The Distillery is a boost pedal with many options to tweak the tone. Interestingly, it was designed in collaboration with big names like Billy Gibbons, Buddy Guy, Steve Lukather, etc. with a particular goal in mind: helping these guys get “their” tone through back line amps. And yes even famous gunslingers don’t always get to take their favorite gear on tour (especially when they come to places like Australia). As such, it is as much a tone sculpting tool as it is a boost pedal. Here is a demo involving a Les Paul and some high gain amp. The ToneConcepts website has more demos, check it out.
Category Archives: Effect News
November GAS 1 : Seymour Duncan’s Dirty Deed Distortion Pedal
I have received quite a few product release emails in my inbox lately and most (all?) of them activated my gear acquisition syndrome. Here is a series of posts presenting those items.
First of all, the Dirty Deed distortion pedal is a worthy addition to the Seymour Duncan line of pedals, often overlooked as guitarists think of pickups whenever the brand is mentioned.
Anyway, the Dirty Deed offers a lot of gain on tap and aims at replicating classic rock and hard rock tones. The tone seems really “focused” from the demos I have seen, and to me some features really stand out: it is designed to work with both Fender and Marshall like amps, it seems usable at very low gain and you can run it at 9V or 18V for added saturation and compression. Last but not least it features a bass and a treble knob.
Here is one of the early demos for it:
Crushsound Farmer’s Mill and Ceramic Slides
I have written about the Farmer’s Mill before, it has been successful against all odds and a new and improved version has just arrived.
The farmer’s mill dirties the tone in a way that is hard to explain, it’s not a distortion per se, it’s more like a “broken cable emulator”. I know that sounds weird but it can sound kind of cool. Apparently, Jack White is a fan. I think a video is probably the best way to understand:
Apart from the new Farmer’s Mill, Crushsound has released very cool looking ceramic slides, check them out:
EHX Epitome by Bill Ruppert + What’s Coming Up on Guitar Tone Overload
It’s been pretty quiet on Guitar Tone Overload, but fear not, it is only because I have been busy working on two big posts (with videos). The first one is about the Silicon vs Germanium Fuzz debate, featuring some superb gear by Buffalo FX. The second one is a Pitch-Shifter/Harmonizer piece where I show some creative tricks and settings to emulate a range of effects or instruments. The Fuzz post should be up within a few days.
In the mean time, talking about creativity, here is a video by the excellent Bill Ruppert, aka Mr Effectology. This is about the new-ish Electro Harmonix Epitome, a multi effect capable of many, many sounds:
