velma_cassidy's Reviews

Best 10" speaker equivalent of the Celestion Alnico Blue.

I wanted a 10" equivalent of the Celestion Alnico Blue speaker for my VOX AC4C1-BL. I'm glad that I went for this speaker. It has the signature Celestion Blue chime but in 10" size.

Great quality low wattage amp with a flawed back panel design.

I love VOX amps and this amp is no exception. It has the signature chimey VOX cleans, and with gain turned up it even produces excellent fuzzy tones. However this amp has one major flaw, it's the design of its back panel. I noticed it when I replaced the stock speaker. Taking off the back panel was atrocious, the number of screws on the back panel is plain stupid. It was made even more atrocious due to the fact that all I had was a plain screwdriver and not some power tool. Speaking of speakers the stock speaker was okay, but I replaced it with a 20-watt Weber Alnico Blue Pup with moderate dope.

Edit: I missed out two important details. The Alnico Blue Pup is a really tight fit for the AC4C1-BL. While ordering the speaker order it without the cover or else it won't fit. Second is that the output transformer needs to be relocated from its position, otherwise the back of the speakers touches against it. It isn't a grueling task, all one needs to do is drill two more holes on the space next to the output transformer, and then relocate it to that location.

A quirky but nice guitar.

I won't claim that it's the best guitar ever made, because it isn't. However, the thing this guitar does is really different from other guitars. The chime you get when you play this guitar through a VOX AC30 makes you smile from ear to ear. It doesn't have the sustain necessary to play long sustained leads but it works perfect for playing chords. It almost feels like an acoustic guitar.

Better than the new VOX V846-HW.

I wanted to replace my AMT Electronics wah with something more vintage sounding. The AMT Electronics wah is not bad but its tonality is aimed more towards those who play modern genres of music. For me it was a toss-up between this pedal and the VOX V846-HW, I am glad I opted for this pedal. This pedal is completely handwired just like the VOX V846-HW pedal. A major advantage this pedal has over the VOX V846-HW is that it can not only replicate the tones of the vintage VOX V846 wah pedal but also of other vintage halo inductor based wah pedals. Just play around the harmony knob and this pedal lets you produce tones of different kinds of halo inductor based wah pedals like the VOX Clyde McCoy Wah, King Wah, and even Thomas Organ Cry Baby wah. I think the only reason it costs low is because it's made by BBE, had it been made by some big boutique brand I'm pretty sure that it would have cost an arm and leg to buy.

Great quality microphone with an user friendly design.

I found out that I can get better quality recordings if I dual-mic my amp with my ribbon microphone at the rear-mic and a dynamic microphone on the amp speaker. So, I went for this microphone. Using it with the D82 is really easy, hang the D82 to the rear and this microphone to the front and that's it. No need for microphone stand, no worries about your cat kicking the stand over. As far as its tonality is considered, it's like somewhere between a Shure SM57 and a Sennheiser E609. It's a wee bit brighter than the SM57 but not as outright bright as the E609. It complements the warm D82 ribbon microphone really well.

Best Rangemaster clone out there.

After playing with my BBE Bohemian treble booster for years I came across an old Dallas Rangemaster unit in our local studio. For so long I assumed that my BBE Bohemian sounds similar to the Rangemaster but when I heard the real Rangemaster I stood corrected. I realized that compared to the real Rangemaster my BBE Bohemian had a harsher breakup. There was a certain hairy but smooth feel to the tone produced by the Rangemaster which was missing with my Bohemian.

However, the biggest difference was in how they responded to me dialing back my guitar's volume or playing notes softly. The original Rangemaster was a lot more responsive to my playing dynamics. I could get different kinds of tone out of it just by changing the volume of my guitar, and also cleaned up a lot better than the Bohemian when I rolled back the volume of my guitar.

Compared to it my Bohemian behaved more like an op-amp based overdrive pedal. It didn't respond to my playing dynamics like the Rangemaster, it just felt stiff. Changing the volume of the guitar produced no major change in tonality, and it din't clean up like the Rangmaster either when I rolled back the volume of my guitar. So, from what I concluded from my comparisons is that despite of being voiced like the Rangemaster the op-amp based Bohemian just didn't sound and behave like a genuine Rangemaster. It got close in terms of tonality at times but it never behaved like a genuine Rangemaster.

That's why I looked around for a genuine germanium transistor based treble booster, and came across this pedal. I ordered mine with NOS CV7003 transistors which are military issued variants of OC44 transistors. At $180 it wasn't cheap but it wasn't insanely priced like some other Rangemaster clones. This time instead of just believing on my instincts I went back to the studio with this pedal and compared it side by side to the original Dallas Rangmaster. Not only the tonality of this pedal was absolutely spot on, but also it responded perfectly like the genuine Rangemaster. The only difference I noticed was in the noise floor. This pedal has lower noise than the original Rangemaster, maybe the quality of the military issued OC44 transistors has something to do with it.

It's simplistic but sounds good.

This flanger pedal doesn't have too many bells and whistles, but it sounds great.

Makes the vibrato a lot smoother.

When I replaced the stock tailpiece with a vibrato tailpiece on my Höfner Ignition I also replaced the stock bridge with this bridge. This bridge gets rid of the friction when you use the vibrato and makes the vibrato operate smoothly.

Works great on my guitar.

I replaced the stock tailpiece on my Höfner Ignition guitar with this vibrato tailpiece. It not only works as good as those higher priced Bigsby tailpieces but it also looks better than the Bigsby vibrato. A unique thing I have noticed about it compared to a Bigsby unit is that it doesn't use pins to retain the strings with their ball ends. It has the strings retained by a large tone block instead. Due to this restringing it is way easier than restringing a Bigsby unit.

Excellent analog delay.

Someone stole my EHX Tone Corset, Animal Pedal Car Crush & Relaxing Walrus during a gig. So I bought this pedal to replace the Relaxing Walrus delay. Unlike the Relaxing Walrus this pedal is a true bucket brigade analog delay.

The Relaxing Walrus delay was good enough but this pedal in is a completely different league. It sounds really warm and organic. There is something about its repeats which just wasn't there on the Relaxing Walrus delay, they sound really smooth and round.

Not an optical Uni-Vibe pedal but it sounds good.

Someone stole my EHX Tone Corset, Animal Pedal Car Crush & Relaxing Walrus during a gig. So I bought this pedal to replace the Car Crush. Just like the Car Crush this pedal isn't an optical Uni-Vibe either, however it sounds good.

Good quality compressor.

Someone stole my EHX Tone Corset, Animal Pedal Car Crush & Relaxing Walrus during a gig. So I bought this compressor to replace the Tone Corset. I have to admit the noise floor of this pedal is pretty lower than the Tone Corset. Rest of the stuff feel similar.

Good quality analog chorus and vibrato.

This pedal is well built. The footswitch is quiet. The chorus and vibrato effects sound really lush.

Excellent ribbon mic for guitar amps

It's a great quality ribbon mic for recording guitar amps. It imparts nice warmth to the sound of my guitar amp. Due to its shape it's really easy to place it before guitar amps. It's pretty affordable too

Great quality wah

I love the compact size of this wah and it sounds great too.

Worth the price

My ex-guitar teacher recommended me this tuner pedal instead of PolyTune 3 and I'm glad I listened to her. The tracking speed of this tuner is way faster than PolyTune 3 and its visibility is great too.

Excellent Fuzz Face clone.

It's one of the best Germanium Fuzz Face clone out there. It also has a bias knob to fine tune the transistor bias and uses a charge pump which lets me use it directly with my pedal-board power supply. Despite of its enhancements it costs lesser than the new Dunlop Germanium Fuzz Face pedals. They have two more variants named "Sag" and "Bias" but I went for the "Tone" variant because it uses the well known AC128 transistor.

Works best when you know how to use it

I used to use this pedal before my amp, after my treble booster and fuzz, but it used to suck my sustain and tone. Then few members of EHX forum recommended to try it in X-configuration, so I connected it that way and then re-adjusted the settings, now it works better.

Best bang for the buck compressor

It's a good quality compressor that doesn't break your bank. The compression quality is comparable to higher priced compressor pedals.

Best speaker ever made by Celestion.

They came preloaded on my AC30C2X and they sound so good and loud. They have a beautiful chime to their sound which you won't hear from any other guitar speakers.