what I was doing. The clipping is smooth and natural sounding. It doesn't get hissy when pushed. The pedals "noise" level is very low. Open chords ring out rather nicely, and the voicing option is really nice. It takes this great sounding distortion and gives it a little more flexibility. I did start to notice that there was something missing from this equation though.

Even though this pedal is a steal at $50, (if it is still at that price) there is a trend right now that a lot of guitarist, including myself, are really enjoying. Pedals are being designed with transparency in mind. More and more guitarist are relying on their guitars and amp for the majority of their tone, and when they turn a pedal on they want that sound to still be the bones of their tone. Many pedals tend to hijack the sound. Chief among these are one that alter the sound the most, like Distortions. Active EQs and lots of saturation will take over most any guitar, but there are some pedals being designed with Blend knobs that mix in clean signal to the effect. This is a bit of electronic wizardry, and it is wonderful.

In conclusion, I like this pedal. It is worth the $50. If you are looking for a great distortion for minimal investment, then look no further. For what you'd spend on a Boss DS-1 you can pick up a better sounding and more flexible pedal. If you have a distortion that you are satisfied with, but looking to expand you sound, then maybe this one isn't for you. It does do nice things, but it's probably not different enough from your current rig for you to go running out and buy one. It's got, but not exactly "standout".

The Ugly Truth About TC Electronic Rottweiler

Ever on the look out for pedals that are stellar, I was browsing in one of my local music stores and noticed a TC Electronic Rottweiler. TC Electronic is more known for their filter and modular effects, but they do have dirt boxes as well. I decided that I needed to give them a try. What I learned surprised me.

My set-up was a Fender Tele Deluxe, into the Rottweiler, to a Peavey Classic 50. The Deluxe and the Peavey tube amp was a great combo. Great American sounds came chiming out. Que the record scratch because when the Rottweiler was turned on, everything changed. Before engaging the pedal I tried to achieve the "on the edge" sound with the amp. No go. If I wanted to sit in front of the amp and not have my ears bleed that is. (even with a master volume) So on came the pedal. Distortion is an understatement. I'm not much of a Metal player, so I won't claim it's great for Metal, but the tones were there. I rolled the gain all the way back and there was still no sign of letting up. There was no sign of my original sound either. The tone and dynamics were completely hijacked. Like a dog with a bone, this pedal was carried away.

The Ugly: Not Transparent, Little Gain Control

The Pro: True Bypass, Solid Construction

The Conclusion: The Pedal doesn't share. The tend in pedal have been to mix clean signal in a mix with dirt, but this pedal didn't get the memo. If you want the Rottweiler to keep some of your guitar's tone in the mix, then you'll probably get bit.

The Ugly Truth About TC Electronic MojoMojo Overdrive

I took a trip to my local guitar Mecca and had a look around. I had been feeling like I need to get something out of the ordinary. Something that will challenge and inspire me in certain intangible ways (I wanted a new piece of gear). So, armed with a tiny budget and a little bit of trade-stuffs I ventured forth. What I found was something that caught my attention. It was the TC Electronic MojoMojo Overdrive. Four knobs and a micro toggle on an OD pedal was enough to temp me. Nearly all my dirt are three-knob-jobs, so I wanted to see if this could offer something that I currently cook up with my rig.

First I ran Modern Player Tele through the Mojo into a little Yamaha lunch box amp. My first thoughts were not good. I fiddled with knobs and ran through pickup selections and nothing was good. Of course this could have been due to the 2.5 inch speaker on the Yamaha amp so I changed to a Fender Deluxe Reverb. Clean sounds were great (duh) but this is about a pedal. I fiddled and fiddled with the pedal, looking for the sweet spot that would make the sound that is currently unavailable to me. I never found it. There was some nice voices that I found in the pedal, but nothing that made me want to commit. The best tones of the day were found running straight to the Deluxe. Here is how you know I was underwhelmed, it was new and half price.

The Ugly: It was generic, bland, didn't control low well, not very transparent.

The Pros: It was cheap(ish) and had great build quality

The Conclusion: The MojoMojo lacked just that, Mojo.

The Ugly Truth About The Hardwire DL-8 Delay Looper

In search of a possible alternative to my trusty DD-20 Delay from Boss, I sat down with the Hardwire DL-8 Delay/Looper. In many repects the Hardwire pedal is the equal to any from the boss line. Offering a load of useful features, that you can read in full detail elsewhere, The DL-8 closely aligns its self to the Boss DD-7. It outshines it with more delay time and a few extra settings, such a Lo-Fi and Slapback that allows you to really scrutinize the delay time of your slap. Lo-Fi is an intresting setting. It allow the trails to get covered by the guitar's dry signal allowing you tone to remain unmuddied by delay trails in busier parts of the song. All in all its a solid little pedal. But its not all so pretty...

Its Awkwardly Sized

This pedal was thought through. The packaging is definitely a step above the rest. It comes with pre-cut velcro and a cover to keep your knobs from turning. I like that they have thought about these things. It makes it easier for those that run pedalboards and need to secure their settings. The wide footprint, however,  is evidence that these pedal were designed before the "micro" fad really hit its stride. EHX and Line6 both had large delay boxes that were doing very well, so when this had come out it was considered middle of the road. I like the sturdy feel, but  I also have a small pedalboard. I don't know if they needed the extra room due to pedal design, but it is a little bit of an odd shape for a single button pedal. Maybe they couldn't fit all that delay into a "standard" size box.



It's True Bypass-ish



 There is a hidden switch they've included. Which I'm sure does something. However, knowing what I know, I can feel pretty sure saying that the switch does little in the way of bypassing the entire pedal. Like most of the pedals built in the "Boss" style, it has a momentary switch and that corresponds with a flip flop circuit and that by nature is not "true" bypass. I believe that it might bypass the buffer, or even the whole delay circuit, but that pedal wont switch without running though that flip flop. But the option to have a truer bypass is nice. I wish Boss would follow suit. This is a great feature and out of the box thinking, but before we praise them too much for their features, there is one feature that is such an oversight that Homer Simpson called them to tell them they were idiots.



There Is No External Tap Tempo Out



Sweet mercy! This is this the mother of blunders! To their credit, The Hardwire series that Digitech designed was put out just before everyone went crazy about tapping their tempos. Some of the bigger boxes like the Line6 DL4 and Boss DD-20 had either a disignated tap tempo button or jack for an external pedal. The DD-7, the most comparable pedal to this one, has nearly every feature plus the external tap tempo for the same money and less space on the pedalboard. However these pedals were most like designed at the same time by different people, so it is not like that had something to compare themselves to. Actually when you compare this pedal to the Boss DD-6, the Hardwire DL-8 beats it on all fronts. The DD-6 has less delay time and no external tap temp out. Too bad Boss upped the ante with the DD-7 and supplied a feature that was actually in demand.




Looper Might Be A Bit Of An Exaggeration.




To be honest I bought this pedal for a delay, but the Looper feature was surprisingly useful. I'm not a particularly enthusiastic fan of loops, but they can be useful. I use a Digitech JamMan for a band that was the only guitar player for. The looping feature is similar to the Sound On Sound feature found on most Boss delays. In fact, Boss could call all of their delay pedals delay/looper if Hardwire can call this pedal a looper. If you are looking for a delay and don't have great need of a superlative looping pedal, then this works for you. The best feature of the loop setting is that it is triggered by the input, making the beginning of the loop easier to start than timing the perfect stomp. This works at a great practice tool, but I wouldn't buy this pedal for the Looper portion of it name.


In Conclusion


Buy a Boss DD-7. I find it very hard to use delays much longer than a few seconds, so the difference, to me, in the max delay time means little. The setting are almost exactly the same and an external tap temp option means a lot. Hardwire might be going the way of the Dodo so there are chances to get these pedals at closeout prices. Digitech, the makers of Hardwire, played their hand wrong. Everything about the pedal says "quality" but its just a little too underdeveloped. Its not a bad pedal, but it can't compete with the other options in its bracket.

Behringer UT-100 vs Boss TR-2 Tremolo Showdown

Years ago I picked up a Tremolo from Boss. A lot of my experience with effects start with getting a boss pedal and then finding something I like better. It would be fair to say that I've compared a lot of similar pedals to one another. Although my Boss TR-2 tremolo pedal has stayed around for a long time. Tremolo is such a simple effect that its easy to assume that most are relativity the same. The Boss TR-2 is considered by many the standard in tremolos. Many pedals have more features and functions. Some Uni-vibe clones are loaded with neat features, but the three knobs that come with the Boss are enough to get a wide range of sounds. Rate, Wave, and Depth are very descriptive. My Vox, with fantastic vibrato, doesn't even give you the wave shape to fiddle with. So I sat down with my work horse TR-2 and Behringer's most economical offering to decide if a pedal that is less than a quarter of the price could stand up to my current choice of Trems.







Boss TR-2












I picked up this pedal used for less than half the price of what it normally runs. Then I did a little messing around with it. I modded it with Mounte Allum's TR-2 mod to add a level knob. You also replace an opamp in this mod. There is a noticeable difference given the extra volume, but for this test I found unity gain as not to give an unfair advantage. I found some great sounds with little effort. It recreated the Vox vibrato and classic Tremolo with just the turn of a few knobs. It was very musical and flexible. You could dial in anything from soft, subtle vibe to spacey Tremolo. That's why I keep it around. No surprise I found it agreeable. These Behringer pedal are supposed to be Boss clones so I was excited to have a pedal that would be close to the same as one that I liked so much. Not to mention it cost a faction of the cost of new Boss TR-2







Behringer UT-100







Right off the bat the Behringer had a harder edge than the Boss. I dialed the Shape knob all the way down to the curvy wave. It helped, but I found myself wanting to turn past the point where it stopped. I tried to match the Boss's vibe, coming in and out like the chimey vibe of the Vox. No go. The UT-100 had a much sharper shaped wave no matter where it was set. I was able to get a usable routery cabinet sound, but for the most part I found it to sound a little harsh. The Behringer also produced some digital artifacts that were not musical. If you take the Wave knob all the way to the square wave, then you just get an abrupt on/off signal that more or less spits segments of tone at you. These setting is not enjoyable, but may be useful if looking to make you sound less like a guitar in general.







The Conclusion







The Boss TR-2 is hard to beat. The Behringer's price is just about the least amount of money you can pay for an effect. If you did buy the Behringer, then you'll wont to upgrade down the road. The sounds you can successfully pull off are limited. It's a little difficult for me to praise Boss as I often find there are better pedals in nearly every category, but it looks like the only thing that Behringer has done with this pedal is take a horible effect that you might find stuck in a budget multi-effect pedal and put it in a single pedal format. Literally, this pedal is just on the verge of unusable. It is nowhere close to the TR-2. Maybe the UT-300 is improved in some way. I couldn't imagine it being any worse.