Matt LeFevers

I've been playing the same entry level acoustic guitar for sixteen years, and finally decided to make the jump to a pro quality one. I had my eye set firmly on a Taylor, something like a 314ce, but was open to other brands. After trying out a number of guitars at different stores, my local shop steered me over to the Eastman AC422ce. I played it for a while, compared it carefully to a Taylor and a Martin at the same store, then drove home and spent the next month thinking about it obsessively before finally buying it. This guitar is a work of art. It looks absolutely stunning, both at first sight and the more time you spend inspecting the little details, like its clean white binding and the ebony bridge pins. It's clear that care and attention went into everything, down to the smallest piece of hardware. Sound-wise, it has a crisp high end, but also a degree of warmth, and much more projection than my cheaper laminate guitar. The neck is comfortable and it's a joy to play. The Fishman pickup sounds great live, I've gigged with it a few times now and it needs a lot less post-processing than my cheaper guitars did. In terms of body woods, specifications, measurements, and details, this guitar is functionally identical to a Taylor 414ce, but for much less than half the price. I had barely even heard of Eastman before and they certainly weren't on my radar when trying out guitars, so I am immeasurably grateful to the employee at my shop that handed me this one.

This was a pretty affordable noise gate, so I honestly expected to have to temper my expectations here. But I've had it for some years now, and have absolutely no complaints. The gate closes in a natural way, where I never hear it cutting off my sustain or anything. And as long as I keep the threshold in the right place, it doesn't trim off my quiet playing either. (I have noticed I need to adjust the Threshold when I switch guitars. The place it needs to be for my noisy P-90 pickups will cut off other guitars too high.) And it's very small, so I was able to mount it underneath my pedalboard and never have to look at or think about it too much again after that.

I'm embarrassed, because the Micro POG was my first octave pedal, and I then embarked on a seven or eight pedal quest to find something better, only to have to re buy this one again at the end. It really is the winner. The tracking is impressive and clean, even on chords and strange intervals. Dissonant chords or minor second intervals, which are usually the bane of octave pedals, even track well on this one. The sound of the lower octave is pretty good, and if you needed to 'fake' a bass signal by pitching down a guitar, this is the octave pedal I'd choose. The high octave is a bit obnoxious on its own, but I don't think anybody really plays the high octave by itself. Mixed in with the dry signal at ten or eleven o'clock, it sounds perfectly good. Do yourself a favor and skip the seven or so other octave pedals I tried before having to re-purchase this one again, and just start here.

I've been playing guitar for twenty-five years and have gone through hundreds of pedals at this point, but I recently got nostalgic for the first pedal I ever owned. It was a DOD Ice Box that my twelve-year-old self bought at Guitar Center and held onto for a few years, then must've sold or gotten rid of (I honestly don't even remember). So for Christmas my wife tracked one of these down and gave it to me, and I was thrilled. I loved seeing it again after all that time, and having it around made me happy. But let's be real: I had a Boss Waza Craft CE-2w on my board already, one of the best and most iconic chorus pedals money can buy. What was I gonna do, shoot it out against a strange nostalgia artifact from the '90s and then decide which was better? Then I did that, and here's the surprise: the Ice Box won. The secret weapon of this DOD chorus is the high end knob, which on mine is called "Freeze" because DOD couldn't just name any knob a clear or comprehensible name back then. With this knob at noon or higher, the chorus effect is very bright and cold and sparkly. It's perfect for that chilly Metallica's "Sanitarium" tone or so many other clean parts from metal songs. But it's also lovely for strummy, ringing chords with open notes, like '80s pop or the modern pop that is currently borrowing from it. Both of those are tones the CE-2w really can't manage, with its warm and gritty tone. *But* if you roll that Freeze/Hi-EQ knob back, the Ice Box can do the warm subtle thing, too. So that's Ice Box 1, boutique Waza Craft pedal 0. The other thing that pushed it over the edge is that the Ice Box sounds like it's maintaining a clean blend as well — the whole time I was using it, no matter how rich and lush I made the chorus signal, I could clearly hear my guitar's natural tone as well. The CE-2w has no blend knob, and wherever I set the controls, it substantially changes my guitar's tone, and not always for the better. Ice Box 2, CE-2w 0. I know this is ultimately a preference thing, and if you want your chorus sounds warm and thick and almost flanger-y, you can't do better than the expensive Boss one. But in a head to head comparison I kept preferring the shimmery high end and clarity of the Ice Box, and how my normal guitar tone still carried through. I'm frankly shocked but that's where I landed.

I adore this pedal. I've made a twenty-five minute YouTube video just talking about how much I love this pedal. I've been happy with my clean tone for quite a long time, but the search for a good medium-gain overdrive has been grueling. I've been through bluesbreakers (multiple), tube screamers (multiple), distortions, $30 Boss drives, rare boutique drives you have to order from the builder... none of it clicked for me. Then I found out about this guy and gave it a shot and everything changed. It's got the thickness of a tube screamer but without subtracting all of your low and high end. It can do just a hint of grit, or all the way up to hardcore and metal distortion. It sounds good stacked into stuff; with stuff stacked into it. The EQ knobs have so spoiled me that I don't think I'll ever buy a drive that doesn't have both a bass and treble EQ now. I can't believe I got by for so long on drives with only a single "tone" knob. No exaggeration, I've legitimately considered buying two of them, one for lower gain and one for higher, and just setting them up next to each other. I adore this drive.