When I first got my Squier J. Mascis Jazzmaster, I was enamored with the power and midrange of its P-90 sounding pickups. They were warm, fat and drove amps and pedals beautifully. The bloom went off the rose, however, after one gig where I was unable to get the kind of clean country twang I sought, and another where the noisiness of these high-powered single-coils became problematic. Investigating the noiseless options I came across a Brett Kingman video where he demoed some Kinman pickups. I thought I would give them a go.
Category Archives: Gear Reviews
Review: EarthQuaker Devices Aqueduct Vibrato
Today, EarthQuaker Devices drops their Aqueduct Vibrato ($199 USD), a true pitch-shifting vibrato. You will soon see lots of demos. I am throwing my hat in the ring with a few sounds that might interest the modern guitarist, as well as a review (spoiler alert, it’s a rave).
Review: OMEC Teleport
When I started employing a laptop with my guitar, it was restricted to just those two items: guitar into the laptop into a PA. Not long after, I struggled with using the advantages of the laptop—plug-ins, looping—in conjunction with my pedalboard and a guitar amp. The results were spotty, and required bringing and setting up bulky interfaces and multiple cables. The new OMEC Teleport from Orange Amplification promises a more elegant solution.
Review: EarthQuaker Pyramids Flanger
EarthQuaker is releasing their first flanger, Pyramids. But calling this pedal a flanger is like calling the Electro-Harmonix 16-Second Digital Delay a delay pedal—true, but far from the whole story. Like the 16-Second Digital Delay, Pyramids has the potential to be as much an instrument as an effect.
Review: D’Addario Chromatic Pedal Tuner
Barring those who use the instrument as a pure noise generator, even the most modern of players needs to tune. Like so many guitarists, I am trying to pack as many pedals as I can on as small a board as possible, so I decided to try out the D’Addario Chromatic Pedal Tuner. Though is sounds like a device to tune your pedals (shouldn’t it be called the Chromatic Tuner Pedal?), it actually tunes the guitar, and is a little over half the size of the Boss TU-2 I have been using forever.