Effects Bay

This morning while nursing my Christmas hang over (related to prime rib and 20+ too many cookies) I thought I would explore the world of overdrives. A few days ago, I posted “Guitar World Staff Picks: Paul Riario’s Top 10 Effect Pedals of 2011” and the Keeley Luna Overdrive was on that list. I wanted to take a closer look.

Robert Keeley has been known for his great pedal modifications… as well as his 4 knob compressor, so I would expect the quality of this overdrive to be high.

Here is the official description of the Keeley Luna Overdrive:

The Keeley Overdrive is about as versatile and transparent of an OD pedal as you’ll find and all in a compact box! Utilizing components not found in many other pedals on the market, the Keeley Overdrive allows you to get classic and familiar OD tones, but with nearly unmatched transparency. If you have any questions please feel free to contact us. Thanks for looking and ROCK ON!

I found this video by GuitarWorld:

If you’re liking the sound of this overdrive, the Keeley Luna Overdrive is available for $229 at Amazon.com

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Ah… it’s getting to the “Best of 2011″ time of year. I’m always interested what items stood out for the year that is about to end. Always seems to create some good discussions, etc. I came across the Guitar World staff pick (by Paul Riario) Top 10 Effect Pedals of 2011. You can read the full article here.

Basically, he broke it down to the following:

1. Dunlop Cantrell JC95 Cry Baby
2. MXR Custom Badass ’78 Distortion
3. Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar
4. Eventide Space
5. Strymon Lex Rotary
6. Keeley Luna Overdrive
7. Caroline Guitar Company Wave Cannon
8. Wampler Hot Wired Brent Mason Overdrive/Distortion
9. Visual Sound Dual Tap Delay
10. Way Huge Green Rhino

The Cantrell wah has been brought up multiple times as being a great wah. I’ve seen it on a few Pedal Line Friday boards and I thought that was a solid pick.

It was also great to see Caroline Guitar Company’s Wave Cannon in there. We had the privilege to demo the Wave Cannon (and gave it away) a while back. Definitely a great pedal for sure.

I was slightly surprised to see the MXR Custom Badass ’78 Distortion. I’ve never played that pedal, but I often see mix reviews here. Some people love it while others.. not so much. Let me know your opinion of the ’78 distortion if you have it by commenting below.

I think Strymon is going to be showing up a lot on these lists to come. I have the Strymon BlueSky, and basically everything they put out is golden. I’ve never seen a complaint about Strymon.

A couple of pedals that I want to look into is the Keeley Luna Overdrive and the Wampler Hot Wired. Both of those pedals I’m not too familiar with.

The Electro-Harmonix Ravish Sitar is another one that people are interested, but I don’t see many people actually owning this pedal. I know it’s new, but may have limited applications for the masses. Again, let me know what you think.

The Visual Sound Dual Tap Delay is a pedal I want to check out re-al bad. All the demos of this are great. A very simple delay with complex ability.

Please let me know your thoughts about that list…. good, bad and the ugly

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Today’s pedal line is from Peter Trabucchi. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

I play with this pedal setup in my band Roadside Manor.  I use a Vox AC30 an my main guitar is a Mexican made Fender Stratocaster with Lace Sensor Gold Pickups (easy adjustment to make a MIM Strat sound amazing).

This is my pedal line from the instrument-amplifier:

* Dunlop Crybaby Wah *: A true classic…

* Boss PH-3 Phase Shifter *: This is a pretty sweet phaser many different modes and sounds in such a small pedal (I have a Boss FS-5L attached to it as the expression pedal to change the rate)

* Digitech Whammy *: This is one of my newest pedals.  You can get all kinds of sweet harmonizing sounds with this pedal and it’s really a blast to play with

* Keeley Katana Clean Boost *: This pedal is a great boost pedal.  The volume knob pulls out to convert into an overdrive pedal as well.  I use this when I need a nice, crisp solo sound

* Ibanez TS9DX Turbo Tube Screamer *: This pedal is much like the TS9 made by Ibanez, but it has different modes you can set it to.  This one works well for getting a real dirty, crunchy solo tone

* Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer *: Another classic, works great for a real crunchy tone

* Boomerang III Phrase Sampler *: A sweet loop pedal that can loop up to 17 minutes of recorded audio.  It has many different functions, including a reverse function which will play back what you are playing in reverse (it records 8 second chunks and plays that 8 seconds while you continue playing and it is recording another 8 seconds and so on, I haven’t mastered it just yet but it seems like it could be interesting to use)

* Boss TU-3 Chromatic Tuner *: A nice, simple tuner pedal

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Today’s pedal line is from Jason Trahan. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

Path:

guitar/lap steel > Boss TU-2 tuner > Hartman Vintage Germanium Fuzz > Way Huge Green Rhino overdrive > MXR Carbon Copy delay > Keeley compressor > Boss CE-5 chorus > T-Rex Tonebug reverb > Radial ABY amp switcher > Silvertone 1421 (10 XL) and/or Vox Pathfinder 15

bottom right: tremolo on/off switch (for the Silvertone) underneath the board: Voodoo Labs Pedal Power 2

This is the result of a recent re-arranging and so far it’s sounding great to me. With both the fuzz and overdrive on (as well as the compressor), the lead tones jump from great to “solar flare-esque”. Lots, lots and more lots of fun.

http://madelinesongs.com/
http://www.myspace.com/thegingerenvelope

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John Mayer is another guitar player that I’m not a big fan of, but I definitely respect his guitar tone and quality of play. This guy can really lay down some awesome guitar. I remember catching a few live performances on TV that really impressed me, so when I came across this Premier Guitar Rig Rundown I wanted to share this. It’s a little old (9/8/10), but I would assume some of the pedals are still in the line up.. if not all of them.

This video really shows what’s all involved with his guitar tone. Premier Guitar’s Rebecca Dirks interviews Rene Martinez (guitar tech for Stevie Ray Vaughn, Prince, Mick Jones). Video submitted by PremierGuitar

As you notice, Rene doesn’t go into detail about the pedals except for the fact that they’re using a Bradshaw switching system.. and that they’re on in the trays. I wish he would have talk about a few of them – ie: the Roger Linn pedals, etc. I was able to get good screen snaps off all the pedals and was able to identify all of them. Here is the breakdown of pedals below.

Rack 1

Eventide Timefactor Delay
Way Huge Electronics Aqua Puss (vintage mk1)

Rack 2

Boss GE-7 Equalizer
Eventide Timefactor Delay
Ibanez TS10 Tube Screamer
Roger Linn Adrenalinn III

Rack 3

Marshall Blues Breaker
Analogman 3 knob compressor
Klon Centaur (silver)
Korg G4 Rotary Speaker Simulator

Rack 4

Roger Linn AdrenaLinn
Roger Linn AdrenaLinn II

Floor 1

Bradshaw foot controller
Boss TU-2 x3
MXR MC401 CAE Boost / Line Driver

Floor 2

Keeley Katana
RMC8-Guitar Eqwahlyzer
Radial JDI passive direct box
Custom A/B/Mute Box w/XLR out for Acoustic
Keeley True Bypass Looper

Floor 3

Uni-Vibe w/foot controller (vintage Unicord/Univox U-915 Shiftee Uni-Vibe)

If you see anything that’s incorrect, or notice something that I missed, please let me know by commenting below!

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Today I came across a artist I wasn’t familiar with – the pride of Philadelphia, G. Love. G. Love and the Special Sauce is a three member alternative, blues, hip hop band. Okay, so that caught my eye and wanted to learn more. If you’re curious too, you need to go here: Philadelphonic.com for the full scoop. What really got me on this journey was Premier Guitar’s rig rundown piece with G. Love. I LOVE the rig rundowns. Great stuff. If you aren’t subscribed to Premier Guitar’s YouTube Channel.. you should be.In that segment, G. Love goes into great detail about his board, and what I really like, into WHY he likes certain pedals, etc. It’s one thing to have a quality effect on the board, but it’s quite useful to hear the rational as to why it’s there. That same logic might apply to you, etc. and might help you find that missing piece in your line.

Here is the break down of pedals on G. Love’s board:

Voodoo Lab Amp Selector
Electro-Harmonix Wiggler
Boss BF-3 Flanger
Boss TU-2 Tuner
Xotic RC Booster
Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron Plus
Boss DD-6 Digital Delay
HAO SP-1 Sole Pressure
Keeley Compressor (2 knob)
Dunlop Cry Baby Wah GCB-95

I thought it was interesting that he mentioned that the Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron Plus would be his  “deserted island pedal”. I really like it when this question is asked. By answering you really get a glimpse as to what is the biggest component (effect wise) to their tone or sound.

If you’re interested in any other artist boards that haven’t been featured on EffectsBay.com, please let me know!

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Today’s pedal line is from Cody Ray. If you have a pedal line (doesn’t have to be in a board) for your rig, please email me a photo, bio, description of pedals and routing to pedallineeffectsbaycom. Every Friday I’ll showcase a pedal line submission. Make sure you include any links to your band or music page.

I am a lover good clean tone. Not too muddy and not too flat; all of my pedals insure that I get said tone. I’ll run from my guitar to my amp and all of my pedals.

It all starts with a Fender American Telecaster- pretty much completely standard. Into the Ernie Ball VP Jr. then the TC Electronic’s Polytune: I love this tuner because of the polytuning function, where I can tune all six of my strings at once. Also it is true-bypass which is always nice. That goes into the TC Electronic Nova dynamics compressor (which I bought after you featured it on the random effect twitter): This pedal is a huge asset to my tone it’s early in the chain to insure my tone is really clean through the rest of the pedals. I use the three band EQ compression for cleaner tones and the less stomp compression for more overdriven tones. Next the signal goes through the Crowther Audio Hot Cake: This is my fat, dirty tone. I use this for lead tones and really chunky parts. It is actually an extremely versatile pedal but I normally run it as shown in the picture (drive at 2 o’clock and level a little past 12). Next is the Ibanez TS-9 tube screamer Keeley Modded: This is my favorite overdrive, I use it mainly for a clean boost which is pretty much always on. It is such a pretty drive bright but really clean. Now pictured next is the DD-7 but actually It is the MXR Carbon copy: This pedal pretty much has one function for me, I use it for those soulful slapback echoes. Love the warmth of this pedal’s delay sound. next is the Boss DD-7: I couldn’t be more happy with this pedal’s digital delay. I use it mainly for dotted eighth note delays and I use that a lot. I use a custom made tap tempo that I adore. Finally we have the Electro Harmonix Deluxe memory boy: this is my main analog delay. I use this for quarter not delays that i like to have trail long. This is a very organic sounding pedal and I like to match it with the dotted eighth delays from the DD-7 for a really crazy sound. Out of all that I run through a Vox ac 15 with a celestion Vintage 30 speaker. I use a pedaltrain PT-2 and I power everything with a voodoo lab pedal power 2 plus (the iso 5 is pictured but I have upgraded)

I play for churches and I also have an Ambient Metal band called Parallels.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/parallelstn
Twitter: Parallelstn
Youtube: Parallelstn

Hope you liked everything,
Cody Ray

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The other day before getting ready for shooting our next pedal review, I stopped over at a friends house, and we were talking gear. One of the pedals he had on the board was something I wasn’t too familiar with. It was the Keeley Electronics Katana Clean Boost. I’ve been talking with people about clean boosts and they’re a great tool to have in the pedal arsenal… especially if you’re playing through a tube amp. The basic concept is that it increases your input signal to the preamp of the amp, overdriving and saturating the tubes. This could be used to effect the overall guitar tone, or used to punch leads, or too overdrive specific pedals in the chain, etc.

I was familiar with the ZVex Super Hard On (SHO) and adjusting OD pedals to act similar (drive down and gain up) to achieve a similar effect.

Here is the official description:

The Katana guitar pedal by Robert Keeley is a fat, harmonically rich boost. It operates in pure clean and high gain modes. With the speedo knob pushed in, it’s a volume control that goes to 20. With the knob out, it’s a cutting boost with just a touch of gritty edge.

Keeley Katana Pre Amp Guitar Effect Pedal Features:

* 9-volt DC jack or battery operation
* Internal Power Supply Boost turns your 9 volts into 18
* JFET design – clean tones that are tube like when they overdrive or clip
* Push-Pull Speedo Knob side mounted so it can be adjusted with foot
* Metal film resistors and caps for ultra low noise
* Blue LED, a Keeley trademark!
* Silver soldered and teflon coated wire
* True-Bypass
* 5-year warranty

I wasn’t able to find a good demo on this pedal… which is unfortunate.. and surprising. I’ll keep my eye peeled, and might even put it on the ‘review’ list for the future.

You can pick up the Keeley Katana Pre Amp pedal for $199.00 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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I think it’s pretty cool that Musician’s Friend is starting to carry Keeley modded pedals. I hope they will continue to carry smaller builders, because the bottom line, they’re building and creating great pedals.

Today, I wanted to talk about the Keeley Modded Boss DD-3 Analog Switch and Effects Loop pedal. This mod is pretty cool, basically he’s added a capacitor to smooth and darken the repeats giving it a simulated  ‘analog’ feel. You can switch between this and the normal digital mode. He’s also added a effects loop to the delay, so you can get effected repeats, which is pretty awesome.

Here is Keeley’s official description of the pedal:

There are two parts to this mod. First, “SWITCHABLE ANALOG FEEL” and then and EFFECTS LOOP! Players can now take the industry standard compact delay and select between 2 different smoothing caps that give it an analog delay feel or set it for the stock sound! All of this via a small three way toggle switch. We transform the Direct Out of the stock BOSS DD-3 and convert it into an effects loop so that you can add any effect to Just the Repeats!!! Imagine adding slight chorus or phase to the signal so that you can simulate tape effects, warble, wobble, or any other vintage/modern effect you can dream up! You’d be hard pressed to find another delay pedal that gives you this amount of creativity.

I also found a video showing both the effects loop and analog/digital style delays by coolpedals:

You can pick up the Keeley Modded Boss DD-3 Analog Switch and Effects Loop pedal for $209.00 at Musician’s Friend. Looks like they’ll be in stock in April.

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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I was surprised to see that Musician’s Friend is now offering Keeley modded TS9 (baked mod). I really find these TS9 mods quite interesting.  A few months ago I posted a entry showing gearmanndude’s shoot out between a few mods, but I also found another good one showing the Keely and Analog man.

Here is the official ‘mod’ description:

The Keeley Ibanez TS9 Baked Mod takes a traditional Ibanez TS9 Tube Screamer Pedal and modifies it for incredible saturation, sustain, and wonderfully controllable feedback.

Robert Keeley uses the Texas Instruments RC4558P chip in this unit—the same used in early Ibanez TS808 Tube Screamers—along with a high-quality socket with gold inserts, metal film resistors, and metal film capacitors.

The range of the Drive control has been shifted as well; if a traditional TS9 goes from 0-10, the TS9 Baked Mod goes from 4-14. Additionally, one of the resistors that affects input impedance is raised a slight bit, allowing your pickups to breathe and reducing tone-sucking when off, and the input transistor is replaced with an MPSA18. The result is over-the-top overdrive that’s virtually noise-free.

Here is  the great video by Passenger95

You can pick up the Keeley Modded Ibanez TS9 Baked Mod Tube Screamer for $170.00 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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