Effects Bay

I’m excited to talk about the Greenhouse Effect Roadkiller overdrive. Roy from Greenhouse effects sent over a couple of pedals to demo, and we’ll start things off with the Roadkiller. The road killer is a great sounding overdrive with solid mid-range. Greenhouse effects are built well with a sturdy enclosure and quality pots/knobs and footswitch. This overdrive breaks up enough to be almost fuzz like, but can also keep a tight overdrive sound. It’s a very versatile pedal that will sound great with clean amps or high gain amps.

Here is the official description of the Roadkiller by Greenhouse Effects:

This is the one you’ve been looking for.

The Roadkiller is designed to give you outstanding guitar tone on any setup in any occasion. built from the ground up, the Roadkiller has cascaded FET gain stages, finely tuned to deliver the thick and complex sound and feel of a tube amp in overdrive.

It does so without coloring the sound of your guitar and amp.

Tones range from warm articulated clean,through smooth saturation into a thick crunch and finally to an all out fat and tight distortion.

* Amazing note separation
* Highly responsive to picking dynamics
* Control the gain using your guitar’s volume knob,and it cleans almost completely even on high gain settings without becoming dark or dull!
* True bypass!

The Roadkiller will make your guitar sound bigger ,and will enhance your playing experience.

For the demo, I again enlisted the help of long time friend, Jimmy Rolle. He played the Greenhouse Effects Roadkiller using a Les Paul Goldtop with P90s through a Rivera Knucklehead 100/Marshall 4×12. The demo was mic’d with a AKG Solidtube and Shure SMf7.

We did two demos. The first demo is the pedal using ‘cleanish’ amp settings:

Additionally, we have high quality MP3 of the demo via SoundCloud

The second demo is using high gain amp settings:

Additionally, we have high quality MP3 of the demo via SoundCloud

I also wanted to get a little bit more information from Roy the creator of the Greenhouse Effects Roadkiller, so here is a short interview:

Where is Greenhouse Effects Located?

Greenhouse effects is located in a Kibbutz in northern Israel.

How long have you been developing pedals?

I’ve been making pedals for about six years,mostly custom works for musicians.a certain style has evolved throughout the years.

What got you into pedal development?

The concept of making a work tool for musicians was inspiring.I was playing guitar at several bands and needed a good overdrive pedal that would sound huge on stage.first  i started tinkering the old Ts design and came out with the first version of the Goldrive,(today,the MKIII is very different although it implements some of the same ideas) I’ve leaned a lot through this experience and it sparked the passion for making my own pedals.

What did you want to achieve with the RoadKiller?

The Roadkiller was challenging because i had great ambitions for it. I wanted to make a huge sounding overdrive that simply oozes with tone,it hadto be very dynamic and responsive. But that wasn’t enough.i wanted it to have an extremely wide range of tones,it took several months to achieve,but the final result is very satisfying,it’s like having a booster,an overdrive and a distortion in one box.

How is the RoadKiller different than other similar pedals. What was the objective with this?

The Roadkiller is different in several ways.first it has three different eq settings,depending on how you set the gain knob; Minimum gain- flat eq (to be used as a booster) Medium gain- mid frequencies are emphasized (to push a tube amp without getting too muddy) High gain-gives you lots of bottom end for a thick rock distortion tone. the tone knob works correspondingly with the gain knob and should be set accordingly in order to achieve the desired tone. another difference might be that as you tone down the volume on your guitar,you never loose presence.it cleanse very well and you don’t loose treble frequencies. and since there are cascaded FET gain stages being used ,the note definition is superb,

Overall,it might take a bit of exploring in order to utilize this pedal to the fullest,but once you do this pedal can provide a rich pallet of tones.

What is the next pedal in development?

the next pedal is a modulation effect,already in progress(Stone fish)

The Greenhouse Effects Roadkiller Overdrive sells around $185USD. You can purchase this pedal at these find Greenhouse Effects Dealers online!

PedalGeek
StepUpGuitars
MontreuxGuitars

For more information about Greenhouse Effects, please check out their website and check them out on Facebook!

Popularity: 3%

The ProCo ’85 Whiteface Rat is a limited  run reissue of the classic Rat of 1985. The folks at ProCo is not only ‘reissuing’ the pedal but replicating it to exact specifications (if parts were still available). The used the original circuit board layout and used the crucial LM308 chip. It’s housed in the classic “RAT” steel housing, and is built like a tank. Since I mentioned it is a limited run, they are only producing 2000 units total.

The pedal has three settings – Distortion, Filter and Volume. There is no LED indicator on this model staying true to the original design. Distortion controls the level of distortion to the pedal. Filter smooths out the break up, counter clockwise it will deliver more aggressive top end break up while moving it full clockwise will smooth it out and darken the tone. Volume will be the overall pedal gain. Unity gain appears to be around 2-3 o’clock.

This pedal definitely falls in the ‘fuzz’ family. You can get some nice break up, crunch to fuzz. The mid-range is scooped, and has the classic RAT sizzle/fizzle tone.

For this pedal review.. yet again, we go to my long time friend.. Jimmy Rolle. For this demo he is playing a Rivera Knucklehead 100W head through a Marshall 4×12 cab with Greenbacks and G12H30 Anniversary speakers. He is playing his Les Paul Elegant Custom Shop guitar. Audio was captured using Shure SM57 microphones to laptop.

This first demo Jimmy is using ‘slight breakup’ settings on the amp and demonstrating what it can do.

Hight quality MP3 audio is also available:

The second demo Jimmy is playing the Rivera with high gain settings.

High quality MP3 audio is also available:

The fuzz is not as creamy as a classic fuzz, and has a more ‘muff’ like fuzz, but with the classic RAT tone. This pedal can be used in many applications, but could be great with a medium gain amp, such as a Marshall JCM800, for aggressive classic rock to metal tones.

You can pick up the ProCo Whiteface RAT Reissue from ProCoWhitefaceRat.com (via Direct Pro Audio). It’s is available for $199.99. Also be sure to follow ProCo on Facebook and Twitter. They’re giving away a lot of gear these days, so you’ll want to be tapped in for those.

I wanted to send a special thank you to Stephanie at ProCo for sending the pedal our way. If you’re interested in having any gear demo’d, please contact me.

Remember, if you like reading about these pedals and seeing videos reviews from others, please subscribe to the RSS feed and get notified via email when there are new postings!

Popularity: 6%

I really enjoy how Twitter has connected me to various musicians and pedal builders out there. With the numbers of pedal builders rising, there is no better place to connect with them on a more personal level. A few months ago, @Goosoniqueworx and I started following each other and asked if I’d be interested to look at their high gain distortion pedal and of course I agreed.

Goosonique is based out of Singapore and they have the Seventheaven distortion touring the States from one blog to the other. I thought that concept was quite cool. I received the pedal from Bobby DeVito and after we were done, I shipped it off to Blake of WhatsThatDudePlay.com. Okay, enough of this, and let’s get to the pedal.

Here is their basic break down of the pedal and functions:

DUAL CHANNELS
Seventheaven comes with dual channels toggle switchable gain channels where the Green channel is more of a low gain offering primarily but gets into heavy distortion with the boost engaged. The Red channel starts of distorted and gives much head room and variety in tweaking the saturation. Both channels cleans up with a rolling off guitar volume knob.

EQ
The EQ onboard, Bass, Mid and Treble all responds sensitively and gets very versatile for the player to archive different amp tone. They mimic high gain amp tone controls which are place after the gain stages thus giving a post dirt tone stack. Very interactive! Together with a presence and feedback switch, allows the user to tweak make some final adjustments in different amp situations to get a more darker tone with added bass, or to brighten his tone up.

BOOST
It also features an In-line boost which is not a gain halve switch, but works in boosting your settings to archive a notch up on your overall setting. it’s not pre/post standalone and only activated when the pedal is engaged.

DYNAMICS
As it’s pick sensitive, it allows flexible dynamic control either by the playing style, again, roll it off nicely with the volume knob on the guitar. Another great feature that i need to add is that it plays well with other effects thus eliminating any pedal board conflicts.

POWER
The Seventheaven powers up via a DC power jack for 9VDC, up to 18 VDC power. 2.1mm plug negative center. This unit does not operate on batteries.

This pedal is incredibly versatile going from clean boost to full on metal tones. With the the two channel option (green/red) you get two different gain levels. Having the boost is excellent for leads with plenty of gain. The versatility really comes into play with their three band EQ and the ability to dial in the mid-range. You can scoop them or bump them which gives you the ability to really shape your tone to a particular style or need. Both the channels of the pedal are very transparent with very little tonal change. The red is the same but with more gain.

There are two footswitches on the pedal. Right switch engages or disengages the pedal. You need to switch the toggle for green or red channel. The left switch is a boost switch, where you can leave that on (but is on activated if the pedal is on) so you can go right to lead tone (boost on) or stage it by stepping on the pedal.

Additionally there is a feedback and presence knob/switch to help shape the tone.

This pedal has the ability to stay ‘tight’ at high gain.

For this demo, I asked my long time friend and fellow guitarist Jimmy Rolle to take it for a ride.

This first demo is using his ‘light’ gain channel of his Matchless DC-30 (12ax7 channel). His guitar is a Les Paul Gold Top with P90 pickups. SM57 mic on the Green Back speaker and Audix D3 on the Vintage 30 speaker.

This second demo, Jimmy is switching to the higher gain setting of the Matchless DC-30 (ef86 channel). Same guitar.

I also have higher quality audio from the above videos here:
http://www.effectsbay.com/files/seventheaven1.mp3
http://www.effectsbay.com/files/seventheaven2.mp3

Having contact with the builders, I also like to interview them and see what they were thinking when they created and designed the pedal. I think a little insight can be quite useful when searching for the right pedal for your line.

What were you trying to achieve and/or avoid when you put this pedal together?

To develop a decent high gain amp-like in a stompbox and to breakaway from the usual op-amp pedal distortions.

What were you going for with the presence/feedback selection

For amp voicing variable which helps with various amps and its speaker types. Primarily, Presence mode for extra presence/brightness when using darker sounding amps, and Feedback mode that provides a bigger bass response when using brighter sounding amps.

What are the differences between the green and red channel? Diode clipping, etc?

The Seventheaven has a cascaded Jfet circuit thus NO Clipping diodes.

What was the deciding factor for going with the 3 band EQ vs. just a ‘tone’ knob. We both thought it was great to have mid control.

Most smaller clean amps for home practice come with one or no tone control. Secondly, since it was designed to mimic a high gain amp, a traditional three band EQ will allow user to sculpt tone further and not be limited by a single tone control.

Have you considered adding a footswitch to handle the channel selection?

Yes, but adding another foot-switch will narrow the distance between each other considering the current box size. What we wanted was gain control via guitar volume knob not pedal switching which may be fun for bedroom but not so when performing. We also did a field test and found that most who prefered a channel switch, later, decided to go without, since both channels can go dirty cleans up very well with the roll of guitar volume knob.

What style (if any) of music (or guitarist) were you tailoring this pedal for?

Anyone and and everyone who wants something different out of the good ‘ol stompbox.

The Goosonique Seventheaven pedal can be yours for $299.00 USD + Shipping (they accept PayPal). There is currently no wait list. They sell them each week as they build them.  For more information or if you’d like to purchase a pedal, please check out the links below:

Main Site : http://gsonique.webs.com
Youtube : http://www.youtube.com/user/gworxTV
Mailing List : http://gsonique.webs.com/apps/auth/signup
Twitter : http://twitter.com/Goosoniqueworx
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/pages/goosoniqueworx/204563740960

Popularity: 10%

So, I’ve been noticing that the site has been getting a lot of hits from search engines related to my Electro Harmonix Memory Toy and Electro Harmonix Memory Boy posts. I wanted to find some better comparisons (especially up against the Electro Harmonix Memory Man), but I found this great video from the  Summer NAMM 2009 show at the Electro Harmonix booth.

It features a demo of the Memory Toy, Memory Boy, Cathedral and something really new to me, the 22 Caliber power amp (as a pedal).

Here are the pedals mentioned in the video:

Electro Harmonix Memory Toy $79.50 at Musician’s Friend
Electro Harmonix Memory Boy $98.18 at Musician’s Friend
Electro Harmonix Cathedral $214.50 at Musician’s Friend
Electro Harmonix 22 Caliber Power Amp $99.99 at Musician’s Friend

Popularity: 5%