What’s the one pedal that everyone should probably have on their board, but one that gets often overlooked for something fancier that makes wacky noises? BOOST. THat’s right, friends, a BOOST pedal. When used correctly, it just enhances everything around it, giving you a more solid core tone to use other pedals with. Today’s featured effect is a boost, but it’s also a DOUBLE channel pedal, and maybe it’s...
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We’ve always admired the originality and creativity the effects produced by Red Witch Pedals have, so we’re excited on this lovely Saturday to bring you their latest and greatest creation. A couple of years back, we we privileged enough to review and demo the Synthotron, a new and powerful Synth/Filter pedal, which we absolutely loved. Today, we’re going to check out the second iteration of this machine, the...
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Mixing it up in the effects pedal department has become almost the standard these days – adding clever options, combining effects and trying to change the overall soundscape of what we all use on our pedalboards. Today’s pedal addresses this in dramatic fashion, producing elements of fuzz, distortion, oscillation and overall weirdness with ease. The Guardian Fuzz from Hologram FX seeks to destroy everything you thought you...
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Every now and again, we get an effect coming through our shop that defies all reason, logic and musicality, and those pedals usually come straight from Akron, Ohio. If you don’t know by now (all 3 of you), EarthQuaker Devices has been not just pushing, but destroying the sonic envelope for the last decade or so, crushing everyone and everything in its path to total oddity domination in the effects pedal world. Today’s...
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Sef, lead guitarist in the band Your Favorite Enemies. Montreal, Quebec, Canada www.yourfavoriteenemies.com www.facebook.com/yourfavoriteenemies www.instagram.com/yourfavoriteenemies www.youtube.com/yourfavoriteenemies www.twitter.com/yfeofficial As you can see in some of the pictures, we have the crazy privilege of living in a former catholic church that we turned into our own professional studio a couple of years ago. It’s pretty...
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As much fun as it is to inspect, decipher and enjoy effects pedals that make all different kinds of noises, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and marvel at one that doesn’t really alter your sound all that much. Not that today’s pedal, the Iconoclast Stereo Parametric Speaker Emulator from Neunaber Audio Effects, isn’t super useful and important – no sir (or ma’am), it is quite the opposite. Opening...
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There are pedalboard-friendly pedals, and then there are pedals from Henretta Engineering. These guys take it to a whole new level, throwing all the controls (via trimpots) into enclosures that only measure 2-1/8″ x 2-5/16″, making them the ultimate small sized pedal. Today’s feature pedal of theirs is no different from others we’ve reviewed in the past, except that its a bad-ass delay, and it’s bright...
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Andrew Scherzer aka Goody aka Dewey aka StheNFA aka Daylicker aka Bruce Loy Portland, Maine JAWGEMS – facebook.com/JAWGEMS/ Sara Hallie Richardson – sarahallierichardson.com/ How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I’ve been playing for about 13 years. I literally started playing bass because my best friend Lee Crossen got me a ticket to see George Clinton and the Parliament...
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2-In-1 effects pedals are always an adventure, and today’s featured pedal takes us on yet another glorious sonic journey. Having previously reviewed the Battering Ram from Wounded Paw Effects, another 2-In-1, we were pretty stoked to be able to check out another one of their marvelous creations. The Echo Drive is a delay and reverb pedal, with additional overdrive on just the delay signal. Basically, your original tone still...
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Sometimes, we at Pedal of the Day discover a pedal that is so fun, has so many options and expands our current version of musical enlightenment that it’s hard to play anything else for a while. Today’s featured pedal is exactly along those lines: genre-bending, hard-to-define and definitely in-your-face, the BitQuest Multi-Effect is a site to behold, and a pleasure to hear. From our neighbors to the north, Dr. Scientist,...
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Andy Greene Escape Plan Pedals http://www.escapeplanpedals.com How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I’ve played music for pretty much my entire life. I got my first guitar, a miniature steel string acoustic, when I was 5. I learned simplified versions of most of the standard position major chords and a few minor chords and would try to put on concerts for my family. I really got interested in...
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Today’s guest review comes to us from Corey F. – find him on Instagram (@ScrambleTheFitz), Facebook (Cantharone) and on his band’s website (Cantharone). An extremely interesting and versatile take on bucket brigade type analog delay. The Lunar Echo from the now non-operational DMB Audio will keep you tweaking its knobs for hours on end. To start, it is a fairly normal analog delay with a max 500ms delay time. Within...
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We have reviewed several effects from Red Witch Pedals here at Pedal of the Day, and each time, it’s an adventure for both the mind and the ears. Today’s featured pedal may top the list in regards to both those things, as the Synthotron Analog Synth is capable of producing an insane amount of noises, sounds and tones, some predictable, some outrageous and all Red Witch, for sure. Let’s dive right into this...
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After recently reviewing the new and awesome DD-500, we figured it was time to round out the digital delay pedals offered up by Boss, and the only one we had left was today’s featured pedal, the DD-5 Digital Delay. Although we did review a version of this pedal before, it had been modded by JHS, so we’re gonna take a look at the stock pedal and see what it has to offer as it comes stock. The DD-5 is jam-packed with delay...
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Having reviewed such classic Selah Effects’ pedals as the Feather Drive and Scarlett Love, we were excited to check out their first foray into the world of fuzz, and were not disappointed. Exemplifying a broad range of sounds, from thick and driven to glitchy and wacky, the Misty Mountain Fuzz offers something for everyone who digs this genre of pedal, and with simple controls in a gorgeous enclosure, dialing in a distinct but...
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I knew not what I was getting myself into. I think, at some point, most of us buy some piece of gear because someone we admire uses it. For me, that was the MXR Blue Box. True Page uses it on “Fool In The Rain” but I became interested because Jesse Lacey of Brand New uses it. And on top of that, new it’s fairly cheap, as far as pedals go. The Blue Box also introduced me to some terrific noises. A fuzzy, synthy, sub-octavey box is how...
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Sometimes, the simplest pedals can be some of the coolest and most fun, and a lot of times can be used in many different ways. Lots of buttons and knobs and bells and whistles are always fun, but sometimes you just want a pedal that you can only turn on or off, with no controls and virtually nothing to think about. A prime example of the marriage of simplicity and usefulness is today’s wacky signal processor pedal from Fuchs...
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I’ve always liked the sound of a cool flanger pedal ripping through an amp, mine or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter. That jet stream whoooosh and whirl, especially when mixed in with some nice overdrive, really puts a fat ole smile right on my face. I’m also a fan of TC Electronic’s TonePrint series, so I was excited to test out a pedal I hadn’t really heard too much about, the Vortex Flanger....
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I’ve had the Kilobyte LO-FI Delay by Caroline guitar Co. for little over a month now. This is my first delay pedal I’ve tried and owned. There were many delays to choose from, expensive, eccentric, complex, flashy and vice versa. I chose to purchase the Kilobyte mainly for the design. No, just kidding, I chose this delay because of many reasons. The style, features, and the sounds that could be derived form this box. Now...
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Most fuzz boxes that I’ve come across do a pretty decent fuzz – ONE fuzz. Not known as the most versatile of pedals, while there are some that can get pretty nuts, the majority are usually just really good at the one fuzz sound they do. The Termofuzz from Shift Line seeks to change all that, with a selector knob that allows a vast number of different fuzzy tones to come pouring out of your amplifier. The Termofuzz has a...
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The name Behringer is not known for its boutique music gear but this little guy sure surprised me. I had purchased the DD400 for $25 USD from my local Guitar Center as a backup delay. I ended up using this delay more often than I thought. With a very easy to use layout, anyone can dial in a great delay! The Behringer Digital Delay has a very warm and full sounding delay to it. The echoes sounded true to tone and did not die out...
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Here’s another installment of the Digital Delay stompbox series from Boss: the DD-5. This is a great delay in it’s stock version, but I got my hands on one that has been modded by our friends over at JHS Pedals to add in a bit of analog flavoring. Let’s check it out! Let’s go through the basic functions of the DD-5, then we’ll get to the mod. Lots of modes here, starting with 4 delay modes. These range in...
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The old tube tape echo machines are responsible for some of the greatest sounds ever put on tape, with works by artists such as Chet Atkins, Miles Davis, Eric Johnson, Randy Rhodes and Andy Summers, to name a few. The Magnetic Echo from Keeley Electronics aims to recreate those classic echo tones, and actually studied an old Echoplex EP-3 and a Roland RE-301 Space Echo to tap into the sounds of those 2 great machines. All housed in a...
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Delays are probably my favorite effect on the planet. I have a vast collection of them, and each one is unique in it’s own right, no matter how similar they may seem. I love running across hidden delay gems as well, and a prime example of this is the Cosmo Delay from Garland Guitar Services. I happened upon this at my favorite gear-buying site, and the price was just too good to pass up, even though I could find absolutely ZERO...
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With all of the awesome Boss delay pedals out there, finding the right one can be a bit tricky…but what if it was a delay PLUS something else? That’s where the PS-2 Digital Pitch Shifter / Delay pedal comes in. Made between October 1987 and March 1994, this little blue beast has stood the test of time, and remains a popular pick of old school digital delays. Mine is nice and beat up, the 9V power section doesn’t work...
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It seems as though Strymon has become an absolutely dominating force amongst guitarists and their pedalboards as of late, and there’s a reason. Besides making space-age looking, beautiful, intelligent pedals, they have created some of the coolest sounds you could want coming through your amp, and the Brigadier dBucket Delay is a prime example of their craftsmanship and skill. As soon as you plug this guy in, you can feel...
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The Twin Pedal Collection from Boss has produced some interesting and quite useful pedals – one of my favorites (and, a bunch of other guitarists, apparently) is the DD-20 Giga Delay. Flush with options, tones, sounds and surprises, the DD-20 takes some getting used to, like any pedal of this magnitude, but once you get it down, it’s a ton of fun to play with, and can really be utilized on stage and in the studio to meet a...
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Wow. Where to begin with this guy? First off, Dwarfcraft Devices make pedals that make noise, and I mean that in the best possible way. Their little metal enclosures are no for the weak-hearted, or those who are looking to preserve their pristine hearing ability. They are good at what they do, and a shining example of that is the incredible Hax Ring Modulator. A true sonically experimental beast, the Hax conjures up a multitude of...
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Who here is a regular user of Granular Synthesis? Exactly. No one. Well, the Particle Granular Delay/Pitch Shifter pedal from Red Panda wants you to know all about it, and (try) to use it to your advantage in your guitar playing. This is one of those pedals that is a bit tricky to describe on paper, as the sounds that come out of it are very rarely repeated, leading to a vast amount of random sonic gooeyness. Let’s start at the...
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The Coffee Grinder Fuzz from Blue Dinosaur Electronics is a distant relative of the ancient and mysterious Interfax Harmonic Percolator, especially when both the Gain and Hi-Fi knobs are pushed to the max (although this is in no way a clone of that pedal). This is a fuzz like no other. With the Gain knob up full blast, the Coffee Grinder emits a warm, smooth, bold fuzz that’s not tinny or harsh on your ear holes. Use the Hi-Fi...
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Playing synthesizer sounds through your guitar is always a blast, and the (now discontinued) Boss SYB-3 Bass Synthesizer makes it even more so. 11 different modes allow for literally ENDLESS possibilities; you could play this this every day for a year straight and probably never hear the exact sound twice, it’s that versatile. And if you mix and match it with other fun pedals in your arsenal (delays, reverb, ring mods, etc.),...
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