MXR 5150 Overdrive Machine

MXR’s Eddie Van Halen signature phaser, flanger, and wah pedals made elements of Eddie’s tone available and affordable to the masses. But one of the most critical components in creating his “Brown Sound” is copious amp overdrive. If you don’t have a vintage Marshall Super Lead or an EVH amp (both expensive propositions), the right overdrive pedal is an effective shortcut. And the MOSFET-driven MXR 5150 Overdrive—which was designed by Bob Cedro with input from Mr. Van Halen himself—is a stab at harnessing Eddie’s hot-rodded, high-gain sounds in a pedal.

That’s no mean feat, given that EVH has traditionally been an amp overdrive dude. But the MXR often hits the mark through the use of a flexible set of EQ, drive, and gating controls—as well as a multi-gain-stage design that makes the pedal versatile beyond strictly Eddie-centric applications.

The extra clarity had me exploring sonorities and chord clusters that I ordinarily wouldn’t touch with this much gain.

Bigger Box, Bolder Sounds The 5150 is reminiscent of MXR’s killer big box effects from the ’70s as well as the more recent MXR EVH-117 Flanger. It’s decked out in Eddie’s classic “racing stripe” livery. (Is it now possible to create an entire signal chain in this paint scheme? If there isn’t a cable yet someone should get on it!) The control panel features a common overdrive control set: output, bass, mid, treble, and gain. But there are also two smaller controls: a mini-button for 'boost' (which actually adds a little gain and compression,) and a small knob and a small knob for MXR’s Smart Gate noise gate that turns yellow when activated.

Diver Brown I tested the 5150 Overdrive with a humbucker-equipped “Super Strat” as well as a traditional, single coil-equipped Stratocaster through the clean channel of a Mesa/Boogie Mark IV. At its lowest gain setting (around 6:30) and with all the tone controls at noon, the MXR turned the Boogie into something more like a cranked tweed Fender—not a stretch, given the Boogie’s design pedigree, but a beautiful, rich distortion sound. Chords took on an aggressive snarl that would excel in a hard rock or classic rock rhythm setting. To get less bite and cleaner tones you need a soft touch, but the fact that approach works is a testament to how dynamic the pedal can be. It’s also surprisingly sensitive: moving the gain up just a hair to around 7 o’clock means a distinct increase in saturation and sustain that’s cool for smoother, more polite lead sounds or heavy rhythm tones.

Move the gain knob to noon and you’re squarely in the distortion camp—verging on the realms of Eddie’s storied in-your-face “Brown Sound.” Here, it’s hard to resist boogie-inflected moves like the lead riff for “Beautiful Girls.” Low, open-string chugs feel punchy and articulate, and the individual notes of chords ring true and clear, which does wonders for big chords with a lot of low-end like Fmaj7#11 or inversions like D/F# and E/G#. The extra clarity found me exploring sonorities and chord clusters that I ordinarily wouldn’t touch with this much gain. For leads, this setting was wicked. Pinch harmonics popped with ease, and tremolo-picked, single-note melodies way up on the fretboard sounded triumphant.

Some of my favorite Van Halen moments occur when Eddie works the shades between clean and dirty sounds in a song, and the MXR is responsive in a way that makes these shades available with a slight shift in guitar volume. And I could move from a massive wall of sound to the familiar Van Halen, quiet, clean-ish rhythm (think of the interlude after the “House of Pain” solo, or the intro of “Drop Dead Legs”) with just a flick of the guitar volume control.

Maxing the gain generates massive sounds that could be mistaken for a raging stack of amps. For modern metal rhythms, the sound is tight and especially potent. Soloing also felt amazingly easy with this much gain, and with the noise gate keeping stray harmonics and noise under control, a lot of inconvenient mistakes became a lot less pronounced! That said, the superb definition and focus of the pedal rewarded precision. Alternate picked, scalar sequences popped with percussiveness like a typewriter in the hands of a transcription wiz. Most other pedals or ultra high-gain amps would turn into a nebulous blob of noise at this point. The 5150 Overdrive stayed exceptionally open and detailed.

The added compression and gain from the 'boost' function adds a slight but perceptible bump (+6 dB.) Predictably, it doesn’t feel quite like a boost in the most familiar sense. Instead it feels more like an additional texture—adding dimension and a little extra harmonic breadth to an already very happening sound.

Noise Police When you use a lot of gain, you get a lot of noise. Usually, I’ll tame the noise (if it can be tamed) via muting techniques. With the 5150 Overdrive’s smart gate engaged, the pedal is so quiet that I sometimes forgot it was on. To really test the gate, I plugged in my Stratocaster, which can be unbearably noisy. It did wonders mitigating the Strat’s pesky hum, even with the gate set at near-minimum levels. The feature is a major plus. After using this pedal for a few weeks, it was almost hard to go back to a gate-less setup.

The Verdict Eddie Van Halen’s playing has always been about inventiveness, and the 5150 takes a pretty inventive approach to the overdrive pedal template. While the 5150 name might imply that it’s strictly a “Brown-Sound-in-a-box” device, it’s far from one-dimensional. This little box can deliver virtually any overdrive/distortion sound with a vengeance.

The 5150 Overdrive’s near $200 price tag might be a little more than consumers are used to from MXR. But the fact that this pedal can decimate many boutique pedals that do much less makes it a killer buy.

Drybell Vibe Machine

 

The guys at DryBell in Croatia are nothing if not hardcore—their sole product so far, the V-1 Vibe Machine chorus/vibrato, took four years to develop. Like the original Shin-ei/Univox Uni-Vibe, it features four photocells, though the enclosure is smaller. Painstaking research identified common traits of stellar Uni-Vibe specimens and led to a proprietary matching technology that measures about two dozen photocell parameters. And an exclusive cell-sourcing partnership ensures every V-1 meets exacting specs.

The meticulous standards pay off, big time. The V-1 doesn’t just serve up delightfully warm and swirly chorus and subtle-to-disorienting vibrato with the granular dimensionality vintage snobs crave, it comes incredibly close to matching the supernatural magic of an old organ’s mechanical vibrato sound. And talk about extras: An expression-pedal input enables real-time control of speed, internal jumpers let you engage a Leslie-style ramp-up/ramp-down function and/or an output buffer, a bright/original switch caters to old-school and modern tone tastes, and three trim pots let you tweak output volume and the range and symmetry of the effect’s swell. A true home run.

Test gear: Eastwood Sidejack DLX Baritone w/Manlius Goatmaster pickups, db Instrument Amp 4E expression pedal, various pedals, Jaguar HC50 and Goodsell Valpreaux 21 combos

Providence Bass Boot Camp

Compression isn’t the sexiest effect to talk about, but it’s a must-have (or should-have) for many a bassist. A good compressor will even out dynamics and bring life to tone for veteran players—not just lipstick a less-than-awesome right hand technique. Japan’s Providence has recently jumped into the bass compression game and loaned us their Bass Boot Comp for a look.

Visually similar to the company’s 3-knob Velvet Comp, the Bass Boot Comp is a 5-knob affair that brings controls for mix and threshold in addition to the level, sustain, and attack also found on the Velvet. The mix dial is especially nice since it gives a player the power to blend the compressed sound with the native signal. This provides a broader spectrum of tones and is a feature not always found on other compression pedals.

The Bass Boot Comp did what it’s supposed to do well. Rolling the attack almost all the way off, dialing the sustain to 10 o’clock, and the threshold to 2 o’clock, the pedal worked as a limiter—ideal for slappers and heavy picking. I got to a smoothly compressed and even fingerstyle tone by cranking the sustain, inching the threshold to 3 o’clock, and moving the attack to 11 o’clock. Speaking of sustain, it’ll do so for days with the dial in the upper region.

Providence pedals tend to fall on the pricey side of the spectrum, but what you get in return here is a solid compressor that brings a bit more control to the table than some others in its class.

Fender Acoustic SFX

It’s easy to overlook the virtues of a good acoustic amplifier. Having one isn’t essential to enjoying your guitar at home or around a campfire. And any performance space with a microphone (or two, if you sing) and a PA will probably get your performance over to the crowd.

But if you’ve ever experienced the indignities of playing through a junk PA, you know that a little extra control over your performance situation is a very nice thing. And if you’re not willing to incur the inconvenience and expense of your own PA and DI, an acoustic amp is a good way to go.

Fender’s Acoustic SFX is a very good acoustic amp—rich sounding with a functional stereo speaker array and a selection of effects that make it sound downright expansive at times. But it also manages the neat trick of being a sort of all-in-one acoustic performance “mothership” without being bogged down by bells, whistles, and sound optimization tools that are tricky to use on the fly.

I was equally—if not more—impressed with how high levels of the second speaker added headroom and flexibility to the EQ controls.

Sonic Redistribution The Acoustic SFX is not Fender’s first acoustic amp to feature the SFX (stereo field expansion) technology. Two previous iterations of the Acoustasonic line featured the stereo sound distribution technique devised by Aspen Pittman and Drew Daniels. In brief, the SFX system is based on a forward-facing speaker and a second, smaller speaker that’s situated below and at 90 degrees from the forward-facing driver. The front-facing speaker receives and broadcasts the sum of left and right signals. The second, smaller speaker receives a left-minus-right signal. While the speakers are technically rendered out of phase, what you hear is not thin phase cancellation but a wider signal that’s divided into component parts and redistributed in a wave of sound that arrives at the ear as a more detailed sonic picture.

Fender incorporated the SFX speaker array into the cabinet design beautifully—creating small portholes on either side of the amp and a rectangular port on the rear. Thoughtful design abounds elsewhere. The entire topside of the amp just forward of the control panel is a very confortable, contoured handle. The cavity between the handle and the control panel functions as a cool little stash box where you can put slides, picks, or whatever device you might be using for backing tracks or between-set tunes. The curved 9-ply wood cabinet, meanwhile, looks like it was lifted from an Eames chair.

The control set is a straightforward affair that’s pretty easy to navigate. There’s a single volume knob, a three-band EQ, and reverb and effects-level controls for each of the amplifier’s channels. Each channel has a phase button if you run into trouble with feedback. The third, middle set of controls is for the amp’s effects and the SFX functionality, which, as we’ll see, enhances the sound of the amp in profound ways. The effects set includes a simple one-repeat delay, a multi-repeat delay, chorus, and vibrato. Each is tap-tempo enabled and can be bypassed via an optional footswitch or by turning the effects knob to zero.

The SFX knob is essentially a level/balance control that determines how much sound is distributed to the side-mounted speaker. But its character shifts considerably depending on how you set the effects and at what level.

The back panel has a pretty standard set of acoustic amp I/Os (balanced XLR out, combination XLR/1/4" mic/line inputs), a voltage selector, and a footswitch jack for remotely bypassing the effects.

Street: 

$899

Fender Acoustic SFX fender.com

Acoustic Architecture in Practice In it’s most straightforward setup and at the lowest possible SFX settings, the Acoustic SFX is a great blank slate for most acoustics. I used a mahogany Martin 00-15 and Gibson J-45 with L.R. Baggs Element pickups. And while the amp seemed to favor the Gibson’s balance of low end and patina’d highs to the Martin’s more compact, sparklier personality, the EQ controls provided ample headroom to dial up very pretty approximations of each guitar’s voice.

Dialing in the SFX function pays big dividends, though, and I often wondered why one would ever opt to dial out the function entirely. While Fender makes much of the way the SFX design works with the reverb and effects to add extra dimension, I was equally—if not more—impressed with how high levels of the second speaker added headroom and flexibility to the EQ controls, which are typically the hardest thing to dial in right on an acoustic amp.

At high stereo SFX settings, the amp’s intrinsic high-end sensitivity was more apparent, but so was an extra bit of presence and air that made the high end of both guitars sound less boxy. Dialing in a high/mid setting that eliminated crispy, clacky picking artifacts without totally diminishing the sparkling overtones was relatively effortless. And bass sounds took on a warmer, more atmospheric edge that enabled me to reduce the already ample bass response. If you move between performance spaces of varying size, the added headroom and dimension the SFX function adds to the EQ controls can be invaluable. And if you use a lot of low-tuned alternate tunings, that extra dimension and enhanced frequency balance can enliven overtones in beautiful ways.

The effects, while not spectacularly rich, deep, or colorful, work well with the amp’s basic voice. The reverb, in particular, is quite nice at mellower settings. I especially enjoyed mixing it in with a little of the multi-repeat delay for atmospheric chord arpeggios. If you like things especially spacy, the Acoustic SFX effects will go there, although they sound less warm at higher levels.

The Verdict There’s much to like about the Acoustic SFX. It’s stylish, functional, and delivers ease-of-use and true sound-sculpting potential at a price that’s still well south of many other professional grade acoustic amps. There’s room for improvement here and there: The high midrange could be a little softer and more contoured, for instance. But the ample headroom and cool SFX-derived sounds make this amp a very solid and reliable gigging partner.

Ernie Ball Music Man - St. Vincent

It’s no secret that many “artist signature” guitars aren’t all that different from a company’s stock models. Jigger with surface cosmetics, maybe tweak the electronics a bit, and voilà — you’ve got a “new” model to sell at an upmarket price.

Music Man’s St. Vincent is nothing like that. Designed top to bottom by Annie “St. Vincent” Clark with help from the Ernie Ball/Music Man lutherie team, the instrument is as bold, imaginative, and thoughtful as Clark’s extraordinary guitar work.

Old-School Modern The St. Vincent’s angular, geometric body is unapologetically Modernistic—and that’s upper-case “Modernistic” in the mid-20^th-century-design sense. Guitar history geeks will probably flash on 1957/1958, when Gibson created the Flying V, Explorer, and Moderne. Designed by visionary Gibson honcho Ted McCarty, these instruments (along with 1963’s Ray Dietrich-designed Firebird) aimed to update Gibson’s then-stodgy image with a bit of Fender’s space-age panache.

It’s easy to imagine the St. Vincent’s angular body in the McCarty sketchbook alongside the abstractly geometric V and Explorer. But the St. Vincent’s ergonomics are superior to those midcentury classics. Unlike the V, for example, Clark’s guitar is as comfortable to play seated as standing. The African mahogany body balances beautifully. There’s no conventional cutaway, but you have clearance up to the 19^th fret, where you can position your index finger for easy access the top three frets. The upper and lower bouts are beveled slightly in relation to the guitar’s centerline, providing a Strat-like armrest and creating the illusion of a multicolored top in some lighting conditions. Clark even hand-mixed the steely-blue finish color. (The guitar is also available in black.)

The St. Vincent weighs a mere 7 pounds, thanks to its svelte, slim-waisted body. It’s a great choice for players of smaller stature, or anyone whose back or shoulders object to overweight axes.

Slight but Solid The St. Vincent weighs a mere 7 pounds, thanks to its svelte, slim-waisted body shape. It’s a great choice for players of smaller stature, or anyone whose back or shoulders object to overweight axes. But despite its modest weight and slender proportions, nothing about the St. Vincent feels insubstantial.

The stout rosewood neck has a 10" radius and a relaxed D shape. Its back is only lightly oiled, providing a raw-wood feel and a solid grip. The 25.5"-scale fretboard has 22 immaculately installed and rounded frets. The fulcrum-tremolo bridge is geared for quick, Van Halen-esque deep dives, but it’s also capable of subtle vibrato under an ultra-light touch. Pitch stability is about as good as it gets on guitars without locking trems. (The locking Schaller tuners help, as does the expertly installed and intonation-compensated nut.) Build quality is excellent across the board.

There are many cool cosmetic details, including the vertically oriented pickguard, triangular knobs, and interlocking-circle position markers. The only visual misstep for me is the standard Music Man headstock. I dig its compact yet elegant shape and offbeat 4+2 tuner layout, but to my eye, at least, its relaxed curves and pearloid tuner buttons don’t quite harmonize with the body’s clean angles and stark white plastic hardware. Having said that, the dark shade of the neck and headstock makes these elements recede into the background. Your eyes can’t help but focus on the bold blue body.

Street: $1,899

Ernie Ball/Music Man St. Vincent music-man.com

Wicked Wiring The guitar’s electronics are as unconventional as its angles. Clark opted for three mini-humbuckers—shades of Gibson’s Firebird VII. There’s a 5-way selector switch, but the pickups aren’t wired Strat-style. Positions 1, 2, and 3 solo each of the pickups. Position 4 combines all three pickups in parallel, while position 5 blends the outer two. You can’t get the sound of two combined adjacent pickups, as from Strat positions 2 and 4, but that’s cool—the all-three setting provides crisp, articulate “out-of-phase” sounds, and the neck and bridge harmonize gloriously.

I confess I’ve never owned a mini-humbucker guitar. These DiMarzios sound terrific, but it took me an hour or two of playing to get the hang of them. They have a snappy, focused attack compared to conventional humbuckers, and a more hair-trigger tonal response. They can seem dark at times, yet highs can erupt violently when you dig in. Once you get acclimated, though, they can be extraordinarily dynamic. Just be aware that they respond differently than most humbuckers or single-coils. Nor do they behave like P-90s, though, like P-90s, their clean tones tend to be rough-edged and “furry” relative to single-coils, while distorted tones usually have more snap and string-to-string differentiation than on humbucker guitars.

The St. Vincent doesn’t lack low end power, but macho chunk isn’t its strong suit. Heavily overdriven tones tend to evoke early Zep or AC/DC, with crisp attack and strong note definition. Nor is the guitar terribly twangy—clean tones maintain bulk, and you never get anything quite like, say, a soloed bridge pickup on a Strat or Tele. But these aren’t complaints. I dig the St. Vincent’s unique voice and the way it adds new colors to your palette. And whether you play clean, dirty, or in-between, you’ll appreciate the excellent intonation and rich, ringing sustain.

The Verdict Annie Clark’s signature model is visually striking. But its distinctiveness is more than skin-deep. Its superb ergonomics are perfect for players seeking a big-guitar sound from a light, lean-bodied instrument. The build quality is excellent. Three mini-humbuckers and unconventional wiring provide many distinctive tones, all of which benefit from the guitar’s fine intonation and great natural sustain. The price may seem steep for a solidbody with a bolt-on neck, but this is a unique new design, and the detail work and setup are fantastic. (Some skilled technician invested substantial bench time fine-tuning this instrument.) The St. Vincent is as cool, clever, and engaging as, well, a new St. Vincent album.

RJM Mastermind PBC

 

RJM Music Technology is best known for rack switching devices, and players from Beck to Billie Joe Armstrong to John Petrucci all use the company’s high-end systems. The new, U.S.A.-built Mastermind PBC, however, shrinks RJM’s rack mount technology into a compact format designed to fit on a pedalboard and be more accessibly priced to players without Learjet budgets.

The Mastermind PBC is ostensibly a control station for your pedals, but it can do much more than that—certainly more than we can cover in this review. The unit features 10 loops with insert points in between groups, which offers copious routing options. You can even run some pedals straight into the amp and others through your amp’s effects loop.

Ratings

Pros: Excellent, versatile design. USB editing option greatly increases functionality.

Cons: A little pricey. Editor has a moderate learning curve.

Tones:

Ease of Use:

Build/Design:

Value:

Street: $999

RJM Music Mastermind PBC rjmmusic.com

RJM clearly considered just about every scenario pedal junkies are likely to face. So the Mastermind PBC offers simple solutions for the most common problems. While the unit is true bypass, there are three switchable buffers that can be saved as part of any given preset. The last four loops, meanwhile, have an internal mixer so you can route pedals in series or parallel. The Mastermind PBC can also be configured for a stereo setup or for A/B routing to different amps. I took advantage of the latter option and connected one end to my shimmery clean blackface Fender Deluxe Reverb and the other to my Mesa/Boogie Trem-O-Verb. It was a pairing made in heaven.

There is room to store up to 768 presets so it’s very unlikely you’ll run out of space. The readout is sizeable but not too huge—the right balance of compact and easy on the eyes. There’s even a built-in tuner (although there’s no dedicated tuner out on the back panel). Other standout features are USB connectivity, a flash storage option, and PBC Editor (for use on a Mac or PC). One of my biggest gripes with anything multi-effects related is scrolling through screens to adjust every little parameter. The PBC Editor gives you much more control over the Mastermind’s internal control parameters.

Though downloading and hooking up the editor is easy, it’s not immediately intuitive. It took a little bit of time to get my bearings, and I think many guitarists coming from a world of analog pedals will have the same experience. Successfully navigating the editor comes with a significant payoff, however. The level of control is astounding, especially if you use MIDI capable pedals like the Strymon TimeLine or Mobius, or the Line 6 M series. The sound sculpting potential opened up by the editor and the seamless way it will interface with MIDI pedals is enormous.

At $999 street, the Mastermind PBC is the priciest switcher in our roundup, but there’s little sticker shock when you realize how much it can do and the exponential way in which it expands the possibilities of your rig. It’s perfectly suited for a professional touring musician. But the sound shaping possibilities and the excellent MIDI and digital workstation interfacing options could just as easily make it the centerpiece of a home recording rig.

DLS Effects Rotospin

 

Effects designers have devised some pretty clever ways to approximate the sounds of a rotary speaker. A lot of these pedals, like the Uni-Vibe, became sonic categories all their own, with cults of nitpickers that debate the relative merits of different versions. But no matter how good a chorus, vibe, or phaser sounds—no matter how hip they can sound in just the right context—they’ll never quite nail the whirling, swirling, undulating properties of those original spinning, mechanically modulating leviathans.

Pedal designers, however, are nothing if not a stubborn bunch. And in the never-say-die quest to build a Leslie in a box, digital magicians have closed the gap. We’ve seen some great digital rotary simulators in recent years like the Strymon Lex and Neo Instruments Ventilator, but the compact and killer sounding DLS RotoSPIN is right up there with the best. It’s good enough to be downright indistinguishable from a Leslie in the right recording environment. And when used to the full extent of its capabilities, it sounds captivating and convincing on stage, too.

Power to Swirl There are days when anything more than a two-knob fuzz looks like a headache to me. And the day I opened up the DLS was one of them. But what you find out fast is that this set of controls is intuitive to the point of being dummy proof.

Two knobs on the upper left set the respective speeds of the slow and fast modes. The two just to the right of that control the intensity and level of the virtual rotating tweeter and bass rotor (or horn and drum, as they are better known in some quarters). As we’ll see, these controls are very interactive and much more (and often more subtle) than simple volume controls.

The tweeter and bass rotor controls are understated rather than transformative. Given how nice and realistic the basic rotary voice is, that’s no bad thing.

The lower left ramp knob controls the rate at which the virtual rotor rotations come to full speed when you switch between slow and fast speeds. Just to the right of that, there’s a gain knob and a switch that engages the drive channel. Two footswitches are for bypass and the fast/slow modes.

You could work with these controls exclusively and get plenty of great sounds out of the DLS. But there are a lot under-the-hood tweaks you can make to fine-tune the pedal for your rig. Some of the most effective controls relate to the stereo outputs, which have their own unique sonic qualities. Output A is voiced to be fatter. Output B is brighter. But they also have their own internal volume control pots, which can change the voice and the way the pedal interacts with the amp you put at the other end. Yet another internal pot enables you to increase the intensity of pitch bend (or Doppler effect, as they call it) on the tweeter. Here, again, this control can significantly re-shape the personality of the pedal.

In general, the RotoSPIN seems exceptionally well built. The very busy circuit board is well ordered. And to the extent that much of the circuit must be a carryover from the larger DLS RotoSIM, it’s surprising that it’s as tidy as it is and has room for the input gain control, two volume controls, and the pitch intensity pot.

Ratings

Pros: Very convincing and rich rotary simulations. Intuitive and streamlined when you need it to be. Tweakable when you need to fine tune. Versatile stereo functionality.

Cons: Treblier tweeter settings can betray small traces of digital voice. No expression pedal option.

Tones:

Ease of Use:

Build/Design:

Value:

Street: $259

DLS Effects RotoSPIN dlseffects.com

Swirl On Sister! One the beautiful things about the RotoSPIN is how satisfying it is before you ever tweak or fine-tune any of the controls. The manual explains that setting all four knobs to noon effectively replicates an old Fender Vibratone. And sure enough, in the fast setting the DLS delivers the same sassy, satisfying warble of Mike Campbell’s “You Don’t Know How it Feels” textures and SRV’s queasier riffs. Interestingly, this is one setting that you can approximate pretty well with a good analog chorus on a heavy depth setting. And yet, the differences between the two effects are profound. The DLS is much more rich and complex than a chorus. The shades between virtual spin cycles are more vivid. There’s also a certain toughness and attitude to the modulations—especially with a little drive.

The prescribed Leslie 122 setting is delicious and a highlight of how rich the DLS sounds compared to a chorus, phaser, or vibrato. In stereo mode this setting is heavy, gently pulsing, and dreamy—and sounds especially fat in Drop D and other slack tunings.

When you stray from the prescribed formulas for Vibratone or Leslie 122/145 cabs, you start to hear how subtle and interactive the tweeter and bass rotor controls are. DLS claims they simulate properties and parameters like “width” and microphone proximity rather than just volume, and they are understated rather than transformative. Given how nice and realistic the basic rotary voice is, that’s no bad thing. At times the tweeter and bass rotor knobs feel quite like controls on an old Fender amp, which will almost exponentially emphasize bass by reducing treble.

You can further tweak the character of the treble sounds, however, by adding pitch shift depth with the internal pot. And one of my favorite settings used a heavily pitch shifted but low-level tweeter setting with a more present and slightly louder large-to-mid-size cabinet setting on the bass side. This setting sounded even cooler in stereo. In fact, just about every setting sounded deeper and richer with two amps, which opens up cool possibilities related to other effects. I became addicted to the very intoxicating sound of running one of the stereo channels with a slapback delay on multiple repeats, for instance.

The Verdict Good Leslie simulators tend toward the expensive side of the spectrum. So the $259 street price that DLS asks for the very smart, convenient, streamlined, and easy-to-use RotoSPIN is a relative value—even if some competitors may have more features or sound ever so slightly more authentic in isolated situations. It’s likely to hold its own and then some against the competition in the studio. And live and loud through two amps, this rotary simulator is hard to top at any price.

DryBell Vibe Machine

 

The guys at DryBell in Croatia are nothing if not hardcore—their sole product so far, the V-1 Vibe Machine chorus/vibrato, took four years to develop. Like the original Shin-ei/Univox Uni-Vibe, it features four photocells, though the enclosure is smaller. Painstaking research identified common traits of stellar Uni-Vibe specimens and led to a proprietary matching technology that measures about two dozen photocell parameters. And an exclusive cell-sourcing partnership ensures every V-1 meets exacting specs.

The meticulous standards pay off, big time. The V-1 doesn’t just serve up delightfully warm and swirly chorus and subtle-to-disorienting vibrato with the granular dimensionality vintage snobs crave, it comes incredibly close to matching the supernatural magic of an old organ’s mechanical vibrato sound. And talk about extras: An expression-pedal input enables real-time control of speed, internal jumpers let you engage a Leslie-style ramp-up/ramp-down function and/or an output buffer, a bright/original switch caters to old-school and modern tone tastes, and three trim pots let you tweak output volume and the range and symmetry of the effect’s swell. A true home run.

TC Electronic HyperGravity Compressor

Leave it to TC Electronic to deliver an affordable pedal compressor with a twist. For the new Tone Print-enabled HyperGravity, they’ve borrowed the algorithm from their System 6000 studio multiband compressor. The results often sound quite unlike any other stomp comp.

The 6000 is the basis for the HyperGravity’s Spectra digital multiband mode. TC touts its ability to enhance treble tones and more effectively even the output of top and bottom strings. It works—though sometimes nearly too well. I love trebly, squashed compressors with heavy sustain for electric 12-strings, but at times the high-end bloom nearly overpowered the bass. I love this sound. Dogmatic twang fiends might not dig it.

Less sustain equals more immediate attack and a more traditional combination of snap and squish. The wet/dry blend control—a fairly uncommon feature on stompbox compressors—is useful for dialing out that tiny-bit-too-much squish when you hear it. It also evens out the hot high end.

The vintage mode is a tad darker than my Ross-derived comp, and found me wanting for a tone knob. But it works nicely with fuzz and sounded awesomewith treble-heavy settings on a bright Vox amp.

Universal Audio Apollo Twin

Universal Audio’s rack-mountable Apollo audio interface was an hit upon its 2012 release. Its stellar preamps, lucid design, and innovative software were perfect fits for project studios requiring great-sounding components and flexible operation, but not a vast number of preamps. (The original Apollo has four, plus additional analog and digital line inputs.)

I was an early adopter—Apollo replaced two more cumbersome systems in my home studio. Two years later I have nothing but praise for the device. My only beef: I wanted a smaller version for mobile work.

Now it’s here. The Apollo Twin is a 6"x6"x2" tabletop unit offering many of its big brother’s best features in a gig-friendly format. It’s a remarkable tool for the digital guitarist, though it requires a recent-model Mac with a Thunderbolt port running OS 10.8 or higher, plus a DAW. (UA currently supports Logic Pro, Pro Tools, Cubase, and Live.) There is no PC-compatible version.

Model Interface The Apollo line offers more than great-sounding A/D/A conversion. It’s also a host for Universal Audio’s plug-ins, allowing you to run more plug-ins than your computer could otherwise handle. Such “assisted” hosting is increasingly unnecessary given today’s faster computers, but Universal Audio’s plug-ins are among the best in the industry. For many users, access to them is a major motive for using Apollo, especially since UA’s plug-ins only run on systems incorporating UA hardware.

The Twin comes in two versions: a dual-processor model that streets for $899 (reviewed here), and a $699 single-processor version. The larger version has twice the processing power, but beyond that, the models are identical. At risk of oversimplifying, I’d guess that the single-processor model is adequate for digital guitar gigs, but that you’d want the larger one for mixing multitrack sessions. See the usage charts on the UA website to determine which version best suits your processor needs.

With its rugged metal enclosure and quality connectors, the Twin is one of the few small-format interfaces that truly seems suited to the physical demands of the job.

UA specializes in officially licensed software versions of classic analog gear, forging deals to create software replicas of many popular studio components, including preamps, EQs, compressors, reverbs, tape simulations, effects, channel strips, and more. Their sound quality is remarkable—UA sets something of a gold standard for modeled effects. However, only a handful of plug-ins is included with an Apollo purchase, and a complete collection would cost many thousands of dollars. (All plug-ins are available for audition as fully functional, but time-limited, demos.)

Another Apollo innovation is the Console app, a virtual mixing board that not only lets you control Apollo hardware from your desktop, but also insert UA plug-ins on input channels upstream from your DAW. With its ultra-low latency, Console can duplicate the effect of recording via hardware preamps and compressors—an impressive feat. (Console only hosts plug-ins created specifically for the UA platform. Meanwhile, UA effects also appear as AU, VST, RTAS, and/or AAX plug-ins within your DAW alongside your other plug-ins.)

The Ins and Outs The Twin records at 24 bits at sample rates up to 192 kHz. It has two input channels, switchable between mic, line, and instrument level, plus the option of eight more digital inputs via optical cable. There are three sets of stereo outs: main, monitor, and headphone. You enter most values via a single large knob. There’s phantom power as needed.

The sound quality is… well, identical to that of the larger Apollo, since the Twin uses the same preamps and SHARC processors. To my sub-golden ears, the studio results are as good as or better than from any convertors I’ve owned.

The difference with my mobile laptop rig is more dramatic. I’m one of those foolhardy souls who performs live on guitar via laptop, and the Twin blows away anything I’ve used in both sound and build quality. Mind you, I’m generally amazed that under-$200 interfaces sound as decent as they do, but the Twin delivers more depth and detail than any budget model I’ve tried.

It can be hard to describe exactly how one audio interface sounds better than another—it’s not as if the cheaper ones lack highs or lows, or demonstrate obvious distortion. But with a better interface, there’s more sense of solidity. There’s just more there there.

Not Built to Break Far too many mobile interfaces are—let’s be blunt—cheap plastic pieces of crap. I’m embarrassed to confess how many I’ve destroyed through clumsy footsteps or hurried packing. (Hint: more than I can count on one hand.) And thank goodness, the Twin doesn’t have one of those horrid octopus-style breakout cables (though it does require the included 12-volt external power supply). With its rugged metal enclosure and quality connectors, the Twin is one of the few small-format interfaces that truly seems suited to the physical demands of the job.

Universal Audio Apollo uaudio.com

I’ve used the review model Twin for my last few live laptop gigs, connecting through the interface to a MacBook Pro running Apple’s MainStage software, and then back out through the Twin to a Boomerang III looper en route to a pair of Fishman LoudBoxes. My tones have more impact and a greater sense of headroom—they simply feel bigger. And it’s reassuring to have an interface on my pedalboard that seems less likely to disintegrate.

Almost Analog The Analog Classic plug-in bundle included with the Twin is modest: You get legacy editions of UA’s 1176 and LA-2A compressors, not the latest versions. There’s an underwhelming light version of Softube’s Amp Room, plus a channel strip and a reverb plug-in that are both a decade past their sell-by dates. However, the included 610-B Tube Preamp adds fine analog burn to any track—it’s perfect for inserting on a Console input channel as described above.

There’s not nearly enough room here to cover all the plug-ins UA sells separately, though I can’t resist calling out a few addictive favorites: The EMT plates are astonishingly deep and detailed recreations of those classic hardware reverbs. The simulated tape machines—a Studer multitrack and an Ampex mastering 2-track—add warmth and character to anything you run through them. You can hear those simulated devices on the audio examples included in the online version of this review.

The Verdict The Apollo Twin is a compact audio interface and plug-in host boasting remarkable sound quality and smartly streamlined features. Paired with a recent-model Mac, it’s powerful enough to anchor a busy project studio, yet compact enough to pop into your gig bag for mobile work. The bundled plug-in collection is modest, but I’d still recommend the Twin even if came with no plug-ins. It earns top marks for audio quality, workmanship, and its many useful and innovative features.

D’Angelico Gramercy SG200 Grand Auditorium

At last winter’s NAMM show in Anaheim, California, D’Angelico Guitars unveiled a line of steel-string flattop acoustics with names like Gramercy, Mercer, Lexington, and Madison. These are, of course, references to locales in Manhattan, where the legendary luthier John D’Angelico built the finest archtops to order from the 1930s until his death in 1964.

With its onboard Fishman electronics, the Asia-built Gramercy is a very different guitar from those classic original archtops. And apart from D’Angelico’s iconic art deco headstock, it doesn’t really resemble anything that the master guitarmaker ever built. But after I put the Gramercy through its paces (and in spite of the very high expectations that come along with the D’Angelico name), I found it to be an agreeable guitar in its own right.

Fancy Meets Subdued The grand auditorium-sized Gramercy is made from a nice selection of all-solid tonewoods. The top is Sitka spruce with scalloped-X bracing, and the back and sides are rosewood. The mahogany neck is fitted with a rosewood fretboard, and the bridge is rosewood too.

The Gramercy responds equally well to all types of strumming approaches, from boom-chuck to crisp Freddie Green-inspired comping.

At five pounds, nine ounces, you can’t say the Gramercy is lightweight, but the craftsmanship is very good. The polyurethane gloss finish is free from orange peel and other cosmetic defects, and all of the binding is tight and flush with the body. The frets are cleanly dressed and smooth at their edges. The bone nut and saddle are immaculately cut. Inside, everything appears tidy too. The bracing and kerfing are free from traces of excess glue and rough unfinished surfaces.

The Gramercy is available in five different finishes: natural, vintage sunburst, cherry sunburst, black, or a very contemporary grey black. Our review model came in natural, which best showcases the soundboard’s fine-grained, cream-colored spruce and the dark-chocolate, quartersawn rosewood on the back and sides—a very nice set of boards. The guitar is handsome, but to some players the trademark headstock, with its ornate inlay work, mirrored truss-rod cover, pointed scroll, and chevron-shaped machine heads, might look out of place on an otherwise restrained and traditionally appointed flattop.

Clear Up Top The Gramercy has a C-shaped neck with a slim profile that’s super comfortable and familiar—especially for players who typically play electric. But the action on our review model was higher than optimal, making it a strain to play barre chords for extended periods and inhibiting fast picked single-note lines. This isn’t necessarily a deal breaker. A good guitar tech could certainly lower the action. But it’s hard not to expect a better setup for a guitar that’s nearly a thousand bucks.

Acoustically, the Gramercy lacks some of the resonance and liveliness of a fine grand concert model, and the bass register is a tad underwhelming. But the Gramercy does deliver impressively present mids and clear treble tones. Harmonically speaking, the note-to-note definition and separation are good. And in this context, at least, the buzz-free higher action pays bonus dividends.

Any sonic shortcomings are often compensated for by a guitar’s versatility, and in that regard the Gramercy responds equally well to all types of strumming approaches, from boom-chuck to crisp Freddie Green-inspired comping. When fingerpicking—in both standard and altered tunings—the high action made me feel less nimble, but single-note lines had good presence and definition.

Comprising an under-saddle pickup and onboard preamp, the Gramercy’s Fishman INK-4 electronics package is a nice fit for the guitar. Mounted to the upper bass-side bout, the low-profile preamp is less obtrusive than most. Plugged into a Fender Acoustasonic, the Fishman system sounds terrific, very natural and free of extraneous noise. The bass, middle, and treble controls offer more than enough tonal flexibility for any situation, while the brilliance control adds zing to the guitar’s already sparkling personality. The INK-4’s built-in tuner, which turns green when the string is at pitch, is very readable.

The Verdict Purists and collectors might not have time for D’Angelico apart from an archtop made on the Lower East Side. But those without such allegiances will find a nice modern flattop in the Gramercy—a guitar that can be played in a variety of styles and stands stage-ready, thanks to the well-matched Fishman electronics. For the price, it does lack some of the complexity and bass richness you’d expect from a good grand auditorium—a body shape often chosen for its strength in those regards. But the ringing high-mids mean it can sit nicely in contemporary studio settings. If you like a little touch of Downtown glam with your otherwise functional flattop, the Gramercy is a great place to start.

Ibanez Talman Prestige TM1730M

Introduced in 1994, the original Ibanez Talman remained in production just a few years before it was discontinued. It arrived on a wave of interest in offbeat ’60s models. And along with guitars like the Charvel Surfcaster, it attracted shoegazers, indie-, and noise-rock artists looking for a synthesis of modern stability and vintage aesthetics. In the short time it was produced, and in the years since, the Talman gained a quietly devoted cult following.

While the Talman name lived on in a line of acoustic hybrids, the TM1730M reviewed here marks the first return to the original solidbody configuration since 1998. And while the 1730 and its Telecaster-inspired cousins the TM1702 and TM1803M are distinctly vintage-Fender inspired, electronics and hardware including Seymour Duncan Five-Two pickups and Gotoh locking machine heads makes them wonderfully playable and practical instruments that convey classic—and classy—style with a visual vibe that’s very much their own.

Through a crunchy Orange OR50 and even various solid-state practice amps, the Talman never sounded brittle.

Throwback Body, Fresh Hardware Crafted in Japan, the new Talman Prestige series is very well made. The bolt-on 25.5" maple neck has a familiar-feeling “C” profile, 22 medium-sized frets, and black dot-inlays. The ITL-PRO tremolo bridge and block assembly is situated in a body cavity so you can adjust the spring tension by removing the back plate. Each bridge saddle is individually adjustable for height and string length, and with the easy-to-access bullet truss-rod, intonation chores are a snap. The tremolo arm screws into place and will remain in a fixed position with a complete clockwise rotation. The five-way pickup selection switch is configured like a Stratocaster’s, but there is only one tone knob to adjust the output. This knob rests, in a unique configuration, on the input jack plate, with the remaining controls mounted atop a two-ply black and white pickguard. The official finish label is “Vintage White,” although it’s closer to cream than an authentically yellowed white. Nevertheless, it looks great and is a beautiful compliment to the maple neck.

A Tone Before Its Time If you’re like me and play mostly classic Fender models, the Talman will feel immediately familiar. I’m a big Stratocaster guy, so it’s difficult to avoid making comparisons between the two models. But before I ever plugged in, it was hard not to miss how uniquely comfortable this guitar is: the length of neck in relation to the body, the balance, the light-but-substantial alder body—they all conspire to make this guitar feel uncommonly natural whether you have it slung around your shoulder or you’re sitting on the couch.

My only very minor (and highly personal) complaint about the design is that the vibrato arm sits a little high for my taste. I’d rather not stray so far from the strings just to add a quick vibrato flourish. It does, however, provide the leverage to generate deeper pitch warble, which is great for My Bloody Valentine chord glides. If you want to drop the arm closer to the body, adjusting the spring tension or swapping the arm out entirely are possibilities. Tuning stability was also excellent when I put the tremolo arm to work. The Gotoh machine heads held fast under the strain of aggressive vibrato work, in slack tunings, and in combinations of the two.

With a ’65 Twin Reverb reissue dialed up clean, the Seymour Duncan Five-Two pickups were clear and bell-like. The alnico 2 and 5 magnets conspired to deliver snappy bass response, with a slightly tame and tethered but clear treble from the high strings. Paired with the Twin Reverb, the Talman dished up a punchy flavor fit for the Stones heartier blues entrees. The overtones in moveable open chords sounded out and resonated clearly—a total delight with a healthy heap of amp reverb. And though pickups are a tad darker compared to my Stratocaster’s Fender Custom Shop ’69 pickups, the Duncan single-coils are balanced and colorful.

Moving from the Twin Reverb to other amps highlighted the Talman’s agreeable, more flexible nature. Through a crunchy Orange OR50 and even various solid-state practice amps, the Talman never sounded brittle. The guitar is also very well suited to pedals. Paired with an Analogman Sun Face, the Talman sawed through early David Gilmour leads—sounding rich and slicing, and generating impressive sustain in the process. This environment also revealed the high quality of controls like the volume pot, which has a nice, even taper and the sensitivity to wrangle the Sun Face from banshee scream to overdriven growl.

The Verdict A lot of folks might be disappointed that Ibanez took such a Fender-inspired—some might say conservative—approach to resurrecting the Talman. And who knows? Maybe a revival of the sparkle-painted, lipstick-tubed ’90s models is just around the corner (hint, hint, Ibanez). But whatever the Talman Prestige lacks in flash it makes up in rock solid playability, comfort, quality, and great sounds. And while the nearly $1,200 bucks you’ll part with to make it your own isn’t small change, this is a guitar that leaves you yearning for little once you’ve plugged it in.

Ampeg PF-50T

Ampeg’s huge impact on the world of bass amplification is no secret. The SVT is a standard onstage rig and the B-15 is a staple in recording studios the world over. Not only has Ampeg set the bar high for the rest of the amp realm over the years, but for themselves in their quest to push forward in designs and features, yet maintain a respectful nod to the tone and builds that made them so significant in the first place. Enter the new all-tube PF-50T—a flexible, rock-solid amp that captures the spirit of Ampeg classics of the past, and offers an innovative feature that should be an industry standard. Same but Different The “PF” in PF-50T is short for Portaflex—a salute to Ampeg’s iconic flip-top B-15 head. The design of the PF-50T is super slick, yet still brings back memories of the old days with its two massive transformers and a steel cage that houses five tubes on top. Not to be confused with the B-15 Heritage (the flip-top reissue in the family), the PF-50T has been engineered to bridge the gap between the B-15 and the SVT with moderate power, tube warmth, and more than a hint of saturation available.

The definition really pops, and clean, articulate fingerstyle players will be right at home.

The 20-pound PF-50T has two inputs—one for passive instruments and the other with a 15 dB cut for active instruments. The control set is easy enough: gain, Ampeg’s well-known ultra-hi and ultra-low EQ buttons, bass, midrange, a 5-way midrange sweep, treble, and, finally, a master volume. The rear panel is also uncomplicated, with the exception of one very cool feature: twin XLR outs.

Why would Ampeg put two DIs on the PF-50T? Well, the first DI can be run either pre or post EQ. The second DI is an output straight from the transformer, which is basically what you would send to a cabinet. Let’s say you are allowed two channels in the FOH console at your next gig. Your engineer can have both your untouched clean signal and your dialed-in tone to work with. Or say you’re silent recording at home with the PF-50T (no cab required!).

You can run both DIs at the same time—one clean and one dirty. You don’t have to have a splitter to lay down one clean take while you are using the amp to saturate tone. Whether you’d like to blend the signal or need to fix something later on the clean track, the option is there. Pretty killer.

It’s in There When powering up the amp, the indicator light illuminates red in standby mode and purple for go mode. I plugged in a few instruments for this review: a vintage Fender P, a Music Man StingRay, and a Fender Bass VI. And to keep it in the family, I paired the PF-50T with a 1965 Ampeg 1x15.

I let the PF-50T warm up for a good 20 minutes. The glow of the two massive 6L6s, the 12AU7, and the pair of 12AX7s was a welcome sight for an old soul like myself. (Word of caution: The steel housing for the tubes gets very hot.) The bass I sort of had to plug in first was the vintage P strung with flats. I eased the bass to 1 o’clock, engaged the ultra-low switch, and left the rest of the controls at noon. For a moment, I closed my eyes and I was in the snake pit at Hitsville, U.S.A., hoping to open them and see Smokey Robinson writing lyrics next to me. It was all the vintage warmth you would expect. And when scrolling through the mid sweeps, it’s a snap finding a sweet spot to your liking.

But what if you aren’t a rock or Motown sort of player? Well, the PF-50T can produce great slap tones too. Engaging both the ultra-hi and ultra-low switches, scooping some of the mids, and with bass and treble both around 3 o’clock, the amp sings a different tune. The definition really pops, and clean, articulate fingerstyle players will be right at home. The active StingRay was a littlemuch for the amp because its tone is a bit pointed to begin with, but I was able to tone things down a touch with the EQ and keep its snap and pop with a great balance of rumble.

The Fender VI was a lot of fun with the PF-50T when I dimed the gain and pushed the amp into nasty mode. The tube saturation was really pleasing and the user-friendly EQ made the 6-string jump out pretty quickly. I should again stress the coolness factor of being able to run the dual DIs, especially with an instrument like the VI that lends itself to the new era of guitarless duos.

The Verdict It’s not hard to fall in love with the tube tone of the PF-50T. For all this amp gives bassists, however, there are some features Ampeg left off that some players are accustomed to—like an effects loop, tuner out, and headphone out. While it might not boast a host of bells and whistles, the PF-50T excels where it’s supposed to. It’s a straightforward amp with plenty of power and tube-tone nirvana for the stage or studio. Don’t take my word for it—get to an iso room and test this little gem out yourself.

Carl Martin Octa-Swtich MK3

Although the Octa-Switch MK2 still feels fresh in our memory, Carl Martin recently released the MK3, a streamlined edition of the popular MK2. At a street price of around $427, it’s easily the most affordable switcher in our roundup.

The MK3 is more pedalboard-friendly than the two previous incarnations—primarily because it utilizes two rows of footswitches, rather than one long row. And while Carl Martin has stuffed a lot of functions into less space, the jacks are still spaced out wide enough to patch in the right-angle plugs used for most pedalboard applications (something I wasn’t able to do with the other two switchers in this roundup).

I was a little surprised when I opened the box and didn’t see a power supply. But the Octa-Switch MK3 is compatible with a standard 9V adapter, and I just daisy chained it to my pedalboard’s existing power supply. (Unlike the MK2, the MK3 can’t be powered by batteries.)

The Octa-Switch MK3 offers eight loops (the last loop is stereo) and eight banks—which should be more than enough for most players. In addition to the eight loop footswitches, there’s a switch for bypassing the unit completely.

The MK3 has a decidedly mechanical, analog feel—largely due to the absence of a readout and the eight dip switches above each preset footswitch. The dipswitches correspond to the eight send/returns and the pedal; you route through them. You determine which pedals make up a given preset by turning the dipswitches off or on. I’m not a huge fan of dipswitches, but here the design is more intuitive, and arguably faster, than scrolling through a small screen. On the top corner of the control panel are eight small blue LEDs that correspond to loops 1-8 and light up to show which loop is activated on a selected preset. There are also two rows of dipswitches for external switching of amp channels or amplifier reverb. These, too, can be assigned to work with a selected loop.

It took me about a minute to program a relatively simple rig consisting of a Mesa/Boogie Trem-O-Verb and several pedals. For a rhythm preset, I used a Boss CE-2 and Ibanez AD-9 going into the amp’s clean channel. For leads, I created two presets—a Mad Professor Bluebird overdrive/delay going into the amp’s clean channel and an Ibanez TS-9 used as a boost going into the amp’s high gain channel. I also used a Boss TU-2 tuner, though, oddly, there is no dedicated tuner out on the Octa-Switch MK3. The presets all worked flawlessly and switching was immediate and pop free.

The MK3 lacks MIDI, the ability to change the order of pedals in a chain, and the ability to switch on individual pedals while running a preset. But while it may lack some of the features that distinguish and add wow factor to the Boss and RJM, I didn’t mind not having those options. If I knew I’d need an additional boost for a lead preset to suit a different playing environment, I’d simply add the boost to an existing preset or program a new one on the spot. It doesn’t take more than a second to flick the dipswitch. Above all else, the MK3 is fast and easy.

Though it may lack some fancy digital features, the MK3 is capable of a lot more than just switching pedals on and off. You can use it as a killer A/B switcher to route two guitars into two separate amps, with each pair attached to its own group of effects. Just bypass the standard in/out controls and patch everything through the loop jacks.

The mechanical simplicity of the Octa-Switch MK3 is a beautiful thing. The intuitive design means neophytes can get started fast without consulting a manual. And it’s simple enough to make troubleshooting a breeze in performance situations. In an era in which many switchers are as complex as some multi-effects units, the MK3’s what-you-see-is-what-you-get layout cuts through all the frivolities. This bad boy lets you just program the configurations you’ll actually need rather than bog you down with hypothetical possibilities you’ll never actually use.

MXR 5150 Overdrive

MXR’s Eddie Van Halen signature phaser, flanger, and wah pedals made elements of Eddie’s tone available and affordable to the masses. But one of the most critical components in creating his “Brown Sound” is copious amp overdrive. If you don’t have a vintage Marshall Super Lead or an EVH amp (both expensive propositions), the right overdrive pedal is an effective shortcut. And the MOSFET-driven MXR 5150 Overdrive—which was designed by Bob Cedro with input from Mr. Van Halen himself—is a stab at harnessing Eddie’s hot-rodded, high-gain sounds in a pedal.

That’s no mean feat, given that EVH has traditionally been an amp overdrive dude. But the MXR often hits the mark through the use of a flexible set of EQ, drive, and gating controls—as well as a multi-gain-stage design that makes the pedal versatile beyond strictly Eddie-centric applications.

The extra clarity had me exploring sonorities and chord clusters that I ordinarily wouldn’t touch with this much gain.

Bigger Box, Bolder Sounds The 5150 is reminiscent of MXR’s killer big box effects from the ’70s as well as the more recent MXR EVH-117 Flanger. It’s decked out in Eddie’s classic “racing stripe” livery. (Is it now possible to create an entire signal chain in this paint scheme? If there isn’t a cable yet someone should get on it!) The control panel features a common overdrive control set: output, bass, mid, treble, and gain. But there are also two smaller controls: a mini-button for 'boost' (which actually adds a little gain and compression,) and a small knob and a small knob for MXR’s Smart Gate noise gate that turns yellow when activated.

Diver Brown I tested the 5150 Overdrive with a humbucker-equipped “Super Strat” as well as a traditional, single coil-equipped Stratocaster through the clean channel of a Mesa/Boogie Mark IV. At its lowest gain setting (around 6:30) and with all the tone controls at noon, the MXR turned the Boogie into something more like a cranked tweed Fender—not a stretch, given the Boogie’s design pedigree, but a beautiful, rich distortion sound. Chords took on an aggressive snarl that would excel in a hard rock or classic rock rhythm setting. To get less bite and cleaner tones you need a soft touch, but the fact that approach works is a testament to how dynamic the pedal can be. It’s also surprisingly sensitive: moving the gain up just a hair to around 7 o’clock means a distinct increase in saturation and sustain that’s cool for smoother, more polite lead sounds or heavy rhythm tones.

Move the gain knob to noon and you’re squarely in the distortion camp—verging on the realms of Eddie’s storied in-your-face “Brown Sound.” Here, it’s hard to resist boogie-inflected moves like the lead riff for “Beautiful Girls.” Low, open-string chugs feel punchy and articulate, and the individual notes of chords ring true and clear, which does wonders for big chords with a lot of low-end like Fmaj7#11 or inversions like D/F# and E/G#. The extra clarity found me exploring sonorities and chord clusters that I ordinarily wouldn’t touch with this much gain. For leads, this setting was wicked. Pinch harmonics popped with ease, and tremolo-picked, single-note melodies way up on the fretboard sounded triumphant.

Some of my favorite Van Halen moments occur when Eddie works the shades between clean and dirty sounds in a song, and the MXR is responsive in a way that makes these shades available with a slight shift in guitar volume. And I could move from a massive wall of sound to the familiar Van Halen, quiet, clean-ish rhythm (think of the interlude after the “House of Pain” solo, or the intro of “Drop Dead Legs”) with just a flick of the guitar volume control.

Maxing the gain generates massive sounds that could be mistaken for a raging stack of amps. For modern metal rhythms, the sound is tight and especially potent. Soloing also felt amazingly easy with this much gain, and with the noise gate keeping stray harmonics and noise under control, a lot of inconvenient mistakes became a lot less pronounced! That said, the superb definition and focus of the pedal rewarded precision. Alternate picked, scalar sequences popped with percussiveness like a typewriter in the hands of a transcription wiz. Most other pedals or ultra high-gain amps would turn into a nebulous blob of noise at this point. The 5150 Overdrive stayed exceptionally open and detailed.

The added compression and gain from the 'boost' function adds a slight but perceptible bump (+6 dB.) Predictably, it doesn’t feel quite like a boost in the most familiar sense. Instead it feels more like an additional texture—adding dimension and a little extra harmonic breadth to an already very happening sound.

Noise Police When you use a lot of gain, you get a lot of noise. Usually, I’ll tame the noise (if it can be tamed) via muting techniques. With the 5150 Overdrive’s smart gate engaged, the pedal is so quiet that I sometimes forgot it was on. To really test the gate, I plugged in my Stratocaster, which can be unbearably noisy. It did wonders mitigating the Strat’s pesky hum, even with the gate set at near-minimum levels. The feature is a major plus. After using this pedal for a few weeks, it was almost hard to go back to a gate-less setup.

The Verdict Eddie Van Halen’s playing has always been about inventiveness, and the 5150 takes a pretty inventive approach to the overdrive pedal template. While the 5150 name might imply that it’s strictly a “Brown-Sound-in-a-box” device, it’s far from one-dimensional. This little box can deliver virtually any overdrive/distortion sound with a vengeance.

The 5150 Overdrive’s near $200 price tag might be a little more than consumers are used to from MXR. But the fact that this pedal can decimate many boutique pedals that do much less makes it a killer buy.

Mesa/Boogie Cab Clone

Passive speaker-load boxes let you run your amp into a PA or recording input without miking a cabinet. They’re a great way to capture analog amp sounds without hassle—or broken eardrums.

Mesa Boogie’s new CabClone is a particularly nice load box/compensated D.I. at an equally nice price. It’s solidly built in a tabletop format. You can use it with or without a speaker connected to your amp. A wide-ranging level control provides appropriate output for most recording and PA gear. There are phase and ground-lift toggles, and both XLR and 1/4" output jacks. A specialized EQ stage with three voicing options mimics closed-back, open-back, and vintage-style cabinets. There’s also a headphone out for silent practicing or monitoring.

As with many products in this category, CabClone’s cabinet simulations are more like paintings than hi-res photos. They don’t convey the idiosyncratic resonant peaks and phase-cancelled dips of various miked speakers the way that, say, a good set of speaker impulse responses can. But CabClone’s solid, full-frequency tones work well in many contexts, and they respond well to downstream EQ.

CabClone requires no external power. It comes in 4-, 8-, and 16-ohm models, so be sure to get the one that matches your amp’s speaker-out specs.

Ultimate Ears UE 7 In-Ear Monitors

Arguably, the most important aspect of being comfortable onstage is hearing each instrument clearly. For some, a well-adjusted wedge could do the trick, but the post-gig annoyance of ringing ears could cause long-term hearing problems. The UE7s are Ultimate Ears' solution. They’re aimed at guitarists who need to protect their ears and hear bandmates who might be hard to distinguish in a loud, muddy stage mix.

Each set of UE7s is custom-molded (thanks to a quick visit to a local audiologist). They’re immensely comfortable, even after a four-hour gig. Once the mix was dialed in, the UE7s offered impressive bass response, thanks to a 2-channel setup and built-in crossover.

I doubt any IEM can perfectly replicate a guitar's tone, but I found the UE7's midrange and high-end impressively robust and accurate—perfect for where the guitar sits in the band mix. Admittedly, the price tag may be steep for weekend warriors, but for pro players needing tour-ready IEMs, the UE7s might be the best sub-1K solution out there.

Eden MicroTour

Eden is known for quality bass gear, but usually their products aren’t quite as compact as the MicroTour mini bass amp. Weighing in at just 2.5 lbs., the 2-watt MicroTour looks like a Mini-Me stack. (Its dimensions are 12" x 5.3" x 3.7".) You can power it with either a 15V adaptor (not included) or eight AA batteries. Features include a single 4 1/2" whizzer-cone speaker, an 1/8" headphone jack for silent practice, and simple volume and tone controls.

I plugged in a Fender P, set the MicroTour’s tone knob at noon, and pushed the volume to 10 o’clock. The MicroTour delivered enough juice for pleasant, discernable volume that worked for riffing, but was quiet enough not to bug your family or co-workers down the hall. Don’t expect classic Eden tone or big volume from this little box—it’s just a plastic enclosure with a small speaker and 2 watts of power. (Push the volume beyond 2 o’clock and things get buzzy.) But with the volume around noon, MicroTour lets you to hold your own in a living room jam with your dreadnought-toting buddies.

Portability? Check. The MicroTour fit perfectly into the topside compartment of my Ritter gig bag. This fun and cool-looking little amp lets you power up your bass just about anywhere. At 60 bucks, why not?

XITS 10 Amplifier

Two EL84s and a Celestion Alnico Blue speaker. For most of the guitar-speaking universe, that adds up to something a lot like a Vox AC15. But it doesn’t take much time with the Xits 10 to hear just how far it departs from the old Vox recipe.

To be certain, some things about the Xits 10 do recall the AC15. It’s chimy and bright, and it can be explosively potent when pushed. Yet the Xits also inhabits a unique sonic universe. It’s a bold, bass-rich, and sweetly sparkling, and at extreme settings it’s a thunderous little monster. For rock players who love straight-line Brit crunch—and less dogmatically constrained players who like their bass massive and treble sizzling—the Xits 10 is an intriguing partner in chime.

Devilishy Detailed If you savor ever facet of the amp-construction craft, the Xits 10 is a feast for the senses. Its exterior is a delightful deviation from tweed and black-vinyl norms. The grey linen-patterned vinyl seems to be a nod to the original fawn AC15s (and a few 1950s blazers I’ve coveted). The woolen dot-pattern grille cloth looks and feels a little like a throw rug or sweater cloth—an inspired bit of design irreverence that works unexpectedly well.

Even the speaker baffle and alloy preamp tube enclosures appear color-coordinated, adding cool highlights that complement the deep blue of the Celestion Alnico Blue and the sky-blue highlights in the Xits logo. (We realize these touches have no bearing on how the Xits sounds, but they’re emblematic of the craft and care put into this thing—plus they look bitchin’!)

This amp is tailor-made for bass-less duos, or trios where the bass player tends to venture beyond root notes.

With so many playful design details, it’s easy to imagine Xits mastermind Michael Koski as a groovy design professor turned bespoke furniture builder. Look closer, though, and it becomes just as easy to imagine him as a stern Teutonic lab technician. The ½" Baltic birch plywood cabinet is flawlessly assembled and reinforced by finished hardwood trim. The chassis hood, made from the same finished aluminum as the control plate, reveals a similar fixation with detail. The tubes protrude from precisely machined ports. Nearby are two 1/4" speaker jacks. (The onboard speaker uses one.) There’s also a sturdy 8-/16-ohm switch.

Bright as the Blue Sky Above One thing the Xits 10 is not, however, is a blank slate. That’s not to say it doesn’t sound great clean or work well with pedals—it does. But its cleanest tones still tend to be hot in the highs and fat in the bass. Using the AC15 as a baseline comparison, you’ll find the Xits capable of a far hotter high end and much more bass. In fact, the considerable—if not downright corpulent—low-end is probably be the first thing that will strike you. It’s huge for an amp of this size, and it can sometimes overpower the midrange tones that many folks seek from EL84 amps, even with the bass control near minimum.

Siegmund Doppler Stereo Combo

Gear reviewers tend to describe new amps in terms of old ones. We rely on stock phrases: “Vox-like chime,” “Blackface-style scoop,” “Marshall-like midrange.” That usually works out fine, because new amps also tend to rely on what’s come before. But comparisons aren’t so easy when confronted with an amp as unique, idiosyncratic, and just plain weird as Siegmund’s massive Doppler combo. I’ve never encountered anything like it, and I bet you haven’t either.

Big and Blingy The Doppler is an imposing beast, weighing in at 70 pounds—think silverface Fender Twin with JBLs, only more so. Like those Twins, it comes with detachable casters—five of them to suit the amp’s trapezoidal shape. The amp is as wide as it is heavy, measuring an impressive 33.5" from left to right. The cabinet is solid pine. The components are mostly high-end NOS stuff, including most of the tubes, and the circuit is immaculately hand-wired on terminal strip. The transformers are from Mercury Magnetics, with the output transformer a custom model and one tube rectifier.

On the outside, bling abounds. Our review model was decked out in faux-alligator Tolex and black leather with gold-plated knobs, vents, screws, and handle hardware. The control panel glows with golden light when you power up. This amp will get you noticed.

It’s an offbeat trem/vibrato effect with strong, almost jerky rhythms and deep modulation, even at modest intensity settings.

Styled for Stereo Doppler’s marquee feature is its stereo sound, but it’s not the sort of stereo effect you encounter on, say, vintage and modern Magnatones. Most amps with stereo trem/vibrato send a modulated version of your signal to one speaker while the dry signal (or an inverted version of the modulated signal) feeds the other speaker, producing a spacious stereo effect.

But here—through a trademarked process called Asymmetric Frequency Soundstage—the signal encounters a crossover circuit that routes lows to the left speaker and highs to the right. Contrasting speakers emphasize the effect: a massive 15" Weber 15A200 for the bass, and a 10" Tone Tubby Silver Bullet for the right. The power tubes for each side also differ, with a single KT66 for the low-end left side and an EL34 for the brighter right. Each side employs two 6SL7s—relatively rare octal preamp tubes that appeared in some early-’60s amps. (They’re admired for their ultra-present, non-compressed sound, and feared for their noisy, microphonic tendencies.)

Wild, Wild Wobble Given Doppler’s unconventional architecture, it’s no surprise that the amp produces unusual vibrato effects. While the dual-frequency arrangement seems inspired by vintage Leslie cabinets, the resulting effect doesn’t sound Leslie-like, or even especially “dopplery.” The modulation is asymmetrical, closer to a Uni-Vibe’s lopsided wobble than the evenly spaced pulses of traditional amp trem. But the tone isn’t very Uni-Vibe-like either. Because separate frequencies are routed to left and right, you don’t get the phasy quality you encounter when identical or overlapping frequency ranges are pitted against each other.

So what does Doppler’s modulation sound like? It’s an offbeat trem/vibrato effect with strong, sometimes jerky rhythms and deep modulation even at modest intensity settings. This striking effect wouldn’t sound out of place on one of Radiohead’s classic albums. The vibrato section has independent rate and depth controls, plus a fast/slow toggle and a rate-indicator LED. You can also connect the included controller pedal via stereo cord to set the rate by foot and switch the vibrato effect on and off. (I recorded the example clips with a matched pair of AKG 414 condenser mics, panning the two signals fully left and right.)