faber_fdm's Reviews

Simple and effective

This is a quite nasty overdrive pedal. It does the hot rodded Marshall sound very well. I'm using it in conjunction with a Wampler Plexi-Drive, the latter being set as a sort of faux-clean and when I turn the EWS LBD on it's just like having a second channel on my amp. You may think that one knob is not enough but the way it is voiced is just perfect for me. There are two internal trim pots but I prefer to leave them as they were originally as I think I would lose some of what I really liked about this pedal in the first place. You'll definitely not play conventional metal on this but, coupled with a Big Muff, it makes the latter "chug" a bit and create some very heavy sounds. Highly recommended.

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Nice, warm and serviceable

While this is probably not the best tremolo out there, the Tuna Melt has a very nice sound. It can go from slow, swampy trem to machine gun and everything in between. It's not transparent but adds some mids that help make it through a mix and not lose volume. As this is a cheapo, I highly recommend it

An improved Triangle Big Muff

This pedal is a copy of Boris guitarist Wata's fuzz, an Elk stusainar, which was itself modeled on the original Triangle Big Muff by Electro Harmonix. So you can say that it's a Triangle BM copy, which is good enough as there are not so many boutique versions of the Triangle, as opposed to the many Ram's Head or Russian muffs that are offered these days. As I have a recent reissue of the Triangle, it is easy for me to compare those pedals. I'd say that they're pretty similar but that the EarthQuaker Devices pedal has more of everything, more gain, more volume on tap and a wider tone range. The tone knob is probably the most original aspect on this thing. Counterclockwise, you get more trebles and clockwise you get more bass, so that works in an opposite way compared to most existing pedals. Once you've understood that, it's easy to build yourself a reliable tone. I did not even have to open the manual and immediately got everything I expected. It's buzzy and hairy as any good Big Muff pedal should be, with an everlasting sustain, even when that knob is dialed down a bit. I'd say that compared to a traditional Big Muff, it has less of the straightness of a distortion and more of the unpredictability of a fuzz, with a gated, bit crushed ending, and good note separation. So, yes, the Triangle Muff is gone for good and that improved version is gonna replace it. My favorite aspect? The switch. A no click switch is just so much better in a live situation. I play some post-rock, shoegazey, alternative metal kind of music and I like to stack dirt pedals a lot (in addition to the Big Muff kind of pedal, I've got a Rat clone, a Blues Driver and a boost and they're quite often played altogether, with the BD-2 and the boost always on as my 'clean' tone). The Hizumitas is going to be the perfect tool for the sort of stuff I like to do.

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Best bridge HB on my Gibson SG

It's always difficult to assess the quality of a guitar pickup because there are so many factors to consider about the guitar it's mounted on that it's unclear what will most affect the sound. So I can only base myself here on my experience. I've changed my SG pickups a bunch of times (P94, Pearly Gates, Bare Knuckle, Alnico II Pro) and all I can say is the Norton is my favorite. It's bright but it doesn't have too many mids, the sound is very articulate and can be heard without any problems in a live situation. It has a big sound, but not as much as a Seymour Duncan SH-4 (which I used to have on another guitare). Moreover, unlike the latter, it also sounds very good clean. I can therefore only recommend it for any form of use ranging from classic rock to alternative metal.

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Extremely articulate neck pickup

It's mounted on my Gibson SG on which I had a variety of pickups: Alnico II Pro, P94 and the Gibson 490R that originally came with it. This is by far the best neck pickup I've had on it. It's full, not muddy, articulate and precise. And yet it's warm, too. DiMarzio managed to bring everything you can expect from a neck HB. I'm delighted and highly recommend it.

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After 25 years of playing, I can surely say that these are my favorite strings ever!

I'm not very faithful when it comes to strings. I've used several brands and gauges, alternatively. After 25 years, I can say it: these (and the EPN115, which are very close) are by far my favorites. This is not something that you realize when you play them on a day-to-day basis but opt for anything else for a few months and when you finally get back to D'Addario, you really feel the difference. These strings are reliable, they sound good from day 1 (not shiny bright like some competing brand I will not mention). They never break (and by NEVER I mean that I've never broken one during all these years). And they're cheap. In fact, I feel sorry for D'Addario but they have plenty of high-end strings that they advertise as having more durability and playability but these, the cheapest strings in their line, are already so satisfying that I see no opportunity for an upgrade. Also, what I like about the 11-49 is that they work for all my guitars: they're as good on my 21 frets Fender, 22 frets Gibson or 24 frets Cort, and they're as good whether I use a EADGBE or a DADGAD tuning.

A very weird pedal but I love it!

This pedal embarks a gain section as well as a DSP with four effects: pitch shifter, tremolo and two reverbs: room and hall. It has a lot of defects. For instance, there's no switch for the gain section so you can't use all of these effects in a live situation. I tend ti use it clean, although it's not as clean as you may want it to. This is good with me because I like to have some dirt in my sound but if you're after cleanish clean, well, look elsewhere! Now, the distortions are all excellent: the fuzz is quite harsher than a big muff and the drive, though dirty, cleans up quite well. In fact, you could use this as a sort of always on feature if you want to use your volume knob. Having a guitar that has two coil splittable pickups, I could really do this although it does not really fit my style. Anyway, there is a lot of things to explore, here, thanks to the bright, warm and dark positions. I like the "warm" one better, as this preserves all of the spectrum of my original sound but dark can be very interesting. Bright is too hissy for me, though. Now, the effects. First thing first: the reverbs are gorgeous, almost perfect and if it was the only purpose of that pedal, it would be well worth the price of admission, I think. The two modes are quite similar, the main difference is that hall offers a sort of pre-delay that can create interesting textures if you set the mix quite high (in that case, you lose your dry signal and that can be interesting if you want to create violoning effects. Yet, once again that section of the pedal has defects. One of the big problems is that the four effects, although switchable, are not calibrated in the same way. If you go beyond noon with the reverb for instance, you're going to have a lot of it, so you may want to set it quite low (let's say in between 11 and 1 depending on your style). Same things applies to the amount knob. But then if you want to switch to the tremolo mode, this will not work. The effet is really audible after 2 ... So it's impossible to find a sweet spot. Well ... I did anyway. But I play in a shoegaze band, so I want plenty of reverb and not so much tremolo... so that's alright with me. I won't comment on the pitch shifter as this is almost useless, unless you plug an expression pedal and if that's the case, you have a quite ineteresting whammy-like effet. I've used it on a recording and that's fun but not something you may rely upon, I think. In sum, you really need to decide what you want to do with this pedal. If you're after a clean multi effet embarking distortion, reverbs and tremolo, this is not the right pedal for you. There are too many excentricities for that use. But if you're a shoegazer, well, you may find the sweet spot for you. So it's not so surprising to see this on Neil Halstead's (Slowdive), John Cumming's (Mogwai) and Miles Kane's pedalboards. If this works for them, this should also work for you, right?

My favorite neck humbucker

I've had it mounted on my Gibson SG a few years ago. I wasn't so impressed at first but it has grown on me over the years. It has a smooth, spongy bass response which I find extremely appealing. I don't use it much live but it is a wonderful pickup to record songs with. In particular, it is ideal for playing arpeggios and open chords. I recently changed the bridge pickup to have a better matching set. I used to have a Pearly Gates but I did not like it. I found it lacking in bass and treble response, it was all mids and not much else. I chose a Bare Knuckle Old Guard to replace it (as this is an Alnico II, too) and the two pickups seem to have been made for each other. I highly recommend both but especially the neck pickup, which is incredibly good and a great match for a Gibson SG.

Wonderful Alnico II humbucker pickup

I've bought it for my Gibson SG. I did not like the Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates I had in the bridge position, which I found too middy, a tad flat, and just not very inspiring. Yet, because I am in love with my neck pickup, an Alnico II Pro, whose sound I find extremely appealing, with its magnificent, smooth bass response, I wanted to keep an Alnico II pickup. It is difficult to find reviews on this Bare Knuckle pickup, as this is part of a new series of affordable pickups they just put out. These are still handwound in the UK but as opposed to their other pickups, those cannot be customized and they come only with a few classic options: black or zebra, chrome or golden cover, etc. The Old Guard is their "vintage output" line and I found the price point (similar to DiMarzio and Seymour Duncan) interesting, so I took a chance on that new product. And, well, the only thing I can say is that Bare Knuckle deserves every bit of the praises they received on musicians' forums. That pickup is wonderful, it is way more open, clear and articulate than the Seymour Duncan, much more flattering and endearing and while it has vintage output, it loves distortion and I am sure I can use it for alternative metal tones without any problem. It is the perfect match for the Alnico II Pro and I also love the middle position. Highly recommended.

A no-brainer

I think this is my favorite flanger pedal, and probably my favorite modulation pedal, too. Unlike many other flanger pedals, that let you control a variety of features, this one lets you just dial the right amount of feedback and the rate of the effect. This could be a limitation but it is actually great because that pedal is perfect te way it is. The Depth is preset so that even if you set the feedback at 0, you will hear modulations. Then your pedal will sound more like a chorus than a flange. So basically, if you like that sound, I don't think you really need to have a chorus. This is the way I use it the most. I set "regen" relatively low and then I set "rate" wherever I want, depending on the kind of watery effect I want to obtain (my personal preference is for relatively slow chorus/flange but if you like leslie, that pedal does it pretty well). That being said if you want to push "regen" higher, you'll never get into cheesy 80s territory (instead you'll get some nice tone reminiscent of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun). So basically, whether you like Heart's Barracuda, The Cure's A Forest or The Police's Driven to Tears, that pedal will give you that, with warmth and without excess. It's as quiet as possible for an analog flanger and it does not color your sound, except for some slight volume boost which I find more welcome than annoying. To me, it's the flanger to end all flangers. Unless you're looking for some very excessive effect, like Electro-Harmonix or more recent developers can do, look no further. That's the perfect pedal to nail that classic sound.

Billy Corgan in a box ... and so much more!

I was after Billy Corgan's guitar tone on Siamese Dreams. EHX had just reissued the op-amp Big Muff and that's what I wanted to buy in the first place. Then I thought it wouldn't cut in the mix in a band situation very well and thought I should try to find something with more tonal possibilities. So I've picked up a second-hand one (although in fact mine had been barely used by its previous owner). This is wonderful. I've heard of people who never managed to get a decent sound out of this. I think they may just be unhappy with the rest of their setup. I've found my sound in five minutes after plugging it. Scoop is in-between 2 and 3 o'clock, where the sound is less scooped (yes this is one of the tricky things on that pedal!), therefore with more mids, and Crunch is in-between 9 and 10 o'clock, where this sounds like a real fuzz. There are internal trim pots as well, that help expand the tonal possibilities of the Crunch and Scoop knobs, respectively. I've set them where I liked and did not think about them afterwards. With this settings, I get a very classic Big Muff sound that goes from the Black Keys, if I play something bluesy, to Dinosaur Jr or the Smashing Pumpkins if I try to play harder. This is beautiful and easily usable in a band setting, not unlike the excellent Hoof Fuzz by Earthquaker Devices and much better than the current US Big Muff, which I find too scooped for my tastes. The pedal is sturdy, the switch and knobs look solid. It is highly recommended for anyone who wants to get a serious fuzz tone that is reminiscent of late 80s-early 90s indie rock but also wanst more tonal possibilities. I might be using only a small part of what this pedal can deliver but that sound is what makes it a staple on my pedalboard.

My favorite overdrive pedal ever!

This is a seemingly simple, sturdy overdrive pedal with four knobs: level, gain, bass and treble. With this one, Mesa-Boogie clearly operates in the OCD-range, providing a drive pedal that is grittier than a TS-like, without sounding like a full-fledged distortion. I've owned all sorts of TS-like (from BOSS SD-1 to Maxon OD-9, as well as the real thing) and I can say it's much better than any of them, and not just because it has more gain on tap. It's also more transparent, juicier and produces a very silky tone that I've never found in any pedal I've tried before. It is perfectly responsive to the guitar's volume knob as well as to your picking attack. With just a few adjustments, you can go from slightly overdriven arpeggios to mean riffs. It has a voice on its own, full of bass, which I love very much. I think it can be used for any style, from meaty blues to alt-rock (and possibly metal, if used to push an already overdriven amp). In terms of design, it's perfect, the pedal is beautiful, the switch and knobs are sturdy. They'll resist many abuses for sure. I found it during the sales period for 130 euros, approximately, and at this price this is a steal. At its normal price (200 euros) there may be other options to think of (Xotic and Fulltone comes to mind). Yet, from a personal point of view, this is the best overdrive pedal I've ever owned and that includes some very good ones such as the Barber Direct Drive (close to this one, but a little too dark) and the Death by Audio Interstellar Overdriver (a totally different beast, which I only sold because I found it too noisy and low gain/high volume). Anyway, the Flux-Drive definitely deserves a try.

A pedal that only delivers one sound but does it very well.

A very simple two-knob pedal, delivering a sine-wave tremolo, close to that of the Fender Vibrolux, Princeton ou Deluxe Reverb. Therefore it does only produce one sound and this is a very vintage-like one. The sound is absolutely transparent, it doesn't affect the signal. There's a subtle volume drop but this is the principle of a tremolo-pedal, it is almost unavoidable. Its main defect, in my opinion, is its range. The speed knob produces a very slow tremolo, which, although enjoyable, is not very useful. The usable tremolo sound, the one you hear on many classic records, is at the very end of the spectrum, almost at 3 o'clock. The other defect is that the knobs are kind of sloppy, you need to be very careful where you put your feet if you do not want to lose your settings. My review does not seem very engaging but in fact it is a very useful pedal to produce a classic, vintage-like tremolo sound. I've owned an Electro-Harmonix Pulsar but I've sold it and kept the Surf Trem because I really love its simplicity.

Not transparent, but unbeatable in that price range.

This a simple boost pedal with just a "boost" knob. It is not just a volume boost, the mids are boosted as well, and not slightly. It can be a problem for some who are after a perfeclty clean boost but for the use I make of this pedal, first in chain in front of a Mesa Boogie Flux-Drive, it's very efficient if you want to step out in a band mix and add some grit to an already slightly overdriven sound. You do not need to push the knob very far : at 11 o'clock, it's already audible. Past noon, you run the risk of annoying your bandmates. I've also used it at the end of the effect chain, in that case you need to be very careful about how you set the boost knob, 10 o'clock will result in an already very drastic boost, and that includes hiss and other unintended noise. I rarely use it as a standalone boost and have never tried it in an amp's effect loop, though. Not a 5-star pedal, then, but for me, it's almost compulsory in a band situation, and unbeatable in that price range.

Nice effect but poor quality control

At first sight, this is a nice Tape Echo simulation. Apart from the usual knobs (Delay, Feedback, Level),it offers 7 different positions which consist of 3 different delay range and the possibility to combine them. There's also a Sound on Sound position, actually a sampler, which can be useful. The effect is supposed to be editable using a software but the USB cable is not included so I did not have time to try it. Cherry on top: a tap tempo, always useful for this kind of pedal. The sound of the delay is realistic and takes you directly to Floydish territories à la Echorec. So what's the problem? The problem is that the unit is terribly noisy and not true bypass. It wasn't obvious at first as I tested it with the battery that was provided with the pedal. But once plugged on my pedalboard, things began to change. I could hear a chhh chhh chhh through the amp. I quickly realized it came from the pedal, even though it wasn't engaged. I tried to use it on its own with an isolated power supply but it did not change anything, the noise was still there. I don't know if that problem was specific to my pedal or if that's a factory issue but I've returned it to the seller as the pedal was not usable for my purposes. The noise makes it unsuitable for recording and for live performances. I don't have anything against floor noise, that's kind of normal, but that was some sort of very annoying digital noise which can't be tolerated especially when the pedal is supposed to be off. I'll have to avoid buying this brand in the future as I've read a lot of similar reviews. Too bad cause the effet was pretty great in the first place.