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:
There is a lot of boutique pedal manufacturers nowadays but not that many explore the digital side of things, I mean how many Fuzz Face clones do we need?
Source Audio have been releasing a steady flow of digital pedals over the past few years and the Lunar Phaser caught my ear. It has a pretty interesting stereo sound that seems to magnify the guitar tone. Also, it can be loaded with Flanger and Chorus tones through the Neuro Mobile App, making it a 3 in 1 pedal really:
