Ibanez have just announced a trio of mini pedals at NAMM: a chorus, an analog delay and a distortion. They seem to be modelled after the old AD-9, CS-9 and SM-9.
As far as I know, the SM-9 was never reissued and I wonder if this mini incarnation sounds exactly the same. It bears the same EQ settings labeled Punch (bass), Attack (medium) and Edge (treble) on top of the classic Drive and Level. The SM-9 was sometimes called a “Tube Screamer on steroids”, I don’t know about that but there is definitely way more gain on tap, and lots of bass.
Novelty is rare in the world of effects if I judge by the number of “Fuzz Face Clones” that seem to be released every day.
Hologram Electronics is a new company which is off to a ripping start with a pretty interesting pedal, allowing guitarists to create “sequences”. There is a handful of pedals exploring the concept but the Dream Sequence seems very polished, to say the least.
As Ryan Schaefer from Hologram Electronics puts it: “It’s based around a pattern sequencer and ADSR that does octave up/down pitch shifts. It comes with 24 pattern presets, and you can create your own via MIDI or on the pedal itself when put into pattern recorder mode. It also has a digitally controlled analog drive and tone section at the output, so those settings (as well as all the others) can be saved as part of a preset. It also has a “hold” section, that’s similar to a “freeze” type effect, sampling a note and sustaining it indefinitely. You can feed that into the pattern sequencer and create all kinds of drones in addition to arpeggiator style effects. You can also record/play back the knob movements of the shape (ADSR), drive, and tone controls.”
Demo right here (but be warned, you’ll want one after seeing this):
Like clockwork, new Roland/Boss products are out for NAMM. Among them is a Waza craft version of the VB-2 vibrato, a legendary pedal that Boss produced over 30 years ago for a short while. It is still on Prince’s pedalboard, for instance. This new Waza craft version is all analog:
Back in February, Fractal Audio, maker of the Axe-Fx modelling guitar processors, discretely announced the AX8. A pedalboard version, the AX8 features more or less half the DSP power of the rack version, but it has the same amp and effect models, just less of them at the same time (and no two amps at once).
Anyway, there was no release date for it but it looks like things are moving along and it might hit the streets at USD 1399, give or take half the price of the Axe FX II! Something tells me that a lot of gear is about to hit the second hand market.
Fractal audio has just released a teaser, a Toto cover performed by the staff at Fractal Audio, featuring the Axe AX8 for the guitar tones, sounds pretty good to me!
