10 Years of Anniversary Tube Screamers - 35th, 40th, and 45th Editions. They aa seem to have been priced in and around $199 originally while current prices of older edition mint/new pedals can vary enormously.
Controls - Overdrive, Tone, Level / Balance.
I believe the internals are mostly the same, the 35th Edition has more protruding input, output and power jacks - and a very slightly different format. Interesting also how that one is labelled as TS-808 rather than the usual TS808 of ...
These are simply the most attractive and appealing 16 Guitars that I came across through the NAMM guitar coverage.
I alas seem to mostly have expensive taste - as some of these models cost as much as $22,000, with the PRS SE Swamp Ash Special a somewhat lonely outlier @ $849. The majority here seem to be between $3,000 and $5,000.
I’m not sure I will even acquire any of these - while it’s of course nice to dream what you would do if / when your lottery numbers come through!
The ...
I’m expecting this post to attract a lot of ’whataboutisms’ as many of my rundowns seem to do. While every single choice / selection here is well considered, pondered upon on and properly weighted up against pertinent criteria and then further rationalised, whittled and distilled down into a top 9 or 16 or 25 - as I always favour symmetrical grids.
If I find 18 or 19 suitable candidates - then only 16 can be featured on the grid etc. - you need to draw the line somewhere. And you can also ...
This exercise has totally underlined just how much of a tone genius Andy Timmons is. His pedals are selected incredibly carefully and deliberately - and don’t just have that certain glorious sound about them - but beautiful dynamics, harmonics, smart guitar volume gain clean-up and an abundance of musicality.
Andy wrings magic out of each and everyone of these pedals - and his Halo Dual Echo algorithm / preset is amazing - and can sit under anything and make it sound at least 50% percent ...
This episode is a little more esoteric and preferential than most - and involves identifying the most notable and easily recognisable ’Pedal Shapes and Formats’ essentially. Of course there is some subjective preference here - while I will try to explain objectively how I came to this exact 25 pedal selection - some of these are very obvious - others are slightly more idiosyncratic choices - while there are obviously some brands that are particularly good at coming up with memorable enclosure ...
So this is a follow up to my recent Guitar Headstock and Guitar Body Shape posts. You have no idea how long these kinds of articles take to compile. And even though there are just 9 Guitar Bridges featured here it took an age to do the due diligence and find appropriate imagery and pertinent details - as these tend to be fairly poorly documented in the public domain.
I thought I might put in a date marker as to when those bridges first materialised - but had to throw in the towel on that in...
This is my third feature on headstock ergonomics - following on from my 2016 original, and 2018 follow-up. On this occasion the catalyst for this article was the recent Birmingham Guitar Show - where I liked a lot of the body shapes I saw on display, but was put off by their unergonomic or in fact actually rather ugly headstocks.
Creating an aesthetically beautiful but distinct headstock shape is an incredible difficult task these days - and lots of brands essentially ’fail’ in that area - ...
So it’s about time for another round of ’12 Degrees of Saturation’ - featuring an updated selection and including most of the more recently released notable Mini Gain Pedals. Please note that as before - this is something of a Grey Science with simply approximated best fit positioning - as all those pedals have slightly different gain ranges, and certain ones within each selection / category can have vastly more extended range than others - and often cover more than one of the categories.
...
TS808 Red | TS9 Gold | TSV808 | |
Original Price ($) | $285 (#2) | $150 (#1) | $450 (#3) |
Current Price (μ) | $330 (#1) | $385 (#2) | $1750 (#3) |
No. of Controls | 3 (#2=) | 3 (#2=) | 5 + 2 intl. dips (#1) |
Numbers Made | N/A | N/A | c2,000 |
Affordability (now) | #1 | #2 | #3 |
Ease of Use | #1= | #1= | #3 |
Obtainability (Rvrb) | #3 (8) | #2 (11) | #1 (25) |
Practicality | #1= | #1= | #3 |
Versatility | #2= | #2= | #1 |
Quality | #2= | #2= | #1 |
Uniqueness | #2= | #2= | #1 |
Value |
Much like with the recent 32 of the Best Compact Overdrive Selection I now own all these Mini Fuzz Pedals featured here. Actually where the Decibelics The Reverend (Mini Expandora) has yet to be officially released - I should be receiveing the latest prototype any day now, and judging by Guillem Vilademunt’s previous Mini Masterpieces we have every reason to look forward to that one.
Other than that - everything is now in the collection - while this larger quest is nowhere near complete yet...