Ugly Truth: Outlaw Effects New Pedals

With Summer NAMM coming around the corner, we have some new products coming out of the woodwork. As I was running through my Twitter feed, I noticed that Outlaw Effects has four new products coming out. Outlaw makes effects that competes with the more inexpensive effects, but hold their own with the most established pedals on the market. So what's new with Outlaw Effects? Well, for the most part, it's not effects.

More Power!

 

 

Two of the new products that Outlaw have out are power related. This is a little surprising, but not a bad idea. This helps to round out their line and helps the Outlaw faithful to fully equip their boards with more Outlaw. The first is the Kerosene power supply($69). It's dressed up, so it can be on top of your board if you like. It features eight 300 milliamp 9 volt power. This is plenty to power most if not all of Outlaw's effects (not sure of the power consumption on their reverb or delay). What isn't here is something to power the more hungry effects. Most digital delays and reverbs are going to want around 500 milliamps, so you may have to look elsewhere to power those. But fear not. Elsewhere is only as far as the Iron Horse tuner/power supply($75). Instead of 8-300 milliamp spots, we get 2-500 milliamp and 6-100 milliamp outs. This makes these two a pretty sweet package. No word on whether these are isolated outs, but my money is on not. If it was, then I would expect that would be highly publicized.

Solid Choices

Outlaw are also adding the Lasso Looper($79) and updated Six Shooter tuner($39) to their fold. The tuner sounds like it was sorely needed. Some reviews reveal that the functionality of tuner 1.0 may have been less than some of the competition. Personally, if it doesn't perform at least as well as my trusted TU-2, then it doesn't work well enough. I owned Fender's pedal tuner for a short time. It was awful and probably never actually tuned a guitar. I returned it and bought my TU-2 and it has been faithful ever since (considering the TU-2 was replaced with the TU-3 several years ago, that says quite a bit). Hopefully they have improved whatever may been wrong with the original. The looper seems like a faithful clone of TC Electronic Dito. One knob, one switch, hardly could mess that up.

Conclusion

These guys know what they are doing. I think they have rounded out their collection of pedal quite well. The truth of the matter is that these are affordable, tiny pedals. I've been impressed with everything that I've used from them. The best thing is that they are very customer service oriented. I have connected with them over social media and some direct messaging. They are friendly, polite and located in Canada (not France). There aren't a sponsor, they just make some decent stuff. I'm excited to see things in action.

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5 Ugly Truths About Fenders Micro Effects Pedals

They are sigh inducing

From the colors to the, to the actually types of pedals that are served up, Fender has created the least inspiring line of effect since... their last line of effects. Way to go guys! But seriously, Fender has a terrible track record of effects. The last time that Fender had a dog in the effects game was in the dark ages when they put out the "Tone Bender", and that was only because they were one of the few putting stock in the stuff back then. It has been copied, but it is almost unanimously believed that the design has been improved on in every conceivable way. The first experience with a Fender pedal was with their tuner they put out year ago. I bought it because it was half the price of the Boss TU-2. It also worked half as well. I've stayed away for the most part since then. Everything from the design to the colors to the names of Fenders pedals have been lack luster for as long as I can remember. These pedals are no exception.

They are copies of copies

In the new line up we have a compressor, EQ, DI, and an A/B/Y pedal. The comp is in the same vein as many others from Donner/Mooer/Monoprice and the like. Whether or not they are the same on the inside is a little harder to ascertain. The EQ is seen in many other places. The Graphic sliders function in the same way as the Boss GE-7 or MXR's graphic EQ pedal. The closest resemblance is that to the Mooer pedal. They are just slightly different shades of blue. The DI and A/B/Y are tried and true designs in a compact little pedal. Fender is not fooling anyone here. These are, at best, clones and at worst they are exact copies of other pedals. I don't think that there is anything necessarily wrong with that. Depending on who owns what, Fender might not even be dipping into anyone else "bag of tricks". What it is, is a lazy way to push product out. Fender looks like they said, "This is popular, let's slap our name on it and sell it to Fender fans.", and called it a day.

They are Fender effects

If you have ever tried Fender effects, then you probably have been disappointed. To call them lack luster what be an understatement. In the last 10-15 years Fender has made attempts and failed to bring to market, anything that might be considered successful. Not to say that what they put out was blatantly bad. That accomplishment belongs to Behringer. But finder has found a way to miss the mark every time. Which make me assume that they are either hopelessly out of touch of the pedal/effects market, or they are so conservative that they can't explore and find a niche that is well suited for them. either way it leaves the consumer with a bad taste in our collective mouths.

They might have got everything right

Having said that, allow me to directly contradict myself. For the keen observer, you may have noticed that Fender's line-up of micro pedals is a little thin. For the longest time, I haven't been able to put my finger on what was missing. There is not a single overdrive, distortion or filter among them. At first I thought that they add more pedal to this line later. As of the writing of this post, they haven't. What they do have is a list of pedals that don't take a lot of scrutiny. Their comp and EQ are arguably designed by someone else, tested and liked. Their DI and A/B/Y boxes are so simple a monkey could design those. Not only that, but personally I don't like switching the tiny pedals on and off. They don't feel sturdy. They save space, but that is the only reason to have one of these pedals. So why not have your "Set-it and forget-it" pedals (ones that you don't switch on and off often) as space saving micro. This, my friends is the best move that I've seen Fender make regarding effects. That is...

They probably haven't

If they have screwed it all up. Lets face it. This is the company that could produce a $15 analog, needle style tuner that worked beautifully. (I wish I still had that thing) But fail in the highest order when it came to a $50 pedal that performed the same task. Fender has fumbled the ball in the clutch play before and it would not surprise me if they do it again. The easiest of tasks seem like the hardest to accomplish. I don't know why a huge company like Fender has so much trouble making simple things that people put together in their garage all the time. Not like they need to make anything other than the same guitars they have been making for that last three quarters of a century. All this coming from a Fender fanboy. If anyone from Fender is reading this: please, when it comes to making pedals do it right, or don't do it at all.

The Ugly Truth About Joyo Pipebomb Compressor Pedal

If you've looked at any music gear website, or have been inside an actual music store within the last few years, you have probably noticed that pedals are getting smaller. Even the larger pedals that we see coming out are compact. Pedals like the Fuzz Face and Big Muff Pi are considered huge and bulky next to most of Boss' line, next to this new wave of ultra small effects, pedals like those are mammoth. Joyo has put out a line that is no longer than my thumb and not much wider. A pedal with a footprint that small is crazy. When looking for a compressor pedal for my already cramped board, I found these and thought that I'd give it a try. Comp isn't an effect that I use a lot, but is something I want on hand for when I do. I've had several compressors, but none of them have really filled that specific niche in my sound I'm looking for. The Visual Sound Rout 66 was a great OD slapped together with an OK comp. At least, the comp was just not what I was looking for. I've played the Boss CS-3 and found a vintage CS-2 that really didn't fit the bill. So I wanted something with a knob to blend wet and dry signal like some of the high dollar jobs, and I wanted it to have a small footprint to squeeze onto my board. So the Joyo fit the bill, as long as it did it's job in a manor of my liking. So here's what I found out:

Joyo has thought this through.

If you read about these pedals or watch videos on YouTube about pedals, then you might have seen that these pedals come in a nice box with some extra stuff. There is no rubber on the bottom of the pedal and the screws that hold the bottom plate on are countersunk so that the bottom is completely flat. In the box is a standard "anti-slip" 3M rubber mat and a precisely cut piece of Velcro. To me this means that Joyo totally gets that these pedal are meant to live on a board. If you lay all your pedals on the floor then you really don't need tiny pedals. The whole floor is your board! The knobs have a interesting cover to protect them from when your foot hits the switch. This is a nice touch considering the knobs are no larger around than a pencil. The stems on the pots must not be much larger than the lead of a pencil. I've seen regular pots get snapped off, so a wayward foot could probably do some damage.

The sounds are familiar.

To sum up this pedal you need two words: subtle and transparent. With the comp all the way up you notice the effect, but it's not really "in your face". In fact, that is one of my favorite positions. Although, I play with compression like it's an effect that is supposed to do something special instead of using it to "shape" my tone. For the most part, it is hard to tell when the pedal is on, but in a kind of good way. It doesn't color your sound or dampen your high-end. The pedal can be dialed in to let your clean signal in along side the compressed signal. This is a subtle pedal when its set to 100% wet signal. When you dial that back, it gets difficult to hear the effect at all. I know that I'm not an expert at compression pedals, but it seems like you should be able to tell when it is on.

It starts to get ugly.

So the pedal does what it says. Although, sometimes I find myself wanting to turn the knobs past their stopping points. That is until I start hearing the hiss that comes from this pedal. I put this pedal on my board for a set with the group I play with. I was excited to hear this pedal in the mix with a whole band. Everything was fine until someone said, "What's that hiss?". I was running through a Fender Blues Junior at stage levels. The hiss was more than a little annoying. I don't normally run into this problem so I don't have a noise gate on my board. That meant that the compressor had to either be dialed back, or turned off. The whole thing left me a little underwhelmed. I dialed the levels back and continued use until something developed a hum. It only stopped when I turned that Pipebomb off. That is the way it stayed until I had time to address the issue. The problem might have been something knocking the power jack around. It is located on the side of the pedal instead of the top of the pedal like most other pedals. Another black mark on the pedal is how it clips when in the signal path of a guitar with hot pickups. I played at many different levels and amps while trying to attribute the clipping to something else, but the only consistent thing was when running through a hot humbucker, this pedal acts like an OD. The sounds are not terrible. Actually it was a nice soft clip, but I couldn't get the signal to clean up. I turned the volume down, but it had to go way down to clean up. This was the biggest bummer of the entire review. I only got this effect when running a very hot humbucker. Other guitars did just fine. Strats with your average single coils really benefit from a little compression and had none of the clipping from my hotrodded Tele. This might be a common thing with compression in general, but it is a little underwhelming.

Is it worth it?

Joyo is an imported brand that has a reputation of copying other pedals and selling them at a value price. This doesn't seem to be the case with this pedal. Even if this is a copy of another compression pedal, the price isn't necessarily rock bottom. At nearly $70, its a sizable investment for a pedal with the reputation of being a budget brand. There are things that this pedal gets very right, and other things that miss the mark. Packaging and design are the selling points here, but the very subtle effect, odd placement of the power input, higher than average price tag, along with the downside of these ultra-compact pedal inherently have, the price might warrant looking elsewhere for a similar unit.

A (Ugly) Hands On Review of Outlaw Effects

In a world that seems to be filled with reissues and clones of everything, we have very little in the way of genuinely new products. While Outlaw Effects may not be exactly breaking new ground, their line includes the standard overdrive, distortion, reverb, delay, and chorus type pedals but, the way they approach each one breaths a little bit of new life into something that we are all very familiar with. Outlaw Effects have also done this with keeping costs very low. I honestly don't know how they make money selling these boxes for what they do. These aren't one trick ponies. They have more features than you'd see on your standard (and larger sized) three-knob-jobs. So, when Outlaw Effects reached out with an offer to review a couple of their effects, I jumped at the chance. Because the only thing I like more than getting to the truth about the gear that we use is to play with new toys!

First Impressions

The pedals come in handsome boxes. Matte black, slick labels, and magnetic closures all seem like something you'd see on a boutique box. However, mine were shipped in a padded mailing envelope that got beat up along the way. The boxes aren't fully sealed and allowed some of the recycled material used as filling in the shipping envelope to coat the pedals. No big deal really, but the smaller knobs are directly mounted on the PCB and have small gaps between them and the case. Again, not a bad thing, you need these gaps so that you can actually turn these knobs, but they don't seem as "sealed" as their bigger brothers. Upon opening the cases, I discovered the same dust from the bag had worked it's way into the pedal. I don't think that will have any effect on the pedals performance, but lets just say that these pedals aren't impervious to the elements.

Upon Closer Inspection

These pedals are manufactured in China. No surprise there. They also seem to share the same case design as many of the other micro pedals on the market. Maybe even from the same manufacturer. I will go on record that the foam rubber pad on the bottom is not to my liking. It doesn't seem like that would facilitate a hook and loop (Velcro-type) strip very well and cleaning that pad off might become somewhat of a chore. Compared to the line of Joyo micro-pedals that come with a nice flat bottom to attach either an (included) 3M hook and loop strip or rubber pad, it would be a nice consideration. (Those Joyo Pedals run 10-20 dollars more than most of Outlaw's offerings.) Not only that, but the screws that secure the bottom plate protrude, so that if you were to remove the foam pad, you may not have a sure fit to your board. These pedals are basically meant to live on a pedal board. Their long and narrow shape do not bode well for them being a stand alone unit. Anyone with a clumsy, or over enthusiastic, foot might twist their ankle on these things. Having said that, I have not attached one of these pedals to my board yet, so we will just have to test them out and see.

Looking Forward

I've received two pedals to test drive: Dead Man's Hand and Five O'Clock Fuzz. I'm looking forward to giving them a thorough run through. The Dead Man's Hand looks to be a Tube Screamer with an extra toggle at the top. It's marked "Aces" and "eight". I'm not a betting man, but I'd wager that it has something to do with leveling out the mid hump. The Five O'clock Fuzz seems to be a pretty straight forward fuzz of the three knob variety. It's difficult to tell without playing, but I hear that it is closely related to the EHX Big Muff. If that is true, then I am going to be rather happy with this pedal. My current fuzz pedal of choice is the Big Muff Pi with tone wicker. The Big Muff sound is iconic fuzz with a little bit of tweak-ability. This could prove to be a home run since a notable downside to the Big Muff is it's size. I'll keep you updated as I clock some time with these pedals. Each one will get a detailed review and maybe some video. I'm very excited about these two.

The Ugly Truth About Outlaw Effects Pedals

Right off the bat, sorry for the long break. I'm sure that all my readers are just holding their breath for another post, but on the list of important things to do blogging falls pretty low. Sorry guys.

To the point... I was online the other day and I saw this new brand of pedal. Excuse my latency, I don't get time to check out every little new thing as it comes out as much as I would like. So I did a little digging and found some neat facts about this odd, little (literally, the pedals are tiny) pedal brand.

Ok, so there is nothing new about micro pedals. Malekko has been making tiny pedals for years. There are all sorts of imitators out there now Mooer is a an import pedal that has gained some traction. They have been value priced but now have climbed out of the bargain bin and became a solid option for a guitarist looking to save stage space. This is due to the fact that they closely resemble some of our favorite pedal and aren't outrageously priced. Along with these there are several "bigger" pedal makers doing compact versions of their already established pedals. This gives a guitarist the option to trade-up and slim-down. All good things, right?

Well... Maybe.

Every Description of these Pedals is Extremely Ambiguous 

When I first saw Outlaw pedals, the first thing that I was attracted to was the price. Make a nice looking overdrive pedal for 49.99 and you have my attention. If you make a nice looking, great sounding pedal for 49.99, then you'll get my money. The fact that these things are tiny did make an impression on me, but I've seen these kinds of pedals before. The fact that there are 4 different dirt boxes (2 ODs and 2 Distortions) is exciting for me. I might have something of a weakness for them, but I'm not going to buy a pedal by cool-sounding name alone. With the Outlaw pedals, that's about all you have to go on. The thing with new pedal brands is that you have to give the customer some idea as to what you are going to get. You have two OD pedals, but how are they different? They are even closely colored (red and orange-ish-red) One does have a toggle, but besides that they look exactly alike. Even the description is vague. The only thing I can get from any description I've read is that the Dead Man's Hand might be a tube screamer clone with a toggle to flatten the mid-hump. The distortion come in two flavors as well, metal and... not metal? If these pedals sound as generic as they are described, then I'd stay far away, but there is really no way to tell.

They are micro Pedals

So I know that you might be thinking, "Duh", but hold on. There is a reason that some of the first micros where compressors and reverbs. That is because those are "set-it-and-forget-it" pedals. You usually use those pedals to set your overall sound. But the popularity of the smaller pedals led to making a wider range of pedal with tiny footprints. This isn't a horrible thing, but if you are like me and you like to change and tweak and fiddle with everything, then doing so with tiny knobs and buttons can be a challenge. For the regular person this become an annoyance, but with someone with larger than average digits or size 15 feet this becomes something more like a guessing game. My foot can easily cover a boss-sized stomp box. Now imagine going to turn on your delay and three of your pedal disappear under you shoe. So you can't see your pedal when you turn it on or off, but you might be able to work around that. Lets talk about the knobs. Most of the pedal are set up with a "large" knob in the middle and two smaller knob above and to the flanks. The large knob is about the size of the top concentric knob of a Boss Metal Zone. If you're not familiar with that pedal just look a pencil and picture a knob slightly smaller than that. The other two knobs are slightly larger than the lead in that pencil. Not exactly something that you can fiddle with on the fly. I'm not saying that all pedals this small are bad, but they come with some down-sides.

They are Made in China 

I know that a lot of things are being made overseas now. I also own a lot of things that are made overseas. I like a lot of the things that I've bought that were made overseas. So why am I complaining that these are made overseas? Well, there are some of the stereotypical thing that you think of when you hear "made in China": Bad quality control, poor assembly, cheap parts. But let me remind you that the same remarks are made about Electro Harmonix and they are USA made... I haven't had any problem out of the EXH pedals I own, or any of the one that are made in China. So what is the deal with the ding for being Chinese? First, Poor quantity control. If you order parts from china then you have to order huge amounts. That order takes weeks if not months to arrive. Sometimes the trip half-way around the world is not a kind one. So if something is out of stock then it might be a change of season before you can get that item. Also the company is french*. Nothing wrong with France, but costumer service might be less that speedy.

(Woops, sorry to the guys over at Outlaw Effects. The company is Canadian, not French, The only evidence I based my assumption on is the fact they offer a English and French langue web-site. You know what happens when you assume!)

Everything Is Small... like tiny

These pedal are small, but all we really notice is the box. If we take a look at the inside, then we'll most likely see tiny parts. Resisters and Caps that are that small are nearly too small to do anything with. Are you a modder? to bad. Want to change diodes? Not going to happen. Knob broke and want to replace? Tough luck. All the standard size parts are not going to work with pedals this size. Not to mention that working with parts this small can be a pain when you have all that parts. Lets say that you brand new pedal goes dead and you need a part. What do you do? Call costumer service, right? You do that. I person with a French accent and a working knowledge of the English langue answers the phone. Let also say that you are able to communicate with customer service and they are willing to send you the part. Hazzah! So they send you the part... From China. Three weeks to forever later, the part arrives. You've probably replace the pedal. So you get your package and remember that you own this pedal. You open up your box and go about the tedious assignment that is repairing small consumer electronics only the parts you are messing with go from children's aspirin to a grain of rice. Have fun with that.