While doing some research for an upcoming post about Eric Clapton’s “Woman tone”, I ended up trying my 1978 Telecaster with a setup I had just previously used with a Stratocaster. It had nothing to do with Clapton but I liked the tone and it reminded me how efficient a Telecaster can be to get a good biting rock tone. I also found that by rolling off the “Tone” control on the guitar, things got even more interesting. Here is the result (setup details and settings after the video):
The setup is 1978 Telecaster, bridge pickup -> Boss SD-1 with Tone at zero, Drive at 2 o’clock, Level at 3 o’clock -> Analogman TS9 with Drive at 3 o’clock, Tone at 9 o’clock, Level at noon -> 1974 Fender Champ set clean. A zest of compression and plate reverb were added in Cubase, and here you are: a nitty gritty dirty rock tone full of sustain, Telecaster style, coming out of a very small amp.
For those of you having a “squealing” problem with the bridge pickup of your Telecaster while using a lot of gain, I advise you to have the pickup wax potted by a professional. It did wonders to my Telly.
For those of you interested in fattening their Strat or Tele tone, don’t forget the Pro Co RAT 2.
Pedals with a small foot print have become a must as you can cram more tones into the same old tired pedalboard. There was a time where BOSS and MXR pedals were considered small but, these past few years, smaller models have appeared. Some of them are as small as 1×3 inches (about 2.5 cm by 7.5 cm). I will list here a few of these “mini wonders”.
Mini Line by Love Pedal Custom Effects
Love Pedal is a boutique effect manufacturer with a full range of pedals. You might have heard of their Kalamazoo overdrive, considered to be one of the best on the market.
They came up with a series of really small pedals featuring a delay, an overdrive/boost, a buffer, a tremolo as well as a univibe clone, the Pickle Vibe. Univibe clones are usually pretty big but it seems Love Pedal managed to create a small circuit that sounds killer, and here is the proof:
The Pickle Vibe sports only one knob but an intensity trim pot can be found inside the pedal to fine tune the effect. It is not an uncommon trait for these tiny pedals as the video about the Xotic EP-Booster down below will show you.
JHS
JHS has a full range of hand built boutique pedals, some of which having a tiny footprint (and custom paint jobs!) like the “Mini Bomb Clean Boost” or the silicon based “Mini Foot Fuzz“:
Guyatone
Guyatone are not new comers to the pedal game and their micro line of pedals has been around for ages. Their 2.75×3.875″ footprint makes them a tad smaller than Boss pedals and there are 14 to choose from: chorus, delay, flanger, fuzz, distortion, overdrive, booster…
Here is a demo of the od2+ by none other than gearmanndude:
MXR
MXR are known for their compact pedals. The Dynacomp and pedals of the same size used to have the smallest footprint of all pedals, that is until boutique manufacturers such as Love Pedal or JHS released 1×3″ models.
In 2010, MXR released three “micro” pedals. The Micro Flanger, Micro Chorus and Phase 45 which will take each 4.75×2.75″ on your pedalboard.
Here is the official MXR Video Demo for the yellow micro chorus:
Xotic EP-Booster
Known for their AC Booster,RC booster and BB Preamp, Xotic came up relatively recently with a booster measuring only 1.5×3″. The circuit of the EP-Booster is inspired by the preamp of the old Echoplex delay unit and it seems to have garnered quite a following among pros and amateurs alike. Here is Allen Hinds explaining (and demonstrating) why he’s got two EP-Booster in his pedalboard:
A quick post to tell you that I have added a “Pedal Manufacturers” list on the right hand side of the blog, just under the ads. The list features big companies as well as small boutique outlets and will grow over time.
I should be back shortly with a bigger post but in the meantime, go and visit some of the websites in the list, there is a lot of cool stuff out there.
Last week, Gibson announced the limited edition Firebird X. Apart from the fact that its construction reminds me more of a Fender than a Gibson, the integrated effects are being brought forward as one of its biggest innovations.
This got me thinking about guitars with built-in effects. I for one have always thought that integrating a Tube Screamer like overdrive in the body of a guitar would be a great idea. After doing a bit of research I found out that Gibson is not the first company to have toyed with the idea.
The Vox Ultrasonic
As soon as 1967, Vox were already known for their amplifiers but they also had several lines of guitars including one with built-in effects. Called “Ultrasonic”, these axes offered a fuzz, a “tuner” (well something that could play a low E), a wah, a treble/bass booster and a repeater (some sort of percussion device). Be sure to check out the Ultrasonic page at www.vintageguitars.org.uk, it is full of information and whacky sound clips. It does not get more psychedelic than that!
Vox Ultrasonic - Picture courtesy of premierguitar.com
The Bilt Revelator
Well maybe it does with Bilt, a guitar manufacturer which seems to have taken on some of the features of the Ultrasonic. They make the “Revelator”, a guitar obviously inspired by the Fender Jaguars and Jazzmasters. Fitted with Seymour Duncan antiquity pickups, it’s got a built-in fuzz, analog delay and a theremin type of sound generator.
Bilt revelator with built-in fuzz and analog delay
See it in action here:
The Alesis XGuitar
The Alesis Xguitar has been discontinued but it looks like you can still find it for about $220. Clearly inspired by hot rodded Stratocasters, it features 2 single coil pickups, one Humbucker and a modern built-in multi FX unit with 80 presets and as much as 9 effect modules. Let’s not forget the headphone output for some quiet jamming.
The Alesis Xguitar
The Gibson Firebird X
Finally, here is a video demo of the newly announced $5000 Firebird X by Gibson, which I have mentioned in the introduction of this post. There is not much information about it yet as it will be available next month and Gibson is clearly trying to do some teasing right now but the asking price has raised some eyebrows:
