davepepper's Reviews

Very good recorder indeed BUT

Replaced my Zoom recorder with this and it is a lot better. 3 batteries mean it will record for hours and it seamlessly splits bigger files as the need arises. I use mine mostly to record live shows and the inbuilt cardoid mics are surprisingly good. I've been using it with a set of OKM-IIR omnidirectional mics plugged into the auxiliary inputs so I'm covered if something goes wrong - and it allows me to add a little depth to the clarity from the cardoids - but it's pretty marginal gains TBH. The results from the built-in mics are perfectly adequate - and the recorder allows you to "dual" record from a single source at different gain settings so you have a safeguard against brickwalling. Menus and learning curve are a bit tricky. It will run on bigger storage cards than it says on the box - until you try to transfer via USB, which it won't do. That's easily worked around by just using a card reader and transferring files that way is much quicker anyway. Battery life is pretty good. Will easily do 2 hours recording in 4-track at 24/96. And will also run on USB power from a power bank, so all in all a great device for the prices they are going for second-hand. The newer model does more, obviously, but price/performance on this is truly excellent. Needs mic shields if used outdoors as will easily pick up wind sounds.

Great PSU

Made my pedals quieter, powers everything I have. Only downside is the height and clearance in my pedalboard when used with an I/0 module but that is a very specific downside to my particular setup. Well-built, has never let me down.

Big enough but...

Mine came with its own flight case, which is pretty cool.

It's not big enough for people who want to run more than a couple of oversize pedals - but plenty big enough for anyone using "normal" size pedals and an expression pedal or 2. Nice options for the various modules (I use the one with four inputs and a power supply plug). Robustly built.

Negatives. The plastic parts. Plastic push-in plug to hold the power supply plate in position is frankly awful. Not conducive to people who need to switch stuff around on a regular basis. And the glue on the plastic stick-on cable routing guides is rubbish.

Cheap, sounds good stacked with other pedals

I'd been after a DS-1 for a while and found one in a used bundle with a TU-2 for cheap so they went on my board.

On its own, as others point out, it's pretty awful. But used stacked with other pedals and preamp gain it's a great way to add a different colour to your palette of distortion/overdrive.

Am using it stacked with a Bad Monkey and a Deluxe Big Muff for when I want to go overboard. Pretty much covers all my needs.

Available cheaply second-hand and does what you need a pedal tuner to do

I got this together with my DS-1 for a really low price (what I was willing to spend to get just a DS-1) but didn't really have plans to use it as I already had a Boss tuner on my board - just with no pedal.

When I started messing around with it I realised it was a lot easier to read than the other tuner and that I might as well swap the old one out and have the option of using the mute function. Easy to read from standing position. Reliable. And white looks great next to my Plethora X5

Surprisingly good

I grew up in the 80s and was told that old Hofners should be avoided as they were fragile and tinny sounding with bad action. Finally got a black/white vinyl covered 175 a couple of months ago and it sounds great, feels great and has stood the test of time for 60 years. Weak links are probably the tuners (mine has had them changed at some point) and a lot of the pickups need to be rewired by all accounts - but they sound very "hi fi" and clear when they work. Also not a lot of hum. Body is very thin and the vinyl covering and pickguard "shrink", but don't let this put you off.

Initial impressions very good - but tuner is garbage

Brought one of these home a couple of weeks ago. Couldn't resist the colour to be honest and price I paid second hand seemed OK (more on that later). None of the video reviews I've seen do the sound of this guitar justice. With the very old strings that were on it when I brought it home it sounded pretty nice. After changing to a set of D'Addario XTs it sounded VERY nice. Action is perhaps a little higher than I would like (relatively easy fix) and its dreadnought size makes it a guitar that wants to be louder than I want to play it - but responds well to being played gently. Plastic buttons on the tuners look cheaper and nastier than I'd hoped so changed them to slotted Kluson type with metal buttons when I changed the strings. Tuner on mine doesn't work. So that's clearly junk. And in that sense I paid over the odds. I've not owned that many acoustic guitars so my references for comparison are very limited. But for the price these seem to be going for second hand, certainly a better option than the Redondo that replaced it - with better specs too, provided the electronics still work. Criticisms aside and not worrying too much about the electronics, it plays great, sounds great and looks ravishing.

Good but would change a few things about it.

Review written after owning the guitar for about half a year. The good - weight, neck (plays great, no rough frets or anything), factory setup (still haven't changed anything), the pickups (sound amazing). The bad - was advertised as with case but specs changed before delivery and it came in a horrible gig bag, I'd have preferred it to have a rhythm circuit and 1 meg pots - and the body isn't routed for a rhythm circuit unfortunately so it's not an easy modification, the Japanese vibrato with its associated play problems

There's a lot to love about this guitar but I wish they'd done it in a different colour with matching headstock (they did eventually - black, for Japan only though). My decision was based on the price of a neck and Cunife pickups, both of which I was going to buy for another project anyway - and the fact that Fender Japan had actually made the guitar I was going to build anyway - just in a different colour and without a rhythm circuit (would have built "mine" with a Gibson style config with 2 vol pots, 2 tone pots and a strangle switch.) Apart from the tone knob, it's essentially a Lee Renaldo Jazzblaster as a stock guitar. I'm more about bright cleans - and this guitar does them incredibly well. Would have rated it full marks if the price was lower or if it came with a hard case, or if it had been routed for an easy rhythm circuit mod. Don't really want to rout holes in a guitar that was this expensive.

It's not a Jazzmaster clone - it's a big Jaguar clone with P90s

Wasn't quite what I expected when I took a closer look at it. But it's an interesting guitar. Uses a tuneomatic style bridge fitted to a metal plate, with no actual holes in the guitar body. Saddles are non-height adjustable but work really well. Pickups are very clear sounding - very different to any of the other guitars I have. "Gibson" scale length. Neck is well made - and the tuners are actually very good (which I also wasn't expecting). The unusual bridge mounting system gives a very high angle for the strings, which gives some great harmonics. Only complaint is that it isn't as Jazzmastery as I hoped and I already had 2 Jaguars. Liked this guitar a lot - but had to let it go to partly pay for a Fender Japan Limited 60s Jazzmaster with real Cunife humbuckers. And two bound/block sunburst offsets with silver pickups was too much even for me.

Suprising.

Bought this on Reverb because it was cheap but came with Fender professional pickups fitted and the original scratchplate and pickups, and a Jag case I thought I would use for my other Jag. There were odd holes and it was quite tatty. Plan was to return to factory spec and flip it. But it's really unusual. It has humbuckers but the 1 meg pots make it very single-coily in its sound. Very clear sounding with delays and reverbs, without being as tinny as a Strat sometimes can be. Also with the rhythm circuit that makes a lot of sense on this configuration. Miss the vibrato TBH but going to hang on to it for a bit till something else comes along.

Technology has moved on but if you get one for free what the hell....

Got this in a box of cables I bought because it had the right discontinued footswitch for my Marshall Valvestate amp in it. Didn't really need a tuner on my pedalboard as there's one on my Plethora X5 - but thought "what the hell"?

Actually quite happy with it - saves having to switch into tuner mode on the Plethora, which is a bit fiddly. Just have it in standard chromatic mode, always on. Does what it's supposed to.

But I wouldn't actually pay money for one.

Big, does what it's supposed to do.

I like how it can be used for various functions, even though I'll only ever use it to get a wah-fuzz effect from my Big Muff Deluxe. Straight forward pedal that there's not much to say about TBH. Only gripe is that I personally might have preferred it to be a little smaller.

Suprisingly good guitar

I bought this in a very sorry state to do up and flip but ended up keeping it as it was so good. Sure, the body could be "nicer" and made of fewer pieces of wood - and it is certainly on the heavy side - but the neck is the familiar outstanding Matsumoku quality and the STC vibrato is surprisingly good. The Gotoh tuners alone are worth on their own than I paid for this guitar, which plays better than my MIM Fender Classic 70s. Mine is very very tatty looking but I can live with it as it plays so well. And I've kind of fallen in love with the honey colour, even though I never liked clear varnish guitars before.

It works .... but

I'm using this as the first pedal in my setup and it's a bit disappointing to have to put a noise gate right after it. Compression functionality is pretty good but it's quite noisy, even with guitars I have that don't hum very much. Can't blame my Carl Martin switching power supply for this.

Does the job of two or three pedals.

This is a really versatile fuzz/distortion unit that can even do fuzz wah with an expression pedal plugged in. It's a bit big for a fuzz pedal but does the job of two or even three. Noise gate is a big help too. Was a bit unsure when I ordered it whether it would be right for me - but it exceeded expectations.

Addendum Since writing the original review I have added an EHX expression pedal to this - and it produces some great fuzz-wah effects. Don't even need a wah pedal anymore.

Big for a bedroom amp but it excels as one.

I picked up one of these as affordable stereo amps with stereo effects loop jacks are pretty scarce. Had very low expectations to be honest - and this amp made a fool out of me when I tested it in the home of the guy I bought it from. As an effects platform it is very good indeed - for live use, perhaps not so much - as it is pretty prone to feedback at higher volumes unless you keep a very good distance away from it. Pros - the distortion channel is a lot better than I was expecting - I was expecting not to want to use it but it surprised me so much I had to think my rewiring. Sounds very very good at lower volumes. Analog chorus effect is very reminiscent of my old JC120. Proper spring reverb. Quiet (as in very little hum) - even with a guitar that has very noisy pickups on my AC30 and JC120. Versatile - the way I'm using it it sounds very similar to my JC120 - just with more adjustability. Also a bit smaller. And not as loud. Sounds good on its own. Compared to actual sound quality, can be picked up very cheaply. I paid about $280 for mine. Easy to get good sounds out of.

Cons - the clean channel is nothing special. Presumably only the distortion channel goes through the single valve. You won't impress the cork sniffers as it is largely solid state. And obviously not as versatile as a modelling amp. For a bedroom/home studio/practice amp (which is where it really shines) it is rather large.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

Such a fun guitar to play with great sound and feel

I bought this almost 20 year old guitar second hand, with worn strings and completely stock parts apart from an added buzz stop and couldn't put it down once I picked it up. There is nothing I don't like about it apart from perhaps pickup noise when not touching strings as no RWRP pickup. A lot of people mod this with Fender American Vintage pickups but I don't see the need with mine at least. The sound is perfect.

I don't need this to do distortion so it is brilliant

First the one dislike - it sums the effects loop to mono. And one of my guitars is stereo. This is a very niche complaint though, so most of you can just ignore. As long as you only use the on board pedals, even the mono ones do not sum to mono so you can put them anywhere in the chain.

Potential negative - you may want to use it too much and not play "clean" and these kind of effects can dictate the way you play - so use with caution. This applies to all modulation, reverb and delay type pedals so is not an actual criticism of the product. What I do like... 1) Flexibility. It will do anything I want this kind of board to do. 2) Ease of use. Controls are very very easy to work with. Learning curve is very shallow and it's easy to make this thing sound incredible. 3) Compact size 4) One thing I didn't know - is that you don't have to sacrifice a pedal slot for the outboard loop - you can just tell the board where to put it and that's where it will go. 5) Tone print.

Good, bad, but not ugly.

The guitar I own was bought very very cheaply and needed a lot of work. Bad things to be aware of.... Saddles are a weird size. Can be replaced but not like for like. Luckily mine did not need replacing. Thru-body string routing can cause some nasty wear and grooves in the bridge. Previous owner had "top loaded" strings so this was not a problem on mine but watch out for it if it is a deal-breaker. Pots - 2 of the pots in my guitar were mislabelled 250K pots - and should have been 500K. Replaced them with 500Ks - again, if tone is "muffled" this might be the problem. Tuners - OK my guitar is 30 years old so whining about one of the tuners not being very reliable is probably unreasonable. But the others are fine. Good things to be aware of.... Brass nut. Sounds great. Pickups - sound great - very Joy Division/post punk, which I was not expecting. Phase switches can often produce unusable sounds. Not the case on this. Very versatile guitar. Great Matsumoku neck as usual. Basically these kind of guitars were (as far as I can tell) the template for what PRS went on to improve upon - yet can be picked up quite cheaply if you are lucky. I paid DKK 1000 for mine and spent about DKK200 on new pots, strings and about 2 hours on adjustments and rewiring work. Bargain.

Good for the price I paid - for "normal Reverb price" not so much

The electronics on this guitar are "problematic". The pickups are "Mosrite" size staple on one side humbuckers, which are a non-standard size - and they are very noisy. For everything else, the guitar is fine. It feels nice. The tuners could be better but still work fine, even on a guitar from 1973 that had been neglected for decades before I got my hands on it. Binding can be a bit messy if not looked after - so look out for that. And neck will often have "sunk" in the socket and need shimming. If you can find one cheap and can do the work yourself, it's fine. If you can't, I'd recommend another guitar TBH.