Tape delay/echo units have produced some of the most unique and recognizable tones in music history, used by countless artists and studio producers for decades. However, the older, “classic” units are big and bulky, and are extremely prone to damage, lack of replacement parts and near impossible upkeep. Fortunately, we live in a golden age of effects pedals, and companies like Danelectro re-create these machines with...
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One of our favorite things here at Pedal of the Day is when someone sends us a custom pedal with our logo on it – since we have no clue how to actually BUILD these pedals, seeing our design embossed on an effect is a pretty rare and cool thing that we appreciate a lot. The guys over at PuzzleSounds not only didn’t make us build the Deep Blue Delay they sent us, but they emblazoned it with our signature circle as well,...
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What can you say about a boost pedal? If it’s made correctly, it boosts your instrument’s signal, driving your amp and letting everyone in the crowd know you f’n rock. The good folks at Way Huge Electronics / Jim Dunlop have created a boost pedal that not only pummels your amp, but adds in a special little lite and punch to your tone as well. The Angry Troll is a boost capable of pumping up to +50dB of gain into your...
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Tim Bluhm San Anselmo, CA The Mother Hips www.motherhips.com/ How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I’ve been singing since I was a kid, in church choirs and in school choruses. I started playing guitar right after high school. In my second year of college I started the Mother Hips with Greg Loiacono and we started getting gigs really quickly. Who have been some of your major musical...
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Joel Cummins Venice Beach, CA Umphrey’s McGee umphreys.com How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I started playing piano at the age of 8 when my parents told me I had to pick an instrument and practice 30 minutes a day. Umphrey’s McGee started in late 1997 and we haven’t looked back since. I started with sight reading, mainly focused on classical music, but also did some ragtime, blues...
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Jesse Miller Philadelphia, PA Lotus – www.lotusvibes.com Octave Cat – www.facebook.com/OctaveCat Beard-o-Bees – www.facebook.com/Beard.o.Bees How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? My folks had me in piano lessons when I was young. I think I did that for 5 or 6 years. It did give me a head start on reading music, music theory and basic keyboard skills. In high school, I started...
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Joe and Dom over at Celestial Effects are some of the biggest supporters of Pedal of the Day, and they’re also making some pretty incredible pedals as well. Today’s moose of a beast is actually a FOUR-In-1 pedal, trying to outwit the usual 3-In-1 lackeys (just kidding, you guys all rock, too). The Cancer Wah The Fuzz? features Fixed Wah, Octave Fuzz, Muscle Fuzz and Tube Overdrive, all in one relatively-space-saving pedal...
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When one of the most talked about and anticipated effects of the year shows up on your doorstep, the excitement that has been building up in your brain finally becomes a reality. The aptly named Reverb pedal from Empress Effects is the pedal we’re talking about today, and it absolutely lives up to the hype. We’ll try to give you a good amount of info in this review and subsequent demo video, but this is truly a pedal that...
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Neal Casal nealcasal.com Chris Robinson Brotherhood www.chrisrobinsonbrotherhood.com Hard Working Americans www.thehardworkingamericans.com Circles Around The Sun Skiffle Players (with Cass McCombs) Phil Lesh And Friends Gospelbeach How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I started playing guitar in 1981. I was obsessed with the Rolling Stones and the bands I saw in the Gimme Shelter film....
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Well, it appears that we are in a familiar situation, reviewing another dynamite effects pedal from our friends at Keeley Electronics. It seems you can’t take 2 steps forward these days without literally stepping on one of Robert’s pedals (in our office, anyway), which is not necessarily a bad thing. Today’s gem of a pedal features a trio of effects again strewn together into one marvelous (and super space-saving)...
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After reviewing the new Mu-FX Mu-Tron 3X a little bit ago, we were blown away by what Mike Beigel and Co. have done with their new lineup, and couldn’t wait for more. One day, a magical box arrived at our doorstep, and what lay inside was an incredible 3-In-1 pedal that gives new meaning to an “always on” pedal: the Boostron 3 Boost Compressor Distortion box from Mike and Mu-FX. The Boostron 3 is based on three...
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One of the most anticipated effects of 2016 has got to be today’s featured piece of gear, and rightly so on all accounts. The Nemesis Delay from Source Audio combines vintage analog and tape sounds with pitch-shifting abilities, modulation, MIDI, tap tempo and more. All crammed into a super pedalboard-friendly enclosure, this delay was three years in the making, and the final results are nothing short of astounding. Let’s...
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Testing out totally new and unique pedals is something that really gets us all excited here at Pedal of the Day, and our featured gem today couldn’t be more unique or more original if it could try. Utilizing an ancient (!) form of audio recording to produce its sound, the Landscape HC-TT Human Controlled Tape Transport is a sonic manipulation device that blends the past, present and future into one funky and quirky little silver...
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Let’s face it: we all love delay. Sure, you can tell your friends or your buddies in the local death metal band that delay is weak and has no place in music, but as soon as you get home, you bust out your favorite delay and noodle for hours. You can admit it. Speaking of killer delays, today’s featured “pedal” just might top the list for modern analog echo recreations, and certainly holds a spot near the top of...
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We’re taking next week off to get settled into our new office space, so we have a rare Saturday review for you to tide you over for a bit. Today’s featured pedal comes to us from Ninevolt Pedals, a company from Japan who we are featuring throughout the next few months, and will be reviewing their entire lineup of pedals. This little black beauty is the I Was A Wolf In The Forest Distortion, and while the pedal is great in...
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As stated before in many, many reviews, we love fuzz pedals here at Pedal of the Day. While we’ve checked out a LOT of them over the years, there’s still something special about plugging into a new one for the first time, hitting that bypass switch and immediately going “Whoa”, ala Neo in The Matrix. Today’s tasty little fuzz morsel, the Lichen Fuzz, did exactly that when we turned her on, and continued...
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Andy Greene Escape Plan Pedals http://www.escapeplanpedals.com How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I’ve played music for pretty much my entire life. I got my first guitar, a miniature steel string acoustic, when I was 5. I learned simplified versions of most of the standard position major chords and a few minor chords and would try to put on concerts for my family. I really got interested in...
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Neil Fallon Silver Spring, MD Clutch http://www.pro-rock.com/ How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I bought my first electric guitar around 1987. It was a shitty Cort strat. A very discouraging introduction. My “rig” was a Gorilla amp and a Boss DS-1. Strictly power chords and feedback for several years. I drove my parents nuts. Clutch formed in 1991. We knew each other in high...
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Forrest Whitesides Function f(x) Elk Grove Village, IL www.function-fx.com We have five partners: Dave F., Brian, Dave B., Jerry, and Forrest. Three of us are just outside of Chicago, one guy is a breath away from Nashville, and one is in NJ about 50 miles west of NYC. (Forrest has provided the answers below) How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I first started playing guitar in 1989. Just...
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We can get behind any good fuzz pedal around here, so we were pretty stoked when the cats over at Way Huge Electronics sent over their Havalina™ Germanium Fuzz for us to check out. Featuring a basic three-knob control configuration, this fuzz does what a good fuzz pedal should do: produce copious amounts of fuzz. With a hint of old-school Tone Bender fuzz sound found within it, this is a fun fuzz that will get you groovin’ with...
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We review a lot of pedals around here, as you may have noticed, and a lot of them have quite a learning curve to figure out all the ins-and-outs, how they work, what they’re capable of, and how to use them to fit a particular style of music. Today’s pedal is pretty much the EXACT OPPOSITE of that: a one-knob gem that has one function and does it brilliantly, with no fuss, no muss and just some straight-up great tones to...
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Jared Scharff SNL Band guitarist Pearl Lion instrumental project Creator of “Unnecessary Shredding” YouTube series www.soundcloud.com/IamPearlLion www.youtube.com/JaredScharff Instagram: @ScharffIsHere Twitter: @ScharffIsHere SnapChat: JaredScharff Facebook: JaredScharffOfficial Facebook: Pearl Lion How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I’ve been in love with music since I was a kid and...
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Sometimes, pedals are labeled as one type of effect, when they maybe should have been labeled differently, with a title that suits what they do better. The PDF-1 from Stone Deaf FX is labeled as a distortion, but it really is so much more than just that. Dabbling in boost, overdrive, distortion and all-around sweet tone-shaper, today’s featured pedal is a true jack-of-all-trades in the effects department. Loosely based on the...
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If you’ve been to a concert, read a guitar magazine or had a jam session with anyone, there’s a good chance you’ve seen today’s featured pedal in one form or another. The DS-1 Distortion from Boss is one of the pedals that really made Boss famous, and has been used on more records and tours than any of us could ever count. Today’s model is a “vintage” one from the 80’s or 90’s,...
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The Memory Man. In all its various forms and models, it has always been regarded as one of the, if not the very, best delay ever produced. With famous guitarists such as The Edge of U2 and Ed O’Brien from Radiohead employing it in their rigs for years, this pedal is no slouch in the echo department, and although some may be more coveted than others, they all sound pretty amazing. Today, we’re going to focus on the Memory...
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There’s been a streak recently here at Pedal of the Day where we’ve been able to test and review some awesome old analog delay pedals, and today we bring you yet another gem in this prestigious list of warm and warbly delays of old. This 680 Analog Delay from DOD dates to late 1980, and has had a bunch of updates, upgrades and improvements done to it recently, making it sound like it did right off the shelf more than 35...
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Celestial Effects 22 Kane Industrial Drive Hudson, MA 01749 800-343-4492 sales@celestialeffects.com www.celestialeffects.com How long have you guys been musicians? How did you each get into it in the first place? Dom: Thanks to my dad, who loved music but never played an instrument, my formal musical education came from playing trumpet and coronet from 3rd grade through high school. In high school I played in the concert band, wind...
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Andy Green Andy Green Pedals We are located in Hollywood Florida about a mile from the beach. www.andygreenpedals.com How long have you been a musician? How did you get into it in the first place? I grew up in New York City around all the vintage guitar stores and legendary shops on 48th St. Ken Parker had his shop there and Mike Mathews had Electro Harmonics in the 70’s right there. I got a job in a vintage shop in 1981 and have been...
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If you haven’t heard him yet, Joe Bonamassa is a pretty damn good guitar player. Whether you enjoy blues mixed with rock and roll or not, you can’t deny the man’s talents on the old gitbox, or his ridiculously impressive collection of vintage guitars and amplifiers. As far as effects go, Joe knows what he wants, and so he got together with Way Huge Electronics and Dunlop to come up with a special overdrive pedal,...
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Although I’m not much good with a soldering iron, I’ve always been fascinated and amazed by the intricate detail, precision and care that goes into building an effects pedal – circuit board, jacks, power supply, LED, you name it. It really boggles my mind the way these magnificent things come together to form an awesome noise machine. For those who are much more inclined electrically speaking, the folks at OLCircuits...
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With their unique wooden tops and intriguing control layouts, the pedals from Anasounds in France are instantly recognizable, and we love to check ’em out here at Pedal of the Day. Since reviewing the Cerberus and Freq Up last year, we stumbled across a sweet, short-style delay/echo with some modulation for added depth. Producing sounds like the Echoplex, Binson Echorec and the Skreddy Echo, this is the Utopia Tape Echo Delay....
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It seems like there has been a bit of a tremolo resurgence in the pedal world as of late, and we here at Pedal of the Day couldn’t be happier about it. Lots of innovative pieces of gear keep appearing out of the woodwork, pushing the effect to the limits, and offering a whole new array of tone-shaping, sound-crushing effects that can really send your guitar signal into the atmosphere and beyond. As expected, the fine folks from...
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The Boss family of stompbox delays have been a staple on many, many pedalboards since the inception of the DM-1 Delay Machine way back in 1978, especially the DD series, which features the DD-3, DD-5, DD-6, DD-7 and the DD-20 (click each one for our reviews). In keeping with the tradition, but stepping up the game immensely, Boss has created a delay that will rival anything out on the pedal market today: the DD-500 Digital Delay....
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A one-knob overdrive pedal? That’s what we first said when the box we received from Bookworm Effects was opened. Granted, there were a couple of toggle switches as well, but what about the Tone knob? Or Gain? Or Volume, even? After playing around a bit with the Billy Pilgrim Overdrive, however, it was clear that this was no one trick pony, and that a surprising amount of differing tones were capable through this little Kurt...
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Seeing their pedals here and there floating around the old Interwebs, the effects from Dreadbox always seemed very interesting to us here at Pedal of the Day, so when we finally got our grubby paws on one of them, it was quite a celebration. Not only do their effects have a similar look and theme to them, they all apparently sound great, according to the masses, and we got to witness this phenomenon first hand. The Taff 2 Scientific...
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With so many new effects with so many functions and big learning curves, it’s nice to come across an older pedal that has a couple simple knobs and sounds just fantastic, without having a bunch of bells and whistles. Today’s featured pedal, the FX96 Echo FX Analog Delay from DOD was produced way back in the ancient year of 1997, and was billed as a modern improvement on classic tape echo machines like the Binson Echorec...
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Last fall, we reviewed an incredible fuzz pedal from Retro Mechanical Labs, the Electron Fuzz Custom, and it really rocked our faces. Recently, Johnathan at RML made a special, potentially one-off version of this pedal called the Mini, featuring a gorgeous wooden enclosure and a rare, vintage voltage meter. We knew we had to have it, and the result is one of the most beautiful pedals we’ve had the pleasure to lay our eyes on....
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Happy Valentine’s Day, pedal people! Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get down to some serious delay business, cool? Is there a better way to celebrate this most joyous of fake holidays than with a giant, pink pedal? I don’t think so, no. Maxon has been in the mix as far as killer analog delays are concerned for years, and today’s pedal is absolute echo beast, full of bold delay tones, classic sounds...
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The Nova series of pedals from TC Electronics have been enthralling us for some time now, cramming a seemingly endless supply of options and effects into each pint-sized box that’s produced. Whether it’s in the realm of delay (ND-1, RPT-1), modulation (NM-1), dynamics (NDY-1) or Overdrive (NDR-1), or today’s featured pedal, the NR-1 Reverb, each of these pedals bring something new to the effects game, including this...
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How does one company manage to craft not ONE, not even TWO, but THREE of the most-used and highly regarded delay pedals in existence? Starting from scratch and perfecting Version One, that’s how. Although the Memory Lane 2 might be generally regarded as a better machine, and the Memory Lane Jr. might appear on more pedalboards throughout the world, it all started with today’s featured pedal, the Memory Lane Analog Delay...
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Today’s wicked rad and partially insane pedal is of the delay variety – a shocker, I’m sure, given how much we love delay around here. This one really steps it up a notch, though, and introduces some great features to accentuate and exasperate your delayed tone, feel and sound. DigiTech has been immersed in the delay world for years now, and the TimeBender Digital Delay might just be their most complex and...
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No doubt you’ve heard of the old pedal company Ross, who are probably most famous for what many consider to be the finest compressor pedal ever made, the ever-cloned Grey Compressor. In addition to this expensive and much sought-after grey box, Ross made a slew of other awesome (and extremely underrated) pedals in the 70s and 80s, and we’ve got one for today’s featured pedal. Simple to use but great-sounding and...
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Having just reviewed the Mercury Flanger from Source Audio’s lineup of One Series pedals, we couldn’t wait to dive in and check another of their offerings, the Vertigo Tremolo. Again loaded with a ton of options to create a multitude of sounds, this tremolo boasts a huge range of tones, and will most certainly add a little hint of what’s been missing to your pedalboard. With 3 completely different tremolo voicings to...
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Sometimes it just seems impossible to get just the right fuzz sound, and the harder you look the harder it gets to achieve it. As you keep looking the more peachy you become about it and suddenly you come to decide anything will fit your non realistic expectations and kinda led you into a big depression. That’s how I got to Vntage Tone (www.facebook.com/vntagetone), a Mexican custom pedal and pedalboard builder who seems to hit...
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Sometimes when you review a particular pedal, you get to do a little research and discover another pedal in the process. The flavor of the day today focuses on the classic Shin-Ei Super-Fuzz FY-6 pedal, which was produced from 1968 until the late 1970s. Our featured pedal today not only made a long journey to us via India, it also has the innards and homage that make it an excellently-modified version of an awesome vintage effects...
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We’ve played almost all of the pedals that have been released by Spaceman Effects, and each one has been a real revelation to the pedal world, containing powerful, unique and rare tones found only hidden inside these precious few stomp boxes. Their latest release is another one-of-a-kind, as it offers true analog spring reverb in the form of a pedal! We’d like to proudly announce a wonderful addition to the Spaceman...
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Today marks the start of our “Moog Week” here at Pedal of the Day. All this week, we’re going to be checking out some of the coolest pedals that Moog has got to offer, and since the rest of them are all Moogerfoogers, we’re going to jump into this with our lone Minifooger for the week, the all-analog MF Delay. Smaller in size than the larger Moogerfoogers, these Minifoogers are great if you need to save some...
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The classic Tube Screamer, in its many early variations, is considered by many guitarists as the top dog in the overdrive department, and that can be evidenced by the numerous attempts to recreate that signature sound by pedal companies across the world. With a surge of pedals focusing on smaller footprints and less pedalboard space, Ibanez decided to follow suit and release the Tube Screamer Mini, a micro version of their overdrive...
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The Big Muff Family of Fuzzes has many, many members, in various forms, models and creations, and should, after being around for more close to 50 years. One of these family subdivisions it the Russian Green Muff, which was made from 1994-2000 or so, and is one of many highly collectable and sought-after versions of this incredible fuzz. The crew at McCaffrey Audio decided it was time to take on the project of developing their own...
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Each time Walrus Audio announces a new pedal, guitarists around the globe, including myself, get instantly curious and excited. This past winter at NAMM, they debuted a couple of pedals that looked VERY interesting, and we’ve got one of those for you today. The Bellwether Analog Delay produces warm, vintage, analog delay sounds with ease, and offers a bunch of modern options as well, in order to make it extremely customizable to...
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