kevinraymiller's Reviews
5 reviews Back to kevinraymiller's Equipboard
116
The most cleverly designed Uni-Vibe pedal.
Not only this Uni-Vibe pedal sounds great but it also has the cleverest design ever used on a Uni-Vibe pedal. The way they have integrated the foot rocker and the Uni-Vibe pedal in one unit is quite a genius idea. It sounds as good as vintage Uni-Vibe units but due to its design, it barely consumes any space on the pedalboard.
116
It's the best wah that money can buy.
This wah pedal is pricey but unlike some other so-called boutique wah pedals, this pedal is by no means overpriced. Other wah pedals like the ones from Dunlop, VOX, Wilson Effects, etc don't even come close to this pedal in terms of quality. All three wah modes sound great, but the "Jimmy" and "Shaft" modes are my favorite ones. The range of this wah is just perfect and the huge sweep of this wah lends excellent controllability. Another cool feature is the onboard buffer/booster, it's fuzz friendly, it's transparent, and it also ensures that there's absolutely zero volume loss when I step-on the wah. As for reliability, mark my words, this wah pedal is so rugged that it can pretty much take a nuke and still work fine. Buying this wah is like a one-time investment, it's so well built that it will last you for your lifetime (maybe even outlast you).
1268
I get it, this Fulltone wah must be mighty and stuff and you really like it but the way you have downplayed other brands ain't right. Have you ever played through a Dunlop Cry Baby DCR-1SR or a DCR-2SR rack-mount wah unit? I don't think you ever had, or else you won't be bashing Dunlop over here. Dunlop makes all kinds of wah pedals, it's not right to base your judgment on their entry-level wah pedals. As for your rather tall claim "Other wah pedals like the ones from Dunlop, VOX, Wilson Effects, etc don't even come close to this pedal in terms of quality.". That's highly debatable. Have you ever tried the Sonuus Wahoo, or the EMB Audio Pedal Wah (by Ampli-Fier). I don't think you have tried them or else you won't be making such tall claims about the Fulltone Clyde Deluxe being the best quality wah ever made.
116
No, I haven't tried the rack-mount wah units from Dunlop, but it doesn't matter. Their internal construction is not of the same quality as the Fulltone wah pedals. Those rack-mount wah units use PCB based construction which is nowhere as good as the hand-wired construction of the Fulltone. I see no point in shelling out $600 on a wah that isn't even hand-wired. As for Sonuus Wahoo, seriously you think that wah is good. It may have the ability to produce different kinds of sound but answer this simple question of mine. How many of those sounds are usable in the real-world? As for the EMB Audio Pedal Wah, there's nothing even distantly vintage-sounding about that pedal. The appeal of the original EMB Audio rack wah died out after the '80s and '90s, the EMB Audio Pedal Wah was pretty much like beating a Dead Horse. Unlike the timeless vintage-sounding wah pedals, such modern wah pedals are just passing fads. Not to forget at the end of the day, it too is a PCB based wah, I see no reason in spending above $200 on PCB based wah pedals.
1268
Wait a minute, so according to you, the Dunlop rack-mount wah units aren't great because they ain't hand-wired, that has to be the most snobby and ignorant garbage I've ever read in my life. When it comes to providing a high amount of tonal options wah pedals seldom come close to rack-mount wah units. However, according to you, they are not good because they use PCB, hats off to your cuckoo logic. You know the amp you use and the new Fender amps use PCB too, so by your logic maybe they're horrible too. So according to you the original EMB Audio rack wah and its predecessor the EMB Audio Pedal Wah were just passing fads, that's interesting because you know what guitarists like Kirk Hammet and James Hetfield were the very first musicians who pre-ordered the EMB Audio Pedal Wah when Ampli-Fier released it, they still command a hefty price tag in the used market. Not to forget the fact that with the right tuning and texture setting it can produce all kinds of vintage wah tones too. The only thing you need to do is learn how to use it. Maybe the thing which is obsolete over here is your ability to learn how to use a new and advanced product. As for Sonuus Wah, I find the tones in that wah pedal extremely usable. Its extended tones work really great for Avant-Garde sub-genres of Metal, Ambient Music, and Industrial Metal. I liked the tones generated by that pedal so much that I even plan to get that pedal for myself. Maybe playing too much Blues has restricted your creativity. I think you're just infected with the Blues Musician Syndrome, so get well soon Kevin, because your condition is making you spew illogical stuff.
41028
I'm with you Tim... PCB is far more consistent and handwiring is only useful in tube amps where it doesn't sound any better if its done well BUT because of the heat? Hand wiring is better for reliability in a hot amplifier. Even the ebst doube sided PCB traces are succeptible to heat and cold and anything less than mil spec board is prone warping and cracking.... in a tube amp. In a wah? LOL no reason for handwiring. Its just that the early vox wahs were hand wired as were old fuzz faces and tonebenders.... some of them were built really badly too. And they were incredibly inconsistent. There are awful old clydes and good ones.... this is a marketting gimmick. And if you want a boutique wah you're overpaying for get a Teese, not mike fuller's gizmo, at least Teese is a nice guy.
116
I never claimed hand-wired construction is better than PCB, but in a vintage style wah the kind of wiring matters because it impacts the tonality. All vintage wah pedals were hand-wired so it's pretty obvious in order to sound like them their modern equivalent should be hand-wired too. The kind of wiring impacts the signal flow of a circuit. As for my point about not paying $600 for a PCB based wah, I still stand by that point. It doesn't matter if it is rack-mount or whatever extra feature it may have, $600 for a wah that isn't even hand-wired is plain foolish. I just gave my opinion on the EMB Audio Pedal Wah, you're free to disagree with it, we all have different opinions. If it was such a great pedal why no one else other than those who play modern genres adapt it? As for my lack of willingness to learn how to use complicated wah pedal like the EMB Audio Pedal Wah. Well, we all have our own different learning capabilities, after all, God created us different from each other. Yes, you're right playing Blues may have made me less creative by your standards because at the end of the day we don't experiment with new soundscapes in Blues. Blues is not about wild experimentation with soundscapes or display of technical prowess, it's about pouring your heart and soul in the music and connecting with the listener through your soul.
1268
James, buddy, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I would never pay such ridiculous prices for this Fulltone wah. The whole hand-wired effect pedal thing is just pure marketing gimmick. The consistency of hand-wired effect pedals is complete bonkers. Even pedal guru Brian Wampler uses PCB construction because it ensures a high degree of consistency. I can bet in a blind test many of these hand-wired wah snobs won't even hear any difference. This guy Kevin is blinded by his snobbery. The worst thing I saw about his comments is how he completely dissed Dunlop products like the DCR-1SR or a DCR-2SR just because they use PCB construction. Top musicians like Rob Cavestany, Slash have been using those units from the '80s and '90s to date without any problem. When a firm makes a $600 wah unit with a lot of adjustable settings then a hand-wired approach will be completely foolish, because it will be like playing Russian roulette with the quality control. Too bad snobby people like Kevin can never comprehend such stuff. I have met snobby Blues players before, and Kevin sounds like one of them. It's kinda disheartening to see that Blues which was actually a genre that never cared about gear has slowly become the genre with so many gear snobs.
41028
look, I build handwired stuff, sure, but 1 offs for myself, no sense making a PCB for 1 unit
41028
now, I'm not trying to flame the OP here precisely, just pointing out some simple facts any builder will likely concur with
116
Leo Fender's masterpiece.
I have this guitar in the see-through blonde finish. This guitar truly is the next stage in the evolution of the Stratocaster design. The trem system feels far better than a normal Strat trem. The fit and finish of G&L guitars do feel better in hand than Fender. However, the most unique thing about this guitar is its G&L MFD Z-Coil Hum-canceling Single-coil pickup set. I mean I use the Seymour Duncan Classic Stack Plus pickup set, although they sound good their tone is different from true single coils. These Z-Coil pickups on the other hand sound exactly like a true single-coil pickup, I dare to say they sound even clearer than single-coil pickups. The only things I replaced on this guitar are the tuners. The stock tuners were okay but I wasn't a fan of their low 12:1 gear ratio, so I replaced them with G&L locking tuners. The G&L locking tuners are basically G&L branded Schaller M6 locking tuners, they have a gear ratio of 18:1.
116
Excellent amp with downright horrible speakers and few idiotic design elements.
This amp is an underrated gem of an amp. I was genuinely surprised by the low prices at which they sell in the used market. Even I bought mine used at a surprisingly low price. It's a versatile amp, from old-school Blues to Hard Rock, this amp pulls off all those genres with aplomb. However, its stock Celestion Tube 10 speakers were utter pieces of junk. At low volumes, they sound lifeless, at high volumes, or when you switch to overdrive channel they not only sound muddy but also fart out. So, I replaced them with a quartet of Weber 10F150-T speakers, at first I thought about getting the 10F150 but then decided to go for the 10F150-T because they were bright like the old Jensen speakers. To say that the difference in the tonal quality was phenomenal will be an understatement. These Weber speakers stay clean and tight even at high volumes, they never fart out. If that ain't enough the amp sounds substantially louder, with the new Weber speakers it's even louder than a Fender Twin Reverb. Do note that despite being a channel switching amp it's by no means a modern high gain fire breathing monster. The tone of its overdrive channel can be best described as an old-school hot-rodded Fender Blackface tone. Think of JCM800 levels of gain with Fender Blackface style tone and you'll get the idea. With the stock speakers, it had a bit of a Marshall like tonality, but with the Weber speakers, it sounds like a hot-rodded Fender Blackface amp. As for its clean channel, all I can say is that it's perfect. It has excellent Fender Blackface style cleans, think of a Super Reverb with the headroom, and quick response of a Twin Reverb and you'll get the idea. With the brightness and expander switch on and the bass and treble dialed back by a hair, and mids dialed back you get the nice scooped John Mayer style guitar tones. This amp truly deserves a lot more recognition among Blues and Blues Rock guitarists than what it has right now. If you swear by Fender Blackface amps then try this amp, you'll be highly impressed. If I need to pick flaws, I would say that a tremolo could have been a nice addition, a Blackface style amp feels a bit incomplete without it. The knobs for adjusting the send and return level of the effects loop could have been bigger, I find it tough to turn the diminutive trim-pots because I have thick fingers. The design of the standby switch is awkward, I wonder who the heck gave them the bright idea to not only use a small push-button switch as the standby switch but also tuck that darn switch in a tough to reach position under the power indicator. The design of the power switch is awkward too, it's located at the rear of the amp and it's a mini-rocker switch, yes you read it right, it's not even a full-size rocker switch or toggle switch. Whenever I have the amp placed near a wall I need to feel around the back for the power switch.
116
I've never heard anyone call them unreliable before. At most, they criticize them for the stock Celestion Tube 10 speakers and bad quality stock Sovtek tubes, but I've never heard about reliability issues with these amps. My amp is running on Tung-Sol tubes and I have replaced the speakers too, so far it hasn't failed me even once.
41028
I've repaired a few, they tend to have parts pull off the PCBs if they travel a lot in cold weather.
116
1976 American Standard Strat
It was my first guitar and it's still going strong. When I bought it from a local pawn shop I was just a pre-teen, and I must admit I lucked out on this guitar. Of course, it wasn't in a good cosmetic condition. Its finish was scuffed near the arm contour but it's pretty much expected from an old guitar. The most disgusting aspect however was the sheer amount of nicotine stains on it. It was an Olympic white Strat but it was stained almost brown due to the nicotine stains. Its maple fretboard had nicotine stains, there were nicotine stains on the back of the neck, the white pickguard was stained too, and even the control knobs had nicotine stains. Not to forget its middle pickup was missing. Whoever was the previous owner must be a total nutjob (other than being a heavy smoker) because under the pickguard this Strat was wired like the bastard child of a Strat and Tele. The weirdest thing was the bridge pickup, for some unfathomable reason it had a metal plate attached to its back (do comment if you have any idea about this oddball mod). Nevertheless, it played like butter, the fretwork was perfect, and the store owner offered me a darn low price, so I bought it and rewired it myself with new pickups. With the due course of time, I have made multiple modifications to this Strat. As of now, it has the new Kluson Supreme tuners, Seymour Duncan Classic Stack Plus pickup set, and the Tremmory trem stabilization system. Cosmetically this guitar looks disgusting like a pig, but good Lord it's one hell of a pig and my main guitar for all gigs.
2786
Nice, where can we see your guitar?
116
Here's an old image of that guitar from the time I rewired it. I have tried to host it online so as to embed its image in my comment. I hope you'll like it, and I hope it shows up as a thumbnail. https://img.techpowerup.org/200915/img-20000823.jpg
382
I hate to be a spoilsport but that guitar looks disgusting. There's a difference between minor nicotine stains on a guitar and having the whole guitar coated with a layer of nicotine. Even the fretboard and parts look disgustingly stained. As for the stock pickup you threw away, that pickup had the twang mod. That metal plate under the pickup causes eddie current interference and makes the Strat bride pickup sound twangy like a Tele. Such pickups are not that common, and are usually custom made. I can't believe you just threw them away.
116
Wait a minute I had no idea about those pickups. Are you sure they were not some grungy knockoff pickups?
382
I'm darn sure about them. I have seen such pickups before, they're usually made by Fralin and some other custom pickup builders. They're not some cheap knockoff pickups. Fralin, and Callaham do sell those baseplates separately, the baseplates themselves cost around $10 to $12. So, if it isn't a custom built pickup then it's most likely the stock '76 Stratocaster pickup modified by the previous owner with an aftermarket baseplate in late '90s or so. That was the year when the trend of making the Strat pickup sound like Tele took off and Callaham started selling them.