DIMARZIO VIRTUAL VINTAGE HEAVY BLUES 2 VERSUS CRUISER BRIDGE

Tonight I want to share a little bit about my experience with DiMarzio products! Hopefully this will help you to decide whether you want to change your pickups to DiMarzio or not. I'm going to review the Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2 and compare it with the Cruiser Bridge. Read on! :)

Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues

Let me start with the basic specification of the pickup

Output : 170mV(according to DiMarzio)

DC Resistance : 8.5 k ohm

Magnet : Alnico 2

4-conductor-based wiring

Tone : Treble 7.5, Mid 6.5, Bass 6.0(DiMarzio's website)

This single coil is very ideal to re-create that vintage hot-rodded Strat style tone. I prefer to use this one on the neck position and use a low to medium output humbucker to get a balanced volume level. It packs some mid punch; unlike a strat, this one is a bit hot and works well with distortion.

The high notes doesn't get too harsh, the low has some definition, and the mid kicks your notes nicely. I personally like this pickup for it's thickness(I'm using .008-.038 by the way, very THIN). You can easily nail hot-Strat tone from various artists using this pickup combined with slightly overdriven amp or clean amp with a little bit boost.

I don't find any flaw with this pickup except its strange wiring methods; the cable colors aren't the usual ones. It's not using a very strong magnet so it doesn't pull your string too much, you get more sustain for sure. I don't know what's your preference but trust me, weaker magnet is sometimes better :). BTW, you might think that more mid may increase muddiness: that's not happening here, this pickup is balanced properly EQ-wise.

Price starts from $70.00, you can get it from any famous music store(in U.S. of course). I got mine from a music store in Indonesia, though.

Cruiser Bridge Model

Output : 143mV(according to DiMarzio)

DC Resistance : 5.75 k ohm

Magnet : Ceramic

4-conductor-based wiring

Tone : Treble 8.0, Mid 4.5, Bass 5.5(DiMarzio's website)

Andy Timmons uses this pickup on his guitars and he uses it pretty often on the neck position. I put this one on my PGM and I can easily nail Timmons' tone using this pickup. The sound that I'm getting out of this pickup is a natural Strat sound that doesn't get too harsh with the treble but still retains its glassy tone. It doesn't emphasize your picking too much(is that good or bad?) but I personally like it because it doesn't get too bright on the scratch notes unlike traditional Strat pickups.

Works well with distortion, good for combination with other single coils or a full sized low-medium output humbucker. I combined mine with AT-1 humbucker which basically has similar qualities with Seymour Duncan JB. I set my humbucker high and the Cruiser very low and I can get volume reduction when switching to the Cruiser on the neck. Very versatile!

Nothing I dislike about this pickup. It does have a low output(although higher than strat) but it doesn't get thin. It doesn't boost your midrange; this one is a more of a traditional single coil that everyone will surely love.

Price: starts from around $70.00, you can get it anywhere in U.S. for sure.

Which one is better?

Cruiser is definitely more traditional with some enhancement on the chord definition and power. It pushes your amp harder compared to regular single coil pickup of a Strat. VVHB2 has more midrange and for sure it will give you fatter tone compared to Cruiser; it's easier to drive your amp with the VVHB2 too! People who prefer something with standard features will enjoy Cruiser; someone who wants to get more thickness and overdrive-friendly pup will like the VVHB2.

I personally prefer the Cruiser for its versatility and basic tone but I find that the VVHB2 allows me to cover more hot-Strat-based tone; the VVHB2 is also more aggressive and shred-friendly. So really, the choice is yours! Do you like something basic or do you want a little bit of an extra punch? Anyway, thank you to DiMarzio for making such great pickups, they really earned my respect :D

Cheers and God bless :)

p.s. 4 more days until I'm able to post audio clips :D...the final part of the "Guitar Artists with Great Tones" will be available shortly, I hope that you enjoy the previous parts of the post. Feel free to share any part of this blog with the rest of the world :D

GUITAR ARTISTS WITH GREAT TONE PT.II

This is the second part of the "Guitar Artists with Great Tone" post. Feel free to check out the first post at anytime. Read on...

Eddie Van Halen - Van Halen

Eddie is a good example to show that great tone mainly comes from fingers, not from expensive gear. In the early days of his success, he used nothing more than just a Frankenstrat: a home-made $300 strat with humbucker pickup on the bridge.

His early Van Halen era tone is called "the Brown sound" which basically comes from a humbucker-equiped strat plugged into a variac-ed Marshall Plexi Super Lead Amp. For those of you who don't know about variac: it's basically voltage transformer that can drop or raise the amount of voltage going into an amp. Thus, the name variac came from "vary AC". It's not really clear whether Eddie lower or raise the voltage using the variac device, he blew lots of amp and cabinet(theoretically can only be caused by raising the voltage using the variac). Nonetheless, many people agree that he lowered the voltage judging from the sound.

Another important thing to mention here: Eddie don't really use gain boxes or preamp before the Marshall Plexi Super Lead. It's just straight Frankenstrat into the Marshall. He did have EQ-ing between the Marshall and the cabinet.

There's no doubt that this guy is another important figure in the world of guitar tone. Definitely check out his early days Van Halen work and you'll be pleased with his classic early-shred era tone.

David Gilmour - Pink Floyd

Another guy with classic rock tone that everyone praised. His great improvisation skill was the main factor of his great tone. His main guitars are mostly Stratocasters and the most famous one that he uses is the black on black '69 Strat with maple neck and DiMarzio FS-1 pickup on the bridge position. Apart from Strat, he also used Les Paul, Telecaster and Esquire.

Talking about amps, he did use Hiwatt 100W heads and Mesa Boogie Mark I during "The Wall" era. For the FX units, he used lots of different units but mostly they were delays, compressors, wahs, choruses and gain boxes.

If you never heard of him before, check out "Comfortably Numb" from "The Wall" album. The solo part is arguably the best solo guitar on the planet!

Lincoln Brewster

Not many people know him, but he's actually a pretty great guitarist with great tone. He is a Christian musician/composer and has recorded many great Christian albums with cool guitar parts. His tone is very fat and warm and received so many praises from his audiences.

He uses Stratocaster mostly, preferably the '57 and '62 reissue Strats equiped with DiMarzio Area series pickups. He also uses Les Paul '59 reissue on some of his works.

This is where the fun starts: He doesn't not use vintage amp with boutique pedals. He only uses a Line 6 POD X3. That's it. You can even download his patch on his website and load it to your X3 to get his tone. Well, actually you will also need his fingers and maybe part of his brain? Haha, just joking...because I tried his patch on my X3 and when I started to play, it doesn't sound like him at all *sigh*... :'(

So once again, it's been proven that the tone lies mostly on the fingers, not on the gear. Check out the song "Today is the Day" and listen to his solo guitar. That solo is just amazing, plus the tone is very pleasing to the ears!

Gary Moore (R.I.P.)

A classic Les Paul guy, his live performance tone has been praised very much for its crazy-fat-warm-sustain quality. He's one of those guy who redefined the term "tone" in the guitar world.

Mostly a Les Paul '59 guy throughout his life(it's Peter Green's LP), but has been seen using other guitars. He used Marshall Guv'nor pedal and Marshall JTM45-reissue amp. That crazy overdrive was mostly from his already overdriven amp combined with the Guv'nor overdrive pedal.

I remember saw him once on a live performance DVD where he got that crazily fat and overdriven tone with just a crazy amount of sustain. That's just fantastic !!! He will always be remembered for his work on the music world, Gary Moore is a legend !

Stay tuned for the final part of the Guitar Artist with Great Tone! The last post will contain the man with the greatest tone in my opinion!

Cheers and God bless :)

ELECTRO HARMONIX EHX HOLY GRAIL NANO REVERB

I decided to do a review today before continuing the Part II of the "Guitar Artists with Great Tone". Today we will be reviewing another great Electro Harmonix pedal called Holy Grail Nano.

Reverb pedal around the world

There are tons of good reverb pedal on the market, some come with a very expensive price tag and claimed to have some boutique qualities not found in other reverb pedals. But some reverb pedals actually come pretty cheap to the market and they sound just unbelievable! This one is one of those good cheap pedals. With a price tag of less than $130.00, this one blows the competition away!

What makes it so special?

First of all, EHX is known for its good quality pedals that ranges from overdrive unit to even fully functional power amp in a form of a stomp box. EHX makes the Deluxe Memory Man, the only worthy rival of the real tape echo. The Holy Grail reverb, not surprisingly, is also a very high quality pedal with exceptional sound.

It has three options to choose: Spring, Hall and Flerb. It also has one knob that basically controls dry vs wet. Furthermore, with the nano version of the Holy Grail, it takes only a very small space on your pedalboard. I tried all the three options of the Spring, Hall and Flerb.

The Spring option gives me that short slap type of reverb, very good for acoustic sounding tone and it doesn't over-boost the slap or pick frequencies thus making the overall sound not too harsh.

The Hall option gives me that classic concert hall reverb sound. I prefer the signal to be not too wet, maybe around 9ish, so that I can still get definition of my notes. But you can make it sound totally wet and roomy and try to experiment with it a little bit.

The only mode that I don't enjoy is the Flerb which is basically a flanger combined with reverb, sort of like chorus and delay of the Memory Man series. It doesn't quite attract me since I prefer a more traditional sound out of a reverb pedal. But you might find it useful for something that I haven't catch yet. Who knows :)..?

Inconsistencies?

Yes, I heard that the Holy Grail Nano pedal is famous for its frequent defect units. Some of them sound bad, some of them hiss when being used, even some of them won't turn on or even possess bad switching system. I am pretty lucky I didn't get any of those, but I've seen people in a guitar forum got pissed because they got the defect ones. So by any chance, test the pedal first if you can before you buy it.

How does this one compare to any other reverb pedal?

If we're talking best for its price, this one definitely wins the game totally. But yes, some other reverb pedals actually sound a bit nicer than this. They come with higher price tag of course as I mentioned before. The original Holy Grail and the Holy Grail Plus actually sound almost the same with this one, people confirmed this, and they're more expensive for sure; they offer more knobs for controlling various stuffs though, so maybe if you need to tweak your sound more, you should check them out. EHX also comes with the Cathedral stereo reverb if you want stereo reverb with tons of options and knobs, but of course it's even more pricey!

This thing is totally worth!

For around $120.00, it's totally worth every penny you spend. If you're looking for a basic reverb with decent sound and great price, look no further. For this price, I would call it a steal.

Anything you dislike?

Digital? No I'm just joking, the word digital doesn't really scare me because lots of reverb pedals are digital. If you want the sound of a true analog reverb, it will only come in the form of spring and it won't replicate the big Hall sound. I like this pedal so much, it gave me the reverb tone I'm looking for.

From 0 to 10

10, or maybe 11 if I may add. Haha !

Here's the sound clip: HOLY GRAIL

Cheers and God bless !

p.s. stay tuned for the next "Guitar Artists with Great Tone" post.

GUITAR ARTISTS WITH GREAT TONE PT.I

No review today, but something different.
Today I want to share a little bit of my opinions about guitarists with great tone and great skills. They're all highly respected musicians and most of them are enjoying their careers either solo or with their bands. Most of them most people will already know because of their popularity but some of them are not really famous in the public but possess great tone and exceptional guitar skills. Some of them are my biggest influences but some of them I don't really check them out yet.

John Petrucci from Dream Theater

John Petrucci is famous for his work with Dream Theater, a progressive rock metal band that's currently growing rapidly in terms of popularity and exposure in the public.

His tone is coming mainly from his Ernie Ball Music Man John Petrucci signature guitar combined with Mesa Boogie Mark series amp. His EBMM JP guitar is usually loaded with DiMarzio LiquiFire and Crunch Lab humbuckers.

What sets him apart from the other guys in terms of tone is his ability to get a well defined fat warm super-driven notes during high speed picking with not too much muddiness when using highly saturated amp. The settings on his amp is not really surprising in the world of metal heads: scooped mids. Although he used scooped mids, his humbuckers are designed to work well on mid frequencies so he's kind of trying to balance between the amp and the pickups to get a well defined tone.

He definitely uses many FX pedals especially during live performances to create layering effects. He uses chorus, phaser, flanger, delay pedals and also overdrive pedals ranging from stock market models to hard-to-find vintage modded ones. However, his tone does not mainly come from his gear but it's mostly from his fingers.

Recommended album with great tone: Black Clouds and Silver Linings, Scenes From a Memory, Octavarium.

Stevie Ray Vaughan(R.I.P)

Almost every blues guitar fans know him and try to get his tone. He's a very famous Stratocaster user that really knows how to get a good tone out of it. The secret of his tone is nothing more than his Strat on a 6L6 based amp with mild drive and some boost with the Tube Screamer. In fact, if you have a Strat, a Fender Twin Reverb Amp and a Tube Screamer, you'll nail some of his famous tones instantly.

He used various gears and guitars but his main ones are the Fender Stratocaster '62 "Number One", a TS808 Tube Screamer and Fender Twin Reverb/Tweed Bassman Amps. Secret ingredient to his tone is super heavy gauge strings, probably around .013 and tuned it down half step to lesser the tension of the strings.

A lot of modern guitar players mentioned SRV as their tone inspiration because of his massive bluesy tone. Even gear manufacturers are trying to capture the sound generated from his gear and make it into a box or something. Thus, SRV is undeniably a very important figure in the world of guitar tone development.

Paul Gilbert from Racer X/Mr. Big/Solo

Every shredder must have heard Paul Gilbert's name at least once in their life. He's the shredder of the nineties, very famous with his work with Mr. Big and some people even know him while he's still in Racer X.

Starting from his solo album era around Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar, his tone is suddenly transformed and becomes very enjoyable.

His tone is not really the fat-warm type of tone, but it's very rich with articulation and definition. It's good for fast stuffs, chords and blues licks.

The secret of his tone during the nineties is definitely an Ibanez PGM with no tone knob loaded with PAF style pickups, particularly DiMarzios ranging from PAF Pro to the Tone Zone to even the Super Distortion high output pickups. The Ibanez is then plugged into a Marshall high gain amp. He get a very decent tone coming out from this combination.

Another secret to his tone is the picks that he used: he prefers a .60mm Dunlop Tortex to the standard small pointy Jazz picks that almost everyone uses. He angled his thin pick to get more treble and attack from the strings and it really is the biggest secret to almost nail his tone.

FYI, he didn't really care about tone until he started touring on G3 with Joe Satriani and John Petrucci. He now uses Marshall Vintage Modern, Ibanez Fireman loaded with DiMarzio Area series pickups, Majikbox Fuzz Universe overdrive pedal and some flanger, phaser delay and other boxes. He also used some Xotic pedals and he constantly changes his pedals depending on what he wants. Now he sounds much better than he was!

Definitely check out Silence Followed By A Deafening Roar, Fuzz Universe and his works with Mr. Big and Racer X. All of them contain Paul's mighty shred-ready tone.

Andy Timmons

He's relatively new to most guitar players but he's actually been around for quite some time in the guitar world. He played with metal band called Danger Danger around nineties. He's now currently a solo artist and has his own band called Andy Timmons band.

The secret of his tone comes mainly from his signature Ibanez AT series loaded with DiMarzio Cruisers and AT Humbuckers/Seymour Duncan JB plugged into Mesa Boogie Lonestar/Stiletto Deuce/Transatlantic 30. Other important part of his tone is the delay FX units that he uses and also his gain box. He loves the Echoplex tape echo very much, but he prefers to use a box to replicate the effects during live performance by using an EXH Memory Man or sometimes using rack type delay units. For his gain box, he relies mostly on his signature Xotic BB Preamp. He used Ibanez Tube Screamer sometime in early 2000 to get that bluesy tone much like SRV's with more gain. He's also known as a Telecaster guy and he also played an SG although we haven't see him playing live with his SG.

He's been respected very much as a guitarist and also as a tone chaser. He tried various pieces of gear and experimented with all of them to achieve a good sound. Unlike any other Ibanez endorser artists, Andy prefers the sound of a guitar with lower output pickups and cool vintage-style hardware and look.

Definitely check out his new album Resolution and his compilation That Was Then, This Was Now. Don't expect anything too shreddy from his songs but he has couple of tricks under his sleeves just in case someone needs shreddy stuff!

Stay tuned for PART II !!

Cheers and God bless :)

LINE 6 POD X3 LIVE + SPECIAL CONTENT

Special post

If you're reading this, congratulation, you're in for a treat: this post will cover one of the most popular digital FX unit and we'll cover a little bit about digital vs analog topic that's been around for a while. Hopefully it's not biased and it'll be informative enough for you.

I bought this pedal from a good friend of mine. Back then, I don't really care about my tone and I'm using nothing more than a Metalzone MT-2 in front of a Korg Ampwork with a wah sometimes before the MT-2 if I need one. They sounded "nice" to me but not too nice until I got my enlightenment. This pedal is really a huge upgrade for me since I can get great tones with different types of sound and put them on patches and just press on the switches to change from one sound to another sound.

First impression

I can get a good thick fat lead tone using Mesa Boogie Rectifier high gain amp replication on that pedal. I can also get any other kind of tone that I want, even an Andy Timmons'(yes, him again) tone on different songs using a 6L6-based amp replication. The amps sounded great and thick to me.

The FX are also great, they sounded nice to me and very close to the real ones. The particular one that shines the most is the Screamer stomp that is the replication of (you guessed it) Ibanez Tube Screamer TS808. It sounded warm and clear, almost like the real one. The delays are also nice, particularly the digital delay. I also like the sine chorus FX, it's not too harsh and it keeps the integrity of the 'tune' pretty well.

All of the simulated units are fully adjustable and even more adjustable than the real ones. This is very useful for live performances because you can use the same tone for different situation just by tweaking the settings a little bit. This shows how serious are the Line 6 guys when they designed this thing.

On a live performance, this thing sounds as good as the real thing (some people claim it sounds better than the replicated goods!). Furthermore, you have the built-in EQ that can be tailored as flexible as you want. This totally beats tube amps and stomp boxes in terms of flexibility; you can even get a dual tone mode that simulates two signal chains together with different settings with stereo option available.

You can have around 30 user channels and you also have tons of original presets. I don't find the original presets to be very useful. But some of them can help you to inspire your own particular sound.

So far so good...

I kind of hate when it's time to make a new sound on a particular channel. It takes lots of time to tweak things around and get them all together to sound well. Other thing that I hate is sometimes I miss-pressed the switches because they're so hard to step on, not as smooth as a 4PDT switch or a regular Boss enclosure switch. The placement of the bank select switch is also not convenient in my opinion; it's located on the bottom left of the box and besides the channel select. I miss-pressed that switch lots of time as well because I thought it was my other channel switch; I ended up changing to a totally different sound and I was a little bit embarrassed.

Also I don't really like the expression pedal, the switch underneath it that changes between wah and volume mode is very easy to get pressed. I remember one time I was supposed to engage the volume back to normal loudness but I ended up pressing a little bit too hard and accidentally I activated the wah mode on a live performance. Oooppsss.

Do all of the above bother you significantly?

YES during live performances. But to be honest I'm more concerned about how I sound so all of those above don't really drive me crazy.

So does the pedal worth?

For a brand new one that costs around $400.00 or maybe less, I say it's worth. It has lots of amps and FX units replication inside of it and most of them sound great. It's flexible, it's powerful, it's not very easy to use at first but you'll get use to it very quickly, it sounds good as well(for now). This item worths every penny you spent !

From 0 to 10

10. But with some exception: some amp modelings and FX units do not have the same responsiveness of the real ones although they still sounded good. This will add some difficulties to your playing but not necessarily on your tone.

We're not done yet, "Mythbuster: Analog vs Digital " is coming next

Some people swear by the name of analog tube amps and real stomp boxes, some people think it's just superstitious. After I did tone chasing for some time, I must say that both are true. I think some of you already know what I'm going to say, but it wouldn't hurt to discuss this topic again.

To be very honest with you guys, after I checked out a real tube preamp and all of those analog pedals, I must say that they "sound" very nice to ME. They have that special "ingredient" that spices up my tone significantly IN MY OPINION. I can sort of hear more definition of what I'm trying to express on the guitar and that really help me a lot. They cost more too and they're being used by famous players with nice tones.

Is it true? Maybe yes, maybe no.

Talking about digital, it's worth mentioning that Axe FX by Fractal Audio is gaining popularity as well with higher price, better processing power, more options and "better sound+responsiveness" compared to the POD X3. Some artists already use POD X3 on live performances such as Lincoln Brewster. But more high profile guitarists like Greg Howe now choose to use the Axe FX for their live rig.

Well, what's good for me doesn't necessarily mean good for you or other people.

I've heard people with the real device said that the POD X3 sounded better during a comparison. I've also heard that with some serious EQ tweaking, the POD X3 can beat its digital rival Axe FX. But not too few audiences also said that the tone that's produced on the X3 or Axe won't match the real thing.

It seemed that all things really depend on the definition of a good tone. Once again, a wise once said, "A good player can make a cheap practice gears to sound beautiful". It all really depend on so many factors and all of those factors will be different from one player to other player. No one can really explain what is a good tone. For me, the best way to address this topic is by stepping back to the very basic understanding of tone:

"Someone will be able to judge whether a tone is good or bad by just listening to it on his ears. One doesn't need to see nor touch the device that's needed to generate that tone in order to make a conclusion of the tone. What matters the most is the ear." - Om Ganteng

I personally have this kind of mild addiction of checking out gears to see how they perform and hear how they sound. This "Gear Acquisition Syndrome" influenced my perception of tone a little bit, I have to admit my G.A.S because it's true. Because of the price, someone sometimes said that when it's more expensive, you get good sound. THAT'S NOT ALWAYS TRUE. It's just that person's justification because he's influenced by a very general miss-perception, expensive = better. You have to be careful with something pricey, don't let the high price tag fools you. And from there, the price vs quality debate that I posted days ago will expand.

So by now I hope you can think that digital effects such as POD X3 or Axe FX is worth as much as how you view it as a helping tool to get the tones that you want with maybe some lack of responsiveness that affects your playing; but not your tone. However, your audiences may be happy enough to hear the tone of your digital effects, or may be not; it depends on the "factors" mentioned above.

I think by now you should already get the idea. Sorry, this post is a little bit lengthy but I hope you can enjoy the discussion that I made here and think about it for a little bit so you can apply what I've wrote above to how you view the tone world. No insults or offend intended, if you feel offended please know that the examples I used were from multiple anonymous sources *peace*.

If the ears praise the tone of real tube amps and analog hardware, go for it.

If the ears praise the tone of digital modeling, go for it.

There's no right or wrong :)

Cheers and God bless :)

MY MODDED JEM-JR

Introduction
I just finished modding my Korean Ibanez JEM-JR WN today and I'm really glad with the result and I want to share it with all of you my dearest readers.

The original un-modded version of this guitar features an Ibanez ILT floating locking tremolo and Ibanez INF series pickups on all positions. It was my very first guitar that I own and not borrow from other people. It costs around $500 when it first came out and I pay almost the same price for that. I got lots of beautiful memories with this guitar, I learned a lot of materials using this guitar and it's been very friendly to me until today.

For some tone chasers, entry level Ibanez guitars probably won't please them as they sound crappy(sorry) and they feel crappy(sorry) as well. But not for me, this guitar is pretty versatile and reliable except that the ILT trem broke one day and I replaced it with Korean Floyd Rose. Now with the modifications, I even dare to compare my baby to some high-end good sounding Strat or Strat-like guitar, YEAH BABY !

Now onto the modifications

First of all, the modification that I did is to replace the trem of course as I mentioned above, the ILT proved to be a non reliable trem.

Then I replaced the pickups as usual with DiMarzios. On the neck and middle, I put Virtual Vintage Heavy Blues 2. They sounded SUPER AMAZING; the tone is very SRV 70-ish and works well with mild and heavy overdrive units. On the bridge I put PAF Pro and I got that Paul Gilbert tone instantly on my bridge position!

On a clean rig, the singles sounded very Strat-ish with all those glassy sparkly highs but with some extra mid punch while the PAF Pro sounds almost like a single coil but with more lows and mids and of course it's hotter than the others although not too much. All of the pickups are pretty low output and as I did with my PGM, I reduces the height of the neck pickup and increases the height of the bridge pickup to get instant less gain sound by just switching the pickup.

PAF Pro vs AT hum, VVHB2 vs Cruiser

The PAF Pro is not as hot as the AT humbucker and it lacks the mid punch that the AT humbucker has, but it has better high and clarity compared to the AT. The VVHB2 sounds much more like a hot strat compared to the Cruisers, but the Cruisers has more pronounced bottom and treble compared to the VVHB2. All of them are great but they're all different in terms of sound characteristics.

Nonetheless, they're all very impressive in terms of performance and tone. Easy to play with and sounds pretty well when combined together. No complaints, no flaw, it's like having a new guitar. I even dare to challenge someone with an American Deluxe strat on a tone match because it sounds almost like a vintage Strat with an LP humbucker now(or even better than that, I have 24 frets and floating trem, Strat comes with 22 mostly haha!).

Korean Floyd vs ILT vs Edge Pro

The new Floyd trem sounds okay to me. It's not as smooth as Edge Pro trem and it does not have extremely long sustain, but it's much better than the ILT tremolo. The tone that I'm getting from the trem is similar to the tone of a vintage style tremolo of a strat or something, twangy and rounded but not as twangy as a Telecaster. It does not stay in tune as good as the ILT and Edge Pro though because it has different string insertion mechanism.

More mods on the way

Next, I added capacitors on my volume knob as well as a resistor on parallel to make that treble bleed mod and reduce the output a little bit so the entire signal won't get too hot. But I also take out the tone knob and put the volume knob on the former tone knob routing. I get more volume by doing that. If I put Cruisers and AT humbucker, I'll probably get similar tone to my modded PGM ha ha !

Tone pot that blocks the tone

By the way, removing tone pot really helps the tone to get more volume and uncompressed feeling. That tone pot is actually a potentiometer or in an easier term: an adjustable resistor. Putting resistor in series with your signal will cause current reduction and thus you get lower output from your pickups. It also compressed the overall guitar sound a little bit. If you have the courage and heart to try something new, and if you rarely use your tone knob, try taking it/them out and hear the positive difference!

For this guitar, I won't be able to post audio clip or anything like that until probably next year when all my rigs will be transported back from Seattle to Indonesia. When that happens, we can probably hear some clips of me comparing the JEM and PGM using same FX units! How cool is that !!!

Visually unappealing

The overall modification sounds great but it DOESN'T look great. That's because now the single coil on the neck position does not cover the humbucker routing completely. I have to get a new pickguard to solve that aesthetic-related problem.

I don't really care though to be honest

As long as it sounds good, I don't complain. Right now, all I want to do is play that baby all day long and all night long. I plug it through a digital crappy(sorry) Korg Tonework AX1500 and now the overall tone that I'm getting is almost like using a POD X3 Live, very very lively thanks to those modifications.

I hope this post will be useful for everyone who reads this.

Cheers and God bless :)

p.s. One more week until I'm able to post audio clips to my posts!

MXR M103 BLUE BOX

Double octave down

I checked out this pedal right after I realized that Paul Gilbert used this pedal on his signal chain to produce that crazy massive monstrous tone that he used before he starts crazy tapping(see his live videos on youtube, he always uses this pedal right before Eudaimonia Overture song starts). It sounds crazy and I figured that I should try one and imitate that craziness on my signal chain. I also figured out that Jimmy Page used this pedal long time ago on one of Led Zeppelin's song.

It's basically an octave fuzz pedal. Different from Octavia or any regular vintage octave fuzz pedal. This one generates two octaves down; it has blend knob so you can control the amount of dry/wet signal that's coming out.

How does it sound?

Just like Paul Gilbert on the video that I watched haha! I got that crazy monster tone, but I didn't get the Eudaimonia Overture tapping lick *sad*. To be honest, this pedal is only good for that monster tone, but you can't really use it for regular playing because once you start doing that, it'll sound so muddy, overly-compressed and lifeless.

The fuzz is not really that sweet, this is intended for someone with experimental attitude that has the courage to explore this wild tone and make it into something useful. Maybe you can use this to get a synth-like sound out of your signal chain, but to be honest this won't do the job perfectly as other synth based pedal on the market(micro POG, POG, whammy pedal).

Strange pedal I must say

It has some sort of analog tracking circuitry, sometimes it can generates up to 2 octaves down when you play high enough but if you play on the lower notes then sometimes you'll get only 1 octave down. Even sometimes what comes out from this thing is only random note-less fuzziness. It's quite unpredictable !!

Anyway, this pedal is a true bypass(almost......but the tone sucking doesn't really bother pups with output of 140mV and above) and it's simple enough to understand the features that this thing has. Place it in the front of your signal chain, preferably after the compressor so you can use the output knob to adjust the amount of bad fuzz coming out of this thing.

Beware

Some people complained about the low output level of this pedal even if the output knob is cranked all the way. That doesn't happen to me but if it happens, just follow my suggestion to put it in the very front of your signal chain.

Also beware that this pedal contains it's own version of some noise gate circuitry inside. Try to play a sustained note from your guitar and you will hear how "digital" the sound is when the note starts to fade. YIKES!

Does it worth?

Retail price below $80.00. I say it really depends on your purpose of putting this pedal to your signal path. If you have the courage to make this strange pedal works on your guitar playing, then it's not really too bad. If you look for something that's easy to tame and frequently used, this guy won't match your taste. If you just want to imitate that Paul Gilbert lick or Jimmy Page guitar solo, it's worth a try, but maybe this pedal won't last long on your pedal board.

From 0 to 10

This also depends a lot. I would pull a middle line and say it's around 7.3. To be honest, I'm a little bit disappointed with how it overall sounds. It's too compressed and has some artificial tone quality that I really try to avoid. I'm not saying this is a bad or useless pedal; it all really depends on our skill to tame this weird pedal to work our way. As I said on my previous post, a good player can even make a thin metal box sounds good to your ears.

Cheers and God bless :) !

p.s. Starting mid August, I will edit most of the posts and we can have links to audio clip containing dry guitar sound vs guitar sound with related pedal engaged. Stay tuned !

MY MODDED PGM30

I own a 2004 Japanese PGM30WH with Edge Pro tremolo and Prestige neck that was given to me from my Dad sometime in 2006. It's been my main guitar for 5 years now and it's sort of becoming one with me, I can't imagine living with another guitar but this.

For those who doesn't know PGM: it's Paul Gilbert's signature Ibanez series. Paul Gilbert has been using Ibanez PGMs for a long time although recently he uses Ibanez Fireman more frequently. All PGMs have painted fake f-holes on the body and most of them are basswood body with maple or maple+rosewood neck. The body shape is very similar to Ibanez RG and most of them don't have tone knobs.

Originally, my PGM comes with Infinity INF pickups that have pretty high output, I don't know exactly but the bridge one I guess is in the range of 450mV judging from the sound. That is okay for quite some time when I'm still into heavy stuffs but once I started to play something with more dynamic, the pups don't do any good anymore.

I replaced the pickups with DiMarzio Cruiser Bridge on the neck and middle, I put DiMarzio AT-1 humbucker on the bridge and I accidentally removed the Ibanez logo on the headstock. I put humbucker pickup cover on the neck single coil just so that I don't miss having humbucker on the neck haha !

The DiMarzios are working very great, I got the exact Andy Timmons'(YES, him again) pups set and that helps me to get closer to his tone. I set the neck pup to be slightly lower from the strings and I raised the bridge humbucker a little bit so I get unbalanced volume level. This is kind of weird and people tend to set all pups to be at the same volume level, but I like it since I can get lower volume just by switching to the neck pup without having to press on any pedal or roll the volume knob.

By the way, I put a 300k ohms resistor in parallel with the cap on my volume pots and it helps the tone a little bit. One thing that I love mostly about this modded guitar is the fact that it doesn't have a tone knob which makes the guitar sounds much better (Paul Gilbert is a genius !). I compared this with a fellow RG with the same Wizard II neck and equipped with the same INF pups before I modded mine with DiMarzios and this thing sounds much better, more fat, more clear tops, more dynamics, more volume as well.

The bridge is actually an original Edge Pro tremolo by Ibanez(I can't find a picture of a pgm with that trem on the internet, sorry) and that bridge totally rocks ! Well, I actually hate the fact that it's a locking trem since I can't do crazy tunings, but it stays in tune forever and the little metal where the string hits on the trem is actually very good for the sustain. I used extra light gauge (.008 extra slinky) for this guitar and it still sounds great.

The neck is a little bit thicker than your usual RG necks. Anyway, if you're a tone chaser, you'll already know that thicker neck means thicker tone. It's still very playable although you don't really have a good comfort when playing chord since the thickness of the neck isn't balanced with a rounder neck shape.

This thing has been abused many times; I broke my trem arm once, I almost lost the neck pickup, I carried it on my car trunk without hard case, I bring it out to a gig during rainy day without gig bag or anything; yet this guitar's doesn't get any issue besides few minor very-hard-to-see scratches from my jazz III pick during strumming sessions. Oh, I replaced the switch once BTW, it broke due to too much pickup switching that I did haha !

I won't sell this guitar for sure, this thing is already my part of the body. This guitar also hinders me from buying new guitar since this one sets the standard of tone and playability pretty high. This is not a relic Strat '68 with special neck joint plate, this is not a '57 Les Paul with gold top finish and original PAF pickups and this doesn't worth as much as them. If this guitar is available in the market, it would cost probably less than $1000.00 for a new one with the exact same specs.

I didn't find any flaw on this guitar except that the white paint slowly turns to yellow-ish white. I don't really care though, it still looks neat and it still sounds great, those are what matter the most. If this guitar died, I would probably get an RG with Edge Pro trem and put the same mods that I've done to that RG. I would even probably throw away the tone knob for better tone.

I'll post some sound clip of this guitar soon :)

Hope you enjoy, cheers and God bless !

IBANEZ TONE LOK WEEPING DEMON WD7

Tone Chaser Class: Introduction to Wah Pedal 101(skip if you're a tone chaser)
In the world of modern electric guitar music, wah pedals are commonly used in many different areas covering rhythm and lead playing styles. Hendrix was among the first one to use this type of FX and this inspires lots of players nowadays to add wah pedal to their rig.

In the world of serious tone chasers and guitar gear heads, the word WAH will summon a generally known picture in their mind; a picture of dark valley covered with disturbing thoughts of tone sucking creatures that will haunt their precious tone all day all night. I'm sorry, this is a little bit too much but basically most wah pedal sucks your tone even in off-switch position.

Okay...

I got this pedal long time ago since it was the only wah pedal available in my town. I used it back then when I was still playing Guns N' Roses and needed a wah to play Sweet Child of Mine. Then I used this pedal also for Satriani and Vai stuffs.

The thing I like about this wah is the fact that it has automatic mode, you press the rocker and it turns on without having to hit the switch. Also I like the controls that are very flexible. You can cover wide range of frequencies (or Q) and adjust how sharp or wide is the sweep. Other useful control is the low tuning mode to make the wah covers lower frequencies.

I must say I can cover lots of ground using only this wah. No comparison has been made with other pedals but the good thing is I can cover so many frequency sweeps by just changing the knobs and suddenly I have a new sound, almost like having a new wah pedal !

That's kinda cool

Well not everything is cool with this pedal. They said that this pedal is using true bypass switching. NOT TRUE. I recognize that this pedal sucks tone when turned off. It's been proven, I can hear the difference(hopefully I'll post some audio clips soon). Well, it's not too much since this pedal is using buffered switching system and it's impossible to use 3PDT or 4PDT switch since it won't be compatible with the automatic on/off mode. But it bothers me to be honest since I am using low output pickups.

Oh and keep in mind that this pedal is not funk ready; it adds small amount of gain to your tone when engaged, so this can only be good if you're using an already saturated signal. If you want a super clean funk wah tone, this pedal won't make you happy.

Not true bypass :(, but is it worth?

Roughly less than $100.00 for a new one, this is where it starts to get tricky. If you really need to use multiple wah sounds and you don't mind buffered switching that's sucking your tone a little bit then this pedal will totally worth your money. But if you really want to keep the integrity of your whole signal chain, then I don't really think this is the best choice in this price. Add $60 bucks and you already got a boutique wah with true bypass switching called Budwah by Budda, check it out. I haven't got a chance to try one, but Andy Timmons(yes, him again) uses one and it sounds great in my opinion (FYI boutique wah can reach $200.00 or more).

Final verdict, from 0 to 10

*sigh* I can only give this pedal a 7.5. What's keeping it from getting lower score is the great enclosure, the auto on/off, the flexibility, the Tonelok(press the knob down and you won't hit it accidentaly with your feet) and the size of the rocker that fits perfectly to my right foot.

If this pedal comes with true bypass with no gain reduction, I'll give it an 8.7. If this pedal comes with gain reduction and no true bypass, I'll give it a 9.2. Comes with both, 10 if it does not pass $160.00.

Cheers and God bless :)

ELECTRO HARMONIX EXH MEMORY BOY

Analog Delay Pedal

Almost everyone who plays lead guitar can't live without delay pedals or racks on his or her rig. If you are a tone chaser, you would not want to settle for just any kind of delay FX, you'll either use an Echoplex tape echo that costs you as much as a brand new American Strat or an expensive digital rack that eats a lot of space and hard to carry around.

Hence, the analog delay pedals were created. Popular one is the EHX Deluxe Memory Man, used by Eric Johnson, Andy Timmons(YES, him again) and possibly some other cool players out there. That pedal is still pretty expensive by the way, thus EHX creates cheaper delay pedals that still carry the same basic function of a DMM but in a more affordable price. This is one of those.

Basic Sound

To start, analog delays are usually famous for their warmth and added 3D quality on the repeats. This sounds very different from the usual digital delay that just copy and paste your signal without adding anything. The EHX DMM is famous for it's ability to replicate a tape echo that has slightly out of tune repeats that makes the chorus-like effect on the repeats. Hence, it's usually called analog delay pedal with modulation/chorus.

This pedal here is basically doing that analog delay with added chorus effect. I don't know how it will compare to a DMM since I don't have one and the stores near me don't have them in stock since it's pretty rare. But this one, I kind of like it. When you turn it on, the entire signal will get more warmth and 3D-ness.

Chorus, Vibrato, Expression Pedal

I never tried the Expression Pedal mode. I enjoyed the Chorus modulation but only when it is engaged on triangular waveform with only tiny amount of blend. When you use the blend knob above 8am, it will sound very out of tune. Some people might be able to use that to create some weird layered sound but I personally don't aim for that sound. The vibrato is also nice to have around since it straightly makes the note bent on the repeats, unlike the chorus that uses layering to get that effect.

Boy vs Man, Boy vs other Boys

I really wish to compare this with a DMM and see how much compromisation is happening. I am able to find some youtube videos that compares between the two, but the sound quality is not really detailed(audio are recorded using the same device to take the video, not from recording).

Compared to other delay pedals out there, this one is still one of the warmest on its price range. It's not overly expensive and it does not have too much options. But this basic package already contributes a lot in my signal chain. Everytime I have my lead time, I just turn on this pedal and the hairs on my back rise haha !

Worth?

For only $120.00, this one is not too expensive. It surely beats the Carbon Copy from MXR for sure, I've seen it happening. Also I prefer this to a standard Boss Digital Delay since this adds more touches to your entire signal rather than just copy paste and make the repeats. Basic functions, great sound, great price, it is surely worth the price.

Dislikes?

Well, we all know there's a debate about price vs quality. Better quality needs greater price sometimes; this pedal is great, but maybe a real DMM will sound better, who knows, and that will surely change how you view the Memory Boy once you can compare it with the real deal. But I don't find any flaw on this pedal, I got compliment from using this pedal.

From 0 to 10

I say 9.5 for now, wait until I can compare with a DMM and maybe it'll get lower or higher. Hopefully the apple doesn't fall far from the tree haha !

Edit: I compared it with a DMM, here's the link to that post: CLICK HERE

Here's the audio clip: CLICK HERE

Cheers and God bless ! :D

IBANEZ AIRPLANE FLANGER AF2

Pablo Gilberto

I am a big fan of Paul Gilbert's work and been checking out his guitar setup and try to incorporate his ideas into my setup. This pedal just came out by the time I checked his youtube video explaining what it does, and of course it was still pricey back then so I just kind of let it slipped away from me. But I got blessed with so many caring friends around me and they bought me this pedal for me as a birthday present(thank you guys :) ).

Two buttons?

Yes, two buttons, one for on/off true bypass switch and one for mode selection. This cool pedal has two modes: taxi and take off. Taxiing, you can get normal flanger sound that I will explain below; take off-ing, you will get a super crazy self oscillation mode with just speed knob to control the speed.

Organic flanger pedal

On the Taxi mode, let me say that this thing is not your average flanger pedal. This thing packs a lot of organic quality; the flanger timing is a little bit random to a certain degree and while it colors your tone, it still let the majority of your signal to be noticed transparently. The knobs have broad range of controls so you can make the pedal acts as transparent as possible with almost chorus-like quality to the most heavy tone-coloration you can possibly get.

My personal setup is to have all the knobs at the very minimum to aim for that chorus-like sound that I really like. Personally, I am not really a flanger guy like Paul Gilbert, I don't really have the skill to tame the non-precise timed flanger sound but this pedal really makes things become interesting without making me struggle.

4 knobs with strange names

Manual is for controlling the delay time, Speed is for controlling the speed of course, Range is for controlling the frequency range of the flanger and Enhance is for controlling the amount of coloration.

Cabin crew take off position

The Take Off mode really sets your pedal to generate crazy auto whammy sound that will never stop. It will just go up and down like a police siren with some degree of original signal replication. I can hardly hear my original tone AND note when I'm in Take Off mode. You can get down and play with the speed knob to get even crazier slow-fast-up-down self-oscillating skull-cracking auto whammy.

It's a flanger, how often do you use it?

If it's normal flanger, I don't even want to have one, I tried one many times before but it's not my type of FX. But this one? I can turn it on on every channel: clean, dirty, lead, whatever channel and I can have that shimmery effect that enhance the 3D-ness of my signal and add some organic quality to my tone. I don't turn it on all the time though because some songs requires simpler more straight forward type of sound, but when I want something cool, this pedal is always on.

Value for its price

A true bypass pedal with a unique sound and organic quality, this pedal is worth the money. I think now the price is not as expensive as before and you can get it for less than $150.00 for sure. This is not too pricey for something this good, and considering that this is a signature pedal, this thing is probably a steal for that price :p.

Like it so far

I find this pedal is almost flawless.....except that it's BIG. May or may not cause any space related problem to your pedalboard. Powered with 9V standard adapter, does not accept battery power.

From 0 to 10

10. Period.

Normal sound clip: HERE, it contains three different settings: first no effect, second with chorus-ey flanger, third with more straight forward flanger.

Takeoff sound clip: HERE, it contains original overdriven sound with the takeoff mode in the middle, you'll know it from how it sounds!

Cheers and God bless :D

p.s. check out Silence Followed by A Deafening Roar album by Paul Gilbert to hear this pedal in action during Take Off mode. Paul also used the Take Off mode during live gig when performing an older Mr. Big song called Alive and Kickin'.

A TILTED VOX AMP AND AN ARMOR ALL SPRAY

One thing about tone chasing: it's endless, just like trying to chase your own tail and it will drive you crazy, both physically and financially. You will surely get better tone and you will learn so much about your guitar by doing that, but what matters the most is your final result.

It's good to make significant changes sometimes, for example upgrading from a cheap solid state amp into a fully loaded tube amp, or maybe replacing a tone-coloring pedal with something more decent. But trying to exhaust yourself trying to find a perfect tone is not going to happen quickly and in exhaustive way.

If you are concerned about the way your signal chain sounds, you should first worry about how you play your guitar. Observe basic simple techniques that will beautify your guitar playing. A player who makes great vibrato with a $85.00 Walmart Strat plugged into a cheap practice amp will still sound so much better compared to a player who tries to mask his bad technique using a $3000.00 guitar using exotic woods plugged into an echoplex that's connected to a Vintage Modern Marshall.

I want people not to get obsessed with gears but to get obsessed trying to make their playing to sound great. Guitar playing is not all about live action coolness or bragging expensive rig, it's more about how you put beautiful compositions into someone's ear.

Even the King of Tone himself said the same thing haha !

Cheers and God bless :D !

AMT ELECTRONICS SS-11A TUBE PREAMP

Made in Siberia, RUSSIA

Been spending most of my life playing in an apartment with no tube amp, sounds coming straight to mixer in my home and hear all the sounds using headphones or cheap solid state amp. Digital effect board seems the only logical solution to my limited rig but digital world seemed to lack the tone that I praise so much. I've been longing for a very warm tube amp sound that has some nice smooth clarity from a tube with the ability to get multiple channel from my amp for quite some time last year. I finally got the answer: THE AMT SS-11A.

Tube Preamp?

Yep. Not just your average preamp stompbox, this one is meant to be a true preamp or even an amp replacement. This box packs two 12AX7 tubes that are usually used in the preamp stage of popular tube amps. 3 channels: clean, crunch, lead with the crunch and lead channel share the same EQ knobs; 2 output: regular output to an amp, cab simulator to mixer for recording; an FX loop for placing your sensitive chorus, delay or reverb pedals. GOSH, THIS PEDAL PACKS SO MUCH FEATURES I DON'T EVEN WANT TO CALL IT A STOMPBOX !!!! I truly love the fact that it has a nice cab simulator output, the sound is very close to a mic'ed cabinet.

This box wants to be placed at the very end of your signal chain because it replaces rack preamp, amp head, or any other preamp/amp devices that eats tons of space. Hence, don't ever think to use this as a boost pedal like Tube Screamer or BB Preamp; this is a densely-packed-feature-rich multichannel amp in a form of a stompbox slightly larger than an average MXR pedal, not your average distortion pedal with true bypass output.

The mighty tube amp classic sound

The clean channel: Sounds very great. You won't get break up sound by cranking the gain knob all the way though, this is strictly clean sound. Think of a Vox AC15 or something similar, you'll get the idea of how it will sound. Put some boost pedals or overdrive before this box and you'll get Stevie Ray Vaughan with some adjustment on the knobs.

The crunch and lead channel: Both sounded great, the lead channel sounds a little different although using the same setting, it has some kind of boost somewhere in the EQ that I haven't been paying attention. Sounds between cranked Fender and Marshall, not too much crunch but has enough warmth and sustain that I really want(think of AC/DC or Queen). Crank up even more with an overdrive and you'll get the tubes over the top producing warmest sound I've ever heard from a non full sized amp.

Different level and gain adjustment for clean, crunch and lead so you can choose which one is louder and which one has more saturation compared to the others, very flexible. Full gain knob with a mid scoop and the help of a distortion pedal will bring this amp to the hairy metal world, but it's not intended to achieve that(they have AMT SS-20 for that).

Seemed to like it so far.....

But I think it still has some problem. The tubes won't last forever and the site mentions that the tubes aren't just regular 12AX7, they are called 12AH7 and I don't know who sells these tubes either in U.S. or worldwide.

In addition, the form factor is also small and that is also problematic (aside from helping you to get extra space on your pedal board). The knobs and switches are placed closely to each other, and I am having some trouble hitting the right switch. Definitely practice your switching skill before using this box on a live gig.

Worth?

Price is around $399.99. Expensive and seemed overpriced, but considering how it sounds compared to a real tube amp, this thing is still worth every penny.

From 0 to 10

I will give this box a 9.0, price is definitely a big obstacle and for a stompbox with $400 price tag, this item won't be competing with other pedals. But once again, this is not your regular stompbox, this works as an amp replacement and you should consider that this thing works even better than what it's advertised for.

www.amtelectronics.com or www.amtelectronicsusa.com

Sound clip : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12709731/sound%20demo/AMT%20SS-11A.mp3, it goes from clean to crunch to lead. They're not on their maximum gain setting but I hope you can sort of feel how strong they are!

Cheers and God bless :)

ANALOGMAN OD-9/808 WITH SILVER MOD

I bought this pedal from Analogman's website and it's one of the best version of Tube Screamer in the market I must say. Maxon is the original company that designed TS for Ibanez. They now produce their own TS9 that is quite different from the original TS from '70s Ibanez era.

Are you serious? Another Tube Screamer?

YES. In fact, this is one of the best version of Tube Screamer available. This OD9 is using JRC4558 chip that IS EXACTLY THE SAME as the original TS808/TS9 that many players put on their pedal board: Eric Johnson, Andy Timmons(YES, him again), Stevie Ray Vaughan....

So yes, this is another Tube Screamer.....BUT

The one that I purchased from Analogman features Silver Mod. That was basically capacitors and components upgrades to increase clarity and warmth a little bit. It also add more sustain to the overall sound. And this Maxon version is already True Bypass. Sound-wise, it does not have high amount of gain to be honest, even when I tried to crank this thing up all the way, it does not saturate too much. This is great as a clean boost and that amount of gain can be used to replicate the tone of a vintage tube amp that is pushed right after it starts to saturate.

This might means it's not for heavy stuffs, but it add pleasant touches to your tone. I got earlier Andy Timmons' famous Electric Gypsy tone by using this pedal on a clean channel.

I'm sorry though, I haven't got a chance to review this with any other Tube Screamers on the market. I tried an Ibanez TS9, but that thing cuts the bass a little bit, so I prefer this box rather than the original Ibanez version.

Wow that sounds great, but was it worth?

I forgot how much I spent but I think it was around $200.00 since I opted for the Silver Mod. This is so much more expensive compared to any other Tube Screamer on the market. I would love to compare this as a modded pedal with other modded TS from Keeley or everyone else. I know that Keeley TS has been used by many people including John Petrucci and that must says something. Unfortunately, Petrucci does use it in an already saturated amp so I don't know how it originally sounds.

It sounds good though, so I think it is still worth every penny.

Other thoughts?

I plugged mine before an AMT SS-11 Preamp that I use as a tube amp replication box since I am not allowed to play with tube amp in my apartment *sad*. It sounds very bluesy overall as a gain box. If you have not ever try any Tube Screamer pedal or even know what a TS is, this thing is an instant Stevie Ray Vaughan replicator if you have a strat style guitar with bright single coils. Very effective to add smoothness to your already saturated amp, you can set it to be your "lead switch" and step on it when you begin your solo.

How I set it up personally

Drive around 12 to 2pm, Tone around 4pm(YES, this is what a TS is famous for!), and as usual Level depends on your entire rig, I set mine around 10am.

Sounds almost perfect! Anything missing?

It lacks bass frequencies. I guess that's the nature of any Tube Screamers we all can find in this world. But hey, this thing sounded great already and you can reduce the Tone knob a bit to get a little of that bass back but sacrifice the famous tone everyone loves :D. This might not be true, I mean how can reducing treble adds the bass if we talk about circuitry, but if you add more Level while reducing the Tone, this will help to achieve that effect.

From 0 to 10

I will give this fantastic box an 8.9! Price is the main factor. The lack of bass does not really bother me that much since this is already warmer than most TSes in the market.

So what bothers you?

The switch. It's so hard to step on it even if it's angled. It's not your regular small circular switch, it's almost similar to a Boss style switch but smaller and placed in the middle with not too much height difference compared to the enclosure around it. However, note that the usual TS9 has the same switch, so I can't really complain.

Check it out : www.analogman.com

Audio clip: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12709731/sound%20demo/maxon%20od9.mp3

Cheers and God bless !

p.s stay tuned for audio clips for this post and my previous BB Preamp :) Will be around sometime in August

XOTIC BB PREAMP

Let me start by saying that I am recently digging a lot of Andy Timmons' stuffs. I think he is one of only few guitarists that has great tone. Surely he plays great too (check out his new CD called Resolution)

What is it?

Okay, let's start. BB Preamp is actually a gain box that has unique characteristics. It's made by the Xotic. I use this pedal for sometime now as my primary gain box on my signal chain.

Let me talk about the sound that it can produce. This thing is capable of producing a super warm fat overdriven guitar tone that is similar to a vintage cranked EL34 based tube amps, let's just say an old Marshall. Not too much gain, but quite flexible gain control that can beef up your guitar tone while you're still running clean channel of your amp.

Another gain box? Something unique?

Let's just say almost everyone that chases tone knows Tube Screamer and what it does. Well, this is not a Tube Screamer wannabe; it's far from being called a TS clone. This thing maintains the transparency of your original tone and adds warmth and impressive amount of room to your signal. I tested this pedal using a basswood Ibanez equiped with Dimarzio Cruisers(bridge) at the neck and mid, and an AT humbucker at the bridge and it works very well on all position. The single coils get compressed tone with fair amount of treble, the humbucker gets a very sweet mid based overdriven sound with no muddiness at all.

What can I do with this pedal? What's the limit?

This thing is quite flexible, when you set the gain to a very low level, it will act almost like a clean boost, something that you can step to play clean leads without saturating your signal. If you put the gain at maximum, it will sound like a pushed crunch channel of a Marshall. It's NOT enough for metal music(I used to play metal years ago, so I know what kind of metal tone that people usually want), but if you put it in front of an already saturated amp, this thing will help your guitar to cut through the mix much easier.

Word of caution?

Beware, if you are NOT looking for extra mid on your signal or even try to cut the mid, this box will not do that job quite right. The nature of this box is to add extra mid to make warmness to your tone.

Anything else you need to know

This pedal is an IC based pedal. I believe it uses op-amp much like any other gain box in its range. It's not the one that has 12AX7 or germanium diode or whatever fancy stuffs, this is just plain IC based. It's meant not just to recreate vintage tone, but it's also going to help you get more fat warm non muddy tone that every lead guitarists want. However, if you're more interested in getting a vintage creamy fuzz sound from the sixties, I suggest check out pedals that has tubes or germanium diode in them. They'll have different feel than this box.

I personally disagree with the name "preamp". It should be BB Boost or something similar. Preamp doesn't usually come with true bypass :D...(I'm talking about TRUE true bypass, not just some true bypass, that should make you happy)

Power comes from 9V battery or the usual adapters such as BOSS and MXR.

Was it worth?

Talking about price, I got mine for $170.00. Pricey !!! But hey, it's worth every penny I spent. I personally use it side by side with an original TS808 so I can switch back and forth between two overdrive tones that I want. My personal favorite configuration: Bass 1 o'clock, treble 10 o'clock, gain around 3pm and the output will depend on your signal path but mine is set at around 9am and it already balances with the rest of my signal chain.

From 0 to 10

I give this pedal: 9.5....It will be 10 if it's bit cheaper, say in the price range of the usual TS or little bit more but not too much.

check out http://www.xotic.us

for sound clip MP3: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12709731/sound%20demo/bb%20preamp.mp3

Hopefully you find this post to be informative, I will update if necessary. Otherwise, stay tuned for more reviews. CHEERS and God bless :)

p.s: if you are a truly Andy Timmons fan, go get the AT BB preamp limited edition, it's sold out already but if you check Mike Analogman's site, you'll find it there. Just google analogman :p....Oh, you can also get BB Preamp plus too, check it out, it's a twin BB preamp in one box.