artifex_adrift's Reviews

Full Size is Great, Mini is Greater

I actually sold my original full-size Carbon Copy so I could gain some space back on my main pedalboard. This thing has all the features of the original, and takes up far less space.

It's an analog delay, so there are functional limitations to the delay effect itself. One example being you cannot summon up the infinite blackhole looper-like delay that you could with a digital delay, but that's not a downside. That's not why you want to toss one on your board. Those mild, more musical types of delays that guitarists have used throughout history is what this reminds me more of. It makes it so much more desirable for my purposes, because I'm not the kind of guitarist that strings together 19 different pedals to essentially make my guitar play itself.

There's a certain tactile connection with this delay, you can get a really tight, short ricochet effect, or draw out the longer trails and create really interesting soundscape for those lead moments. It just really responds to more of a "guitarist's guitarist" style of playing versus the cosmic arcade drone playground style.

Not The Best Compressor By Any Means

I've kept this compressor around to offer options to players that want to use my gear to record with. I personally do not think this is a good compressor. It's noisy, big, clunky, has a special power adapter/jack, and doesn't seem to... compress. Again, it is worth keeping in the collection if you want to use it for something really experimental, like the "squash" feature to kill the bandwidth of your signal prior to running it into some wacky modulated effect. Otherwise it's just not the same as a quality compressor with the research and craftsmanship behind it like a Walrus Audio Deep 6 V3 compressor.

The Top "Love it or hate it" Pedal

Disclaimer: I gave this pedal 4 stars instead of 3 because I have modified mine substantially. So buying one stock will not be the same pedal that I know this to be.

It gets a lot of grief over being a crummy pedal, but then again there are players that say it's all in how you use it. While I feel as though I exhausted my knob-tickling options in stock form, it may have just been the gear combo I was running it on, or maybe I didn't do my due diligence and work hard enough to unlock that magic, golden sweet spot people claim is hidden in there. I my opinion it shouldn't be that hard, nor should the sound shaping be so limited in anything you would consider a great pedal.

After increasing the gain, a little headroom, and giving the EQ sweep a major extension, this pedal is able to be ran into the front of a more modestly priced solid state amp and sound decent enough to shred on. It doesn't make it sound like a $4000 tube amp, but it's redeemable with a little bit of work.

What I'm really trying to say here is that some pedals are easily upgraded, while others simply cannot be saved and are trapped in mediocre mode eternally. If you are just getting into pedal modifications, find some popular mods on the internet for this pedal, and try the Keely mods on the Boss DS-1 to get some experience.

One Trick Pony With One Great Trick

There isn't much you can milk and spin into a review about a pedal with one knob, but this pedal does its job really well. I like to run this pedal through the front of an Orange Micro Dark into a 1x12 cab with an Eminence Wizard in it. Turning the knob up to 8 O'clock and playing with the gain knob on the amp to find the sweet spot can give you that stressed Sunn Model-T sound that everyone likens the sound quality to. It is definitely an effect that needs some pampering while you play, because if you want a lead sound that doesn't sound breathless, you'll need to dial it in, but when you go back to playing those sludgy chords, it'll take some adjusting to get it back. Needless to say, find the one thing you want to get out of this pedal, and make it do its job well.

Replacement for Stock Power Tube - Marshall DSL5CR

I bought this as a replacement in a Marshall DSL5CR, and it gave me more of the tonal characteristics and reactivity I was looking for. It doesn't give you that muddy, over-taxed sound that some tubes will give you, and it compliments the tone features of that amp really well. The 'deep' switch has a little less flatness to it, and the classic tinniness of a Marshall really shines through without sounding overwhelming when you start to crank the treble.

Great Option for a Middle Pickup

I dropped one of these in as a middle pickup on a Fender Stratocaster around 17 years ago, and this is my favorite middle pickup I've used. A lot of the Stratocasters I've modified over the years don't even have a middle pickup, but in the guitars I do have them on, this is by far the best sounding one. It has a really shimmery, "glassy" sound for a middle pickup, and the output and tonal characteristics give you that ambient "pecking" sound when you're doing some faster runs. I can either couple it with a high output bridge pickup (setting '2' on a 5 position blade switch) or couple it with the bridge pickup with more modulated effects and get some very interesting tones to be produced. Needless to say, I definitely recommend.

At The Top of My List

I first bought one of these maybe 17 years ago or so, and put it into one of my earlier model Fender Stratocasters in both the neck and bridge position. The output on these pickups is really great for solo work on the higher note strings, and depending on how much gain and the tone you're working with you can get some really crunchy rhythm sounds out of them. The neck pickup is my favorite for noodling around with, if you back off the tone a little bit you get those round, syrupy runs with a great amount of sustain. The only downside is when I plug into an amp after jamming on a different guitar/pickup, I have to do some knob tickling to get that hot mud sound out of the low E string. It's not a fault of the pickup, they just run hotter and have different tonal characteristics than stock pickups, so they're definitely purpose-built for shredding on a certain setup to get the most out of them. I have an older stratocaster I've had for over 20 years that I'm going to clone soon, and if it's any indication of how I feel over the long-term about these pickups, I'm going to drop a set of these in the clone.

Nice Little Amp For Goofing Around

While this isn't the greatest amp of all time, it's still really good at what it does. It's a two channel, which doesn't matter much to me since I don't do the whole Kurt Cobain clean-distorted-clean-distorted-clean cycle while I'm playing. The clean channel actually sounds really nice, especially if you run a good reverb in the FX loop, which is foot switchable. I call that effect out specifically because the on-board reverb is a little lacking for my personal taste, but I'm sure it's enough for the average player.

The low power mode that brings the 5 watts down to 0.5 watts is an awesome feature to have. Especially if you want to drive the extra dirt on the tubes and get some interesting lead sounds. Otherwise the full 5 watts is what I prefer, because I like the extra headroom, it just suits my playing style and tonal preferences much better. The stock speaker is a Celestion Ten-30, so I wasn't scrambling to jam in a replacement speaker, I think it sounds fabulous, although the speaker-out option into a 1x12 Eminence Wizard gives this thing a whole other layer of tone you didn't know was there. 12 inch speakers always sound better compared to a weenie 10 inch in my opinion, especially since I like to drive the power up when playing, the additional surface area gives chords less of that "fart" sound and the voice coil is typically a little bigger, so you get more open output.

The 'tone shift' and 'deep' buttons are not necessarily an "always on" type of deal for me, but they are fun to experiment with, it definitely gives you some extended options that most combo amps lack. Remember also, this is a Marshall, not an Orange, so the treble starts to get really tinny at around 1 O'clock, but if you're going for a really shrill treble sound, this amp has it. I replaced the stock Marshall power tube (12BH7) with an Electro-Harmonix gold pin, and it put this amp in that class of shredability in terms of where my hands are expecting a certain amount of reactivity at different volumes.

This amp was purchased to have another smaller amp around my house for when I just want to shred a little, so I'm not running 16 effects pedals through this thing. I pretty much just play as-is, with the occasional exception of a Big Muff Pi pedal that I modded to get those syrupy, long-sustain guitar solos with some reverb to splash it around.

I bought this thing brand new, and it has a volume drop problem. I replaced all the tubes, and eventually troubleshot it down to a problem with the FX loop's relationship to the power amp stage. As long as I keep the footswitch plugged in and the FX loop turned off, I don't have any problems (at least for now). This isn't my daily driver or anything, so there's no urgency to rip it apart a second time and get into heavy diagnostics. I've actually heard a few players complain about this problem, so I suppose this is my "buyer beware" caveat.

Popular staple, worth it if you come across one for cheap

I'm not a big fan of digital pedals, and especially ones that are not true bypass, but this is a really iconic pedal that I've heard on several popular tracks. If you just need something to fool around with and get some wild sounds out of, it's worth plugging into from time to time. It has a really harsh digital fizz to the top-end of the signal, and unless you're into that or using another effect to take advantage of the sound characteristic, it falls short of similar yet more modern pedals. The technology is definitely showing its age these days, especially since these re-issues came out around the time all the "budget friendly" digital effects of the late 90s were getting a lot of attention by people that thought they could buy a pedalboard in a box.

Very high-quality ring modulator

While this pedal is far from being a one-trick pony, it definitely has it's left and right lateral limits as far as where you can go with it. As much as you can chalk it up as "just a really expensive ring mod", the quality of the pedal itself as well as the sound is amazing. I can dial in tremolo sounds or get really high-pitch laser gun noises all by just adjusting a few knobs. And the knobs are not in constant need of adjusting by hand to keep things interesting, there are dedicated inputs for foot controllers. That way with a small string of expression pedals, you can sit on a stool and take this thing for a ride. The sine and square wave switch as well as the low and high grant you the ability to completely shift the parameters of a given setting. The LFO is a a nice touch, as you can dial in just the right amount of effect from one of the signals you have dialed in. Great control over what some see as a single dimensional effect. Word of caution: like a lot of ring modulators on the market, this one "bleeds" into the bypassed signal when disengaged, so I used a home-made loop bypass pedal to take it completely out of my signal chain when not in use.

My go-to chorus pedal for some time now

While there are chorus pedals out there that are feature-rich with 20 knobs, 7 jacks, and an array of switches, this pedal is a straight-forward all analog chorus pedal that's easy to use and has some tonal options. Matching the line level of your signal chain and dialing in just the right amount of chorus is easy, plus you can either shave off or boost highs and lows. This allows you to experiment with the chorus effect and given that it's a stereo-out, you can get some really amazing sounds out of this thing. I love MXR's modular effects, and for my purposes this is the perfect chorus pedal when I need to add some icy overtones to my sound.

Best buffered ABY I've used

I've built several unbuffered ABY pedals and used a few different buffered ones in the past, but this is the best one yet. It's built with that typical Orange tank-like quality, and the buffered aspect doesn't deplete tone for pedals I have running in front of it. I ran some pretty rigorous tests to get measurements off of a Walrus Audio Deep Six v3 compressor pedal, and there was no remarkable change in signal quality. The phase button on this pedal is the perfect compliment, especially when you're splitting your signal between two larger, high-end amps and don't need any signal anomalies diminishing the quality of your sound. If i ever need to do another dual-amp setup, I'll be buying a second one of these for sure.

Makes a nice upgrade for your economy combo amps

There isn't much to say in terms of the tonal quality of this speaker, and it's certainly not worthy of a deep dive into its dynamics. Plain and simple, this speaker offers a sensible upgrade if you have a small combo laying around that you find yourself playing occasionally. While it doesn't make it sound like a completely different amp, there is enough difference in tone to add playability to something you'd otherwise end up throwing out during your next round of Spring cleaning.

Not the best, but good for what it is

This amp has been hanging around my collection for quite some time, and while it's not the greatest amp in the world, I keep it around. It definitely comes up a little "gutless" in the gain department, there just isn't a lot of those mids you typically look for in a guitar amp. The on-board digital effects are adequate given the class of this amp, but I'm not a huge fab of (early) digital effects anyways. I swapped the stock speaker out with a Peavey Blue Marvel speaker, which actually gave it a nice enough upgrade in tone to be tolerable. I know they aren't exactly rolling these things out of the factory on pallets or anything these days, but if one comes up for sale and you just need a small livingroom amp to noodle around on, go for it.

This has been my favorite humbucker for a decade

A little over a decade ago, I picked one of these up to drop into a Fender Custom Shop that I was modifying the electricals with using a custom pickguard. When I rolled up the volume knob while plugged into a Marshal full-stack, this thing instantly became my favorite. It is high output, but not so high that you get that fizzy chainsaw sound when playing. Doing mostly prog and jazz influenced finger patterns, the level of articulation I got out of this thing was unparalleled to any other pickup. The Seymour Duncan Hot Rails are a very close second, but the f-spacing design and the adjustable posts let me slowly tweak the pickup over time to get it right where I want it.

So good, I own TWO...

That's right, I loved the first MXR M300 Reverb I purchased so much, I bought another. Why? Because running a stereo setup and being able to dial in two different types of reverb that compliment the amp-cab combos they run on allowed me to sculpt dreamy sonic soundscapes. Being able to blend the dry signal (like in some on-amp reverbs) allows you to help pull back on the leash a bit when you're trying to maintain control over the base signal. However, if you're into the whole "lost at sea" thing with really washy reverbs, there are settings you can dial in with this pedal that can create other-worldly sounds. The more conventional plate and spring settings are absolute gold, MXR did an excellent job at capturing the nuances of these tried and true reverb modes. If you're looking for more synth-like sounds, you can leap across the divide and obtain a totally unreal effects that can hardly still be considered "reverb".

If I bought two, you should buy at least one.

Holy. Cow. Man.

So I have traditionally used a Boss CS-3 that I performed the Monte Allums mod on, and even gave the Keeley 4-Knob Compressor a shot, but there was something lacking in both. I held out long enough for Walrus Audio to craft this masterpiece, and I'm glad they did. You have the same perceived ailments as most compression pedals as far as higher output pickups, non-isolated power supplies, and untamed settings giving you grief, but take 5 minutes to noodle around with this thing and you'll be glad you did. Where this pedal really fills the void is the amount of precision control over your sound in regards to picking dynamics. Having the level to help achieve unity gain in your signal chain, tone, attack, and sustain are all expected, but the concept of the blend knob helps to precisely control how much of the dry signal you want to preserve. Some setups are near-perfect, and just need that little extra coat of sonic polish to really tighten them up. Others are a dismal and anemic, and require something with the robust amount of tonal control offered by the Walrus Audio Deep Six V3 to give them some life. Regardless of your use-case, you should try to drop one of these in your signal chain to see what it can do that your existing compressor comes up short on.

Best Wah For the Money, Highly Versitile

A lot of wahs on the market, especially early ones, were one-trick ponies as far as "wah on, wah off". Well, that's not the case with the Dunlop 535q Wah. The ability to change the wah range, 'Q' setting, volume, and the fact there is a controllable overdrive kick-switch to give your signal a boost makes this thing the Swiss army knife of wah pedals. If you're not into 9v battery-cycling drama, you can wire this thing for power. It has a typical stomp switch right on the very tip of the rocker plate that can take some getting used to, but I have to say this pedal is far from being out-classed by some boring wah of yesteryear.

Shock and Awe

I was surprised not only by the diverse, punchy-yet-rich sounds this thing was capable of producing, but realistically the simplicity of the circuitry. Built around the LM308 opamp, it's the quality components and overall craftsmanship that makes this pedal so great. The three-position switch that swaps out what diode combo path is used is actually really interesting, you can tell a major difference between all three if you use a lot of dynamic picking with varying levels of pick attack in your playing. The distortion setting will actually over-saturate a higher gain amp really early, but when you can tame some of the unwanted warms that start to blanket the sound with the articulate tone knob on this pedal, you can reach some very unique tonal regions of your amp you didn't think existed.

I've only tried this on lower wattage tube amplifiers (20 watts max), but it has earned a permanent place on my pedalboard, even through amps that are "too good for pedals".

As Far as Single Channels Go, This is My Favorite!

With the stock tubes replaced with a matched trio of Electro-Harmonix gold-pin 12AX7 pre-amp tubes and Tungsol EL84s in the power stage, this amp is a 15 watt fireball. I play a lot of really heavy music, and this amp has been an absolute monster with my tube setup. Running through a pair of Celestion cream backs in a closed-cab, this amp has a 16 ton punch without the tapering sizzle that tends to give these types of amps a bad name. Orange has a truly unique amp on their hands with this one, and I am glad to fire this thing up on a regular basis. Whether I want to dial up some scorching leads or dial back the gain and get some silky tones, this amp has been a straight go-to for me.