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%

Today I wanted to talk about the Way Huge Angry Troll linear boost pedal. The folks at Dunlop were kind enough to send me this pedal to demo… so we did. Again, for this demo, I enlisted the help of my good friend Jimmy Rolle. He used his Les Paul Custom Shop Elegant, plugged into a Rivera Knucklehead 100 through a Marshall 4×12 cab (2 V30s, 1 G12H30, 1 Greenback). We mic’d it with a AKG Solidtube microphone direct to a laptop.

The Angry Troll boost pedal can give you a maximum of +50db of gain! There are 2 knobs – Volume and Anger. The anger knob which is a rotary switch with fists (I have to admit, I think that’s pretty cool) adjusts the level of gain through the op-amp. The volume knob regulates the overall pedal output. I have to note, that this is not a ‘clean boost’ since it does alter the sound with some compression for “bite and punch” as their description states.

I also have a high quality MP3 download available via SoundCloud:

You can pick up the Way Huge Electronics WHE101 Angry Troll for $119.99 at Musician’s Friend. But wait, you have a chance to get the exact pedal we demo’d! If you’re not aware, this month’s give away is this pedal. Click here to learn more about the Way Huge Electronics Angry Troll give away!

Popularity: 3%

With this post, we’re breaking away from our norms for reviews. Adam from Mayes Pickups was kind enough to send me a set of Trinity pickups to replace Fender Stratocaster pickups. As you know, we normally do pedal demos/reviews , so this was fun to do something a little different.

First, let’s talk about the Trinity pickups by Maye’s Pickups (http://www.mayespickups.com/). It’s a innovative new design (patent pending) tricoil system. I guess in my layman terms, it’s three magnets creating three mini coils. Normally a single coil has six magnets with a single coil wrapping them all. The traditional single coil has the common hum issues, but this tricoil virtually eliminates this. This pickup is also a low resistant pickup. They measure in around 3K in resistance. Initially, I was concerned about volume with this lower resistance (my stock single coils came in around 7K), but those were quickly answered. I also go into this further in the review. His pickups are hand made and hand wound.

When it comes to pickups it is incredibly difficult to demo them since you normally cannot A/B them easily. For this demo, we used a American Fender Strat with stock pickups, into a Matchless DC-30 through a Marshall 4×12 cabinet. We wanted to keep settings the same throughout the demo, so the amp, cab and mic placement was not touched during the process. We dialed the amp for the American Standard Strat with stock pickups, so that needs to be considered, since pickup changes will often need some slight tweaks to the settings of the amp.

Just like the other EffectsBay.com demos, I enlisted the help of Jimmy Rolle on guitar.

For our review we thought we would shoot three videos. The first video is a my American Standard Strat (light weight body, rosewood fingerboard) with stock pickups. The second video is Jimmy’s American Standard Strat (heavier body with maple fingerboard). His Strat has Texas Special at the neck, stock pickup in the middle and a Rio Grande Mui Grande at the bridge. Finally, the third video is my Strat again, but with the Mayes Pickups (Fat Kid in the neck, Standard in the middle and Super Model at the bridge).

For the review, we wanted to demonstrate a few things, and replicate them across the different videos. Basically, clean picking across all the strings, with each pickup combination, then chords, then some rockier lead stuff. For the demo we included a Fulltone Fulldrive 2 for the lead in the end, but was only engaged at that point. The audio was recorded with a Shure SM57 and AKG Solidtube microphones. Below each video, there is a SoundCloud clip of a high quality MP3 version of each video.

So let’s get this started.

Stock Fender Pickups

Texas Special/Rio Grande Pickups

Trinity Mayes Pickups

Overall, the pickups sounded really good and clear, with a heavier bottom end. The tricoils definitely add more meat to the signal. The 3K resistance of the Mayes was equal or louder than the stock pickups at 7K. The Standard pickup(what was recommended for the middle) sounded the most balanced. Now, I wish we had time to try that in the neck position. I’m not the biggest fan of the stock bridge pickup, so this was a improvement in my opinion, but I definitely understand people liking the bright/thin sound of the stock pickup as well, so it’s really dependent on your application.

For this review, I thought it would be cool to include a short Q/A with Adam Mayes about his pickups:

- What were you going for with this pickups? Was there a particular sound/style/niche you were trying to improve upon?

I bought a Squier Affinity Tele.  It was a mistake, but I needed an electric quick for a week and didn’t want to borrow one.  What I got were two of the loudest, worst sounding pickups I’d ever heard.  My initial goal was to produce something quiet and passive to go in my Tele-wannabe.

I wasn’t going for any particular style.  The electric guitar pickup had been invented several decades ago and while there had been improvements (humbuckers, Lace Sensor, etc.), it just seemed like there was something else to be done.

What I ended up with was a tri-coil pickup with a much better sound than what came with my Tele (which wasn’t too hard) but also something as quiet as a humbucker.

- What would be the best application for these pickups (jazz? blues? rock?, etc)

I think these pickups span the spectrum of music.  My personal leanings go from jazz to blues to rock; I’ll play whatever.  I’ll even do some chicken-pickin’ if I’m around the right guys, which is why I made these pickups with the idea that anyone could put these in their guitar and, while it may not give them a completely unique sound, it will give a greater depth of tone, more sustain and clarity than they would have otherwise.

For me, it’s like stepping up to a song with a box of 244 crayons instead of 8; you just have more to work with.

- Can you explain the low resistance pickups. I think this would be good to go into, since I’m sure there are a lot of dudes like me that translate.. low resistance to low gain/volume.

This is my favorite question.  Pickup companies are somewhat misleading when they imply that greater resistance equals more volume.  The truth is that the more turns of the coil equal more volume.  The more turns also equal more resistance, but the greater resistance itself does not equal more volume.

Resistance is best thought of as a measure of how much of the signal will be lost.  With the three individual coils in a Trinity there is only about 3k-ohm resistance, about half a standard single coil.  That is why there is such depth to the sound of a Trinity; there is that much more signal.

As far as volume goes, we wind our pickups to be slightly louder than a normal pickup.

- How does these pickups reduce hum?

I believe it has to do with the physical shape of the coils.

In a normal single coil, the coil cuts through a decent volume of space. That space has all sorts of RF from radio waves to appliances to whatever. The volume of space my three little coils cut through is far, far less.

- You have various models (Fat Kid, Standard and Super Model) for the strat, are there any particular recommendations and applications for each pickup.. if so.. why.

Only general recommendations.  First is to remember that we build each pickup so that it can go in any slot for a Strat.  If you buy a Fat Kid and want it in your bridge, that’s fine, but it can go in the mid or neck position, too.

Secondly, the Fat Kid has the greatest bass presence of the three.  The Super Model has the highest treble presence with the Standard in the middle.  All three should be used according to taste.  My initial work with the Trinity was to have a Fat Kid, Standard, Super Model arrangement (neck to bridge) because I like a bassy neck pup for blues and jazz and a thin pup at the bridge for a gritty rock sound.

Lately, I have switched to Standard, Super Model, Fat Kid (neck to bridge) and found that setup to be pleasing in a whole different way.  I still have a fair amount of bass for my solos and my distortion has a little more depth to it.

It’s all up to personal taste.  That’s what I love.  If you don’t like the Super Model in the mid, put it in the neck.  Try it out–and let me know what combinations you use.  I have one customer who bought thee Super Models and he loves it.  The prototype work had three Fat Kids and I loved that too.  You can do whatever you want.

- How long has Mayes Pickups been in business?

This is brand new venture, not quite a year old.  The Trinity is a patent pending product.  You can’t (or shouldn’t be able) to find anything like this anywhere else on the market.

Mayes Pickups also make a Tele-Style pickup as well. If you’re liking how these sound, and want to check them out, please visit MayesPickups.com. At the time of this post, they could be purchased direct from their website. Strat style pickups go for $89.99 ea. He has a 30 day money-back guarantee as well.

Also, he’s doing a cool thing.. he’s giving away a free pickup every month! Go here for details on the Trinity give-away.

Disclosure: the Mayes Trinity Pickups used in this review were not returned after the review.

Popularity: 3%

Brad Fee, owner of Mojo Hand effects and partner at Tone Factor sent us a Mojo Hand Gyro, a vibrato / Leslie simulator pedal. This is a ‘true’ pitch shifting vibrato which can also combine a rotating speaker simulation. It was fun to work with a modulation effect, so here we go.

Let’s first break down the units controls. There is a 3-way toggle which selects vibrator (top position), Rotation (center position) and Mixed which will combine Vibrato and Leslie (bottom position). There are 3 pots. Going from left to right, we have Volume, Speed and Depth. The volume allows for you to quiet the pedal’s output or you can use it to overdrive the signal. Speed will control the rotation or vibrator speed, and the Depth will control the overall intensity of the rotation. You can dial speed and depth for a very subtle to extreme setting. There is a indicator LED which let’s you know the pedal is on, but it will also reflect the speed rate you have set.

Here is a quick official description from Tone Factor:

True Pitch Shifting Vibrato as well as Rotating Speaker Simulation. The 3 way toggle chooses between Vibrato, Leslie, and Blended (which mixes the two). Expression pedal jack controls speed. Works in conjunction with Mojo Hand’s upcoming Ramp Unit. True Bypass Switching Powder Coated, Screen Printed enclosure

Just like the other demos, I gave Jimmy Rolle a call to see if he was up for the demo… and of course.. he was.

This first demo is what I’m calling a ‘straight’ demo. Here Jimmy plays with medium grit to higher gain settings while adjusting modes and settings. This should give you a good sense of what this pedal is capable of.  Jimmy is playing a American Standard Fender Stratocaster through a Rivera Knucklehead 100 w and Marshall 4×12 cabinet. It was recorded with SM57 and AKG Solidtube microphones. Both close mic’d.

Optionally, you can listen to high quality MP3 of this same clip

For this demo, we did something a little different. With a modulation pedal such as this, we thought it would be great to show how this pedal would react with other effects. In this clip Jimmy has the Mojo Hand Gyro first in line, and utilizing his other pedals (Fulltone ’69 Fuzz, Bad Cat 2-Tone, Big Muff+Maxon 808, Fulltone Fulldrive 2, EHX Memory Man and Teese Picture Wah) The yellow switch toggles between the Big Muff/Maxon 808 and Bad Cat 2-Tone. He has a small looper that keeps the EHX Memory Man in true bypass. Jimmy – Let me know if I missed something!

Optionally, you can listen to high quality MP3 of this same clip

As you can see, you can get some pretty classic vibe tones.. as well as achieving some classic stoner tones!

I also had a chance to pass a few questions to Brad Fee about the pedal.

What inspired you to develop the Gyro?

The Gyro was developed because there seemed to be a hole in the market for true pitch shifting vibratos, as well as rotary speaker simulators. The Gyro does both, so it’s like killing two birds with one stone.

What genres of music will go nuts for the Gyro?

Any fan of classic rock radio can probably enjoy and find a use for the Gyro. It’s really easy to get a good sound out of, so it’s applicable to a lot of styles.

What makes the Gyro different than other vibrato / roto vibe pedals out there?

It sounds better. Really all of the credit goes to the designer, Robert Gillan. He’s the man behind the curtain, and he’s truly a brilliant builder/designer.

How long has the Gyro been out there?

Prototypes have been floating around for a year or two, but it’s really only been in full production for the past few months.

How long has Mojo Hand been developing pedals?

About 4 years. It kind of sprung out of the Tone Factor custom shop, but once I started selling them through other vendors I figured it would make more sense to branch off and make it a separate operation altogether. We’re currently looking for new retailers to help expand the Mojo Hand brand.

What’s Mojo Hand’s philosophy for developing pedals?

I think the key thing we strive for, in all of our pedals, is simplicity and ease of use. I want it to sound good when I plug it in, without much fuss.

Overall, this is a great sounding pedal. With high gain amp settings, it’s a touch noisy, but with analog you should come to expect it. The rotation provides a warm, and depending on how it’s set (volume level) can also give a interesting overdriven undertone. The pedal also responds nicely to volume adjustments from the guitar. The pedal is only DC powered (no battery), and it is true bypass. It also has the ability to add a expression to control speed. I really wish we had a expression pedal to play with this ability. I’m sure it would be great.

This pedal sells for $239.00 at Tone Factor!

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: 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%