arturo_perez_martinez's Reviews

Modern overdrive concept.

Okko Diablo does not sounds like a classic overdrive. It doesn´t honor, emulate or clon the Tube Screamer, Blues Driver or Bluesbreaker traditions. I feel it like the crunch channel of a high gain german amp, Engl or H & K, probably. In the right side of the pedal, the common overdrive stompbox controls: Level, Tone and Gain, working as they are supposed to do. In the left side you find some special parameters to deal with. There is a Body control to add compression and affects a little the mid range. And under the Body control, there is the Feed control, a powerful characteristic. This Feed have been loaded to compensate fat sounding humbuckers or too bright single coils. It works excelent. The gain is not a problem, that infernal orange unit has a lot of gain and a lot of volume. But if you ask for more power, there is a headroom switch to activate a maniac voltage doubling circuit. Finally, inside the pedal, there are two more controls, one to add or cut high frequencies, one to add or cut low ones. So, it offers a good amount of options to get your personal sound. But you need to be clear about that: Diablo does not sounds like a classic overdrive, it sounds modern, heavier, and I mean heavier, than the Tube Screamer. The Body control won´t change a lot the mid cut flavor. That pedal will make you play the blues from hell.

One of the best JHS´s

Great sounding overdrive. It is really powerful and pretty versatile. The JHS website says the Moonshine is a tribute to some green pedal; tubescreamer? I compared the Moonshine V2 with the Maxon OD808; no one is better than the other. The thing is that the Moonshine can sounds almost equal to the OD808 in the less drive mode. Moonshine provides much more volume and much more gain; it is near to be a high gain overdrive. It also gives more gain than a Xotic BB Preamp, not more volume (I own the MB version; they are very different things, but I mention that trying to provide a close idea about the gain options).
But it can be a soft and sweet blues overdrive too. Then, there is the CLEAN control; it mixes the overdriven signal with the clean signal of the guitar. It is very useful to get an organic, warm crank amp sound. So, Moonshine is great, powerful and sweet at the same time; pretty versatile because that pedal begins in a real Tube Screamer flavor and can go far beyond, covering blues, rock n´ roll, pop, loud classic rock, easily, Definitely a shining overdrive stompbox, tasty and corpulent with single coils and humbuckers. Love it... it is alwais in the chain.

Real power plant.

Mondo can power everything: 12 pedals at the same time. It powers 9v and 12v stompboxes, like Eventide H9 or Strymon; at the same time I can power my Radial Plexitube 12AX7 Tube distortion pedal by the AC power input jack (it runs at 15v). The sag outputs (7 and 8) can make my EHX Small Clone sound like the battery is running out. I have used it for more than five years, some times for long seassions. Excelent and useful piece of gear... perfect.

I catched an extraordinary Strat.

Almost a year with this American Professional HH Fender Stratocaster.

First the look: it is a fine instrument, looks great. The antique olive color in the body fits in an elegant way with the aged white pickguard and control knobs, with the zebra ShawBuckers, the Rosewood fingerboard and the pre CBS style headstock with the "spagetti" Fender logo (silver not golden). Those elements build an refined instrumento in sight.

The sound: excelent! Warm, clear, shimmering in each position. The zebra ShawBuckers are excelent (acordingo to the Fender official site, built by Tim Shaw for the American Professional series). I have tasted that guitar through a Marshall JVM 410 Head and a '65 Deluxe Reverb. You can play almost any sort of music with that guitar, really. Blues, Country, Pop, Classic Rock, Classic Heavy Metal, Alternative Rock, until Stoner Metal, of course (through the orange OD1 channel of the JVM, a low tuning and a eq pedal; I have done it). Frequently, I jam Iron Maiden's The Trooper or Ozzy's Crazy Train and Mama I'm Coming Home with that guitar, and no problem. I also play N.I.B. or Ase Of Spades with the same guitar and don`t miss power. Of course, ShawBuckers are not for modern metal, definitevely. You play (not imitate) Hendrix stuff in a luscious way with that guitar. Obviously, ShawBuckers do not give the classic Strat sound; they sound vintege, classic and very sweet, because they are alnico low output humbuckers; but I swear, the rock really hot.

That guitar has a 5 position switch to get full bridge and neck pickup sound and the both together, but it can, in position 2, leave sounding the inside coils together of both pickups (the black ones) and in position 4, you get the outer coils of both pickups together (the white ones). So, positions 2 and 4 gives something like a Tele sound.

Playing experience: I play a pretty confortable and familiar instrument. The 25.5" scale lenght, 9.5" fingerboard radius, "modern deep C" neck shape, tall frets and satin finish on the back of the neck make it easy. The chunky, satin finished neck gives a vintage experience, and the tall frets helps to play precisely.

Everywhere, you have soft and friendly shapes, that ask out for long playing.

The American Professional HH Strat incorporates a real bone nut, Bi-Flex Truss Rod system and a useful hard case (almost any guitar in this price range comes with a hard case).

That guitar is a very versatil instrument, high quality made in Corona California. I haven't found any weakness in this guitar. It is great, 100% recommendable.

Three final things: 1.- it is not the only Fender Strat that I own; I also have a 1998-1999 American Deluxe Strat loaded with vintage noiseless pickups and an American Original 60' Strat, and the HH American Pro covers a wider spectrum of musical geners; 2.- I didn't like the standard tuning machines, immediately replaced them with locking ones. 3.- English is not my main language, so I'm sorry for the spelling mistakes. Thanks.

Versatility is the second name of the JVM.

It is an extraordinary amp. It can take you everywhere: from a really clean tone to an insane modern high gain sound. The JVM works very well with low output single coil and active pickups. I have owned it for four years, and tasted with my vintage noisless single coils strat and 81 EMGs. I am really happy. Versatility is the second name of the JVM, high quallity versatility. You can play Hendrix and detuned Kill Switch Engage by the same amp, without any problem. The digital reverb is a discrete useful tool, the direct line out is perfect for the studio, and the footswitchable second volume is an excelent live weapon. It also comes with serial an parallel fx loop. I love it.