Post by aaronf on Apr 26, 2011 19:10:39 GMT -7
There seems to be a lot of discussion over different pedals used with the Stang Ray, so I thought I would do a somewhat detail critiquing the pedals I own and have used with the amp. As of now, I am not totally happy with what I wrote, so I will be editing the descriptions as people ask questions and as I figure out better ways to convey my thoughts. Hopefully this will someone!
As far as guitars and cabs go:
Stang Ray head (Dario EF86, Sovtek 12AX7, JJEL84, Sovtek 5AR4)
Marshall 4x12 cabinet w/ Vintage 30s (only using one side of the cabinet)
Fender Am Std Strat w/ stock pickups (going to change them soon – Fender SCNs or CS 69s?)
Heritage H-535 w/ Seth Lovers
Boss BD-2 (stock)
The BD-2 is a good pedal for the Ray. It sounds very much like an amp just into breakup territory and is touch sensitive and does clean up a bit with the volume knob. I really like to use it to take my Ray from squeaky clean, to just dirty; and I also like to use it stacked with another pedal for a lead boost. I also like to use it when I have the Ray cooking, just to give it that extra little push. That is really what this pedal excels at, just taking you from clean to breakup, breakup to crunch, or crunch to lead. No mid-hum whatsoever.
It does have its shortcomings (which several popular mods aim to solve – though I haven't tried any) which include; splaty gain and awkward decay once you turn the gain up past noon and the tone control has to be all the way off to avoid ice-picks. The pedal also seems to take some frequencies out of the sound when it is turned on (mostly in the mids-low mids), which isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on what guitar you are using. With my Heritage H-535, this means extra clarity when the pedal is on (which I like), with my Strat it means just a slight alteration in tone (which I don't really mind either way). One of my favorite pedals, and it can be had for cheap. I'm thinking about picking another up and doing the Monte Allums mod to it.
Bad Cat 2-Tone
This pedal has two channels, so I will go through both of them separately. This is very much a Matchless sounding pedal on both channels. I pretty much use it as a preamp and have it as the last thing in my chain before the amp (except for time-based effects which also go in the front end of my amp – I don't like effects loops).
Rhythm:
The rhythm mode is the clean mode. It can be gainy, but you really have to turn up the volume to where if you ever turn the pedal off, there will be a significant volume discrepancy. I run the pedal clean and at unity gain with the Ray. Below 10 o'clock, the tone knob takes you from slightly darker than the amp sound, to very bright. I tend not to use the tone past 11 o'clock on the clean side. It gives a very shimmery and bright AC30 sound. It adds a bit of expressiveness to the sound of the amp and makes it a bit more 3D sounding in the high end. It is really great for doing U2 stuff. I also use this side of the pedal make other amps sound like an AC30 with pretty good success. It also adds a bit of compression.
Dirty:
This part of the pedal is great. There are so many good tones to be had in this channel that it is really hard to write a coherent review. First thing, this side goes from slight hair all the way to extreme gain. I run the gain at about 11 o'clock (the tone I go for is something like in this video ). The treble and bass controls are extremely interactive and intuitive. The higher both of them are, the more mids. Can both scoop or ad mids. There is also tons of volume on tap on this channel as well. This pedal differs from all of the rest in that the dirty side of it is very full range. This pedal has the bass response of a normal amp and it sounds just like it is a part of your amp. All other pedals will sound like they are not treating the whole sonic spectrum.
As far as the whole pedal goes, I never turn one of these controls above noon. Tons of gain and volume on tap. It is very responsive to tube changes. If you want a more Matchless sound out of the Ray, get this pedal. It will kill your dirt pedal GAS. Extremely touch sensitive as well. It is my favorite pedal.
Hermida Zendrive
The Zendrive is a very popular choice to pair with a Stang Ray. I've noticed most people on here run the cut knob pretty high to get a real pristine and bright clean tone. The only negative of doing this is that most gain pedals start to get raspy, buzzsaw-like gain because they are being treated with a lot of high end once they enter the amp. Well, the Zendrive is immune to this because the gain is way smooth. In fact, it is so smooth that it seems like the pedal has less gain than it does. For this reason, I like to use this pedal for a just breaking-up sound, as well as a lead boost (this works best after your main dirt pedal as it will contribute its smoothness without taking away the gain, keeping the buzzsaw effect very low if not absent). Great for blues. On those rare occasions where you do get to crank the Ray, the gain sounds very much like the Zendrive in how smooth and subtle it is. Only a very small mid-hump in this pedal, hardly any actually.
The only things I don't like about this pedal is that the gain can be quite unnoticeable at times. It also seems to suck some low end (this problem is less pronounced at higher volumes). It also takes away the 3D-ness of the high end. I tend to like this pedal with Fender amps a whole lot more.
MI Audio Crunch Box (v2)
This is a great JCM800 in a box pedal. This has tons of gain and volume on tap, as well as very wide ranging tone and presence controls. With this pedal, it is really necessary to mess with the presence control. The thing that makes this pedal different from all of the other ones is that it will shamelessly alter your base tone and turn it into the JCM800-type tone this pedal aims for. You could never tell you were playing through a Ray if this pedal is on (not that that is a bad thing, as long as you were going after that sort of a tone). When I played with a band that did lots of Queen tunes, I would use this for some tunes like “I Want It All” and “Hammer To Fall.” This pedal is set-and-forget for the most part, as one tone will stick out as being the best sound and everything else will just be a less pleasing form of that same tone, then adjust the gain to taste. Super easy to get pinch harmonics out of this box and the sound of the gain seems to change depending on how aggressive you are picking.
As far as the negatives, it is not very responsive to the guitar's volume control. This pedal is susceptible to the buzzsaw effect when the Cut control on the amp is turned up higher (adjusting the presence and tone significantly minimizes this problem). If you aren't after the JCM sound, I wouldn't even bother looking at this pedal. If you do like that sound, this pedal is great.
Lovepedal Eternity (Black box with “Glass” control)
This was my main dirt pedal before the Bad Cat 2-tone. Although the glass is pure treble, the level and gain both control different parts of the signal. The gain is nice and gritty but doesn't get the buzzsaw effect. With the Glass knob being a treble boost, I tend to leave it almost all the way off – almost. The gain is very complex, with lots of pleasing harmonics. Stacks real well with other pedals. Reacts very well to volume knob and picking alterations. It really sounds natural with any amp used and it does have a pleasing mid-hump. But the bump in the mids seems to be in a much more pleasing place than your standard tubescreamer. People tell me this pedal is TS based, but I find the end result to be quite a bit different in a great way.
As far as negatives, it is a dirt pedal, so it doesn't have the bottom end that amp distortion (or the 2-tone) has. It is really hard to say anything bad about the Eternity and I have yet to play it through an amp that didn't like this pedal.
Option 5 Destination Overdrive (older 24v version)
Not many people have this pedal so I will keep this short. This is a distortion and has very hard clipping. The pedal I own actually belonged to Joel of Collective Soul. At first it seemed very Dual Rec like in caracter, but I actually found a setting that sounds more natural when using the Ray. This pedal takes a long time to dial in, but I was able to get a pretty good “What's the Frequency Kenneth?” tone happening from this pedal. Also does a lot of the earlier Collective Soul sounds too. This is also one of those pedals that shamelessly hijacks your tone rather than slightly alter it.
The negatives? Well its 24 volts which requires its own power supply. It is probably the least touch sensitive of the group and doesn't quite FEEL like a tube amp. Sounds good though. But the awkwardness of not feeling like an amp makes you play different, and takes some getting used to.
Visual Sound Route 66 (v2)
This pedal is a standard tube screamer with an optional bass boost (which kind of creeps up into lower-mid territory). The bass boost is nice as it makes it more amp-like. I think everyone knows what a tubescreamer sounds and feels like, so there really isn't much use describing the gain structure of the pedal. The good? Lots of cool settings work. TS pedals are classics for a reason. Turn up the gain and down the volume or vice-versa (I personally prefer turning up the volume and keeping the gain lower). One thing I like is that I can max the tone control or turn it all the way down and I still get usable tones.
The bad? The mid hump can be in a slightly awkward place for an AC styled amp. Also, the sound of a TS pedal can get old to me.
HBE Germania
This pedal is one of my favorites, but a treble boost is a bad idea with the Stang Ray, unless you can run it at 10. I really like using this with other amps (amps that have more break-up). Since I am a Queen fan I will describe the lo-fi and hi-fi settings as such; lo-fi = first three Queen records, hi-fi = all of the other Queen records. Hi-fi mode is more full range sounding and concentrates in the upper-mids, whereas lo-fi is all high end. Hi-fi is the only usable mode and that is only if you have the Ray cranked and the tone controls on darker settings. I know Brian May used the non-top boost side of his AC30s, but the Ray doesn't naturally break up that much and is naturally a little brighter than what Bri is using. Also, like most treble boosters, this is a positive center pedal; so you either have to give it its own power supply or use a battery (battery adds some mojo to the feel, imo). Also, like most treble boosters, there is a pop when you engage the pedal.
Bottom line, this is a great pedal that emulates the sound of the classic treble boosts, but it isn't for the Ray.
Fender Blender
I got a good deal on this pedal ($50) and that is the only reason I bought this pedal. It is a very nasty sounding octave fuzz that has many shortcomings and is almost unusable in my book. It is really hard to get a usable tone that is at a manageable volume (the pedal just doesn't have the volume on tap). Also, the input and output jacks are backwards. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. If you're into noise, perhaps you might like this. Turning the octave off yields even more unusable tones at even quieter volumes. I can't really say anything nice, I'm just going to stop writing this one.
Morgan Shadow Fuzz
Pretty cool pedal. It is kind of hard to describe the tone of this pedal. It sounds like a small amount of fuzz hitting an amp that is just breaking-up. Sort of a fuzz+od in one. The tone control has a wide range and is interactive with the fuzz. Can get some cool Jeff Beck-like tones (if I only had those HANDS!). The fuzz is definitely on the Fuzz Face side, no question about it. Can also do a lower gain EJ sort of thing. Very touch sensitive and reactive to volume knob adjustments.
The bad: can get the buzz saw effect with the Ray. In order to get the best tones out of this pedal, I have to alter the settings on the Ray and then I end up with really cool stuff. Sounds great in other amps. Check this vid, , it definitely gives you a good idea of the sound and touch sensitivity even though the pedal seems to be going into something Fender-y.
Questions? Just ask!
As far as guitars and cabs go:
Stang Ray head (Dario EF86, Sovtek 12AX7, JJEL84, Sovtek 5AR4)
Marshall 4x12 cabinet w/ Vintage 30s (only using one side of the cabinet)
Fender Am Std Strat w/ stock pickups (going to change them soon – Fender SCNs or CS 69s?)
Heritage H-535 w/ Seth Lovers
Boss BD-2 (stock)
The BD-2 is a good pedal for the Ray. It sounds very much like an amp just into breakup territory and is touch sensitive and does clean up a bit with the volume knob. I really like to use it to take my Ray from squeaky clean, to just dirty; and I also like to use it stacked with another pedal for a lead boost. I also like to use it when I have the Ray cooking, just to give it that extra little push. That is really what this pedal excels at, just taking you from clean to breakup, breakup to crunch, or crunch to lead. No mid-hum whatsoever.
It does have its shortcomings (which several popular mods aim to solve – though I haven't tried any) which include; splaty gain and awkward decay once you turn the gain up past noon and the tone control has to be all the way off to avoid ice-picks. The pedal also seems to take some frequencies out of the sound when it is turned on (mostly in the mids-low mids), which isn't necessarily a bad thing depending on what guitar you are using. With my Heritage H-535, this means extra clarity when the pedal is on (which I like), with my Strat it means just a slight alteration in tone (which I don't really mind either way). One of my favorite pedals, and it can be had for cheap. I'm thinking about picking another up and doing the Monte Allums mod to it.
Bad Cat 2-Tone
This pedal has two channels, so I will go through both of them separately. This is very much a Matchless sounding pedal on both channels. I pretty much use it as a preamp and have it as the last thing in my chain before the amp (except for time-based effects which also go in the front end of my amp – I don't like effects loops).
Rhythm:
The rhythm mode is the clean mode. It can be gainy, but you really have to turn up the volume to where if you ever turn the pedal off, there will be a significant volume discrepancy. I run the pedal clean and at unity gain with the Ray. Below 10 o'clock, the tone knob takes you from slightly darker than the amp sound, to very bright. I tend not to use the tone past 11 o'clock on the clean side. It gives a very shimmery and bright AC30 sound. It adds a bit of expressiveness to the sound of the amp and makes it a bit more 3D sounding in the high end. It is really great for doing U2 stuff. I also use this side of the pedal make other amps sound like an AC30 with pretty good success. It also adds a bit of compression.
Dirty:
This part of the pedal is great. There are so many good tones to be had in this channel that it is really hard to write a coherent review. First thing, this side goes from slight hair all the way to extreme gain. I run the gain at about 11 o'clock (the tone I go for is something like in this video ). The treble and bass controls are extremely interactive and intuitive. The higher both of them are, the more mids. Can both scoop or ad mids. There is also tons of volume on tap on this channel as well. This pedal differs from all of the rest in that the dirty side of it is very full range. This pedal has the bass response of a normal amp and it sounds just like it is a part of your amp. All other pedals will sound like they are not treating the whole sonic spectrum.
As far as the whole pedal goes, I never turn one of these controls above noon. Tons of gain and volume on tap. It is very responsive to tube changes. If you want a more Matchless sound out of the Ray, get this pedal. It will kill your dirt pedal GAS. Extremely touch sensitive as well. It is my favorite pedal.
Hermida Zendrive
The Zendrive is a very popular choice to pair with a Stang Ray. I've noticed most people on here run the cut knob pretty high to get a real pristine and bright clean tone. The only negative of doing this is that most gain pedals start to get raspy, buzzsaw-like gain because they are being treated with a lot of high end once they enter the amp. Well, the Zendrive is immune to this because the gain is way smooth. In fact, it is so smooth that it seems like the pedal has less gain than it does. For this reason, I like to use this pedal for a just breaking-up sound, as well as a lead boost (this works best after your main dirt pedal as it will contribute its smoothness without taking away the gain, keeping the buzzsaw effect very low if not absent). Great for blues. On those rare occasions where you do get to crank the Ray, the gain sounds very much like the Zendrive in how smooth and subtle it is. Only a very small mid-hump in this pedal, hardly any actually.
The only things I don't like about this pedal is that the gain can be quite unnoticeable at times. It also seems to suck some low end (this problem is less pronounced at higher volumes). It also takes away the 3D-ness of the high end. I tend to like this pedal with Fender amps a whole lot more.
MI Audio Crunch Box (v2)
This is a great JCM800 in a box pedal. This has tons of gain and volume on tap, as well as very wide ranging tone and presence controls. With this pedal, it is really necessary to mess with the presence control. The thing that makes this pedal different from all of the other ones is that it will shamelessly alter your base tone and turn it into the JCM800-type tone this pedal aims for. You could never tell you were playing through a Ray if this pedal is on (not that that is a bad thing, as long as you were going after that sort of a tone). When I played with a band that did lots of Queen tunes, I would use this for some tunes like “I Want It All” and “Hammer To Fall.” This pedal is set-and-forget for the most part, as one tone will stick out as being the best sound and everything else will just be a less pleasing form of that same tone, then adjust the gain to taste. Super easy to get pinch harmonics out of this box and the sound of the gain seems to change depending on how aggressive you are picking.
As far as the negatives, it is not very responsive to the guitar's volume control. This pedal is susceptible to the buzzsaw effect when the Cut control on the amp is turned up higher (adjusting the presence and tone significantly minimizes this problem). If you aren't after the JCM sound, I wouldn't even bother looking at this pedal. If you do like that sound, this pedal is great.
Lovepedal Eternity (Black box with “Glass” control)
This was my main dirt pedal before the Bad Cat 2-tone. Although the glass is pure treble, the level and gain both control different parts of the signal. The gain is nice and gritty but doesn't get the buzzsaw effect. With the Glass knob being a treble boost, I tend to leave it almost all the way off – almost. The gain is very complex, with lots of pleasing harmonics. Stacks real well with other pedals. Reacts very well to volume knob and picking alterations. It really sounds natural with any amp used and it does have a pleasing mid-hump. But the bump in the mids seems to be in a much more pleasing place than your standard tubescreamer. People tell me this pedal is TS based, but I find the end result to be quite a bit different in a great way.
As far as negatives, it is a dirt pedal, so it doesn't have the bottom end that amp distortion (or the 2-tone) has. It is really hard to say anything bad about the Eternity and I have yet to play it through an amp that didn't like this pedal.
Option 5 Destination Overdrive (older 24v version)
Not many people have this pedal so I will keep this short. This is a distortion and has very hard clipping. The pedal I own actually belonged to Joel of Collective Soul. At first it seemed very Dual Rec like in caracter, but I actually found a setting that sounds more natural when using the Ray. This pedal takes a long time to dial in, but I was able to get a pretty good “What's the Frequency Kenneth?” tone happening from this pedal. Also does a lot of the earlier Collective Soul sounds too. This is also one of those pedals that shamelessly hijacks your tone rather than slightly alter it.
The negatives? Well its 24 volts which requires its own power supply. It is probably the least touch sensitive of the group and doesn't quite FEEL like a tube amp. Sounds good though. But the awkwardness of not feeling like an amp makes you play different, and takes some getting used to.
Visual Sound Route 66 (v2)
This pedal is a standard tube screamer with an optional bass boost (which kind of creeps up into lower-mid territory). The bass boost is nice as it makes it more amp-like. I think everyone knows what a tubescreamer sounds and feels like, so there really isn't much use describing the gain structure of the pedal. The good? Lots of cool settings work. TS pedals are classics for a reason. Turn up the gain and down the volume or vice-versa (I personally prefer turning up the volume and keeping the gain lower). One thing I like is that I can max the tone control or turn it all the way down and I still get usable tones.
The bad? The mid hump can be in a slightly awkward place for an AC styled amp. Also, the sound of a TS pedal can get old to me.
HBE Germania
This pedal is one of my favorites, but a treble boost is a bad idea with the Stang Ray, unless you can run it at 10. I really like using this with other amps (amps that have more break-up). Since I am a Queen fan I will describe the lo-fi and hi-fi settings as such; lo-fi = first three Queen records, hi-fi = all of the other Queen records. Hi-fi mode is more full range sounding and concentrates in the upper-mids, whereas lo-fi is all high end. Hi-fi is the only usable mode and that is only if you have the Ray cranked and the tone controls on darker settings. I know Brian May used the non-top boost side of his AC30s, but the Ray doesn't naturally break up that much and is naturally a little brighter than what Bri is using. Also, like most treble boosters, this is a positive center pedal; so you either have to give it its own power supply or use a battery (battery adds some mojo to the feel, imo). Also, like most treble boosters, there is a pop when you engage the pedal.
Bottom line, this is a great pedal that emulates the sound of the classic treble boosts, but it isn't for the Ray.
Fender Blender
I got a good deal on this pedal ($50) and that is the only reason I bought this pedal. It is a very nasty sounding octave fuzz that has many shortcomings and is almost unusable in my book. It is really hard to get a usable tone that is at a manageable volume (the pedal just doesn't have the volume on tap). Also, the input and output jacks are backwards. It sounds like nails on a chalkboard. If you're into noise, perhaps you might like this. Turning the octave off yields even more unusable tones at even quieter volumes. I can't really say anything nice, I'm just going to stop writing this one.
Morgan Shadow Fuzz
Pretty cool pedal. It is kind of hard to describe the tone of this pedal. It sounds like a small amount of fuzz hitting an amp that is just breaking-up. Sort of a fuzz+od in one. The tone control has a wide range and is interactive with the fuzz. Can get some cool Jeff Beck-like tones (if I only had those HANDS!). The fuzz is definitely on the Fuzz Face side, no question about it. Can also do a lower gain EJ sort of thing. Very touch sensitive and reactive to volume knob adjustments.
The bad: can get the buzz saw effect with the Ray. In order to get the best tones out of this pedal, I have to alter the settings on the Ray and then I end up with really cool stuff. Sounds great in other amps. Check this vid, , it definitely gives you a good idea of the sound and touch sensitivity even though the pedal seems to be going into something Fender-y.
Questions? Just ask!