King of Tone - Eric Johnson

Eric Johnson is one of my favorite guitar players. Not only does he have great tone, he also has great taste.

Here is an excellent video of Eric in the studio going through his set up and gear. Check it out at:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/document?doc_id=102063&autop=1&pgvar=interviews&wv=EricJohnson-03-effects_1&vname=Eric%20Johnson%20-%20Effects

If you don't have any Eric Johnson CDs in your collection - shame on you!!! - I recommend his 1990 release "Ah Via Musicom." The sound quality and engineering are first class and the songs are extremely diverse in style so you really get a good feel for the many different dimensions of EJs playing.

Pedal Boards of The Stars - Michael Landau

Michael Landau is a killer guitar player with amazing tone. Check out his solo album "Tales from the Bulge" or his work with Karizma. Here's what he uses on his current board:

• Maxon SD9 Sonic Distortion (for heavy distortion)
• Roger Mayer Voodoo 1 (for light distortion)
• Boss Volume Pedal
• Roger Mayer Voodoo Vibe
• Geoffrey Teese "Real McCoy" Wah Wah
• DLS RotoSIM - A rotary speaker simulator. For years he has been using the Arion SCH-1 Stereo Chorus to get a Leslie sound, but this seems to have been replaced with the $299 RotoSIM.

The other units on the left side of the board are channel switches for his amps and he also has a Boss tuner.

Product Review: Danelectro CV-1 Vibe

I was quite impressed by the Danelectro CF-1 Fuzz so I decided to check out the Cool Cat Vibe, which at $69 MSRP is the most expensive pedal in the range. I happened to find a mint condition CV-1 on eBay for only $33 and could not resist. But really, how good could it be at this price? The surprising answer is very good indeed.

As with all pedals in this range, the controls are on the back face of the unit making them a little challenging to access. And like its brothers and sisters, this pedal is true bypass and comes in a strong metal casing – a vast improvement over the previous plastic encased “deli” range of pedals. This particular unit sports a cool ‘50s sea foam green color, which I quite like.

Despite the placement of the controls – Mix, Intensity and Speed – they are fairly straightforward to use and offer up a wide range of tones. The mix control is particularly useful as you can mix your dry signal and the effected signal to taste. One big plus is the variety of different sounds you can get out of this pedal – regular vibrato, phaser-like swooshes and swirly chorus – so it is very versatile. It will definitely put you into Hendrix, Trower and Gilmour territory if desired.

As you would expect at this price point nothing is perfect and it does have some issues. First, it takes a second or so for the effect to engage after you have stepped on the pedal - not a big deal to me. Second, there is a significant volume increase when the effect is on when typically modulation pedals are a little quieter than your normal signal. And while the CV-1 is true bypass and quiet when not being used, it does affect your tone a little when engaged. You'll notice it takes off some high end giving a more compressed and richer tone. That I can live with, but the volume boost is so large it makes the pedal all but unusable unless you are recording and have your levels all set. As a result, the CV-1 did not make it onto my main board even though I liked its versatility and the sounds I could get out of it.

I did an A/B test to compare this with what I consider to be the best vibe on the market: the KR Products Mega Vibe, which costs around $300 if you can even get hold of one. The Mega Vibe was certainly more transparent and authentic – you can replicate Hendrix almost exactly. However, the CV-1 was certainly in the ballpark and could get you perhaps 75% there. So considering the $60 price tag I do think this represents great value for money. For a more affordable vibe that doesn't break the bank I think the Voodoo Lab Micro Vibe is the best value for money at around $130.

In conclusion, the CV-1 Vibe is not going on my main board, but it is a lot of fun to play around with so I am keeping it as a back up and for recording situations.

Product Review: DOD FX20 Phasor

The two classic 1970s phasers are the Electro Harmonix Small Stone and the MXR Phase 90. While I like both of those units, they have a very distinctive and not particularly subtle sound. I wanted something a little different and less intense. I was so impressed with the dirt cheap DOD FX65 Chorus I have that when I saw this phaser at Daddy’s Junky Music in Boston – DOD calls it a “Phasor” – I decided to add it to my pedal collection.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. This is one boring, ugly looking pedal. Obviously not one extra cent or brain cell was expended on making it look attractive to potential buyers. But once you get past the dull gray appearance, the sound is full of life and color.

Produced between 1980 and 1984, this is a simple four-stage phaser . . . sorry phasor . . . like the MXR Phase 90. However that’s where the similarity ends. This has a very subtle, watery and shimmery sound that adds no distortion to your signal like some phasers. There are only two controls, speed and regeneration, but with a fairly wide range you have enough of a soundscape to get a lot of different tones. My favorite setting is with Speed at 10 o’clock and Regen at 11 o’clock. This delivers a wonderfully warm and rich phasing sound with both clean and distorted channels – just enough to know you have the effect on, but not enough to completely smother your tone. Perfect.

There are some basic design flaws with this pedal that are common to this style of DOD pedals. The battery compartment has a removable plastic cover and probably 90% of pedals from this era come without the cover (including mine). The on/off footswitch is also not up to Boss standards, although I haven’t had any issues with this aspect.

If you are looking for a subtle phaser full of analog warmth, you could do a lot worse than the DOD FX20 Phasor. Like the FX65 Chorus, it’s another overlooked bargain from DOD that can be had for between $20 - $50.

Product Review: Boss ME-50 Multi Effects Pedal – The Smorgasbord

Putting together a pedalboard of effects is not quick or cheap. You have to work out what effects you want and then decide among myriad vendors for each type of pedal before buying and trying. This can take months. Or longer.

Then again, you could just buy the Boss ME-50.

The ME-50 includes a wide variety of different effects in one fairly easy to use unit for under $300. Basically it’s a stompbox on steroids. What you get is 10 EQ presets, 22 distortion types, 11 modulation types, 11 delay types, and 6 expression pedal effects. This smorgasbord of effects also includes a compressor and noise gate as well as some more esoteric effects like a ring modulator, octave up/down, harmonizer, and acoustic simulator. As usual with Boss, it is built like a tank.

The good news is that while Boss has pretty much delivered the kitchen sink of effects pedals, it sounds surprisingly good. The disortions are decent and varied, if not a little raspy, which I find typical of most Boss boxes. While they don’t measure up to boutique units, they are quite acceptable and useable.

The modulation channel is also decent, giving you a wide tonal palette to play with including chorus, flanger, phaser, tremolo, Uni-Vibe and a rotary effect. Because of a lack of real estate you don’t get all the controls you would if you were to buy individual modulation stompboxes, but you can still coax out some respectable sounds.

The delay channel is the standard Boss offering and gives you plenty of options from short slap back to 2000ms. One big plus of this unit is the expression pedal. You can select from six different settings including a ring modulator which was a lot of fun and a really, really nice wah.

Boss also provides a number of preset tones that are actually quite good although navigating through them is a little cumbersome and something that may be a challenge in a live situation, especially if you want to use two or more different presets on the same song. Presets can be edited if you want to add your own although there are only 30 slots available so you would have to delete one of the factory presets to add one your own.

I had a lot of fun with this unit and it’s a great option if you want to go to rehearsal without dragging your main board along. With a headphone socket and controllable output, this unit is also an ideal practice buddy. Interestingly, spending some time with the ME-50 really helped me work out what effects I liked and used and which ones I didn’t. That was invaluable because from there I was able to research and confidently purchase the individual pedals I wanted for my own board. This alone saved me many hours and a lot of money buying and trying.

The main compromise of the ME-50 is that sometimes you might want to layer multiple effects, say chorus with tremolo or stack two types of distortion. Unfortunately you can't do this as you can only have one effect from each bank running at the same time. Also I’m not 100% convinced it is gig worthy although some players do use this very unit live including Fareed Haque from Garaj Mahal.

Overall, the Boss ME-50 gets two thumbs up from me – one for the variety of decent sounds provided and one for value. Above all, it’s especially useful for those that want to build their own pedalboard, but are undecided about what types of effects to purchase for it.

Product Review - Boss CH-1 Super Chorus

Boss has a long history with chorus pedals starting with the CE-1 in the late 70s. This was was essentially the same circuit that first appeared on the famous Roland Jazz Chorus amplifier, but shoehorned into a separate floor-based unit. Then came the legendary sky blue CE-2 stomp box, which has become the industry standard chorus and is on the boards of many famous players to this day.


So on to the Boss CH-1 Super Chorus. With the Boss pedigree in chorus pedals you might think this particular model would be something special. Unfortunately, that is not the case.

The CH-1 is a fairly popular, widely available unit that is made in Taiwan. Based on my gear and my ears, here’s what I think about it:

The Good
· Does not affect your natural guitar tone
· No volume boost when engaged
· Does the classic clean and icy chorus sounds quite well
· You can run your signal into a second amp from the unit
· Boss “tank like” build quality
· Works well with single coils and humbuckers

The Bad
· Limited range of subtle sounds so not very versatile
· Cannot do a Leslie simulation at all
· EQ and E.Level controls do very little
· Cold and sterile sounding

My favorite setting is 12 o’clock on the E. Level and EQ, and about 2 o’clock on the Rate and Depth. The pedal can be used with acoustic and bass guitars and because of its subtle effect, it works quite well with these other instruments.

Overall I think this is a very average chorus pedal and there are many better options out there even though you can pick these up used on eBay for only $40-$50. For a little more money I would go with a used Arion Stereo Chorus SCH-1, a used Boss CE-2 or perhaps an Electro-Harmonix Small Clone. And if you are really serious about chorus, there are many boutique offerings from Analogman, Diamond and others.

King of Tone - Chris Duarte

Many people write Chris Duarte off as a Stevie Ray Vaughan clone – just like when Robin Trower was seen as a Hendrix clone early in his career. Wrong on both counts.

Duarte is really maturing as a guitar player and singer and I really like some of his more recent CDs. His tone is excellent – driven by a nice selection of analog effects pedals.

There is a great video up on YouTube where Duarte talks about his gear. Check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmXUSfBIIsM&feature=PlayList&p=07ED3F6DA67A5E99&index=10


If you’d like to hear Chris is action check out these CDs:

• Chris Duarte Group – Texas Sugar Strat Magic
• Chris Duarte Group – Blue Velocity

You can also stream or download some live shows from here:

http://www.archive.org/details/ChrisDuarteGroup

Product Review - Boss FT-2 Dynamic Filter

In the late 1980s and early 90s, Boss decided to discontinue a number of esoteric pedals like the Dimension C, Xtortion, Slow Gear and Dynamic Filter because they were not big sellers. Fast forward 20+ years and due to their relatively low initial sales, these pedals are quite collectible among analog pedal enthusiasts with a price to match. The Boss Slow Gear for example regularly sells for over $200 on eBay. When I saw a Dynamic Filter come up for auction a couple of months I was very interested mainly because the guitar player Alex Gunia from Matalex (a killer German fusion band - check out the "Jazz Grunge" CD) had one on his pedalboard and I really liked his guitar sound. $75 later and the Boss FT-2 was mine.

According to the promotional verbiage the Boss FT-2 is an auto wah pedal that fits into the company’s line of auto wahs between the TW-1 and the AW-2. I think this is a little misleading because in essence the Boss FT-2 is an envelope filter and produces quite a different effect than an auto wah.

There are four controls on the pedal: Sensitivity, Cut Off Frequency (high – low), Q, and Up/Down/Manual modes. You also have an “Exp In” jack, which provides the option of plugging in an external expression pedal so you can control it like a traditional wah, although I did not bother to do this.

The keys to this pedal are the Cut Off Frequency the and Q, which controls the peak bandwidth. By finding the right setting you can get some decent “quack” from this pedal, especially with single coil pickups, but try as I might I never really found “the sound” to make it a keeper. The pedal is an obvious choice for funk guitar, but it is more subtle and less usable to my ears than the Electro-Harmonix Dr Q or its Micro Q-Tron, which I think are much better sounding effects pedals in this genre.

When engaged the Boss FT-2 also destroys your tone – not really surprising because it is a fairly aggressive filter effect. My favorite setting was using full on distortion from the amp – it produced a very subtle wah effect, which could spice up solos and with the distortion cranked tone loss was less noticeable. I did try this pedal with my Ibanez bass and I think this may be where it shines best. Despite being a rare and somewhat collectible effects pedal, it didn’t make it on to my pedalboard so back to eBay it goes.

Product Review - Timmy by Paul Cochrane

Yes, it has a ridiculous name. But it also has ridiculously good tone. I’ve been through more dirt than Caterpillar in my quest for the ultimate distorted tone and after a few months of heavy usage, the Timmy has now been super glued to my pedal board. It’s not coming off anytime soon.

So what does Timmy offer that the others don’t?

First, let’s qualify what the Timmy is – and is not. The Timmy is an incredibly transparent overdrive pedal that provides mild to mid-level crunch. It can deliver a decent amount of drive, but it is not your Marshall stack in a box (like the Fulltone OCD or Keeley modified Boss DS-1) or any of the heavy metal-focused boxes. If that’s what you want, look elsewhere. However, if you are seeking a more restrained and very organic, creamy tube-like overdrive (think classic rock) then the Timmy might just be one of the best pedals of the genre.

Designed and built by hand in limited numbers by Paul Cochrane, the simple controls take a little getting used to because the bass and treble controls are “cut” style – they work in reverse of what we are all used to. Flat (wide open with no cutting of the frequencies) is at about 7 o’clock and as you turn the knobs clockwise you take out (roll off) the bass and treble frequencies, not increase them as with most pedals. Unity gain is about 1 o’clock on the volume so besides overdriving your signal you can also use the Timmy as a clean boost. Nice.

In the notes you get with the pedal, Mr. Cochrane explains these controls in more detail and better than I ever could. I’ve never read a good explanation of the thinking behind the pedal’s design so I am going to quote him directly:

“The bass control is pre-distortion. Most pedals roll off the low end before you distort the signal to keep things tight and clear. A lot of low-end distortion can get real muddy real quick. But what this means is you don’t have the low end when you need it for cleaner settings. The bass control will allow you to keep the low end for the cleaner settings, and dial it out for the good crunchy stuff.”

And here’s what he says about the treble side of the house:

“The treble control is post distortion. Like the bass circuit most pedals will have a preset hi end roll off to keep the pedal from being fizzy and noisy when distorting, but you’ll lose the hi freqs for the cleaner settings . . . Being able to control the pre and post EQ gives you the ability to kill the evil mid bump a lot of pedals have preset into them.”

I’m not a big fan of mid-range-centric Tubescreamer-type pedals so for me, this make a lot of sense. Sounds good in theory, but how does it really sound?

In my opinion, this is one of the most transparent dirt boxes I have come across and it works well with both single coil pickups and humbuckers. It also stacks very well with other overdrive and/or distortion pedals. Because it is true bypass, when not engaged there is no tone sucking at all. Even better, with the Timmy on, your exact guitar tone, and every subtle nuance of it, is still there – just with more volume, bass, treble or gain, depending on your settings. It can get pretty crunchy with the gain cranked – although not enough to make it a good choice for metal – and playing with the controls provides a wide variety of very useable tones for classic rock, blues and fusion. As a convenient bonus, it takes a standard Boss 9vdc power supply.

The only downside to this pedal is that they are hard to come by as demand has been fueled by many positive comments in online forums. Mr. Cochrane is not a high volume manufacturer so you will have to wait approximately six months after you place your order before you can plug in. Alternatively, you can buy one used at a premium on eBay or guitar-focused web communities . . . but I don’t think many owners are selling.

The bottom line: the Timmy sounds like a boutique, high-end pedal and I am sure Mr. Cochrane could charge much more than the $129 he does so it represents great tone for your dollar. Other high quality overdrive units worthy of consideration around this price point include the LTD or Direct Drive from Barber Electronics (http://www.barberelectronics.com).

And about that name. It’s nothing to do with the infamous Timmy character from South Park, but is instead based on Tim the Enchanter from the “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” movie. The Tim was the first pedal and has more bells and whistles; the Timmy is the smaller boxed version of just the main section of Tim.

Here is a decent product demo on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AViMnHAV-lw

You won’t find much info on the web about ordering so it's best to contact Paul Cochrane directly at 615-896-8555. Just be prepared to wait a while.