For all you stompbox nerds like me :)

I just realized that I have done a ton of these demos, but they are all scattered around on my profile.  So I thought I would put them in a set for you guys.

Granted you must remember I record direct via USB into my PC, and my dry signal is not being fed through an amp.  Therefore it might not sound nearly as nice as it would were it to go through an amp, but nevertheless I made these to show off some neat stompboxes for you all to enjoy and perhaps even to aid you in your decisions to purchase them.  Be sure to read the descriptions for each one you listen to, as I made some notes on each one.

So as always, enjoy! :)

Pedal Demos (Description)

Testing out the Mooer Elec Lady Analog Flanger,  really neat and compact stompbox (which is really sort of Mooer's modus operandi).  With the Elec Lady, you have three simple knobs: Rate, Color, and Range.  You also get an added bonus toggle switch which toggles between the normal Flanger mode and Filter mode which gives you some really nice harmonic contrast, taking the flanger completely out of the picture and acting more like a Wah pedal that is stuck in the "Toe" position.  For this demo, I left the Elec Lady in the "Normal" mode and set all of the knobs close to high noon.  As you can hear, it is really dynamically responsive to the touch of your picking style.  For most of the recording I used my fingers to pick the strings, and then switched to a plectrum to show the responsiveness.

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Strat Session 11 - The Common Cure

It is FINALLY here! 

I have been wanting this pedal ever since Strymon unveiled it last year, and I can honestly say that it is without question a MUST HAVE for those of you who find that your pedalboard is rather naked without a decent reverb pedal.  Well let me tell you, this one puts them all to shame.  

Armed with one hell of a processor, 12 different reverb modes, and even a speaker cabinet emulator for those of you who (like me) record directly to their computers via USB instead of through a noisy amp and waking up your neighbors at 4am still trying to nail that solo :P

For this demo I focused on the "Bloom" setting, which makes a remarkable background underneath your guitar playing, padding your leads with incredible efficiency.

Enjoy! :)

Strat Session 13 - Eterna

Almost overlooked this fine little piece of gear I purchased the other day.  For a while now, my pedal rig has lacked one very important thing: a decent overdrive.  This pedal satisfied that need and then some.  It is modeled after the famed Marshall Stack amplifiers that have been gracing the tone of the major rock n' roll greats for decades and still continues to do so today.  I've had the pleasure of playing through a Marshall Stack owned by a buddy of mine in the past, and I remembered feeling overwhelmed by how unreal the tone was.  They have such a creamy, yet incredibly clean overdriven sound that can get mean and dirty at the turn of a knob.  I can honestly say that this pedal comes pretty close to that sound, though if anyone who reads this owns a Marshall Stack, let me know what you think.  After all, you are the only ones who would truly know. :)

Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret MKIII Overdrive demo (section from The Lotus Eater by Opeth)

There is a shimmer preset on the BigSky called "Weird Science"

Quite ethereal, gives off an almost synth-like padding underneath.  Very cool :)

Calm in Ecstasy

Oh man this thing is awesome! The folks at Catalinbread are very hard workers, as evidenced by their incredibly faithful stompbox recreations of classic amp tones, delay units, etc.  This falls into the delay units category: modeled after the Binson Echorec most notably used by David Gilmour of Pink Floyd.  Knobs are as such: Mix, Swell (essentially the amount of repeats), Tone (goes from fully dark to fully bright), Delay Time, and finally what I have resigned myself to calling a "Head Selector" knob which has 12 presets that employ many different combinations of the four heads you would find on an actual Binson unit.  Internally, there are some more capabilities of the pedal you can tweak as well.  For instance, there is an internal switch to select between either True Bypass or Buffered Tails modes.  There is also an internal gain trimpot, as well as a trimpot to control the modulation for the repeats.   This pedal does not operate on battery power, however it can operate on either a 9v or even an 18v DC adapter for more headroom.  In this demo, you will hear all 12 presets demoed preceded by a single harmonic note to show you what each preset sounds like on its own before I play it in more detail.  Following the preset demos, I also did a volume swell test with my track "Asleep Through Infinity" as well as an oscillation test.  Enjoy! :)

Catalinbread Echorec Demo (Description)

David Ackerman