cammojodragon

At its low price point and incredible versatility, this is a pretty fantastic choice for any beginner, and is reliable enough for a moderate amount of gigging. The neck pickup brings all the beauty and twang of a Tele pickup, and it blends brilliantly with the Strat middle pickup for those lush, Hendrix-y inbetween tones. That middle pickup also howls, by the way; it doesn't feel redundant at all, you'll get some serious screaming blues out of that thing on its own, and the difference in output makes simply switching to the pickup feel like a volume boost. My own problem is that the bridge pickup is very quiet; the humbucking position doesn't bring enough to the table, and the single coil, at the same volume levels for the other pickups, is almost entirely inaudible. That's nothing that can't be fixed with a decent Seymour Duncan 'bucker (I recommend the Stag Mag to keep the tone within a Fender realm), but if you're buying this low down the price range, I doubt you'll want to fork out what often becomes an extra £100+ in sorting that out. Still, it's not really what I bought the guitar for, it's easily fixed, and the guitar itself has so much more to offer that I often forget about that limitation.

I should start by clarifying that I don't think mine represents a 'stock' RG500: the one I have is Emerald Green and from 1991, but the pickups are dedicedly low output compared to what is typical for these guitars, and there's even a dipswitch to coil split the bridge (I think it's meant to do both, but it only seems to effect the bridge). That being said, what an incredible guitar. Easily the most comfortable neck I've ever played, and no other Floyd-loaded I've tried guitar even compares to the reliability of the one that's on mine. These are certainly no one-trick pony. Sure, these types of guitars have a certain reputation for shreddy stuff, hair metal, and the like, but I've used this for everything from ambient to jazzy stuff to metal to Pink Floyd to post rock and I've yet to encounter a scenario where it won't do what I ask of it (not saying there aren't other guitars I'd prefer for such applications, but if it were my only option I'd have no qualms about it). The old models are well worth tracking down, and I have to say I paid an incredibly reasonable price for mine. Highly recommended.

There is a HUGE difference in price between each of the Cali76 models in Origin Effects' range. Even between the compact and the compact deluxe, there's about $100 or so either way, in spite of the fact that Origin claim that the only difference between the two is the amount of control you have. For starters, the Compact Deluxe sports a blend knob, which the Compact doesn't have at all. Instead of a knob for the ratio, the Compact has a toggle switch to swap between a high and low ratio. Likewise, the Compact Deluxe's individual Attack and Release knobs are here turned into a single knob controlling both parameters; as the Attack time goes up, the release time goes Down. The manual claims that doing so results in only having the so called 'sweet spots' of those settings, leaving you with the most usable options and ditching what doesn't work. Normally I'd ignore such a statement as a marketing gimmick, but they aren't wrong; there's not a single bad sound in this thing. Other compressors, even other great compressors, often leave me wanting something a bit more, with a little more high end sparkle and less muddiness. The Cali76 gives me just that. It handles heavy handed squishiness I like for my clean tones perfectly. It can add smooth, incredibly harmonic sustain to my fuzz tones without having any kind of impact on the sound itself. And it can do everything in between. I have heard that as you up between the various models in the range, the biggest difference is essentially that the bigger boxes can give you more overall compression. Perhaps that's the case, but there's PLENTY on tap here, and if you really want more than what's on offer here, you can get the SlideRig compact for the same price as the Cali76 Compact, and literally double the amount of compression. Long story short, highly recommended. Haven't yet found an application for this pedal that it can't deliver on beautifully.

Nothing more, nothing less, than a solid overdrive pedal; plenty of gain on tap, sounds great when you roll your guitar volume back, all that jazz. I have the gain rolled all the way off and the tone at around 2 o'clock and the level a little above unity; basically a mild treble booster. Pairs super nicely with a compressor for some beautiful low gain leads, and adds the extra little sparkle my Big Muff tones needed. I won't say it *can't* be beat for the price, but it's a solid option that'll suit most needs.

I've always wondered why there aren't more pedals on the market aimed at capturing the fabled sound of the Binson Echorec, but having tried out the ones that are out there, I'd wager the answer is 'we don't know how to get that sound'. Catalinbread, Gurusamps, even TC Electronic have given it a go, and while their results sound incredible (I'd love an Echosex personally), they don't really sound anything like the actual unit (the Echosex sounds to my ears more like an old analog delay like a Memory Man). Naturally, then, I was sceptical going into the Dawner Prince Boonar. It took about thirty seconds for that scepticism to drain away. This pedal is the real deal, folks. All the luscious ambience, all the hidden rhythmic delights, all the beautiful transients in the oscillation and sense of grand, unending space are all in this little unit the size of an MXR pedal, and a bunch of modern conveniences have been added. There's around a full second of max delay time on the fourth head if you want it. You've also got control over modulation, individual switches for each head to allow you to make your own combos, input control to drive the FETs just like the classic unit, switchable true/trails bypass, and even the ability to switch between a modern impedance and the 'classic' impedance of the original, which lends the pedal a more Lo-Fi sound. And those modern conveniences are great; the extra delay time gives you more scope to get rhythmic with your delays, and it lends itself to a much wider range of sounds. Once I've spent more time with it I fully intend to make the most use out of everything it has to offer. But it's early days yet, and my favourite sound is still setting the drum speed for the classic Echorec times, grabbing a fuzz, and taking myself to that Gilmourish nirvana that we all love. Get this pedal, guys. It's worth the money, and you could have ten of them for how much a fully functional 2T7E would set you back.

What an incredible machine this is. Walrus already wow'd me with the Descent, but this is just as beautiful, quite a bit more versatile, and a good deal more pedalboard-friendly. Unlike the Descent, it won't take much tweaking to find your sound, but much like it, you'll find beauty wherever you turn. It would be nice to have a little more control over the modulation, to have a dry mix AND wet mix knob (like the Descent has), and for the sustain function to get a little crazier, but these are really minor gripes. This machine is beautiful.

After being relatively uninspired by my Strymon BlueSky some months after buying it, I decided to sell it, and find some other reverb for all my shimmery needs. This pedal came to my attention after finding out it's Julien Baker's shimmer of choice, and I love Julien Baker's tone almost as much as I love her. So I saved up to grab this, and it's the best pedal purchase I've ever made. Very easy to use, with the most intuitive use of expression control I've ever seen, the possibilities of this pedal are endless. From your basic hall 'verb, to symphonic swells of upper and lower octaves, to far-out reverse synth-y sounds and everything in between. I like adding that shimmery stuff to my rhythm parts, but I also have a lot of fun adding a little lower octave to lead lines, adding a little low end dramatics. It's easy to write this pedal off as being very niche, the sort of thing you only buy if you know it's the sound you want. And it is that (though I'd add that even if purchased on a whim, you'd be surprised what you can do with it), but here's the thing; it does that one thing better than most, perhaps better than anyone.

The detune feature on these pedals is what really makes it magic for me, but I couldn't name you many (if any) artists who use it widly; the shallow detune is effectively a chorus-y modulation that sounds pretty fantastic, on top of everything else you already know the WH-1 is famous for. Nothing to complain about really; these things are pricey, but if you dig the effect there's nowhere better to turn!

I've got no problem with using this; sounds good, reasonable price, easy to dial in and a surprising amount of versatility (the rate knob goes from practically immobile to faux-leslie warbleness). I also have a CE-2w (which I left in my student res in Canada, and bought this to get some 80s-ness into the stuff I'm currently recording), and it's a perfectly fine surrogate, but it's no replacement: I can't help but feel like I'm losing a bit of high end, and that my signal is getting a little muddier. It's enough to be noticed but not enough to really bug me, though it's definitely the thing that's stopping me from swapping the CE-2 off of the board. Having the level/blend control is also a nice added bonus, though. So, overall, as I say: perfectly fine, nothing to get overly excited about. I prefer using it with my synth than with my guitar.

I know this thing has quite a tumultuous history, but as someone who paid a more-than-reasonable price for it, and already owns plenty of effects pedals to make up for the lack of powerful effects on board, I have to say, I love it. Its sound adds the exact kind of textures I was hoping to get out of it, and paired with a smidge of bitcrushing and some spacious reverb, you can't go wrong. I find it really weird that I have to tune it, though. Is that normal for analog synths?

This is the one that looks the closest to the one I use, but I could be wrong. Mine was made in the USA and has a real Spring Tank. This is an incredible amp. Plenty loud enough that I've run it clean with a six-piece band and actually needed to turn down, with plenty of tonal options. It can get nice and warm for bassy, bedroom tones, and its fat and bright switches brighten it up to cut through in a mix, without having that harsh, brittle high end for which non-valve amps are somewhat notorious. Stellar unit, absolutely fabulous

A killer 'secret ingredient' if ever their was one; perhaps I'm biased because I spent money on them, but my strat seems to go that extra mile with these strings across its fingerboard; at one/two up on each string from the Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinkys that I do so love, they've got the perfect balance; the high strings bend with pristine sustain, and the bottom strings howl just the way they should. I will say that these seem to need replacing at a slightly faster rate than the equivalent Ernie Balls, but as far as I'm aware, this is the only straight-out-the-packet way of getting this string gauge; well worth the money if the set's right for you!

Your basic channel is classic clean Fender, takes pedals well, no complaints there. A few of the 'drive' channels are worth looking at; I particularly enjoy the low-gain Blackface and Tweed models, but the high-gain metal stuff is weak in the way most Fender products tend to be, and the 'Jazz' setting is just too much low end. The effects are also a mixed bag; the standouts are the Tremolo and Vibratone settings that are quite stunning, but a little part of me is dying inside as I tell you that this Fender amp is kind of lacking reverb. If you've got a pallete of effects pedals to work with, this is money well spent for a bedroom/studio amp; if you're looking for all-in one, you're better off looking elsewhere

I love the Flashback, and there are some great sounds to be had in every version of it, but in my opinion the X4 isn't quite able to justify the huge amount of real estate it takes up on your board. Having 3 presets is nice; more TonePrint slots is nice; having the looper more accessible and being able to use a delay while the loop is engaged is also nice. But some of the extra modes on here feel a little redundant, and on a pedal this size, I'd rather have a bit more on-board control over the sound; even though I use the tone print feature, it's a little bit of a drag and very fiddly. I'd like to have more on the fly control, I'm not going to keep the pedal plugged into a laptop for the whole show. Even just a Tone knob and some way of controlling the modulation would have been nice (I know you can change what the knobs do via TonePrint, and it's a feature I've found to be very handy, but I think they'd do very well to have a couple of extra knobs on the pedal itself). The biggest selling point for this particular version of the pedal is the intuitive expression pedal input; you sweep the expression, you set the knobs where you want them, and boom, you have the parameters. That's super cool, and I love it. But for the size of the pedal, AND the fact you'd have to also lug around a big ol' expression pedal along with it to use that feature, make it feel a little bit too much. Besides, the Mash control on the Flashback 2 massively improves upon this, as well as several other things lacking on these earlier models (like being able to use TonePrint to set the delay subdivisions). It's fine, perfectly fine. And the sounds are as good as they've ever been. But my money's on the smaller versions, to be honest.

I love tinkering with this thing, and finding sounds that I've never heard before. You can do that an awful lot with how many algorithms are at play here. I'm having a lot of fun getting bit-crushed, filtered delays, and using patches to essentially create modulation lines. HOWEVER, I have found the basic stuff to be a bit uninspiring. I never use the standard mode, and while Vintage Digital and the tape emulations have a certain percussiveness that makes them great for dotted 8th and rhythmic patterns, there's something a little sterile about the sound that makes playing them feel a little flat and uninspiring when what you want is some Gilmour-esque space-making delay. It's a touch disheartening to have this incredible machine at my feet and still feel the need to pick up an ARP-87 or a Flashback to use alongside it, but I can't complain to much because the sounds I enjoy are hugely inspiring. If you're hear to tweak and discover, you just might find a sound you never knew you needed here.

Tone City consistently knock it out of the park with their stuff and this is no exception; it's a fantastic chorus pedal. It won't get you the faux-leslie tones a classic CE-2 will get you, but it WILL give you that luscious undercurrent that defines everything from Paradise City to The Division Bell to Zakk Wylde. Bravo!

Strymon enthusiasts may be aghast at the thought of a single-knob reverb pedal, but this thing is gorgeous. Though it would be nice to have a little extra control (particularly over decay, which gets quite lengthy quite quickly), for it's price point and quality of sound, it's very hard to argue with the results. It's tantalising in so many ways, a fantastic choice, particularly for the aspiring bedroom guitarist with no reverb on their small bedroom amp.

Affordable, easy to set up, and great tones in almost any position on the controls, this is the best value for money I've ever seen; would benefit from a tap tempo, but I'm not holding that against it.

If this is the sound you're after in your analog delays, you'd do very well to stop your search here. More delay time than the classic models, much easier to find, and incredibly easy to set up. The way the repeats get crunchier as they fade out is the stuff of legend, and you get a texture off of this pedal that you just don't get from anything else. The addition of expression pedal control is also a brilliant move by Boss, and lends the pedal even better to the noisey shoegaze stuff it's so beloved for. Shouldn't have sold mine. You really can't find anything like it. I'm selling my DD-500 and going back to 3 or 4 delay units dedicated to specific sounds, and this one's on the list.

Not a single tone in my arsenal hasn't been improved by spicing it up with the Soul Food - has to be seen to be believed!

Classic big muff sound, made even more accessible with the addition of an active EQ to tweak it to any setup imaginable; best buy I've ever made!

I picked one of these up second hand (mine had a hardtail bridge, which I'm considering swapping out for a Bigsby) and it was a little underwhelming to begin with; bends would constantly choke out, and it just felt a little dull and lifeless. A little cleaning and a fresh set of strings really brought out it's fantastic character, though. Don't let the strat-style pickup configuration fool you, this thing has a life of its own. This feels like a proper guitar, which is astonishing for how little it cost me to pick up. My bends are still choking out in a few places, though. That being said, the bridge on mine has clearly not been well looked after, whether or not I go for a bigsby, I'd do well to change the bridge. All in all though, the guitar itself is a fantastic find if you can grab it.