jim_garrison's Reviews

Best flanger in its price range.

This bucket brigade flanger blows even pricier flanger pedals into weeds. The numerous wave shapes make it the most versatile flanger money can buy.

Decent quality buffered volume pedal. EDIT: The diminutive size makes it utterly unusable.

It's a decent quality buffered volume pedal and due to its 10K Ohm impedance it actually fuzz compatible. With my fuzz after it I can roll down the volume with it to clean up my signal. It also works great as an expression pedal with my Uni-Vibe pedal.

However its diminutive size does make it tricky to use.

Edit: I'm taking my two stars off. I have got rid of this pedal. This pedal is utterly unusable. There's a reason why manufacturers don't make such ridiculously small pedals, when you make them so small they become unusable. In live gigs you always end up with improper foot placement on this pedal. It may be good for bedroom players but if you perform live gigs just stay away from this pedal.

Its buffer quality was as good as my current Mission Engineering VM-Pro pedal, but what's the point when the whole design of the pedal is impractical.

Best Uni-Vibe pedal period.

I bought it used and it was kinda pricey even for a used pedal but it's worth every penny. It sounds excellent and it's a stereo Uni-Vibe pedal. It has expression pedal port to control its speed and despite of all those goodies it's pretty compact.

Lush Chorus and Vibrato

It's the most lush sounding vibrato and chorus pedal. However for the price they can add few more controls like a low and high knob and an expression pedal jack.

This pedal sounds perfect.

Both the bias and harmonic tremolo settings sound excellent. It's almost as good as real amp trems.

Best Fuzz Face clone in its price range.

It's a Fuzz Face clone that uses the iconic low gain NKT275 transistors just like the original Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face. It cleans up real good and it also has additional Bias and Smooth knobs to further tune its tone. At just $170 it pack a serious bang for the buck

Great quality OTA compressor

It's the best OTA compressor in its price range. I went for the Sweetwater edition purely because it looks cooler. However in terms of sound and functionality it's same as the normal Keeley 4-knob Compressor Plus pedal.

It's a true analog strobe tuner pedal.

After reading all the rave reviews about this tuner pedal I decided to pull the trigger on it and I have to say that this pedal lives upto those rave reviews. Its accuracy is unlike any other tuner pedal. Even those Peterson tuner pedal look pale compared to this pedal However the thing that surprised me the most is its tracking speed. This pedal tracks in realtime which is impossible to do with DSPs. So I opened up this pedal and what I saw truly surprised me. This pedal doesn't use a DSP to measure your tuning. It uses the analog signal from your guitar to directly drive a LED array stroboscope. It basically a LED array based analog strobe tuner stuffed in a pedal.

Packs a huge punch in a small size. EDIT: Unusable due to flawed design.

When I bought this pedal I expected it to be yet another mediocre low end wah pedal but holy moly color me surprised this little thing packs a serious bang for the buck. It sounds better than VOX and Dunlop wah pedals. If that ain't enough it's also true bypass, it doesn't do any monkey business with your tone when it's off.

It does have its quirks though. First quirk is that it's small even by mini wah standards, heck even a Dunlop Mini Cry Baby is bigger than this little guy. So it takes time to get used to its diminutive size. Second quirk is that it's a springless wah, I've never used a springless wah before, so to me it does feel funny to use.

Edit: This wah is utterly unusable. It's just way too small for real world usage. Due to its size it's almost impossible to control. And here's the deal, a springless wah just doesn't work right. I'm taking off my 2 stars. This wah pedal is outright flawed by design.

Best Chicago Jensen P10N clone.

If you want the most accurate and best quality clone of the vintage Chicago Jensen P10N speakers then go for these speakers. They nail the tone of the old made in Chicago P10N speakers.

With these speakers my Hot Rod Deville not only sounds sweeter but it also sounds louder than before.

Sounds excellent when modified

In its stock state this amp sounds absolutely horrible. In the stock state the overdrive channel is plain pathetic. It sounds overtly buzzy and the low end is loose in a bad way. Even the reverb sounds bad, it completely swamps the signal and it doesn't sound full at all. At first I thought that there's some problem with my amp because I bought it used, but I later tried a completely new one at my local Guitar Store and it too had the same problems. I was about to give up on this amp but then I went though few forums and read about some mods to improve the tonality of this amp. First I replaced the V1 tube with a 12AY7. The difference it made to the sound of the amp was remarkable. Gone was the harsh nature of this amp. The cleans now sound like a Bassman and the overdrive now sounds smooth. It goes from a Bassman like overdrive to a totally unique hot-rodded Bassman style overdrive. Thanks to that small mod it now sounds like a hot-rodded Bassman. Another mod I did was the Steve Dallman Reveb mod. It was really easy to do, all I did was to clip the R103 resistor out from the circuit. This removed the treble bypass on the reverb. I also replaced the stock 2-spring reverb tank with a MOD 9EB3C1B 3-spring tank. Now the reverb sounds rich, lush and huge. I also replaced the speakers with Jupiter Condenser Co. 10LA alnico speakers. The degree upto which it improved the sound of my amp was phenomenal. They even sound great for overdriven tones. With these mods this amp sounds even better than many top tier amps. As for its effects loop, it's a buffered effects loop but it ain't tube buffered. It's buffered with TL072 op-amps. It works fine though.

A underrated gem of a guitar

I own a partscaster clone of the early ash bodied 1956 Duo Sonic. It's an exact replica of the original 1956 Duo Sonic and even has the gold anodized aluminum pickguard. However unlike the original Duo Sonic my clone has nickel hardware and Zexcoil pickups. I use the Zexcoil Z-Core 5 Vintage Underwound pickup at the neck and Z-Core 5 Vintage Hot pickup at the bridge. I use the Rutters La Burrito 3-saddle bridge in it with compensated brass saddles and the tuning duties are handled by Kluson Supreme tuners.

Back when I assembled this guitar those MIM Offset Series Fender Duo Sonic guitars weren't released by Fender and I was unwilling to hunt for an original vintage 1956 Duo Sonic guitar.

It's a great sounding guitar and it sounds excellent though my Fender Hot Rod Deville. Its short scale makes bending notes almost effortless, and it has a rock solid tuning stability.