Danelectro Chicken Salad...Part Deux

The Danelectro Chicken Salad vibe pedal is an inexpensive, yet decent sounding pedal.  For very little money you can get the swirly goodness of a Univibe and jam on some Hendrix or Robin Trower.

I did a video demoing the stock Chicken Salad which is not true bypass.  Some would argue that a better tone could be achieved if only the pedal did not have those annoying buffers in the way.

I decided to rehouse a chicken salad eliminating the switching mechanism and adding a proper mechanical switch making the circuit true bypass.  Below is the comparison of the stock buffered unit versus the rehouse true bypass unit.

Which is better?  You tell me.. Enjoy.

Phase versus vibe pedal

Out of context one could argue that some Phase pedals and Vibe pedals sound the same.  Granted they both provide tons of swirly tones and some do a faux Leslie better than others. Still,the vibe and the phase pedal have similar qualities.

Eddie Van Halen certainly solidified the potential for phase pedals.  The likes of Jimi Hnedrix and Robin Trower certainly used the Uni-Vibe very effectively. So what's the difference.

Phaser, or Phase shifter pedals tend to use transistors and resistors to blend a dry signal with an out of phase wet signal. Vibe or the original Uni-Vibe used a photo resister and lamp to achieve a similar but usually more dramatic effect. In fact, the Uni-Vibe was first designed to emulate a Leslie rotating speaker. While it did not achieve the exact desired effect, it did achieve a sound all it's own

I decided to take my phase and vibe pedals and compare them side by side to demonstrate the similarities and the differences.

Check out the Phase and Vibe pedal comparison and see for yourself what each pedal does.

Joyo Tremolo

Tremolo is one of the earliest effects guitarists had at their disposal.  Whether Optical or Bias based tremolo the warbling throb of the volume fluctuation in he guitar signal conjours a hypnotic feeling.

While most of us don't have a use for tremolo frequently, it is something the working guitarist should have in their
arsenal.

The Joyo tremolo is an inexpensive decent sounding tremolo that won't break the bank, yet give you that swampy throbbing goodness when you need it.

Check out my demo of the Joyo Tremolo.

Digitech CF-7 Chorus Factory

Let it be known, well I guess you already know, I like chorus.  The lush deep swirly sounds, the subtle slow doubling sounds, even the over the top 80's over modulated chorus.

Back in the mid 2000's Digitech introduced the CF-7 Chorus factory.  This pedal was s modeling pedal with a remarkably good sound. It included models of Boss, Digitech, Fulltone, Electro Harmonix, and TC electronic pedals.

With a multitude of controls and all these models it was a chorus junkies dream.

I purchased one of these pedals and used it extensively for years.  Below is a demo of the pedal, which can still be had on ebay for not a lot of money. If you like chorus, you should check out this pedal.

The Shtizu Fuzz

The fuzz pedal has been around for a long time. It has come and gone and come again in popularity. Sometimes you just get it until you get it.  But once you get it, it's magical.

I have been building my own pedals for 10 years.  I took all the readily available information from the interwebz and built the Shitzu fuzz.  It's small, hairy, and loud.

Essentially it's a Fuzz Face circuit with a few tweaks.  The first transistor is a lower gain transistor and the second is higher gain. Also, it has a potentiometer on the power supply so you can reduce the voltage starving it and creating those great sputtery fuzz sounds. It also has a poteniometer on the input

to reduce the signal to the first transistor to tailor the amount of signal hitting the first gain stage.  Lastly, I just omitted the fuzz control since I like it dimed anyways.  The volume control on your guitar or the control to limit the signal on the first gain stage more than give you enough control over the amount of fuzz

It's a simple build and a great sounding and versatile pedal.  Check out this demo below.

Fuzz, I just never got it, until I got it.

The below post is a re-post from one of my old blogs, enjoy.

Fuzz pedals have been around for more than 40 years now. They were the first attempt to get the sound of a cranked amplifier without having to crank the amplifier. They were/are crude, and dare I say, sometimes not very pleasant sounding. Now if you were a guitar player in the late 60's, this was all you had at your disposal. Technology has advanced, amplifiers are capable of ridiculous gain at moderate volumes, and there are a million other distortion devices. So why does the fuzz pedal still prevail.

I came up in the era of the shred guitarist. Van Halen, Randy Rhoades, Ygwie Malmsteen. The requirements for this type of playing was a high gain yet articulate and clear sound to allow all the fast picked notes to be heard. There was no room for the woolly, unpredictable sound of a fuzz pedal so I just never gave them much thought. They were yesterdays technology.

Fast forward 20 years. Shred is less prevalent. Grunge hit us all in the face. And the wall of sound was being driven by fuzz pedals. All of a sudden, the Big Muff, Fuzz Face, Tone Bender etc... were all over the place. I couldn't believe it. Why were these guys using old technology? Of course grunge has since passed but the fuzz pedal is still here. Holy crap.

I finally decided to look into this a little. As I was learning to build my own stompboxes I decided that I needed to dive head first into a fuzz pedal. I build a fuzz face variant. After i got it working, I plugged in and let it rip. What an experience (no pun intended). I realized that while crude and somewhat odd sounding at times, the overtones and singing qualities of the pedal made me take notice.

 There is a great range of sounds in a good fuzz pedal. Rolling back the volume yields a sweet overdrive with a hint of grit. Running it full out gets you a tone reminiscent of hell on a bad day. I finally got it.

If you have wondered about what all the fuss about fuzz is, go to your local music store and check one out. You may be surprised.

Scott