Effects Bay

The first thing that catches my eye about Lotus Pedal Designs is their simplicity. It’s about what’s in the box, not what’s on the outside. With the exception of one pedal (Desire Boost) all of their pedals are single sized plain enclosures, and the pedals are named after the color of the knobs. No labels on the pedals with the exception of the Lotus name. I dig it!

This is what he says about keeping it simple:

I design Lotus Pedals to be simple, because I want to keep your focus on playing guitar, not fiddling with your gear. Turn the knobs, find a tone that suits your style, and play. It’s as easy as that.

We received the “Red“, a dark overdrive that uses the TS-808 Tube Screamer chip. Very simple pedal – Drive and Gain are the controls. It’s basically similar to a Tube Screamer but you’re able to get some really great low gain fuzz tones as well.

Here is the official description of the Lotus Pedal Designs Red Overdrive:

A dark, dirty overdrive pedal that uses the same chip as the original TS-808 Tube Screamer. Deep, rich tones with more gain than you’ll ever need. This pedal will make your solos hotter than a urinary tract infection.

For this demo I again enlisted the help from my good friend Jimmy Rolle. He’s playing his Gibson Les Paul Custom Shop Elegant into a Germino Lead 55 through a Marshall 4×12 cabinet. Everything is mic’d with a Shure SM57 and Fathead Ribbon Mics. There is nothing between the guitar and the amp besides the Lotus Red Overdrive.

You can listen to the high quality MP3 clip via SoundCloud

The Lotus Pedal Designs Red Overdrive is available directly from their site for $199.95. It’s a great sounding overdrive!

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A little while back, Musiquip who is the USA distributor of T-Rex effects, sent over a T-Rex Yellow Drive for us to demo. The T-Rex Yellow Drive  is a Guitar Center exclusive pedal (partnership between Guitar Center and T-Rex) and is a two channel overdrive allowing you to have two separate levels and tone settings.  This is very handy where you have a nice crunch rhythm setting but want to also have a higher gain setting for leads. Basically, it gives you two pedals in one.

Here is the official description of the T-Rex Yellow Drive via T-Rex Effects:

Most guitarists know how complicated it can be to switch between clean, crunchy and distorted sounds on stage. If you set your amp to a crunchy sound and use a distortion pedal for solos, you don’t have a clean option. If you run you amp clean and use a distortion pedal for solos, the only way to back down from full distortion is to lower the volume on your guitar – and lose most of your tone.

Meet the T-Rex Yellow Drive
The T-Rex Yellow Drive solves this problem by giving you two separate channels of vintage T-Rex gain. Two channels means you can easily switch between a clean sound from your amp, a nice edgy overdrive from Channel A on your Yellow Drive and a thick warm distortion from Yellow Drive’s Channel B. It’s like having two pedals in one – and it gives you total control over your sound.

New tone controls
With the T-Rex Yellow Drive, total control runs deep. Of course you can set the amount of gain for each channel (the gain level for Channel B picks up where Channel A leaves off), but you also get pair of individually tuned tone controls – one for each channel – so you shape the timbre of your overdrive and your distortion to create your own signature sound.

We believe the T-Rex Yellow Drive is the best-sounding, most versatile boutique distortion pedal you’ll find anywhere. But don’t take our word for it. Try one today at your local Guitar Center!

For this demo, I enlisted the help of my good friend, Jimmy Rolle. He’s playing a Gibson Custom Shop Les Paul Elegant into a Germino Lead 55 through a Marshall 4×12 cabinet. The cabinet is mic’d with a Shure SM57 and a Fathead Ribbon Mic. There is nothing between the guitar and the pedal besides instrument cables.

You can listen to the high quality MP3 clip via SoundCloud

This is a nice sounding overdrive with a classic warm vintage  tone, but can get nasty by adjusting the gain. Having separate gain, level and tone controls makes it easy while extremely versatile for dialing in the right tone for your guitar.

If you’re interested in T-Rex, please check out their website, as well as visit Musiquip (the official T-Rex dealer of the United States). If you’re interested in picking up a T-Rex Yellow Drive, it is available for $159.99 at Guitar Center.

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A while back Chris Olley of Coopersonic Engineering sent over the Dirtbox for a review, and I’m glad he did. For those of you not familiar with Coopersonic Engineering, they are out of Nottingham, England and are making some great pedals including the Dirtbox, Germaniac, Tubecleaner and the ValveSlapper. They have a very nice site which includes a cool blog and a store to purchase Coopersonic products.

The Coopersonic Dirtbox is great sounding overdrive/distortion pedal! It is a classic sounding overdrive, which they mention “sounds like something between a coloursound overdrive and the lovetone big cheese”.

Below are the features related with the Dirtbox:

* Die Cast Aluminium Housing
* Scratch Proof Powder Coated Paint
* Profesionally Screen Printed Colours
* Neutric Jacks not soldered to board
* True bypass high quality footswitch
* Super Bright LED
* Hand Wired & Assembled
* Awesome Sound
* Manual and Box Included
* 120mm X 70mm and is 50mm high
* It runs on a 9V battery and can also be powered by a 9 volt DC power supply
* Also available in white

Here is a break down of controls.

DIRT – Adds more or less distortion or drive
LEVEL – Overall volume control
BITE – Tone control

For the demo, I again asked Jimmy Rolle to do the honors. He is playing his Les Paul Custom Shop Elegant into a Rivera Knucklehead 100w head through a Marshall 4×12 cabinet. Nothing between the guitar and the amp except for the pedal. The audio was recorded using a Shure SM57 and and a Fathead Ribbon mic.

You can listen to the high quality MP3 clip via SoundCloud

The Coopersonic Dirtbox is available for 89 pounds or roughly $145USD and is available through their store. To learn more about Coopersonic Engineering check out their website, like them on Facebook and follow them on Twitter!

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Okay, I know that Kevin Ian Common just did a guest review on “Fuzz: The Sound That Changed the World“, but I finally got to watch it in its entirety last night. And since it’s about guitars/effects… I just felt like I needed to add my two cents into.

First, I wanted to say that I’ve been fascinated with the idea of pedal building. I’ve mentioned that in previous posts. I have great respect for the people that make pedals, that design circuits, and can actually make a business building, modifying and selling these things. It’s a rough world out there, and it definitely takes a special breed.

Going into this movie/documentary, I was expecting a ‘history lesson’ on the fuzz pedal. There actually is some good information and important historic points discussed in the film, but what I really got excited about was seeing what types of people are building these pedals today. A view into their personalities, and getting a view of how people can think in terms of electronics.. while maintaining a understanding of music, and musical needs and purpose.

Last year I watched, “Les Paul: Chasing Sound” and I was so intrigued of how a person can be talented (artistic) and still have the part of the brain to design/build/tinker. It seems rare to me to find individuals that are left/right brained.. and balanced on both sides. I felt that this doc really exposes those individuals.

I was also inspired to see how the “art” was brought into electronics. This could be cosmetic (ala ZVex) or crazy circuits or circuit bending (ala ZVex or Death By Audio, etc) for the need to make the sound the true voice of  the signal, and the guitar plays a part of it. Interesting concept.

If you’re remotely interested in building or modifying pedals, this is a great film. If you’re a musician and are interested to see what drives pedal development and fuels these crazy people to make more pedals.. again, this is a great movie to watch.

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I was very bummed today to discover the Les Paul passed away. He died from complications related to pneumonia. He was 94 years old.

Les Paul was a amazing human being. Unique in the respect of his level of guitar play along with a very technical mind. He was inducted in the Inventor’s Hall of Fame. He created multi-track recording, the modern pickup, solid body guitar, etc, etc. On top of his great inventor’s mind, he could absolutely slay on the guitar.

Les Paul Trio / Les Paul & Mary Ford.. you should youtube some of this stuff up. It’s fantastic.

Here is a link to a web site discussing his passing:

http://music.msn.com/music/article.aspx?news=425984&GT1=28102

If you have an opportunity, you should watch “Les Paul – Chasing Sound”. This is a fantastic documentary about the man. Here is a small clip:

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