The Fulltone PlimSoul Overdrive is finally available for purchase (though availability is still somewhat limited)! It’s a great sounding OD/Distortion pedal, but what makes it unique is the ability to have soft and hard clipping or combination of both in a single unit. You can also see the second stage with a LED indicator light (very similar to the Creation Audio Labs Holy Fire) which reacts.

Here is what Fulltone has to say about this pedal:

For many, many years you’ve basically had 2 choices for your Overdrive;/Distortion pedals… You could either get “Soft-clipped” Bluesy, slightly compressed, (Toob Screemer, FD2, etc etc etc etc etc etc) type Overdrive pedals… or you could get “Hard-Clipped” (OCD, Distortion+, Boss DS-1, etc etc etc etc etc etc) type Distortion pedals.

What if there was a pedal that offered both?

There is now…. Fulltone PlimSoul

PlimSoul has those Softer Bluesey, Compressed capabilities but also has a Second Stage that you can roll in with the turn of a little dial to add that firmer, crunchier, British output tube style Distortion! What’s more is you not only hear and feel it…you can SEE the pedal reacting to your every mood via a firey LED that glows brighter and dimmer depending on how distorted it is and how hard you’re hitting it.

Touch sensitive? Doesn’t get any better.

Clean up with the guitar’s volume control? More than any, yes, even more than the OCD.

Good with Humbuckers as well as Single coils? Yep.

Does it play nice with other pedals? Yes, it has an Ideal 500K Input Impedance, ideal super low 10K output impedance.

How dirty does it get? VERY dirty, the dirtiest pedal I make…but gets very clean as well.

Can I blend the 2 types of Distortion? Yes, and you can have ONLY Soft clipped or ONLY Hard Clipped

In a Nutshell? Extremely good Sustain/Feedback qualities, just the right amount of Mids, bottom, Great touch sensitivity, dynamics, and all those in-between shades available when you know how to use your guitar’s volume control.

Here is a video by gearmanndude that shows what this pedal is all about. You can clearly hear the soft vs hard clipping in there. Good stuff.

You can pick up the Fulltone PlimSoul Overdrive at Fat Tone Guitars for $179.10 (they’re currently out of stock – but you can preorder).

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!

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The other day I saw a tweet mentioning @guitarnoize demo’ing long time EffectsBay.com friend @cubisteffects ProCo RAT modification called the Four Headed RAT. Basically, it’s a modification that  provides additional voicings (two overdrive and two distortions for four overall voicing options). Along with the voicings, he replaces capacitors, ICs, and DC Jack. Christian at Cubist Effects also offers a ‘noise’ mod as well.. which gives you additional noise/feedback, etc.

Basically, you send him a ProCo Rat, you pay for the modification, and get back the four headed RAT. Check out his pricing here.

Below is a great video by guitarnoize which goes into great detail of what this pedal can do. Very cool.

If you’re interested in the ProCo Rat2 Distortion pedal, you can pick one up for $94.99 at Musician’s Friend.

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Here is the latest distortion box in the MXR line.. the MXR M-115 Distortion III. I came across another great video by JimDunlopUSA, so I thought I bring up this pedal today! But first, here is the official description of this pedal:

Developed from the ground up using carefully selected components, the Distortion III pedal delivers everything from sweet singing overdrive to massive distortion crunch! It’s natural and amp-like distortion is versatile enough to appeal to any playing style and transparent enough to let your guitar’s personality shine through. Like all MXR pedals, the Distortion III features a heavy-duty casing, switch and jacks for a lifetime of use.

The initials MXR are synonymous with the effects pedal innovations that have shaped the tone of modern electric guitar. Since the 1970′s, MXR has produced some of the best stomp boxes available; now comes the inspired MXR Distortion III. Starting with its proprietary circuit design that delivers rich harmonic content, the D-III carries on the MXR tradition of tough, rugged and tonally tasty stomp boxes. With its die cast chassis, robust stomp switch and carefully selected components the D-III guitar effects pedal is truly a modern day classic.

MXR M-115 Distortion III Pedal Features:

* True hardwire bypass
* Low noise components
* Large dynamic output range
* Proprietary circuit design that delivers rich harmonics
* Dynamic, touch-sensitive response
* Retains your guitar’s tone and clarity

Here is the video I mentioned above by jimdunlopusa:

You can pickup the MXR M-115 Distortion III pedal for $79.99 at Musician’s Friend.

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!

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After my post earlier today, I saw that Mige from HIM was riding a T-Rex Bass Juice distortion. Since I’m currently fascinated with T-Rex stuff, thought I’d take a closer look. This is a great bass distortion box for the bass players out there.

Here is the official description:

The T-REX Bass Juice pedal offers distortion specially designed for bass guitar. In normal mode (boost function off) it delivers awesome sustain with rich creamy overtones and big bottom. Engage the distortion pedal’s boost function and you are in fuzztone heaven! The mix knob let’s you blend just the right amount of distortion with your original clear tone. Remember that Jamiroquai sound, where it sounds like the bass kicks the paper of the speakers? The BassJuice pedal can do that—and many other things.

T-Rex Bass Juice Distortion Pedal Features:

* Dual-mode distortion pedal designed for bass guitar
* On/off switch
* Boost switch, gain distortion (Works only with the pedal on)
* Gain knob (Controls overall distortion)
* Level knob (Controls master volume)
* Tone knob (Adjusts a broad range of frequencies and provides great tonal control)
* Mix knob (Blends dry/overdriven signal)
* 9 volt battery operation or DC adapter
* Bomb-proof aluminum housing

I found this video by TRexEffects featuring Adrian Kuban-Maruszczyk:

You can pick up the T-Rex Bass Juice Distortion for $219.00 at Musician’s Friend.

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!

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The following is a guest post by Source Audio about their Soundblox Pro Classic Distortion. If you are interested in a guest post or review, please contact me!

The Ghosts in the Machine

Referred to as the “best distortion box ever” by both vintage tone champion Adrian Belew of King Crimson and neo-shredder Herman Li of DragonForce, the newly released Soundblox Classic Distortion by Source Audio is showing that analog soul can be captured on a digital chip.

A veritable Ghost Trap a la Ghostbusters, the Soundblox Classic Distortion houses eleven recaptured spirits of prevalent distortion sounds resulting from a five-year listening study of stomp boxes and tube amps. Sounds from the Big Muff Pi, Fulltone Distortion Pro, Tone Bender, Fuzz Face, ProCo Rat and Octavia can all be selected at the turn of a knob on the Soundblox Classic and then further tweaked by a graphic equalizer, two drive knobs, midrange knob and an output knob.

In addition, Source Audio has provided the option of tweaking the old sounds even further via an expression pedal morphing function, MIDI input connection and a jack for the Hot Hand motion-sensing controller.

Source Audio, now in it’s fifth year as a company, is a true nod to the marriage of music and technology. Having formed as a spin-off from the well-known semi-conductor company Analog Devices, they were able to request a customized state-of-the-art Digital Signal Processor, the SA601 chip, to pursue their music-centric interests. The two sets of ears in the listening study, VP of Engineering Jesse Remignanti (former audio systems and software engineer at Analog Devices) and Chief Scientist Bob Chidlaw (former senior engineer at Kurzweil Music) sat down to discuss the listening study, the process of creating the Soundblox Classic Distortion and a few other topics for the audiophile at home.

The need for a pedal that housed multiple quality distortion tones was clear to Jesse Remignanti, a veteran guitarist of the New England music scene. One of his challenges for the creation of the Soundblox Classic Distortion was to design an interface that could work seamlessly on-stage. He muses, “I’ve seen some guys who have anywhere from six to ten pedals on their board which are just distortion…jumping from one pedal to the other and doing a toe-tapping dance to get one sound to another sound.” He continues, “It’s easier to just have it called up on a preset or use the expression pedal. It’s useful for anyone from the pro musician to the guy who’s doing cover tunes and needs a different sound because they’re doing Metallica and then The Cars.”

For Chidlaw, a collector of tube amps, the challenge was to create digital sounds from scratch that matched his standards for analog sounds, which were quite high at the beginning of the project. “When I started at Source Audio, I was a real tube amp snob” states Chidlaw matter-of-factly. “The only distortion I would use was real distortion from a tube amp. I would sometimes modify amps to get more gain. Turning up the gain on a Marshall JCM-800 was one of my little moves.”

To truly capture some of the most notable distortion sounds in the fuzz pantheon, Bob and Jesse would have to explore the world of stomp boxes and as they dug deeper, Chidlaw’s tastes began to open up. “I had built solid-state distortion devices before. I really had just rejected them all by this point 5 years ago.” He reflects, “But then we bought a distortion pedal, the Fulltone Distortion Pro and I thought, ‘wow, this actually does sound quite nice.’ Then when we really started getting into the Classic Distortion we started acquiring a lot more pedals. I personally bought far too many for my growing collection. I really came to see the charm in solid-state distortions. It really gives you something that a vaccum tube can’t. You can’t get that sound from a vacuum tube amplifier. It can’t be done.”

In mapping the digital sounds to be placed in the Soundblox Classic Distortion, Chidlaw had to create each algorithm from the ground up, attempting to capture the essence of each distortion tone. “An algorithm is a recipe of how the sound is processed…There’s a lot of trial and error; a lot of tweaking… I just have to use my ears to try to compare what the digital system is doing with what the real analog pedal is doing.”

He continues, “You can’t really point to a sound as it goes by. Try to hear just what it is that makes a particular fuzz have it’s own sound. What is in the sound? All you can say is ‘doesn’t that sound kind of harsh in the high end?’ and maybe it does or maybe it doesn’t strike you that way… If you’re making something analog, you can say ‘I’ll use some of these transistors that were very cheap back in the day when this thing was built’ but what is the digital signal processing equivalent of a cheap transistor? Not at all obvious…”

The timing of the release for the Soundblox Classic Distortion is fairly fortuitous, coming at a time of heightened expectations for musicians. As modern music fans gain more access to more music across a longer timeline, they seem to gravitate toward either the eccentric or the tried and true. A look at the Billboard Top Ten shows a reissue of Exile on Main Street by the Rolling Stones alongside the likes of Lady Gaga and LCD Soundsystem.

The aim of the Soundblox Classic Distortion is a near precise match for the needs of the modern performer in that it can call up the guitar tone from The Rolling Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ in one moment and then in the next, it can create a never-before-heard sound.

Earl Slick Plays ‘Satisfaction’:

“It gives you some really interesting effects” explains Remignanti, “because you could get an in-between sound from two completely different pedals. You could switch from the Rat Tone to the Tube Drive or something just by rocking the expression pedal.”

Chidlaw adds, “You can get some more bizarre things happening in the middle of those morphs. You could say there is only twelve selector positions on the Classic Distortion, but if you use the morph control, you’ve really got hundreds of more possible selector positions by just, sort of, freezing the morph. Sixty percent of the way between this and this and you’ve got this new sound that’s in there.”

The versatility of the Classic Distortion can be traced back to that signature chip, the SA601 Digital Signal Processor. The power of the chip allowed the Source Audio engineers to push the pedal into new territories for a distortion stompbox. When asked about the graphic equalizer, another of the pedals unique features, Remignanti says simply “We had enough room in the processing and in the interface to add a seven-band EQ and it’s programmable for each preset. You could have the same distortion effect with three different EQ settings and get totally different sounds out of it. So, it’s a very nice, flexible feature…[It’s] not something commonly seen on distortion pedals.”

Matching the considerable uniqueness of the sounds, the aesthetic and layout of the Soundblox Classic Distortion have a simple and modern feel. Remignanti explains, “Our goal with the overall design was to make them simple in terms of the interface and the overall appearance but also modern looking. We tried not buy into the whole retro thing in our main design philosophy for the housings and the look of the pedals. [As for] the interface, we tried to keep it to as low a number of knobs and controls as possible, but still allow the user to get a lot of features and a lot of different sounds.”

For more information on the Soundblox Classic Distortion, please visit: http://www.sourceaudio.net

Tech Talk Video 2:

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Looks like Fulltone is coming out with a new overdrive / distortion pedal called the PlimSoul. The PlimSoul is scheduled to be released to the masses on June 1, 2010 to selected dealers. It will have the retail price of $199.

The PlimSoul will be combining the soft and hard clipping distortion. Soft clipped distortion is like a Tubescreamer, and a hard clipped distortion is like a Fulltone OCD. You can select either type or blend the two. He’s claiming this is the dirtiest pedal he makes, sounds very interesting.

Here is a partial description by Fulltone:

….
PlimSoul has those Softer Bluesey, Compressed capabilities but also has a Second Stage that you can roll in with the turn of a little dial to add that firmer, crunchier, British output tube style Distortion! What’s more is you not only hear and feel it…you can SEE the pedal reacting to your every mood via a firey LED that glows brighter and dimmer depending on how distorted it is and how hard you’re hitting it.

Touch sensitive? Doesn’t get any better.

Clean up with the guitar’s volume control? More than any, yes, even more than the OCD.

Good with Humbuckers as well as Single coils? Yep.

Does it play nice with other pedals? Yes, it has an Ideal 500K Input Impedance, ideal super low 10K output impedance.

How dirty does it get? VERY dirty, the dirtiest pedal I make…but gets very clean as well.

Can I blend the 2 types of Distortion? Yes, and you can have ONLY Soft clipped or ONLY Hard Clipped
….

For more information, please check out Fulltone.com!

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I posted the T-Rex Moller yesterday, and one of the comments was about the T-Rex Alberta. I have a feeling I’m going to be exploring more T-Rex products over the next few days. The Alberta was designed to sound somewhat like vintage TS808 overdrives but with more low end. I like the sound of this already.

Here is the official description:

The Alberta Distortion Pedal has that creamy overdrive sound reminiscent of a vintage TS-808 with a little more heft in the bottom end. With the gain cranked towards max, the T-Rex Alberta pedal behaves much like a vintage Tube Screamer. More subtle settings produce gorgeous blues tone with bite and sweet tube-like harmonics. Handcrafted in Denmark. 9V battery operation. 2-year unconditional warranty.

I found another video by Burgerman666 that really shows what this can do.. and it sounds great.

You can pick up the the T-Rex Alberta Distortion pedal for $199.99 at Musician’s Friend.

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!

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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!

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Today, I was exploring some TC Electronic pedals. We all know they make some great stuff. I’ve seen a few Nova Drives on Pedal Line Friday’s, and I’ve seen them mentioned on various EffectsBay.com community questions, so I wanted to post about the TC Electronic NDR-1 Nova Drive overdrive/distortion.

This is a great sounding pedal, and you get some incredible options with it, along with presets. It’s also interesting that they take analog circuits, but give them ‘digital’ control (allowing for preset, etc).

Here is the official description:

Guitarists everywhere, start your engines, because your tone is about to take a new turn! Introducing the NDR-1 Nova Drive, TC Electronic’s dual engine, digitally controllable, true bypass overdrive/distortion effect pedal, that features the awesome analogue drive circuit ported from the acclaimed Nova System.

The TC Electronic Nova Drive pedal brings you the great sounding analog circuit from Nova System, with all the digital control that modern guitarists demand. The result: classic old school sound that ensures chills down your spine and a wide grin at every riff, lick, and face-melter with digital control options that enable you to integrate NovaDrive into your setup and tailor the sound with total precision, resulting in more control, resulting in more confidence, and ultimately resulting in a better performance. Finally you have a place to create, store and recall all the distorted and overdriven sounds you could ever need: Nova Drive.

I found this great video by tcelectronic going into great detail what this pedal is capable of:

You can pick up the TC Electronic NDR-1 Nova Drive Overdrive and Distortion for $249.00 at Musician’s Friend.

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!

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Sunday morning coffee and nerd-surfing led me to the Pigtronix PolySaturator Distortion. I was corresponding with the winner of the Trumpet Fuzz, and we started talking about some Pigtronix pedals so I definitely have it on the brain lately. I’ve see the PolySaturator on a few boards, but wanted to take a closer look this morning.

Here is the official description:

The PolySaturator distortion pedal from Pigtronix takes the original design even further, adding a Class A J-FET booster stage to the front end and re-voicing the gain structure to provide an even wider range of sounds. The PolySaturator produces everything from subtle grit to blue velvet sustain inspired by our favorite tube amp lead channel.

The PolySaturator excels at gritty, edge-of-overdrive tones, but crank up the gain and you will be assaulted by face-melting ultra-high gain sounds that will please shredders and shoegazers alike with impressive string to string clarity and F.A.T. tube sound. Our JRC4558D powered EQ circuits provide 12 db / octave active filtering over three distinct audio bands. This powerful EQ structure combined with a state-of-the-art approach to tube emulation, allows the musician to dial up wildly diverse and satisfying textures of analog distortion. Unprecedented touch sensitivity and overall range of distortion tones is achieved through multiple gain stages, and active EQ, perfectly balanced to give the musician enhanced control and expression using picking dynamics alone.

The PolySaturator guitar pedal presents a flexible and affordable alternative that will outperform any other boutique or mass production distortion effect available.

I found another great video by gearmanndude demo’ing this pedal. Seems like the pedal definitely has wide range of tones, and has the ability to compress or get “flappy”.

You can pick up the Pigtronix PolySaturator distortion pedal for $169.00 at Musician’s Friend.

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

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