According to the JHS website, the Spring Tank Reverb will be able to provide the washed out layers that only true amp style spring reverb can give you. The pedal brings you an arsenal of settings to tweak with an utilitarian simplicity and usability. The pedal features controls for Depth, Length, Highs, Boost (to control your overall volume) and Two independent and switchable reverb mixes called Tank 1 and Tank 2. Seems like a solid feature set from here, but lets take a closer look.
Springs
No, there aren't any springs in this pedal, but there is a lot more to this pedal than just simple reverb. The pedal sounds convincing. That right there makes this pedal a contender in the simple spring reverb 'boutique' market, but it has a few more tricks up it's sleeve. When running "regular" reverb, I do like the spring type. Plate, Hall, Room, and other types have their use, but the sound of springs just feels right to the ear for me. Real spring units are expensive and fragile. At this price point and quality, the Spring Tank is already a tempting option
Tanks
Why not just use the reverb on your amp? Well, if you are using an amp without a quality spring unit on board, then you're already out of luck. But the Spring Tank has the one-up on your amp's reverb. Tank 2 can be used as a second setting to be used on the fly. Set Tank 1 to your base level and then use Tank 2 for a huge, exaggerated sound, or anything else for that matter. What, your pedal only has one sound?
Boost
Yeah, this reverb has a boost in it. Any questions?
Other Features
Sure, this pedal has Depth and Length just like any other reverb, but you can set the brightness of your reverb so that it can sit in the back ground, or pop out in front. That not enough for you? Well, good. Because this pedal also has an effects loop that allows you to add addition effects just the reverb trails. You can even choose to only engage the effects loop when Tanks 2 in on. What more do you want?
Conclusion
Can you guess what I think about this pedal. I know this the Ugly Truth, but it's looking rather pretty from here. The Topanga, Dewdrop and Spring Thing are all in the same class as this pedal, but lets be honest. The feature set only makes this unit stand out. This pedal is well thought out and well executed. Personally, I get by with a digital reverb (gotta have my shimmer) but I have to hand it to JHS on this one. They put out a impressive pedal.
NAMM showed us lots of interesting pedals and gear, but something stuck out like a bad pun about British dental work. I'm talking about the Keeley D&M Drive. Sadly we can't call this the DM Drive because then we could pretend that it was some allusion to a D&D dungeon master. I mean, nerdy table top RPGs are better than out-and-out product hocking. Yes, this pedal in question is specifically designed for That Pedal Show's host's D-name and M-name. What does this mean and why is it ugly? Ehh... let's see:
Let's Face It
Basically this is a three knob drive pedal glued to a three knob boost pedal and sold as a custom(?) pedal. They did do something right. They made the pedal order switchable. You will be able to boost into the drive circuit or drive into the boost. That adds a great deal of range to the sounds this pedal is capable of. However, they'd be able to do more if you allowed for a loop in-between the two sides, but that is a little over-the-top for a drive boost combo. However, with a G2 system you can have full functionality with the press of a button. So, There's that.
Speaking Of Faces
Just that. You have D-name and M-name looking at you from the top of the pedal. It looks like that got the same guy that did the Rhett and Link logo, but they paid him in high-fives, and he was hung-over... from meth...(you get hung over from meth, right? you know what, don't answer that). It's not that bad. However, if you didn't know that D-name and M-name had a YouTube show about pedals, then you'd probably wonder why there is a bald man in front of a setting sun and a reject Doug character on the pedal.
It's Hard To Find
Right now there is little information about this pedal. Just finding an image is tough to do. In fact the most information right now is the actually video that D and M did at NAMM for Keeley. In the video, They quote the old joke about NAMM: NAMM, Not Available Maybe May... So, we might be looking a few months off before common folk like us can get our hands on it.
Conclusion
Based on the very little information that is available, it is very hard to come to any real conclusion. But what we can here in the NAMM video is pretty telling. There isn't anything objectionable in the video as far as I can hear. The drive is officially described as 'Tight' and the boost is called a 'mid-boost'. The best thing is to take a listen to That Pedal Show, and if you like their tones then this might be up your ally. So, when 'maybe-May' get around here and you have $229-249 to spare. You can have you're very own D&M.
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Diffidently not a new thing, but a huge trend this year at NAMM, the pedal board amp has seen a huge rise in popularity among manufactures. Seymour Duncan, among others, have put forth product that are designed to basically take the place of the power section of your amp. Vox has put out a tiny amp head that would be easy enough to mount on a board. Hotone has designed a 20 watt head that is to be paired with their amp model pedals to create a varity of tones. A conglomerit of boutique amp called Boutique Amps, have devised a system of enterchangable preamp circuits to recreate a range of... boutique amps. What does all of this have in common? Not very much, I kind of went off the rails there a little bit. What I want to talk about is that we are seeing tiny little power amps flood the market and what that fact means for the world of guitar players. Shall we?
First Things First
Guitar player hate change, or we love it depending on who you ask. I can't wait to see what pedal or piece of kit come out next. Then I plug my Telecaster directly into a Vox AC15... Loopers, Delays, pretty much everything Strymon does, has facilitated progression in the guitarist spectrum. However, we still love playing amps that were designed in the 1950s with antiquated technology. We can plug a pedal into a Blues Jr. to make it sounds like a space ship taking off and then talk about the richness and warmth that you value from that amp (to make space noises with).
Then Something Happens
Something that the average guitarist has is pedals. Collect a few of those, and you get a pedal board. The most common pedals, or the ones that seem to pile up, are drive pedals. The ones that give you a boost or gain can really help your amp be all that it can be. In fact, so pedals emulate completely different amps. Pedals like the 30 Something, or Golden Plexi practically tell you, "This is a Vox sound," or "This pedal sounds like a Marshall." So if your pedal sounds like an amp, what is your amp doing.
What Are We Doing?
On my board there are several pedal that handle Gain, EQ, Reverb... so I set my amp clean, flat and kill any reverb. If I set my amp to a nice tone (not hard) I will be finding it difficult to find a application other than simple signal processing for my pedals. However, set my amp flat, and I can use my pedals to create a wider range or tones leaning more heavily on the pedals to come up with the distinct sounds. What I'm saying is: you can have a range of great sounds from a particular amp, but they are going to sound like that amp, but a flat (pedal friendly) power section can give you more room to let you pedals shine through.
Conclusion
I meant to talk about amps like the one Seymour Duncan are putting out, but looks like I've just chased my tail for 500 words. Long story... still long actually... pedals are covering a multitude of tasks. Some of those tasks have long been associated with guitar amplifiers. As we are doing more signal processing before the amp, we are asking less of the actual amp. Thus, we are seeing amps that compliment this by having few features and simply push our tone into a speaker. I like this, and at the same time, I don't really like this.
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Keeley has been impressing us since they first started modding BOSS pedals. They were on the cutting edge of the big 'mod' boom. Then they developed a line of original offerings that continues to innovate and expand. Keeley have been able to offer effects that compete with any other pedal for top spot. Their new compressor is likely to be no less impressive. It already has a few things going for it. So let take a closer look.
It's Tiny
Yes, it is another tiny pedal in a 1590A enclosure. Although I do not like skinny, tiny pedal like these, the Keeley compressors have been high regarded as some of the best. Little is known about the particulars of this pedal (it's not even on the Keeley website yet) it resembles the C2 Signature compressor. That particular model is out of production and resembles the ROSS/|Dyna, two-knob style Compressors. So this pedal seems to take a little inspiration from the C2 and adds a Mix knob, which I Find to my liking.
Too Many Compressors
Keeley is no stranger to the compression game. Their four knob compressor was probably the most sought after compressor for a period of time. It's features and fidelity filled a gap in the market that took some of the largest effects manufactures by surprise and introduced guitar players to compressor that made little or no compromises with their tone. This pedal does have some parallels with another pedal in the Keeley line-up, or rather a part of a pedal. The Steak and Eggs pedal by both Keeley and JHS has been praise three ways to Sunday. Notably, the tiny compressor and the compression side of the Steak and Eggs share the same features: Level, Sustain, and Blend. Is this Keeley capitalizing on the success of their joint venture with JHS?
These Pedals Are Too Familar
Take this pedal and put an unfamiliar logo on it. Does it still seem desirable? These tiny pedals have been flooding in from China. My local music store has adopted a line of these tiny guys. They sell for about $40. Put this pedal next to a Chinese pedal and tell me if it's worth two and a half time the price. Maybe it is, but maybe it's not. You could argue that Keeley holds it's value and is a better investment and that dealing with an American company will offer you better customer service. You would be right on all accounts. But when looking at the direct utility of the pedals themselves, it might become difficult to justify the price. (even though the first time I saw the asking price of one of these I thought it was a steal for a Keeley Compressor)
Conclusion
I'm not going to pretend that I don't like this pedal. It's probably the most excited I've been about a compressor, perhaps ever. It's not often that compressor get a lot of hype. They are used as tools, like EQs and boosts. There just isn't the colorful language given to these pedal as there is to overdrive and distortions. But, this pedal has all the makings of a great option if you are looking for a Compressor. It is small, so if you run your Comp 'always on' then you don't have to worry about turning it off and on and how uncomfortable that can feel. The price makes it no more expensive than many others that offer similar (or even fewer) controls. It maybe different or flashy, but it may just be the best option for compression to come out in the last few years.
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I picked up a pedal a while back because I was temped by the price. For less than $40 I picked up a Jet City Buffered Line Driver. I've always been interest by Jet City's offerings. The designs are pretty impressive and the costs are rather low, so of coarse they are interesting. Jet City doesn't seem to design very much. What they seem to do is take a licensed circuit and lower the manufacturing costs by taking to the far east. This seems like a rock solid plan to sell gear to cash strapped musicians. However, few guitarist are using their stuff. Why is that?
The Line Driver Is Designed By Non-Other Than JHS
Yes, no matter how you feel about them, there are tons of people pay top dollar for JHS pedals. The average price of any pedal is about $200, some go for more than $300 and yet a $40 pedal design by the same minds that brought you the Color Box (one of the most heralded pedals of the recent past) gets overlooked. The JHS buffer sells for over $70. Considering that the Jet City pedal is a buffer, boost, and A/B, it seemed to be a whole lot more pedal for your money. JHS designed both of them. They may even share the same buffer circuit.
The Boost Is Clean...ish
Yes, it is a very simple boost. One knob is all it takes. No tone control, which puts you at the mercy of the circuit. This one is voiced a little fat. It's very transparent but it tames the highs. When using pedals like the Klon and other treble heavy pedals, a boost can send your tone into 'ice pick' territory very quickly. A single knob makes it foot-friendly. I paired this pedal with an AC15 with a Top Boost channel. It was practically the only thing you'd needed to have a load tones at your disposal. The A/B switches channels and the boost hit the pre-amp to add some overdrive. The fact that it's buffered lets you travel far from the amp without worry about your cable's impedance
Conclusion:
This pedal plays nice with a pedal board and all by it's self. It's a useful tool and one that has found a steady place on my board. With the popularity of true bypass pedals, buffers are becoming something people are starting to consider. Before, Boss and Ibanez pedals provided the buffers. Now, people get very particular about where and what kind of buffer they use. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact,. it's good that people are taking control over their tone. It's important to under just what happens to your signal as it passes through all those feet of cable. I can't speak for everything that Jet City makes, but this pedal is solid choice.
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If you suffer from GAS as I do, then you are probably aware of the influx of pedals from china. I'm not talking about BOSS, or Digitech, or Mooer, or Mod Tone or any of the other pedal brands that manufacture overseas. As I remember, it started with Joyo. They made a brand for themselves by mostly copying other pedals and rebranding them, all at discount prices. There has been several others to come about. These pedals have a bit of a stigma already. The first time I ordered a Joyo pedal, the wrong pedal came, and customer service was so bad that I opted to sell the pedal outright instead of returning it. There has been several brands to come about since, and service and quality seem to be improving as well. However Tone City don't seem to be turning out the 'same old stuff' as these other brands. When I first saw their pedals, I did think they were just shined up Chinese copies. To start, you can find lists of the pedals that most of their micro-pedal like is emulating. What caught my attention was their release of their larger, seemingly more original, pedals. I learned of these when I saw my favorite two Brits fool around with them:
Chappers and The Captain are amusing to watch and their production quality is nearly unmatched on YouTube. Something that you have to remember is that they are representing a store. This store sells the products that they are demonstrating. Bare in mind that it would not be beneficial for them to complain about or criticize these pedals. They are going to speak favorably about them, but one thing that Lee 'The Captain' Anderton said made my ears perk up. Most of these dual button Tone City pedals are voiced like very particular amps. All except one, one is just called, "King of Blues". Lee mentioned that he thought that it could be a aNaLoG MaN King of Tone clone. I decided to find out for myself.
I Haven't Played A King of Tone
So this first one is telling on myself. I haven't had a chance to play through one of the more iconic boutique pedals. I have listened to many high quality demonstrations, but I know that there is a lot missing from these. There is no way of sensing the attack sensitivity or feeling how the pedal reacts with the amp. I will say that I've heard a wide range of tone from this one pedal. Obviously the amp these pedal being played through are very important, also the guitar and anything else that is in-line with the pedal. So everything taken with a grain of salt, the KOT is a full sounding flexible overdrive. It is capable of clean-ish 'transparent' boost and thick saturated overdrive. So I may not have played one of these pedals, but I've spent a lot of time researching just what makes this pedal so sought after.
The Pedal Has A Mix Message
Several descriptions of this pedal include that the first stage of this pedal is a straight Klon copy. Stating the the second stage is an 'original' design. I find this a little over simplified. I also think that this description is a little lazy. However, you can't dismiss it entirely. Tone City makes a spot on Klon copy in the 'Bad Horse' pedal. The famous circuit shrunk down just like the Tumnus from Wampler. This is completely likely, however, the KOT and the Klon have similar features as it stands, so the comparisons between each of these pedals may not be totally baseless. I've recently put the King of Blues pedal against every Klon circuit I could get my hands on, and my verdict is that it may share characteristics, I can't say that its a direct copy of the Klon. For one, the Tone knob works like a tone knob (low pass filter) rather than a treble boost. The amounts of gain are similar but the output from the pedal is notably less. The King of Blues of much warmer than any Klon or Klone that I've ever played. From what I've heard of the Tone City 'Bad Horse' (klone) these are not the same circuits.
If It Is A KOT Clone, Then I Have Bad News
Let's say that this is a KOT copy. The real deal goes for north of $300. That's three times the price I paid for this pedal. That's KTR money. Sure, there are other pedals that fetch that kind of money, but what is really striking is that the pedal is only so-so. I do like the pedal. It is capable of several good sounds, and it is really flexible. Two 'channels' make it a great option to handle your overdrive tones. But, if this is a actuate copy of the famous pedal, then I don't see what is so great about it. I'm able to do everything this pedal does with a couple of other overdrives already on my board. This might have had the appeal at the beginning of the boutique boom, but now it's just riding the way of hype from its glory days.
Conclusion
This is a fine pedal. If you are looking for a multi-stage low/medium gain overdrive then this might be the thing for you. I'd put it above a Fulltone Fulldrive (a pedal that I don't really care for all that much), but I'm probably not going to replace what I already have on my board with this. There might be certain situations that I'd prefer this pedal to others, like if I wanted to run a small-ish board for some running around, but it fall short of the litany of pedals that occupy my board. Its good, but it's not "sell all your pedals now and get one of these" good.
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Before I get into talking about whatever this post is about, Id like to take a second and say that Brian Wampler of Wampler Effects commented on my post about his new overdrive pedal. You get see that here.
Take a second and thing about your most recent music-related purchase. Regardless how much you spent, it probably wasn't the first or last purchase you'll make. I own several guitars at varying prices. With that I have amps, and effects. I also have accessories that complement these things (cables, pedalboards, capo, stands, cases). Over the many years I've played music, I've amassed quite a bit of expensive gear. I try not to spend boat load of money (mostly because I don't have it) by budgeting and saving. I also buy most of my gear used. This is tricky, and you must be able to tell a diamond in the rough from a turd.
The key to not spend too much money of music gear is to be happy with what you have. I know that acquiring new things is fun. I love to get a new piece of gear and analyze it to death. How is this drive different than this other drive? What can I do with two delays that I can't do with one? Yes, you might be able to do more with more, but why not challenge yourself to do more with less (or maybe with what you already have). Most of the guitar players that we idolize had nothing between them and their amps but a guitar lead. We over complicate sometimes to compensate.
I for one will be reworking my sound from the ground up. The very foundation of our sound comes from our chops. So much time and effort go into "shaping our tone", but could our skills be what really need developing. I'll admit, buying a pedal is easier than devoting the time and effort it better our abilities. Am I going to start playing without effects? HA! no. What will do is take that money that I usually invest in gear and converting it into time to invest into where the real tone comes from: my hands!
If you take a look at some of the other posts here, you can tell that I am quite a fan of effects. I have more posts about guitar effects pedals than anything else. That might not be your bag, in fact there are many people who don't share my passion for these little boxes of joy. Ok, that's fine, but why not? Let's look at why effects aren't the end-all be-all that I feel deep down inside they are...if I have to.
1. They don't help
Yes, they do, but not the way you think. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. If you have a pedal in your chain, then you may be adding something you didn't intend on adding. First, the pedal you are adding may have a buffer that your signal passes through even when the pedal is off. These buffers are added to increase your signal strength so you won't have signal loss over long stretches of cable. Sounds great, right? Well, not all buffers are equal. Some can change your sound. Most are minimally intrusive, but others can really color your sound. What if your chain is all true-bypass? Running a total of thirty feet of cable is enough to take a toll on your sound. Most rigs will run close to thirty even if there aren't many pedals on your board. Now add all those patch cables and you're probably at or over 30 feet.
2. They change your tone
You might be thinking that the point of a pedal is to change your tone, but not in all cases. Volume, boost, comp, noise gate shouldn't change the overall tone of your sound. In many cases this is true to some extent. Think about it. What kind of electronic wizardry do you have to employ to change your sound without actually changing the tone? When you run your signal through a chain, you always effect your tone. Whether it is true-bypass or buffered, there is always an unwanted effect even when the pedal is off. When the effect is on, that's another matter. Many noise gates will clip even some of the wanted signal. Comps and boosts can add noise. Volume pedals can be scratchy. There is always a give and take when running pedals.
3. They over promise
I'm looking at you Digital Effects. My very first guitar effect was a Digitech RP100 Multi-effects unit. I used that thing all the time. It made lots of different sounds. Many effects I didn't use, but I learned how to use overdrives and delays. I also learned how to turn knobs and push buttons till it wasn't fun anymore. The idea was that these were the answer to all of your problems. Every type of effect could be dialed in and stored in a huge bank of presets. It was a great idea. However, the sounds that actually came out of the unit were not the best. Actually, my little Crate practice amp made so much better sounds that even a novice, like I was, could tell right away. I know that not every Digital Effect is like this, but if it seems to good to be true, it probably is.
4. ... and under deliver
In the same way that some effects can promise the world and end up underwhelming, some effects make claims that seem reasonable, but still seem to be lacking. In the case of the Joyo green fuzz box (I forget what its really called), it combines fuzz and octave. This sounds like a great combination, but in practice the effect was not as well conceived as one would like. For one, the octave was only available when the fuzz was on. There was no way to control how present the octave was. Another pedal that tried to do a little too much was the Rout 66 from Visual Sound. The OD and Compressor were both available independently, but the controls seemed to be a little lacking. Given the price of these pedals, it might have served better to buy two separate pedals.
5. They're expensive
If you are anything like me, you've taken a look at your gear and added up the cost of all the things you've collected over your career. I've had thousands of dollars of gear just on my board. While its easy to point to guitars as being the real expense, pedals and other gear can easily cost just as much, if not more than the guitar you use. I've purchased more than one pedal in the last month, but I haven't bought a guitar in years. I'm a little hesitant to add up all the money that I've spent on pedals, partly because it might take awhile and partly because my wife reads my blogs. (I love you, wifey!)
There are many reasons to use pedals. Some sounds are impossible to get without them. I've made my position clear on how I feel about them, but they aren't completely great. There are intended and unintended effects with these pedals. Just be aware of these things when the thought that adding that one pedal will make everything better.
Springs
