HAGERMAN - OVERDRIVE SPECIAL

Welcome back Gearheads! Today, I’ve have the pleasure to showcase a cool tube preamp pedal from Jim Hagerman of Hagerman Amplification. Jim Hagerman is based out of Honolulu, Hawaii and has been hand crafting tube based musical tools since 1982! Have a look at Hagerman’s story in his own words HERE.

The Hagerman Overdrive Special or ODS is Jim’s take on the venerable Dumble Overdrive Special circuit in a tube based preamp form. Hagerman recommends running this high voltage powerhouse either in front of a neutral/clean poweramp or in the effects loop of an amplifier. He does also note that the pedal can be run traditionally as a guitar pedal in line and in front of an amplifier… more on that later!

Tonally, the ODS isn’t a direct clone of the Dumble topology or another pedal, but more so Hagerman’s own take with improvements sought to not only get those Dumblesq tones shrouded in mystery but also to go beyond the spectrum to meet the demands of players seeking versatility.

“The OVERDRIVE SPECIAL is a dual 12AX7 tube pedal preamplifier designed to mimic classic Dumble ODS tones. It is not a copy or clone, but rather a completely re-thought and re-designed circuit, intended to surpass the original. The COLOR control provides equalization identical to Dumble rock mode at noon, while duplicating Robben Ford settings when minimized. A LIFT switch pulls this control out of circuit, providing a 10dB boost in gain. The DRIVE control adjusts gain to compensate for various pickups (single-coil, humbucker). The ODS switch enables the high-gain section, which utilizes my all-tube symmetric clipper circuit, offering up what I believe to be superior performance. This is followed by another tilt TONE control and output LEVEL. ”
— Jim Hagerman

The Hagerman ODS is a true tube powered preamp circuit meant to color and influence a clean amplified circuit, running at a full 115 volts and powered by two 12AX7 preamp tubes. Many pedals on the market claim to utilize tubes to get their warmth and tone while barely generating enough voltage to pass signal through the tube much less empower it’s valve magic… again not the case. You do need to either use the supplied 370ma AC power supply or feed it the proper power from your supply of choice.

The ODS’s control layout are fairly simple with it’s level, tone and drive while the color control acts as a sort of presence knob allowing you to bring in more top end or cut brittle or harsh highs. Hagerman mentions setting the COLOR knob at noon is identical to the ROCK setting on a Overdrive Special whereas pulling it back, hence cutting some highs takes it towards Robben Ford’s familiar tonal landscape.

In terms of the controls and the ODS preamp’s use case, I did indeed try running the pedal in the effects loop of a Guytron GT-100 amplifier as well as the input of my preamp’s which went directly to the DAW and used software to simulate speakers etc… While those methods worked, I found my most favorable results running the ODS into the front end of a Two Rock Traditional Clean configured for it’s highest headroom and at it’s cleanest setting. I positioned it at the end of my pedalboard chain, right before the front end of the Two Rock. While the recommendation might suggest otherwise, I felt this yielded the sweetest tone from the ODS and I was able to get color, gain and that familiar Dumble tonal characteristic. I’m sure the ODS works exceedingly well as recommended but this was my own personal experience. I mostly used the ODS in it’s lighter to medium gain structures and relied heavily on using the LIFT switch to add a tonal and tactile boost for the amp. I felt these settings suited the ODS in the best way as well as matching my playing style. A side note, I did not employ the ODS switch itself in any of the demo tracks as I felt they were just too fuzzy for what I was going for in this demonstration. It’s certainly not a dig but I personally didn’t need that much extra saturation from the pedal itself. If you would like to hear that ODS higher gain switch in action, Pete Thorn has a great demo showcasing the pedal as well including those elements.

In the video demo below, the Hagerman ODS was used on all the stringed instruments including the bass guitar, which was very impressive to my delight. I could see bass players using this as another voice in their preamp choices very easily. I found the ODS to be a very musical and high headroom box of tonal color, when paired with the right amp or rig I think anyone could easily find tonal nirvana!


Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Hagerman ODS. If you’d like to learn more about Hagerman Amps and FX please do check out these sites for more information.

https://www.hagamps.com

https://www.facebook.com/HagermanTechnology

https://www.instagram.com/hagermanamplification/

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

Atomic Tone - Triptych Twins - A True Edifice Of Tone

Welcome back Gearheads! Today I have a very cool pedal to showcase for you all. I first found out about Atomic Tone from one of my gearhead pals who works in the television music sync world and he said you NEED to check one of these crazy pedals out… it’s perfect for guys like us. With most things coming from my buddy John “Flan”, I took him seriously and immediately got in touch with Brian from Atomic Tone.

Atomic Tone was founded by Brian Heunergardt in 2023 with a firm vision to offer really well built circuits that give the end user much more than what’s typically available in the market. The bespoke pedal I’m showcasing today absolutely is that and so much more. There is much depth at the heart of Atomic Tone… getting into the rabbit hole as it were with poise, great promise and a firm scientific perspective… indeed, there’s much to be rewarded with their pedals.

The Triptych Twins is one of those of pedals that rides the unique line of being so simple to operate but once you dig a bit deeper you realize how far down the tunnel of tone you can go. Most often pedals that are… shall we say “option oriented” tend to really not offer that much in the end. That usually comes down to either the feature set being too confusing, ill fated or just plain non musical. Absolutely not the case with the Triptych Twins… it’s a proverbial cornucopia of tones that rewards experimentation.

At it’s heart the Triptych Twins is two pedals (the Saturation Triptych) from their line put in one enclosure. In keeping with the honest scientific method and being that all twins, unless identical are not 100% the same, the blue (right) side of the pedal is voiced slightly different to offer some versatility but to my ears it just makes the whole pedal work better within itself. I found that to be a nice touch to add that little detail and it showcases Brian’s interesting ethos behind Atomic Tone.

So what does this pedal do!? What does it sound like!? Come on man… enough carrying on and do the review thing! I know… you want me to tell you it sounds like a Tube Screamer, a Timmy, a Fuzz Face, a Nobels ODR-1, a Klon, a “insert your current favorite drive pedal”…. Honestly, TLDR/ it sounds like you. Yep! Like it or not the Triptych Twins ascends above the delicate clouds of transparent buzz words and straight up sounds like you. Remember when my buddy Flan said “it’s perfect for guys like us”? Well, it’s true and he was right. I LOVE this thing. It works how I wish most boost and drive pedals would work. Simple, small movements on the knobs make immediate and fruitful changes to your tone. When I’m working on a track either for myself or for someone else and if I need to have a part sit better in the mix, I want to exercise the least amount of effort to get it right. The Twins are that in spades. It’s sensitive without being touchy, it’s uber musical without overshadowing the other gear your using in the chain. It’s a high end “do-it-all” tool that I think any recording or performing professional musician should own. I’m completely blown away by it and have already used it prior, during and after compiling this feature on other works. The Triptych Twins sneak up on you and I found I kept using it because it just works so damn well.

So what can it do? Other than the most important aspect of any gear in my opinion… to sound like yourself? It can be a simple boost for your amp or other pedals. It can be a medium gain with variable amounts of compression. It can be a higher gain fuzzy drive with variable amounts of compression. It can be singing solo tone when you stack both red and blue sides of the Twins…. most importantly it sounds, functions and FEELS fantastic.

The Twins can be run on either 9v or 18v and you do absolutely get different pedals with each choice of voltage. I personally preferred running it 18v as it offered more headroom and while it doesn’t get into the fuzzier side of things as 9v would offer, I really liked the bigness and tonal response.

“The design is an analog circuit. The Bass is a HPF (pre-distortion) and the Treble LPF (post-distortion). Clock-wise, the Bass will also add sag and more saturation in a very amp like way, the Treble will tighten/clean up sag and more, Sat/does that thing. These three knobs have a very high level of tone shaping power, and a small adjustment makes a difference. The pedal/circuit offers pristine clarity to thick saturation.

(Pos-1) Boost to Overdrive that goes a little past mild, will do a “little” modern to thick vintage tone that can also get compressed, all depending on how you set it.

(Pos-2) Boost to OD with fuzz, knobs maxed w/volume @11 can get close to the TB MKII pro tone, and it covers a lot of great tone options in-between!

(Pos-3) Boost to Distortion to fuzz, the Dirt will go a little past mild before the fuzz begins to enter and then proceeds into variations of fuzz, it will not do heavy fuzz.

Note: “If” you do not like fuzz, run it at 18v, it then becomes a variations of Distortion/OD Saturation.”
— Atomic Tone on the Triptych Twins


In the video demo below, I used the Triptych Twins on all the stringed instruments including the bass guitar. I ended up using two borrowed amplifiers (Divided By 13 FTR37 & a Bad Cat Lynx) partly out of curiosity but also to act as an experiment in using the pedal in unfamiliar territory to find the best results. It wins and in the end we all win. I’m very impressed by the Triptych Twins and really look forward to using it on a ton of work in the future. I’m excited to see Atomic Tone continue to grow and can’t wait see what’s next.

Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Triptych Twins from Atomic Tone. If you’d like to learn more about Atomic Tone please do check out these sites for more information.

https://atomictonellc.com

https://www.facebook.com/people/Atomic-Tone-LLC/61550665712618/

https://www.instagram.com/atomic_tone_llc/

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

Benson Amps || Benson Delay!

Hello Gearheads! I’m excited to return today with another fabulous offering from Benson Amps, the Benson Delay! I had the pleasure of previously featuring the Germanium Fuzz from Chris Benson and crew… if you haven’t had a chance to check that feature out I highly recommend the pedal itself and the feature to learn a but more about Chris and Benson. CLICK HERE to read that Gearheads Feature!

The Benson Delay is in itself a decidedly simple device, offering a solution to crafting great tone without compromise. Very similar in design ideology to the other devices in the Benson line (including the Germanium Fuzz), the Benson Delay seeks to give musicians the analog and tape delay sounds we desire without the trouble and hassle that often comes from using them. I’ve been sensing a trend in the circuits that Benson releases and I really love what they’re doing. Simple, toneful and elegant.

At it’s heart, the Benson Delay utilizes the PT2399 delay chip to it’s fullest potential. The PT2399 was originally designed to be used in Karaoke machines and consumer grade electronics to add echo effects but has seen a great use case within the guitar effect world. It offers a unique tonal core to create great sounding digital delays that sound and feel analog. Benson makes hay while the sun shines as it were with this circuit to let in all the vintage mojo from analog delay pedals without the troublesome issues like clock noise, unusable feedback or sonic artifacts. Benson also enables tap tempo to modernize yet another step forward with the help of Bontempo, an open source technology concocted by Antoine Ricoux at Electric Canary, which was then refined and implemented by film colorist Octave Zangs (per Benson’s website).

The Benson Delay has a wide range of available delay time, featuring 30ms-1250ms which allows for anything from chorus and vibrato effects with the mix control up, slap back, tape delay or replicating your favorite analog machine… Ahem Deluxe Memory Men. The sounds are plainly put, natural and pleasing. Nothing is weird or artificial. You can warp the time and feedback around to rather crazy extents without losing control of the moment or pulling in a more traditional musical delay tone to suit every need.

I personally found the Benson Delay to replicate my favorite setting on the venerable “Big Box” Deluxe Memory Man from Electro Harmonix. There’s a certain way the repeats mix with the dry signal and even more so how the interaction of the modulation portion of the circuit interplay with the tone. It’s like two actions dancing together yet in parallel, all the while creating this uber musical glue. The perfect moment for a moody guitar line in a track. I’ll often use this kind of tone in lieu of a traditional chorus or vibrato pedal to create space and vibe. The Benson Delay nails this and it was instantly familiar and musically enticing.

In the video demo below I used the Benson Delay on all the stringed instruments including bass guitar. I found the slight modulation and thickening very useful in making those parts sit well and musically. The sound of the Benson Delay is percussive and highly addictive, creating a washes of toneful elasticity and smacking rhythmic hits. One could simply slap this pedal on their board and have instant usability in both form and function. I know I really fell in love with the Benson Delay and highly recommend checking one out!

Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Benson Delay from Benson Amps. If you’d like to learn more about Benson Amps please do check out these sites for more information.

https://www.bensonamps.com

https://www.instagram.com/bensonamps/

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

Benson Amps || Germanium Fuzz || Temperature Controlled Wizardry!

Hello Gearheads! Welcome back to another fun and fuzzy feature. Today, I have the wonderful pleasure of sharing with you all a unique fuzz pedal from the genius that is Chris Benson. The Germanium Fuzz is Benson’s take on what he calls a “pretty” fuzz, one that will take you back to the vintage tones many of us guitarists are hunting for with a few tricks up it’s sleeve… one of which could be considered straight up wizardry in the world of temperature sensitive fuzz circuits. More on that later!

Chris Benson is the owner and creator of Benson Amplification, a very popular Portland, Oregon based company who have been cranking out unique takes on favorite amplifier circuits while focusing on vintage tone with modern and very useful innovations. I’d absolutely love to check out one of their amps in the future.

Benson’s innovations have of course touched the pedal world with their fantastic line of boosts, drives, fuzzes and delays… and the Germanium Fuzz is a great circuit to showcase that spirit of modern use in a vintage minded world… Simple, elegant and useful. It might be said that the elephant in the room when it comes to vintage germanium transistor based circuits is the temperature sensitivities those sweet little juicy transistors exhibit. They’re much like humans in way, able to exist within a small margin of error, the goldilocks zone if you will. If it’s too hot or too cold, or even with some specific transistors, slight variations on the temperature seesaw make them unusable, mushy and essentially a turd of a pedal. Yep, it’s a frustrating bubble that can often make using germanium fuzzes impossible. Cue Chris Benson and his brilliant team… they created the first temperature stable system to be able to use germanium transistors! No external cooling units, no ice packs or freezer “time outs”… there’s internal cooling circuitry! It’s magic I tell ya!

The same ethos that marks the simple innovations Benson employs also reach the tone of the Germanium Fuzz. Three controls - Volume, Gain & Impedance make such a wide variety and shades of boost, drive and fuzz that it’s honestly rather surprising. Some of you who’ve kept up with my features over the years know that I’m a big proponent of simple but wide feature sets. I’ve never found much joy out of menu diving or shifting through tons of knobs or switches to make the tone that’s in my hand reach the speaker. The Germanium Fuzz hits it’s mark easily in that regard.

The Gain and Impedance controls work so well together to tailor a more saturated and gritty fuzz or a dryer more open drive tone. I found running either the gain lower and the impedance higher or the gain higher and impedance lower to create my favorite results. I definitely preferred the “in between” tones that you wouldn’t normally get out of a vintage style Fuzz Face, and using the volume knob on the guitar further accentuated this experience. The Germanium Fuzz cleans up great and in a very natural way, not at all like the super hyped treble poking roll-off that can happen with some circuits. You can absolutely tell Chris Benson voiced this fuzz to work in a wide variety of situations and genres rather than focusing on the (in my opinion…tired) SRV and Hendrix buzz worlds. Nothing wrong with the greats, but it’s truly refreshing to see pedals like this being made.

In the demo below I used the Germanium Fuzz on all the stringed instruments, including bass guitar and an ancient Silvertone Aristocrat that’s been modified with a rubber bridge conversion by Rueben Cox at Old Style Guitar Shop here in Los Angeles. The Germanium Fuzz held it’s own equally with the wide variety of frequencies in those instruments. As I mentioned above, I mainly focused on the “in between” tones and found brilliant clean, slightly breaking up, medium gain tones and ultimately more saturated tones in the solo sections. Most often a fuzz pedal brings a certain kind of mood or voice when writing material for these features and I was pleased with the places it took me. After all, what’s the point to all of this gear if we’re not making music with them!

Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Germanium Fuzz from Benson Amps. If you’d like to learn more about Benson Amps please do check out these sites for more information.

https://www.bensonamps.com

https://www.instagram.com/bensonamps/

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

SKREDDY PEDALS || SERENITY FUZZDRIVE || THE ULTIMATE GAIN BOX!?

Hello Gearheads! Today I’ve got the pleasure to feature another killer offering from Marc Ahlfs at Skreddy Pedals, which I just realized has been in business since 2004! Skreddy Pedals have been on the market since the earlier days of the boutique pedal craze and Marc has always been able to reserve a unique place in that acumen, revered circuits that are still used and talked about today all the while, pushing the boundaries on what he wants out of these little noise makers.

Marc reached out to me to have my thoughts on his newest drive pedal, the Serenity Fuzzdrive and I couldn’t be happier that he did! The Serenity Fuzzdrive is as Marc put it, the kind of drive pedal that just keeps you playing… until you’ve reached Serenity!

At it’s core, the Serenity Fuzzdrive was born out of a interest to nail some of David Gilmour’s tone on “Shine On You Crazzy Diamond”, and Marc found himself quickly hearing a wider tonal palate capable of not only creating near infinite sustain, but maintaining the purity of the guitar’s voice. Here’s a great rundown from Marc himself on how he came up with this circuit. Well worth reading as he goes deep into the build inspiration and creation!

“This project had originally been slated to be about playing with the discreet op-amp designs of the DS-2 and the BD-2, but I went through several iterations of that idea without finding anything I liked and quickly evolved it into something more generally similar to my original Hybrid Fuzzdriver/Screw Driver/Lunar Module topologies, but not focusing on the topology as much as focusing on coaxing the transistors into their optimal bias points and forcing the signal capacitors into maintaining the maximum transparency with regard to the guitar’s essential tone (and I did put considerable effort into minimizing unpleasant frequencies at the same time, both the ear-piercing hi-mids and the muddy-congested lo-mids, which I haven’t identified by their frequencies but just by ear). Then I optimized all of the various gain structures into maintaining that same tone from minimum to maximum gain without changing the frequency response as much as possible. Then, lastly, I focused on eliminating as much noise as possible without impacting the clarity of the circuit.

Of note is the fact that the Colorsound circuit, which I was inspired by the sound of on Shine On You Crazy Diamond, uses active treble and bass controls. I tried those for a single iteration of the development process, but they screwed up the transparency completely—there was no way to get them to maintain the focus on the original guitar’s sound—and also they imparted a synthetic feel, because they create phase shifts, which, when mixed together, no longer sound natural or organic. So I carefully crafted the “body” and “bril” controls to sculpt the pre-distortion bass and post-distortion treble without imparting any phase shifts that would fight against one another, and so maintained the clarity and “natural” sound of the signal from input to output. Plus I also put a lot of effort into voicing these 2 controls such that they affect the parts of the eq that you would want to increase or decrease without going too far into territories that should be left alone and also giving them enough power so they can boost or cut (btw, the “body” control does boost pre-distortion treble at clockwise; it’s not just a bass control) as much as you would probably ever want to boost or cut. All the usable tones but no undesirable ones.

Another thing that will sound different compared to the Colorsound is that the Overdriver/Power Drive will have a “brassy” sounding breakup, whereas the Serenity’s breakup is silky smooth and sweet like honey. So in the end, it’s not really that same effect at all but something completely different. Lastly, again compared to the Colorsound circuit, the input of the Serenity will be pedalboard friendly and not be persnickety about different types of pickups or buffers or stacking. It is certainly appropriate to use as a booster into another drive, but it stands alone just fine as a foundational drive, and it will not complain if sitting behind something else.”
— Marc Ahlfs

With the Serenity Fuzzdrive in my studio, I found it to be a versatile and very musical device. I almost hate calling it transparent as that’s such a overdone and overused buzzword in the pedal industry… but the Serenity definitely keeps the voice of the instrument pure and it feels so totally natural. So, maybe rather than saying it’s transparent, I’d consider it pure - rich and capable of giving any shade of gain from light grit to raging infinite sustain. I will say this - Marc Ahlfs is the master of the midrange in drive circuits. All Skreddy pedals to my ear exhibit a sweet and fat midrange that’s never muffled or humped, never overbearing or strident. It’s like how a great sounding and feeling amplifier has a sweet midrange voice, close to the original tone of the instrument, letting the notes ring pure and clear. It’s a very impressive thing and undoubtedly why Skreddy Pedals have stood the test of time while remaining a current player in this over-saturated and at times boring industry.

The Serenity’s feature set is simple and quick to manage the tonal needs for any rig. I found the symbiosis of two gain control and two tone controls working with each other to be a very useful way to craft the tone you’re looking for. Sweet spots are literally everywhere on the Serenity and considering the gain that this pedal has on tap… it’s got one of the quietest noise floors I’ve ever heard!

The Serenity could very well be the one drive pedal a player has on their board or fit within a network of colors. I really enjoyed using it for all the tracks in the demo below. I used it on all the guitars as well as bass tracks. The way the Serenity holds true to the natural voice of the instrument is very impressive, without any odd harmonic or phasing characteristics that are fairly common with the “transparent overdrive” genre of pedals. I think the Serenity works for most genres of music and of course it exhibits my absolute favorite characteristic of any piece of gear… it aids in the pursuit of sounding like myself! To be honest, that’s all the matters and I consider that highest of all praises, so major kudos to Marc, Skreddy and the Serenity Fuzzdrive for pulling all of that off! I absolutely recommend you check one out!

Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Serenity Fuzzdrive from Skreddy Pedals. If you’d like to learn more about Skreddy Pedals please do check out these sites for more information.

https://skreddypedals.com/

https://www.instagram.com/skreddypedals

https://www.facebook.com/SkreddyPedalsInc

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

RON ELLIS PICKUPS || TELE SET || STANDARD & 50B

Hello Gearheads! Welcome back to another moment where I get to share with you incredible and interesting gear for the modern guitarist. Today, I’ve got the absolute pleasure to feature another wonderful set of pickups from whom I consider to be one if not the absolute best winders in the business… Ron Ellis Pickups! Ron was kind enough to guide me through what I wanted to hear in a set of Telecaster pickups and his recommendation couldn’t have been more spot on! The Standard neck pickup and the 50b bridge pickup have opened up my scrappy little parts Telecaster in ways I never thought possible.

Ron Ellis Pickups are quite possibly the best in the biz. The manner in which clarity meets warmth, presence and sweetness abound… there’s nothing quite like them! This is not my first foray into the Ron Ellis multiverse… Check out my previous feature on a wonderful set of Stratocaster pickups here: CLICK ME . The Standard & 50b are an equally surprising and eye opening experience as my first!

The Standard neck pickup was described to me as the quintessential Tele neck tone and I couldn’t agree more. There’s that magic warm pillow that responds so well to pick attack, the bite that’s available just under that sweet and soft bubble. You hit it hard and it will reward you, you pull back and the tone is sweet and round. Both pickups are very open yet somehow not bright or brittle. They sound natural and the touch to feel ratio is quite addicting.

The Standard is the gold standard when it comes to vintage-like Tele neck sound. It emulates the 50's Telecaster neck by utilizing the exact materials used in the early days of the Telecaster It has beautiful warmth, clarity, depth and an overall great feel. 

The Standard is a great companion to our Blackguard 52T, Broadcaster 50B, and 60T for authentic vintage sound and feel. It's ideal for a restoration project, an early era telecaster, or any player looking to get a rich vintage sound.g to get a rich vintage sound.er, or any player looking to get a rich vintage sound.

The 50b bridge pickup is pure unadulterated 50’s Telecaster tone. You smack that pickup selector to the bridge position and WHAM! You’re faced with a rich and fat spanky jangle that I can only describe as what “we” all think of when someone refers to how a Telecaster sounds. It’s pure, open and harmonically rich. There are no dead or unbalanced spots. Telecaster bridge pickups have been historically overly bright and harsh to ear, which many have attempted to “fix” over the years by taming the transients or altering the frequency response but you always loose some part of that magic puzzle… when you muzzle. Not the cases with the 50b! Ron’s expertise in somehow preserving everything we love from the old and vintage pickup designs while merging them with modern usability and function is maybe one of the most impressive aspects of the Ron Ellis brand.

50B is a vintage recreation of the earliest broadcaster pickups. It has wonderful dimensional harmonics surrounding fundamental notes. The 50B Broadcaster has more harmonic content, compression, and bloom in the upper mids and top end vs the more fundamental 52T bridge. It captures the bite and energy of early 50s broadcaster pickups using exact materials found in those same pickups.

When you think of the 50B, think of Roy Buchanan, Keith Richards and Mike Campbell sounds. The 50B is well suited for rock, country, and for artists focusing on top-end tonality.

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to say it every time I have the joy to play through a set of Ron’s pickups… they are the bridge between your guitar’s voice and the fingers behind the notes played. They truly bring out the best in one’s playing and the experience is unique and something I want out of every single instrument I own. The only prescription to that ailment is more Ron Ellis! I look forward to exploring more of the pickup line in the brand and cannot wait to share my experiences with you all!

In the demo below, I used a “parts” Tele and Ron Ellis Pickups (which btw is a Maple Musikraft neck and a Guitar Mill lightweight Ash body) in all of the tracks. I did use a variety of effect pedals and a few amplifiers to get the most out of the composition. Again, these pickups really do bring out the best in this guitar! I couldn’t possibly recommend them or Ron’s work anymore… even though I’ll find a way!

Thanks for checking this Gearheads Feature on the Standard & 50b set from Ron Ellis Pickups. If you’d like to learn more about Ron and his work please do check out these sites for more information.

https://www.ronellispickups.com

https://www.instagram.com/ronellispickups/

https://www.facebook.com/ronellispickups

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

ELECTRONIC AUDIO EXPERIMENTS || CITADEL || PREAMP & DRIVE

Hello Gearheads! Today I’ve got a super cool pedal on the block. The folks at Electronic Audio Experiments are cranking out some very interesting circuit designs and I had the joy to experience and now share the Citadel with you all. EAE has a unique varietal of sonic pushers in their line up and I’m honestly blown away by how great the Citadel sounds… I cannot wait to check out more from them!

The Citadel is in part a few things. It’s a familiar boost and drive pedal in the British family of tones, capable of being a simple clean boost to a medium gain drive bordering on distortion. It’s also a versatile Preamp that you can run either into the front end of an amplifier or use as a direct solution via an IR (impulse response) along with your favorite amp-less tools. This pedal sounds fantastic and it’s DEAD SIMPLE to operate. For those who have followed my features or my general perspective, you’ll know I prefer great sounding gear but without the extra nonsense that often comes with too many controls or features.

The Citadel was modeled after EAE’s Model feT, a preamp pedal based on the venerable and popular in the DOOM musical genre, Sunn Model T amplifiers. Here’s a bit on the lineage of the Citadel from EAE:

“The Citadel began as a series of experiments on our Model feT pedal. Like any tube amp, there are ample opportunities for modifications. After all, the original Model T was itself a modified take on the Super Bass sound, delivering a distinct variety of the plexi flavor with fuzzy breakup and a huge low frequency punch. So, what if we flavored it our own way? Once Brad completed his “Marsha” prototype, it was on. In a way, you can almost think of the Citadel as a re-plexi-fied Model T sound, trading low end sludge for a sparkly midrange focus. In another way, you can think of it as what we’d do if the original Model T wasn’t too sacrosanct to modify.”
— EAE

As I mentioned above, I found the Citadel to function quite easily and getting stellar preamp colored tones to crunchy Plexi tones is right in those controls. Specifically, the Bright Gain and Normal Gain controls work as core EQ and Gain standpoints. Just like the way a real 4 hole Marshall Plexi would work. You turn them both up and adjust each one to suit your end result. I LOVE the way this works on the real amps and I absolutely love how it works with the Citadel. It may seem odd at first for anyone who hasn’t had experienced vintage Plexi style amps before, but it’s truly instinctual once you get your head around it. Need more low end? Push the Normal Gain. You need more cutting top end? You know what to do…. it’s simply AWESOME.

EAE recommends running the Citadel in a specific manner at first, you can check that out below. I found my favorite setting by running the Bass and Treble at 0 and Midrange at 10. It’s considered their flattest EQ response, which makes complete sense why I prefer that! I’d then simply use the two Gain controls to add more or less of what I needed. The Citadel is somehow transparent while still being completely colored. An oxymoron and probably impossible in definition, but functionally and sonically - it’s exactly that.

“To dial in your Citadel for the first time, start with all EQ knobs at their mid-
point. Leaving the Bright Gain control off, turn up the Normal Gain and Master
volume until you reach your desired amount of drive and volume. Then, turn up
the Bright Gain control. You should hear extra gain and high end presence as the
Bright Gain is turned up. Try adjusting the relative mix of Normal and Bright gains
to achieve your desired sound and feel.
From there, adjust the EQ slowly, listening as you rotate each control. While
highly common, the FMV eq is relatively idiosyncratic”
— EAE

I really loved… well rather LOVE the Citadel. I’m still digging into great tones and parts with this pedal. It’s wildly useful in the studio and I can only imagine it would kill in live environment. I even used the Citadel on all the electric Bass tracks!

Honestly, this pedal would serve anyone looking for a versatile EQ and boost pedal, British style drive or direct rig. No mud, nothing you don’t want, it’s a quick favorite that’s for sure!

Thanks for checking out this Gearheads Feature on the EAE Citadel. If you’d like to learn more about the Citadel or any of the other great releases I referenced, please do check out these sites for more information.

https://www.electronicaudioexperiments.com/

https://www.instagram.com/electronicaudioexperiments/

https://www.facebook.com/ElectronicAudioExperiments/

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

DANELECTRO || NICHOLS 1966 || THE "MYSTERY" FUZZ

Hello Gearheads! Happy to meet you again at the corner of all that is toneful. Today I’ve got a very cool pedal to share with you all. The Danelectro Nichols 1966, the most recent offering from Danelectro’s updated and in opinion, upgraded pedal line.

Originally founded in 1947 and since producing a bevy of historic instruments, amplifiers and ultimately pedals, Danelectro have been a music making company always sewn into the very fabric of music history. For all things historically accurate, please take a look at this fabulous interview from JHS and Danlectro owner Steve Ridinger: The Story And History Of Danelectro

Danelectro and Ridinger have been releasing some very cool, well built designs in their more recent pedal campaigns. Other notable pedals they’ve released include a great Foxx Tone Fuzz style fuzz, an impressive Ibanez Mostortion influenced drive, and a re-release of their much lauded “Back Talk” reverse effect. The Nichols 1966 sits proudly with these excellent releases as not only a versatile and unique take on the 60’s psychedelic but also for being a great sounding circuit.

Admittedly, the Nichols is marketed as a fuzz pedal that is not just a fuzz pedal. At it’s core is an original circuit Ridinger designed out of necessity in his garage as a teenager in the Hollywood Hills. It rides the line between distortion and fuzz resulting in a unique voice that sings with clarity and sustains like a great fuzz would.

“Steve had no money to buy a fuzz and no access to any schematics. So he created a completely unique circuit architecture that has never been seen again. Although he called his box a “fuzz”, it was in fact half way between a distortion and a fuzz. ”
— Danelectro

Nichols sports a simple feature set that in my opinion gets you where you need to go fairly quickly… my favorite! Drive and Fuzz work independently and with each other to achieve the amount of gain and saturation you need, but also fine tune the feel of the fuzzy distortion which is very useful in a band mix or recording scenario. Volume acts as a global master volume to balance out the way the pedal hits the front end of your amplifier. I found quite a bit of volume available ‘on tap’ which is extremely useful to me as most vintage style fuzzes are pretty neutered in that regard. The tone control and stock/mid cut controls further allow for tailoring the Nichols to your rig. I found the tone control best all the way counterclockwise, which from my ears, removes the tone control from the circuit path and you get a flat, non restricted source. I also preferred the stock setting on the mini switch as it was the most robust and full. I could see using the Mid Cut switch to scoop out the midrange and approximate a Superfuzz style fuzz pedal if that’s the kind of tone you’re after. I tend to prefer the most open and harmonically rich tones I can get, so I opted to not use that.

All in all, I think the Nichols 1966 is a really enjoyable and unique pedal to add to anyone’s arsenal and recommend you checking one out. Being able to ride the line between pushed amp tones to squelching fuzz all within the 60’s psychedelic motif, is a very good thing indeed.

Thanks for checking out this Gearheads Feature on the Danelectro Nichols 1966. If you’d like to learn more about the Nichols 1966 or any of the other great releases I referenced, please do check out these sites for more information.

https://danelectro.com/pedals/nichols-1966/

https://www.instagram.com/danelectro_official/

https://www.facebook.com/danelectro.official

Until next time Gearheads, please take a moment to Like, Subscribe & Share this Feature and I’ll see you all very soon!

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