August 14th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$90

Design

The little alligator is a great volume pedal that does what it was intended for perfectly. The design is quite simple, and feels well constructed with its tough materials, and their smooth implementation. The construction is so good actually, that the motion is about as smooth as it gets. It sure feels a lot better than my 535Q wah pedal. Very neat also, is the “minimum volume” knob which controls the minimum volume available to the pedal. This means you can control the threshold which maycome in quite handy for the creative players. For example I use it on the loop for dynamics in my music, similar to having two channels, with 1 being louder than the other one. Functionality wise its perfect. Like always in my reviews, however, I like to show the negative side of the items I review as well. For this volume pedal, such is its physical size. It takes much more space than dunlop’s wah pedals, yetI don’t see why it should. Put simply, this pedal is unnecessarily big, though not huge by any means.

Sound

Though simply a volume pedal, you tone stays intact when used after the preamp stage. It works like the volume knob in your guitar if not used in the FX loop, and thus your gain will be affected when you lower the volume. It may be used to turn a 1 channel amp into a two channel amp by decreasing the gain. It’s a very transparent sound pedal after all. For most folks, it is sure to become an important tool in their bag of tricks.

Reliability

Durable and smooth construction are good signs. It is definatelly built to last.

Customer Support

Haven’t had the need to call them up. Its functionality is very easy, and it seems very reliable.

July 23rd, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$250

Design

When it comes to delay pedals, it is always hard to justify the price as the good ones are pretty expensive. My all time favorite delay pedal, the Electro Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man, was such a pedal, which always awed me with its gorgeous tones, but unfortunately coupled with a pretty big price tag. Don’t get me wrong, the DMM is worth every penny, but new delay pedals do many things better, and some even though digital sound much similar to the classic analogs, while being capable of much more.
Here comes the TC Electronics Nova Delay, which in my opinion is the most beautiful pedal I own, and the smartest designed pedal I have ever used. TC Electronics is a company that has much experience in the live stage market, and with that in mind, you can expect something that is a pleasure to use while on the stage.
The beautifully designed pedal features both preset and manual modes of functioning for quick and simple use on the stage, as well as a nicely designed tap tempo switch. The stomp-on-switches are very smooth to the touch, and are really easy to press, which is godsend to those who like to change their delay settings in real time with their hands. The unit can store up to 9 presets and they can be completely switched from the floor.
Standard features for a delay that were of course not forgotten are a delay knob, a feedback knob, and a mix knob. These standards are included here as is to be expected, but there are some really neat aspects on the way in which these were implemented. The delay knob for example stays set only on the middle position, while the amount that it is offset determines how quick the delay time is raised or lowered and once you have the setting you want you set it to the middle position. A button controls the type of delay that is being created, of which there are 6. These little details are not very important but are sure to enhance the experience using the pedal.
Unique to the Nova Delay and the grand beauty in its design are the Mod, and Color knobs. The Mod knob can provide some really interesting textures controlling the amount of modulation in the delay, while a Mod button allows the type of modulation to be changed. This is all absolutely genius, but it gets better with the inclusion of a Color knob which allows the pedal to sound like a tape echo delay, an analog delay, or a digital delay. The genius aspect of this is that the way this was implemented, allows you to get sounds that are in between, where as in other pedals you only have the three choices and that’s that.
Last but not least, the unit also has a subdivision button that can cut the delay time in a subdivision of the set time which can come in quite handy. The delay time can also be viewed in both ms, and bpm numbers. That’s not very important in my opinion, but I am sure there is no problem when it is an option. It has so many options, and yet is so easy to use. Definitely a must buy pedal for all delay fanatics.

Sound

The sound in this pedal is absolutely blissful. I am not referring to the many tonal options provided, but rather the ability for the delays to come out absolutely pristine, to the point that you may even call them clinical. I understand many may dislike this aspect in a delay pedal, while others love it. That’s why the color knob is such a beautiful addition. It can make the tone go anywhere from pristine and clinical to the lush thick sound of a tape delay.
Beyond the wonderful quality of its sound, it also features many tonal options as already mentioned. The mod types and the mod delay for example can provide some really interesting textures impossible with another setup as they only affect the repetitions and not the original notes. To top it all, it has 6 delay modes, and one of this is unique to TC. This is the dynamic delay which does some really interesting things with the volume of the repetitions. A beautiful sounding unit which makes creative tones a pleasure.

Reliability

Its pretty heavy, but that seems to be part of the engineering as it seems to have been made to last. It feels very solid.

Customer Support

Have not dealt with their customer support, but it seems they have a good reputation.

July 1st, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$145

Design

A great design is something the guys at Electro Harmonix seem to have become masters of. They are consistently creating stompboxes that are not only incredibly simple to use, but which in spite of their simplicity pack a whole load of awesome tones. Fortunately, the Holy Grail is no exception, featuring only three knobs in their usual tank like durable container. It does not get any simpler than this, yet the control and range of tones possible is still pretty amazing.
The controls include a “Blend” knob, an “Amount” knob, and another knob which controls the type of reverb. The types of reverbs available are, the famous “spring” reverb, Hall Reverb, Room Reverb, and an odd sounding “Flerb.” The blend knob controls the mix of the reverb in contrast to the dry signal, while the amount controls the depth of it. With those two knobs you can get a wide range of different sounds which I will discuss in the sound section.
It’s simplicity is really beautiful for the sounds you can get out of it. Even when it’s off, with its True Bypass switching you can feel calm as your tone will be intact. Unfortunatelly, it was only close to perfect, as I can see people complain about it’s inability to use batteries.

Sound

“OMG…” Well yeah it really sounds that good. The spring mode is absolutely beautiful, with its thick yet clear shimmering tones. As much as I dislike putting thick and shimmering in the same description, I can’t see any other way in which to describe its sound. Shimmering sounds tend to be thin, but here the sound is really thick, and as it decays it just turns into a really nice shimmer bringing a new level of life to your clean tones. It gets most of this character when used through the amps FX loop where the reverberations come through more naturally. It works awesome with distortion as well, though to be honest if not set correctly it can make the sound mushy. Don’t let this scare you, however, as it can also beautify you lead tones.
One mode I see many people complain about is the flerb mode. In this mode, the holy grail does not sound like a reverb, but rather as some sort of modulation effect. I personally love the flerb mode because it is extremely unique. These modulations sound really cool when playing slow arpeggios with the guitar tone’s knob down creating cavernous creepy landscapes. I think this mode just requires some extra creativity from the artist as it sounds very odd, which then again is its best characteristic.
All the modes, are great in one way or another, but the spring mode alone makes the holy grail worth its price.

Reliability

Like usual its built like a tank; a really small tank, but one nonetheless. You probably seen me write this of another Electro Harmonix stompbox, but then again, most of their pedals share the same physical design.

Customer Support

Electro Harmonix customer support is very good. They have always been quick to respond to my emails, and have provided me helpful answers to my questions.

April 30th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$43

Design

In music, dynamics are a big part of what separates the outstanding from the rest. I love compositions that use lots of changes in volume and energy but always found it really hard to keep different volumes consistent with volume pedals. I thought the only solution would be a custom made stompbox; and then I learned of the Electro Harmonix Signal Pad.
The overall design is spectacular following the specs I had been looking for. Consisting of a volume knob, and a true bypass switch it gives me that extra volume preset I needed in a small package. Combined with another volume pedal, it gives me lots of volume options. Also important, and very nifty is that is does not need batteries, unless you want the indicator LED. Overall, a simple pedal which I am sure many could benefit from. Don’t be fooled…this pedal can do much more than just change the volume, especially on tube amps where the gain heavily affects the tone.

Sound

Used in the FX loop it will act similar to the amps volume knob, with little change in the tone, but much in the level of loudness. This is where I use it myself, however, in front of the amp it is a really unique and useful pedal, working just like the volume knob of the guitar, but with consistency in the volume preset. Because of this you can then have a clean, a dirty tone, and a heavier tone from just two channels, or an overdriven/distortion channel and a clean channel from a 1 channel amp. The dirty tones achieved from rolling down the volume are absolutely beautiful, and hough such tones can be done rolling down the volume on the guitar; it is pretty much impossible to get the same tone twice which is where the signal pad comes handy.
Definitely recommended to all sorts of tone freaks…there are few things more annoying the finding an awesome tone, and not being able to keep that tone consistently.

Reliability

Its built like a tank.. A really small tank, but one nonetheless.

Customer Support

Electro Harmonix customer support is very good. They have always been quick to respond to my emails, and have provided me helpful answers to my questions.

March 27th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$130

Design

When it comes to music, every musician knows how obviously important it is to sound good. Out of all the things that can make us sound bad, being “out of tune,” is perhaps the worst of evils, a musician can face during a performance or any event for that matter dealing with making music. With that said, I am sure most, if not all musicians, have used a tuner, then again not all tuners are equal; although it can seem like that at first.
This tuner for example stands out with it’s strobe display, true bypass, and insane accuracy. Being one of the few strobe tuners, the display response is incredibly fast and accurate, aiding for quick reliable tunings. I want to emphasize that I say incredibly fast, I mean incredibly fast. There are some videos of it live here in the internet; check them out to see what I mean. At +/-0.02 cents of accuracy, not only it is the most accurate compact tuner in the planet, but at 5 times the accuracy of the Peterson StroboStomp tuner, it might be the most accurate tuner period.
Although not the only stompbox tuner in the market, what I found most attractive amongst its many features is that it is true bypass. But I will discuss more about that in the sound section. It’s other features include factory preset tunings, and user defined preset tunings with up to 5 strings, a reference pitch that may be set anywhere from 300Hz to 599Hz, in 0.1Hz increments, and a muted out (when the unit is on). Most of those are features I don’t use, and I think most musicians probably won’t either, but I thought they are worth mentioning.

Sound

Since it is a tuner, there is not much I can say about what it does to the sound. Bringing the instruments to glorious harmony, or in other words in tune, helps the instrument sound more musical. Then again I could say that about other tuners. Although the accuracy is indeed superior, it is inaudible to my ears if compared to the competing tuners. The big plus on the sound here, however, and in my opinion the coolest feature here is its true bypass. There is nothing worst than a pedal eating your tone when it’s off, which makes true bypass godsend, as it will keep your tone heaven just how it should be.

Reliability

Physically this tuner is built like a tank. It’s definitely constructed to last. Furthermore, it is a very reliable tuner. When the strings are shown to be almost in tune, other tuners will show the strings as being in tune. It can get your instrument really in tune, which is really good, especially for techs and luthiers who need such precision for intonating and such. Overall, very reliable.

Customer Support

Have not dealt with their customer support so far.

March 13th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$120

Design

Like the other Electro Harmonix effects, the Stereo Electric Mistress gives musicians a huge range of gorgeous tones, in an insanely simple and intuitive package. With that said, I think the design is great. With only three knobs, many different sorts of tones can be found, and more impressively is that the quality of the tones is very warm, and far from digital.
Most of you already know that this “flanger pedal”, also includes a chorus effect. The great thing about the implementation of these, is that here both effects run in parallel. This is something that is not possible using a separate pedal for the chorus, and one for the flanger. Having the effects run in parallel means that they are both blended together creating a much warmer, yet more defined mix. Instead of having the flanger run into the chorus or vice-versa, the effects are blended together. I also believe it is the only retail pedal in the market that has this feature.
My favorite feature and the last thing I discovered about the Stereo Electric Mistress is the filter matrix knob. While knob is literally the RATE knob, it’s function changes to a filter when its position is anywhere from all the way counter clockwise to a 10 O-clock position. This filter is awesome. It will freeze the sweep of the flange in a fixed position, so you don’t get that ever changing sweep that makes a flanger a flanger. Beyond 10-Oclock, on the other hand, the knob will control the rate of the sweep. Interestingly enough, the LED will change colors in accordance to the sweep. I know my tone is about right if the LED is yellow while on filter matrix mode.
The other two knobs, as obviously labeled, serve to control the depth of the flange and chorus effects. All in all, the Stereo Electric Mistress is very simple to use, without lacking in tones. Using it in stereo especially, it sounds completely amazing. The stereo is beautiful and gives the sound lots of body as the sweep pans between the two channels.
It isn’t a perfect pedal however. I mentioned I love the stereo outputs, but it lacks a second input for stereo. This means there is no way send another pedal’s stereo signal to it.

Sound

The Electric Mistress is known for being one of the musical flangers, where most sound overwhelmingly alien-like. With lots of transparency and tonal options it is definitely a must have modulation effect. The flanger itself is that famous Mistress tone, that shimmers, and yet unlike other flangers leave your tone thick and lush. Most flangers I have tried sound very, very different, and perhaps overly metallic. The chorus effect, is very good, and lush. The sweep which can be frozen has a huge range, and its beautiful when it creates those sweet flanger shimmering harmonics. The real beauty, however, comes in when both chorus and flanger are blended together. The sound achieved this way is very unique. The sound is very liquidy, but highly defined. It nails those classic tones from David Gilmour, and The Police, which are after all know for their use of the Electric Mistress.

Reliability

Construction is top notch. I don’t see this pedal breaking any time soon.

Customer Support

Electro Harmonix customer support is very good. They have always been quick to respond to my emails, and have provided me helpful answers to my questions.

February 20th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$90

Design

Like other Electro Harmonix pedals the design is very simple and tank. In other words, their pedals seem to be made to withstand all the abuse given by even the most abusive feet, as they are obviously meant to be stepped on. The Metal Muff feature two stomp switches, and 6 knobs that make this one of the most versatile pedals for modern distortion tones. One of the stomp switches allows the pedal to be bypassed, while the other switch can add an extra boost to the sound of the pedal. This is extremely useful to make leads stand out from the harmonies. Two knobs control the volume and the gain, while the other four control the tone. One controls the amount of top boost when the top boost switch is activated, and the others are an extremely versatile equalizer that give the user the possibility of virtually any metal tone known to man from the darkest, to the scooped, to the brightest. Electro Harmonix are known for their vintage sound, and excellence in that department. This is their first attempt at a modern distortion and I have to say it is a huge success.

Sound

While it still does not sound like an amps natural distortion, it is definitely one of the nicest distortion pedals for those seeking a modern metal tone. While the pedal is versatile enough to pull off some good overdrive tones with the distortion knob way down, where this box shines, is in its ability to make brutal tones of all types. The Equalizer allows the player to make Dark tones, and even some bright tones, and the versatility of the equalizer can go so far, that users may even make tones that are too bright, or too dark, which is a good thing as it may be used to balance a bright or dark amp, and after all is not like you are forced to equalize the pedal to those extremes.

Reliability

I have never had a problem with Electro Harmonix products. My pedalboard is 90% Electro Harmonix, and all of the pedals are still working perfectly, and making me happy with their sound .

Customer Support

Electro Harmonix customer support is very good. They have always been quick to respond to my emails, and have provided me helpful answers to my questions.

February 6th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$124

Design

ISP Technologies did a very great pedal when they came out with the ISP decimator. At least the other users seem very impressed. They are definitely much more impressed than I am, however. I am not saying, the pedal is a bad pedal, as it is indeed the best noise suppressor pedal I have tried. After all, there is a reason why the general consensus, is this is the best suppressor in pedal form out there. It can make the amp dead quite, and according to many without sacrificing the playing dynamics. I love the way the pedal controls the signal with its smart threshold knob. Its very simple and it works. And the physical design is also very attractive with it’s boss pedal like chrome casing. Overall a very simple effective design.

Sound

Here is where I am not impressed with the pedal. I expected this to be the first noise suppressor that does not ruin my playing dynamics. The difference in dynamics is very small but its there, and I am playing without a noise suppressor because of this issue. This is the closest to giving me a transparent sound I have come across, but with the slight side effect I still prefer having the background noise. It works beautifully if the songs have a similar amount of gain through out. For music that goes from low to high gain, the playing dynamics on the lower gain parts will suffer a huge loss of dynamics.
For those of you looking for a suppressor, think twice before you buy. ISP new g-string noise suppressor (yup, that’s what it is called), promised to fix this issue. For those of you looking to buy a new suppressor, I recommend researching the new model.

Reliability

It is built like a boss pedal. It’s build quility is very reliable.

Customer Support

Have not dealt with their customer support.

February 5th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$700

Design

I love the guitar, however, as a musician; I was always jealous of the possibilities keyboardists have with today’s synths. With that said, I like to use various effects to give myself as many sound possibilities as I can have. One pedal which I don’t use often, but which would be the cure to the problem mentioned above is the Roland GR20. What this technological marvel does is in my opinion a beautiful thing. Through Roland’s special Gk3 pickup it picks up your signal, and sends it to the GR20 and processes it, giving your guitar new sounds. These new sounds are of course the sounds, of virtually any instrument I could think of. Piano, Organ, Nylon Guitar, Drums, Sitar, Vocal pads…are few of the instrument sounds available on this guitar pedal.

The overall design, I have to admit, is absolutely genius. This device does so much, yet is about as intuitive as I could see it get. You can edit, write, and move about with the patches with incredible ease. Unlike many synths it even includes some built in effects that you can add to the synth sound such as chorus, delay, and dynamics controls for the attack notes.
The foot switches and pedals are also customizable and can be used for pitch shifting, and volume swells as well as vibrato, and more impressively can be used to freeze what you are playing into a sustain, while you play on top of it. It works great for improvisations as you can leave a chord ringing as you play a lead on top of it.
The design is great, feature packed but very intuitive. Unlike keyboard synths of course, you can mix the synth sound, with the natural sound of your guitar, in one amp, or even split it with two amps.
My only complaint with the design is the GK3 Pickup. Before the GR20 can be used, the GK3 Pickup must be installed correctly. The installation has to be very precise and can be very annoying or expensive to install. The GK3 pickup is great and seamlessly fast once installed correctly, or painfully slow when installed incorrectly.

Sound

Sound-wise the GR20 does a great job. It sounds really good, as is to be expected from Roland when it comes to synthesizer sounds. A lot of the instruments sound very natural, and work well with the playing dynamics of player. Ironically, however, I really wanted to use it for acoustic simulation, but guitar sounds are the weakest sounds in this pedal. The effects like delay and chorus are very good and transparent as well; however, those effects only work on the synth sounds and not on the guitars natural sound.

Reliability

The pedal is very well built. However, durability aside, its performance may not be the same for all guitars.
Buyers beware, the pickup will not fit in many guitars. I also don’t think it will work well with tremolo bridge guitars, especially Floyd roses, as it requires a consistent distance between itself and the strings. A great product, but definitely not one for everyone.

Customer Support

Their customer support is great. I had problems installing the GK3 pickup, and they helped me, all the way through. I am pleased with their support, and once installed correctly the product is great.

January 7th, 2009 by Andres Gallo

$130

Design

Dunlop is one of those brands that people know for the great designs that have placed across time throughout the years. Amongst their most popular line of products is their crybaby line. When guitarists think of wah pedals, the name crybaby is the one I am sure crosses the mind of most, most of the time.
Visually the crybaby 535Q looks like a simple pedal, and seems no different than the other wahs. Up close, however, one finds a design that is both cleverer and more versatile, while simultaneously staying true to the classics. The pedal functions and for the most part looks like their classic wah relatives. It even includes the fasel inductor that gave the vintage wahs that tone of theirs. The advantage however is in the tone controls it includes that give it virtually the sound of a variety of wah pedals, all in one package. One knob allows you to control the frequency center, and another controls the range available for the pedal. To top it all, it even has a boost button on the side that provides a volume boost for those wailing wah solos rock music is famous for.
The design is great, maintaining a conservative classic look, adding modern versatility, and putting it all into a tough casing.

Sound

It is hard to write any negatives on the sound quality of this wah, as there are nothing but good tones all across the possibilities.You can have all sorts of wah sounds. The other great thing is these sounds have lots of body when they should, and the range can be incredible in both its modern and vintage tones. Although a modern wah, this thing can pull off those vintage tones without much trouble, and sounds splendid in all cases. Although one of the best wahs for the price out there, it isn’t perfect. It does not have true bypass, and as such it can eat your signal, although I never noticed any signal loss from it. With that in mind, this wah should be added to everyones wah list.

Reliability

From its feel and appearance this pedal is built to last a really long time. However, I feel I have to include in this review, that my own crybaby 535q stopped working out of nowhere. I think these pedals will last most people, and perhaps I just got one of the rare delicate productions. The pedal still turns on, but the potentiometer that controls the rocking pedal part of it is defective, which is a simple and cheap fix. Don’t be intimidated by this, however. This is still a great wah pedal in the “affordable market,” and is used by many greats like Joe Satriani.

Customer Support

Their customer support is great.  They offered to help me very quickly.