Pedal Review - Xotic Soul Driven signature Allen Hinds

Xotic (xotic.us) is a brand highly known for its boost pedals and its overdrives in the forefront of which we find the BB Preamp which pursues an endless career on many pedals around the world. The Xotic Soul Driven is a signature overdrive pedal designed for the musician Allen Hinds. Xotic Soul Driven signature Allen Hinds

The compressor is an effect that is always a bit intimidating because of the number of parameters often: attack time, release time, compression ratio, output volume, etc. That's why Alexandre Ernandez, the designer of Anasounds, made the choice with this Lazy Comp pedal to propose a compressor with ... one button!

The parameter controlled by this single button is the percentage of mixing between direct sound and compressed sound.

Pedal Review - Joe Walsh Double Classic from Analog Alien: overdrive/compressor

Analog Alien (www.analogalien.com) is an American brand of boutique pedal that offers a range of products with a very original look and a beautiful palette of sounds. After the Rumble Seat (reviewed in this article) The Guitar Channel offers you to discover another cool pedal built by the Napoli brothers, the Joe Walsh Double Classic.

As its name implies it was developed for the legendary guitar player from The Eagles: Joe Walsh.

Analog Alien (www.analogalien.com) is an American brand of boutique pedal that offers a range of products with a very original look and a beautiful palette of sounds.

Riverside Strymon overdrive pedal review - Powerhouse tone machine

Until now Strymon proposed mainly pedals in the delay and modulation field, with the Riverside they are now getting in the overdrive business.

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Backstage Gear Tour – Bellwether review by Joris

Feedback from Joris, a backstager who reviewed
the Bellwether Walrus Audio delay pedal
during a Backstage Gear Tour

Hello fellow guitar players,

Thanks to a Backstage Gear Tour, I had the pleasure to test at home the Bellwether, a delay pedal from the American boutique builder Walrus Audio (reviewed by The Guitar Channel in this article). Here's a video which will hopefully inspire you to test this pedal.

Joris video review

My feedback
Overall, the sound is very warm with a slight dark side on my gear. The Tone setting is well thought out to adjust the tone of the effect.

Walrus Audio offers, with the Bellwether, a very complete analog sound delay pedal offering a delay with many possible settings. In addition to the conventional time, level and tone settings, you can activate and set a modulation and decide the subdivision in time, not to mention the tap tempo button (to determine the delay time) and the possibilities with external connections.

Xtomp Hotone - Pedal Review of a chameleon tone machine

The XTomp Hotone pedal is a brand new pedal that has recently come on the market with an innovative concept: the ability to load an effect (or a couple of effects) on the pedal to make it sound like a reverb / delay, Chorus / reverb, overdrive, etc. The proposed catalog is very extensive and contains just about all the great classics of the analog pedal you can think of.

The effects are loaded on the pedal using an iOS / Android app that communicates in Bluetooth with the pedal.

Anasounds (www.anasounds.com) is a French boutique pedal builder with already a wide range of products from overdrive to delay, the company is now launching a new pedal, the Bitoun Fuzz. It was developed with the musician and journalist Julien Bitoun, a Fuzz connoisseur, who wanted something special. And something special they created with this Bitoun Fuzz.

Walrus Audio Iron Horse distorsion pedal review
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Walrus Audio Iron Horse distorsion pedal review

Walrus Audio is an american builder of pedals. They propose a wide range of products. Here's a video review of the Iron Horse distorsion pedal. Get ready for some big and fat saturated tones with this gain machine!

www.walrusaudio.com

Walrus Audio Iron Horse distorsion pedal review

Review setup
Guitar used : Spartan Springer with a single P90 pickup (Haussel)

Sound : the base clean sound used throughout the review is provided by an Apollo Twin Universal Audio interface in which the guitar is plugged directly.

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Honk Machine IT-11 Audio: a vocal overdrive pedal

The Honk Machine overdrive pedal from IT-11 Audio is a very vocal overdrive pedal with its specific Honk setting which allows to increase or decrease a 700Hz frequency bump right in the middle of the human voice.

Honk Machine IT-11 Audio: a very vocal overdrive pedal

This video is accessible to all because IT-11 Audio
owns a Pro Backstage Pass on The Guitar Channel

What I enjoyed the most on this pedal

The overall sounds
The possibilities given by the Honk setting
The look

What I enjoyed the least

The changing colours of the LED is kind of distracting

Conclusion
Frankly the market

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Beatbuddy pedal demo by François C. Delacoudre

Here are a couple of video demos recorded to demonstrate the variety of contexts where the Beatbuddy pedal can be used.

BeatBuddy wbsite: www.mybeatbuddy.com

Beatbuddy demos by François C. Delacoudre : from contrabass to slap and 2-string bass!
On a 2-string bass :

Slap:

With a contrabass :

En jam à deux :

Conclusion
As you can see from the video demos, it's possible to use the Beatbuddy pedal in many different contexts. François C. Delacoudre who is a professional bass player in France really enjoyed playing the pedal in very different styles.

Control the sobriety of your drummer with BeatBuddy!

We all know that some drummers have a problem with alcohol. Some drink way too much and become unreliable time keepers. This can be a real disaster when you are trying to make it big or just trying to survive playing your music.

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It's not everyday that you get to review a French overdrive pedal based on a new fully analog technology. The Drive Recovery Thrilltone pedal is such a product. It's a double pedal with two stages.

BeatBuddy interview with the CEO David Packouz
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BeatBuddy interview with the CEO David Packouz

Here's a BeatBuddy interview with the CEO David Packouz

Mason Marangella interview - Vertex
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Mason Marangella interview – Vertex

Here's a Mason Marangella interview done via Skype. Mason is the mastermind behind Vertex, the boutique pedal builder. The interview was a good opportunity to have an in-depth conversation with Mason about his approach to pedal building.

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Pedal Review: shoutout Wampler Plextortion, Celmo Pimento, Tanabe Dumkudo
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Pedal Shootout – Wampler Plextortion, Celmo Pimento, Tanabe Dumkudo

Here's a pedal shootout to make a comparison between the Wampler Plextortion, the Celmo Pimento and the Tanabe.tv Dumkudo. 3 very different pedals to add overdrive or distorsion (in the case of the Plextortion) to your pedalboard. Wampler comes from the US, Celmo is built in France and Tanabe.tv is built in Japan.

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Pedal Shootout: pedalboard
The cab simulation and power amp section is done by the Torpedo CAB Two-Notes.

Cerbersus overdrive and Utopia delay by @AnasoundsFr - Pedal Review

In a previous gear review, The Guitar Channel had you discover the excellent Phase Lag phaser from Anasounds, now here's a double test with two pedals of the same French manufacturer boutique shop: the Utopia delay and Cerberus overdrive pedals.

Anasounds website: www.anasounds.com
Cerbersus overdrive and Utopia delay - Video review

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Get the Backstage Pass to watch all the exclusive content and more
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Overview of Utopia
The Utopia offers a very well done analog delay simulation that works great from a slapback (an echo very short often used in Rockabilly), to a

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Mooer Trescab: a great pocket cab simulator

Mooer is a Chinese brand that has caused a stir when it released her mini pedals range of guitar effects. I longed for a while to test out one to see what they were really worth.

Phase Lag pedal by Anasounds, an awesome phaser - Pedal Review
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Phase Lag pedal by Anasounds, an awesome phaser

Anasounds is a French boutique pedal builder based in Nice in the South of France. They have a large range of pedals with fuzz, overdrive, distortion, delay and the Phase Lag pedal, a very cool phaser with some interesting hidden features.

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Strymon Flint stereo reverb and tremolo pedal review

In this Strymon Flint review, don't be fooled by the analog appearance of this pedal as there're only buttons and switches, no display. It actually hides a powerful digital processor that produces some very cool sounds.

It has 3 types of effects for tremolo and reverb as well as the usual adjustment knobs. Note that the pedal is full of dual functions for example to change the order tremolo into reverb or the opposite, you can also choose if there is a boost when you activate the effect, etc.

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On the interview above Judge Fredd presents the Money For Nothing pedal he has developed with JMB Experience to obtain the famous Mark Knopfler sound on the Dire Straits song Money For Nothing and more.

Last year Fredd introduced also with JMB a great overdrive pedal called the Riff Shooter, the Money For Nothing has some great potential to produce not only the trademark tone but also plenty of other cool tones.

Sardine Can compressor (and the best deal to get it) - Pedal Review
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Pedal Review – Sardine Can compressor

The Sardine Can compressor from Celmo is a high quality pedal built in France. It sounds very musical whatever the settings you use on the pedal (watch the demo video to judge by yourself). On top of the standard compressor settings which are the compression rate and volume you can change the tone of the compressor with a three position input filter (again, watch the video to hear the different tones).

It also has a Rectifier mode which adds a touch of drive to your sound if you desire so.

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Toshihiko Tanabe from tanabe.tv builds boutique pedal for famous musicians like Robben Ford or Larry Carlton. You can read an interview with him in this article. In this Dumkudo review in video it's one of his overdrive pedal.

Here's a review of a great distortion pedal built by LNA Effects in France for the great French guitar player Patrick Rondat.

 The pedalboard used for the review
The LNA pedal was inserted on my regular pedalboard for the review.