simon_j_dodd's Reviews

Sugoi!

What a time to be alive: Even the cheap Chinese knockoffs are amazing. This is a Boss CE2 in all but name. It sounds fantastic. It retails for under 25 landed. Buy it now.

Great Kanami-approved EQ

Powerful and flexible 5-band EQ ladled out in frequencies that are roughly comparable to the Boogie Graphic EQ. I use it to trim and sculpt the output from a NUX RecTo, but it would also work as a very nice boost.

Deeply adequate

The RM600 is an adequate Leslie simulator. It lacks two critical features: An external fast/slow switch option and a blend control. I deal with the second by using an ABY box and having it drive a second amp; the volume control on that amp becomes the blend control. The lack of a real fast/slow control is—problematic. It's far too easy to turn off the effect at the precise moment when you're trying to speed it up.

And yet—

For all that, it sounds better than a lot of its competitors, including Boss' flagship.It's a pain in the ass, but I love it.

My new best friend

For thirty years, my trusty Boss CH1 was my best friend. In my pedalboard reorg for a new band, I needed to save space, so I needed a great-sounding chorus in a minipedal format. This is it. It sounds fantastic and the mix control is an unexpectedly useful boon. You should buy one.

Why is this still the best option?

When Apple released the "trashcan" Mac Pro, it was an impressive machine. By the time of its long overdue retirement, it was an embarrassment. The Boss AC-3 is of a piece. It was, on its release, an amazing accomplishment—but how can it be that after literally twenty years, this is still the best we can do? Look, it gets the job done; no doubt. It's adequate. But I refuse to believe that Boss can't do better in 2026, and I resent that Boss hasn't done better with an AC-4. When they do, I'll hate-buy it. Until then, I'll make do with this pedal, that was once impressive and is now just okay.

Effective low-gain boost

I use this as the “low gain” channel on my pedalboard. Its job is to push a clean, glassy Fender amp with just enough gain to have some bite and juice that up to warm light overdrive for hot country and things like Mellencamp and CCR. It performs those duties admirably.

Cheap and cheerful

I scored this for $139 landed. Swapped the speed knobs for some hatbox knobs, so call it 142. And I have to say, for a very cheap Chinese 335 knockoff, it’s a pretty satisfying guitar. I’ve played worse Epiphones. In fact, I would say this knocks the stuffing out of any of the dot studios. So I’m pretty happy with this purchase and I use it live often.

The headstock looks a little tacky. That’s really my only note; not even a complaint. Good job, Grote!

Versatile and dependable

This is my main live guitar. It covers anything rock or metal, which is what it’s built for, and the coil tap gets me “close enough” for pop or country. But for tuning changes, I can play my whole gig on this guitar—and when we’ve play venues small enough that space is a premium, I have.

Perfect pedal platform in a small package

All pros, no cons. Classic Fender tone; plug in, there it is. Plenty loud enough to gig; most gigs, I stick and SM57 in front of it and the master is barely above 2, but if necessary it can get a lot louder. Good real spring reverb. Light and compact. All this for eight hundred bucks is unbeatable.

No cons, but if I were being picky… An effects loop and line out would be nice. If I’m being really, really nitpicky, a standby switch. But these are desiderata not downsides.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

The electric 12 of my dreams, literally

When I was a teenager, I doodled—fantasized about having—a signature guitar. I imagined a 12-string semi-hollow, a little smaller than a 335. Fast forward a few decades and Dean has made it. This thing absolutely and without reservation rules.

The best chorus

I bought my CH-1 from a buddy in high school almost thirty years ago. It has been absolutely rock solid ever since and I continue to use it at every opportunity. To me, this is the chorus sound.

Useful utility modulation

The Donner Mod Square does nothing very well but it does several things well enough. I use chorus enough that I have my favorite chorus pedal on my board, and in a perfect world, I'd have a phaser, a flanger, a tremolo, and a Leslie simulator, too. But I use those effects much less often—a few times each in a gig. (I use a flanger once in an average gig, for eight bars.) It would be hard to justify so large an expansion of the board for such infrequent use. Enter the Donner Mod Square! It packs good-enough-for-gigging-work effects into a tiny frame. It's not winning any awards, but it ably fills a vital niche and I would replace it if it failed.

75% of the tone of bringing a 12-string, 0% of the fuss

This is for you if you're a gigging musician who needs or likes that 12-string sound here and there but either can't bring a real 12-string to every show or, what's worse, would need a double-neck because you're switching between 6 and 12 mid-song. Pair it with a chorus pedal and you have a decent facsimile of the real thing. The Mosaic is unforgiving of tuning problems, and it will never sound as good as the real thing—obviously. But it tracks near-perfectly and for practicality, it's very hard to beat.

Versatile but heavy

The good: The Katana has a ton of power and plenty of versatility. The Artist has eight preset slots. Pair it with a MIDI controller and you've got a lot of options for what is, in the last analysis, a standalone combo amp.

The bad: It's quite big and heavy. Schlepping this to gigs you'll want to invest in a cart of some kind.

And now the weird—and this is what I really want potential purchasers to hear. For people my age this is a weird concept, but to get anything approaching the best out of the Katana, you must connect a computer (by USB) and use the (free download) Tone Studio software. The versatility can only be accessed that way; the front panel only scratches the surface. Once you get past this hurdle and get familiar with Tone Studio, you'll find that almost any pedal you could want is built right into the Katana and can be added in almost any order, with almost any parameter tweakable, many in realtime via MIDI. It's not as complicated as flying a 747, but there is definitely an intimidation factor for people used to more traditional amps.

Bomb-proof Marshall-in-a-box

My go-to for medium gain sounds, the Guv'nor excels at giving humbuckers a big, warm rock n' roll tone.