Pedal/Stompboxes Guide !

STANGER DA-1
-------------------
time 4 sum REALLY REALLY low-end pedals

Features:
has level , high , low and gain knobs ..... the low and high nobs are completely useless....

PROS:
hard 2 think..... itz gud 4 beginner's....... and haz a perfect SMELLZ like teen
SPIRIT's distortion.. itz almost as gud as the inbuilt distortion of a STRANGER NS30 but with variety ( u cant change the gain , low, high etc in da AMP )


...the only gud sound u get iz when u put all of the knobs on full ... u'll get da typical NIRVANA sound...
otherwisr the different types of distortion u can get with this "THING" is KRRRR.... KRRR...... , a FROG CROAKING or sum1 getting electrocuted...

Cons:
every thing bout it exect the price.. the on/off switch is faulty in almost all the models ...

addy pant got kept on asking 4 a new 1 from bharat.... he must hav exchanged it bout 5 times...cause of the switch finally he got agitated and got a zoom 505

OVERALL:
gud 4 beginner's or ppl hu cant afford much...... and 4 ppl hu play Grunge...dats it....itz probally da best ( and i think da only ) pedal which iz in itz range

cost : rs 1200

 

Rammnstein etc all are very thin ...

best example of MEsa Boogie - (i hate saying this but) best is -> Linkin Park ...
Testament (new albums) ... John Petrucci ... MEtallica (Justice for all onwards - esp Load / Reload) ... many artists are there ...
most of em u mustve heard ... but all of em keep the EQ diff so u might not feel it is Mesa Boogie ...
anyway it sounds way too diff from Marshall - guess that explains the $4000 price tag ...

 

Hey Alfons, when you post a review, give a lot of details. Actually somebody was asking me about this pedal. This review could have been useful. Can you write a more detailed review of this.

 

yp sure........
but 4 this pedal there isnt much more 2 write about..

 

^^^^^^^^^^^its good for bigginers.......very cheap!

 

Update on my Rocktron:..They use a very cheap trick(though it has no effect on the sound)...as ronnie pointed out the tube is running at a low voltage..so it wont glow like a fully driven tube in an amp..these guys have put a small led under the tube ..it glows orange when pedal is switched on...:...
not really a useful fact but what the hell:..it sounds pretty awesome..it has good picking dynamics too..will sound clean if you pick it lightly but distort if attack is heavier...

 

HERE is what I posted on HArmony Central. Thought I would copy-paste it here too.

Ease of Use: 9
How easy is it to get a good sound out of it?

Super Easy.
The builting presets give you enough hint about this box's capabilities.
You need to remember few points while dialling in a "good" tone. (Though, that in itself is debatable)

1. The amps have inbuilt voicings that you need to respect.

2. You cannot make a tweed amp sound like a marshall or vice-versa. And neither should you try doing that on Tri-AC

3. The tweed channel is more bass and treble heavy. So be a little frugal with those. Boost mids, cut bass and treble for better tones outta Tweed.

4. British channel is very trebly. Just like the tweed it is modelled after. You need to cut down treble to get a smooth tone. You want jangly-twangy tone? Keep treble higher. Sounds very much like the Marshall Plexi.
Boost the mids and bass and cut treble to get a "nice" tone.

5. California channel is uber-bassy and very low on treble. Try to curtail bass and please boost the treble to get sweet overdriven tone of the Mesa-Boogies.

6. The EQs are active. That means above 12 o clock means boosting a frequency. Usual amps and stomp boxes have passive EQ.
Wanna get the same feel? Donot tweak any EQ knob beyond 12 o clock.

Apparantly, the voicings of these channels match the orginal amps pretty well. Ppl who crib about British being too bright or California being too dull should go and check out the original amps too.


How about Editing patches?

Again very easy.
Just play around with knobs and "double click" on any channel. The setting gets stored there.


How is the manual for it (if there is one)?

Manual is super. Infact it gives you tips to get good tones out of the box. Something that I have NEVER EVER seen in any product manual!

 

Sound Quality: 9
Awesome.

Tweed = Fender "tweed" amps
Brisish = Marshall "Plexi" amps
California = Mesa/Boogie Mark-I amps

Thats the key.
This unit is moderate gain one.
You cannot get metal tone out of it simply because none of those amps are meant for metal tones.

You need to put a boost in front to drive the amps harder. The same you need to do here to get more "metal-friendly" tone.


Tweed sounds perfect for slightly overdriven tones. Slight haze/fuzz and it sounds cool.
British also sounds cool in this regime. Infact, for certain jobs it sounds better, due to the characteristic "ovedriven + clean" tone coming out of it.
California sound better in the moderate gain - high gain regime IMO.
At low gain settings it sounds just too muffled for my liking.


The British channel has a wonderful feature (wich existed on the original Marshall Plexi too): the gain kobs also affects the tone.
Higher the gain, more thick the tone; lesser the gain, more trebly/bright/jangly the tone.

That means you set and EQ for low gain (rhythm) patch and be assured that the same EQ with higher gain will sound excellent for leads.

+ The fact that British channel is awesomely responsive to picking dynamics as well as guitar volume pot.


The California channel is not that responsive.
However, it makes up by giving a sweet Santana-ish overdrive.


This pedal is great for playing blues and hard-rock.


One of the beast features of this pedals is that it sounds fabulous even at max gain (something that even amps fail to do).

However, what I would've actually liked from this pedal is: more gain range.


And hey, this baby does the direct-in job really pretty well. Dunno what is the problem with ppl who said it sounds like shit when plugged direct. Most probably they dont have any idea about how to tweak and get the desired tone.




I can get Stevie Ray Vaugh and BB king's tone (somewhat similar).
Eddie Van Halen's (almost), AC/DC (spot on!), Lynyrd Skynrd (kinda spot on!), Santana (amlost spot-on!), Jimy Page (almost) .........

You get the picture. These are/were the artists using the same Fender Tweed or Marshall Plexi or Mesa/Boogie Mark-I amps in real.


The reason why am giving it 9 instead of 10 is because if you listen to the samples of Tech21 PSA-1 on their website, you realize that PSA-1 can deliver even more superior tones than TRI-AC
x-(

(

 

Customer Support: No Opinion
If you've dealt with the company, how helpful/friendly were they?


Very much. I mailed them and they replied promplty all my queries.
Infact the person told me specifically how GT2, TRI-OD and TRI-AC are different (tonal, voicing, etc wise)

GT2 and TRI-OD are better for more modern tones.
TRI-AC is better for classic rock kind of tones.

Overall Rating: 9
I play Blues, Classic Rock, Rock'n'Roll, Hair Metal, Thrash metal.
Except thrash, this pedals covers everythign else pretty well.

I have one KORG AX100G too. Whcih I now use as FX bank


I did a comparison with few other products like:
Tech21 TRI-OD
AMT Distortion Machine
Rocktron Silver Dragon
Toadworks Deathrattle
etc

Ultimately it was combination of features + availability that prevailed.


Actually I wished initially that it should have more gain.
But then the purpose would be lost!

This pedal is meant for more laid-back classic tones.

You want more hi-gain stuff?
Buy GT2 or TRI-OD or AMT distortion Machine.

 

MXR Phase 90



It's the awesomest little orange pedal you've ever seen.

What it does :
Phases your signal anywhere from a slow wavy whoosh to a watery warble.

Pros:
Amazing sounds, very versatile, VERY easy to use (it has one knob - a monkey could use it)
Makes a nice clean/ slightly overdriven sound like heaven.
Also, it looks freaking ***y.

Cons:
It adds a VERY mild clipping to your signal (easily sorted by a few mods)
If you place your distortion before it in the signal chain, it has little volume jumps at the peak.
(Maybe this is just for my pedal...i dunno)

Stuff i use it for:
1. Cleans passages to give it a nicer, warmer character.
2. To amp up mild overdrive to epic proportions.
3. Incubus/Opeth passages

 

Guys, m using an AMT metallizer n its doing a great job fr me... Sumbdy has already submitted a review n dats well written, so i suppose i need nt write more...

N the mods, why the hell is this thread not made sticky... More than 3years, still...

 

Dude submit a Metallizer review.

I'm considering buying one of those AMT pedals.
I was trying to decide between Metallizer and Fatal Tube.

 

Sumbdy has alrdy submitted the review, chk it out fr specifications. If u r luking fr my opinion, i wud say it is tough and versatile to quite an extent, u can fiddle wid the knobs n get great tones, unlike boss pedals, which give only a peculiar tone fr each model(which sounds vry gud), rest others dont sound too gud(this myt be subjective).
Digitechs- they r easy to use n veratile too, but the quality of output n gain u get frm metallizer is awesome.
Even i ws hell confused b4 getting it... Fatal tube or metallizer... But finally i settled fr d metallizer, n i dont hv nything to regret... but u cant rule out fatal tube, its gud too... Its just subjective, so better try both of them, if u can... Whichever u pik up, it wont be a bad decision...
(let me kno wt u bought)

 

Suggest a good pedal for me plzz...
I want to form alternative rock/metal band lik Linkin Park,Evanesence n Foo Fighters
Im Using Ibanez GIO floyd rose set up with cube 60 amp...n ma 1st pedal is DIGITECH RP80 it sucks totally!!!

 

Get a distortion pedal... Pik up the metallizer or fatal tube, n in case u like the tone frm boss, take it... U must b playing distortion, ryt??
n if u use properly, rp80 wont suck... u wont get nything better fr multi fx in 5k...


N yeah is sumbdy selling off any delay pedal, i ws interested in getting one...

 

I'd say Fatal Tube.
From the clips it seems to have slightly less gain than the Metallizer, which is good for bands like Linkin Park.
Check out the Du Hast pedal too...it seems pretty cool.
I saw a DD3 at Lamington Rd for like 4k.
Also, Sameer, where would i be able to try the AMT pedals?

 

try at sum big stores...
Furtados, as i know, dont deal with amt.
whr r u based?
If u r in banglore, chk out rhythm musicals, reynolds or sound glitz...
If u in chennai, chk musee or saptaswara, vaise i doubt they myt b having it in stock in chnai.
N man dont call me sameer...

 

I'm in Mumbai...neither Furtado's nor Musicians Mall have it.
If i do buy it, id have to go on opinions alone.

Where did you buy yours?
Did you try first?

 

I bought it frm chennai, had to order it, i bought it going by the reviews... Later i got to try a fatal tube of a friend, i dint spend a lot of time wid it, but what i concluded, it ws equally gud...

 

Where in Chennai?

I'm going at the end of the month for the Opeth show.