Most of you will be familiar with the $399 / €399 / £339 Boss Waza-Air Wireless Guitar Headphone Amp - which delivers the Katana Amp ecosystem within a wireless Bluetooth Headphone Set. The Amps and Effects selection is controlled by a Bluetooth connected Mobile App - and since all the processing is done inline within the Headphones you don’t suffer any wireless lag. That proposition though is rather dear for many, and very much limits the choice and style of headphone you have at your disposal...
I was a touch critical about the HX One - possibly overly so - as it’s really decent for what it delivers and how. While I could not be more effusively positive about this new POD Express!
For anyone starting out in guitar effects - you get everything you need in one smart little box - with intuitive and mostly surfaced control (vs Noise Gate).
If I was thinking of buying in my very first guitar effect pedal - then I don’t think I could do better than this. It contains 7 Amp & Cab ...
Wow, The Guitar Show was certainly a rollercoaster of an event with the busiest crowd I’ve witnessed to-date. At times it was quite a struggle to make your way through the packed waves of attendees, which did though start to peter out just a little after 3 o’c. For me it was fast and furious from the start - and I found it a little awkward navigating around the hall - as the stand layout seemed to have all kinds of little nooks and crannies - which made some booths incredibly easy to overlook ...
I’m not sure any of us were really expecting the return of the Condor. A lot of us are rather waiting for a stereo Dark World, the assumption was that the Condor was largely obsoleted by the Automatone Preamp MKII.
Yet here we have a new and improved version of that well loved format - and whether this is exciting news depends largely on how you mostly use this pedal.
If you mainly use the EQ and Filter elements - then the newer lower noise, smoother breakup and higher headroom HiFi ...
I kind of see the Tripple Threat as an update / replacement for Donner’s discontinued $69 Alpha Cruncher (High Gain Distortion + Chorus + Delay) - but now with All Analog effects - where the Distortion is likely the same / similar to the analog British-voiced (Marshall) High Gain Distortion found on the Alpha Cruncher, while the Tripple Threat’s classic Phaser is a tune-up of Donner’s analog Pearl Tremor, and the Analog Echo is a tune-up of Donner’s well loved Yellow Fall Analog Delay.
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We’re steadily seeing the Boss 20-Series pedals being replaced now, and the VE-20 is the latest to get a very significant upgrade. The new VE-22 moves things on pretty massively and completely revamps and enhances the form factor, switches, knobs and overall control interface - with 3 core switches now in place of the former 2 - and really smart dedicated controls for each of the core functions - all served by a highly visibly and usable LED screen.
If you’re a singer or vocal performer of ...
The final arrangement for the year - all the pedals that impressed the most!
So we featured 120 pedals across the 5 Genre categories this year - as you’ve witnessed over the last 5 days, and those have been whittled and distilled down to these 27 Magnificent and Exceedingly Flavoursome candidates.
Picking out the very best of those is obviously a slightly subjective exercise while based on a series of exacting criteria - including innovation, versatility, practicality, variability, playability, quality of manufacture, quality of output and sheer enjoyment.
Here ...
The Modutility roundup combines Modulation, Utility and Pitch type pedals - it also includes Multi-FX and Multi-Modulation pedals of course. Some years this selection is relatively sparse - while this year it’s totally chock-a-block! In fact it was a struggle to whittle the Longlist down - and inevitably some pedals I wanted to feature did not make the cut - including the Endorphin.es Ghost Pedal Multi-FX and Subdecay Prometheus 3 Dual Super Filter.
I still feel that this selection of 26 is...
Here follows an in-depth look at the ALABS Audio Adam Adventures Series NovaDrift 9-Mode Modulator.
A pretty decent mix of algorithms - Vibe (Uni-Vibe), Chorus, Multi-Chorus, Phaser, Filter, Rotary, Flanger, Tremolo and Ring.
In my opinion really only missing the Roland/Boss Dimensions Chorus and Harmonic Tremol for a full house!
Generally I cite the Wampler Terraform as the Modulator which has the most perfect mix of Algorithms for my preferences - Auto-Wah, Envelope Filter, ...