Pickup, Controls, Cable and Beyond: some serious Interaction
As a long-time and big-time fan of controlling my guitar sound as much as possible directly on the guitar itself (while keeping things simple so that I can concentrate on playing music rather than fiddling with controls), I have modded my guitars a lot with replacement pickups where needed, and by optimizing volume and tone […]
Distortion in three degrees: the Boss DS-1
Another “Effect-ive!”-article by Bernd Meiser: this (5th-) one concentrating on the Boss DS-1. By now, I feel that over the almost 50 years I have been concerned with playing and investigating the guitar, I have missed out in too much guitar stuff, because – again – I have actually never tried the DS-1! It seems […]
Big BITES of distortion: THE RAT!
In our 4th installment in the line of the “Effect-ive”-articles, Bernd Meiser investigates The Rat. For me personally, translating this article was a great way to catch up with history because somehow this pedal completely weaseled (or maybe “ratted”?) its way around me. Of course, I knew that this pedal existed, but at the time […]
A classic stomp-box: the MXR Distortion+
We continue “effective-ly” with a third article written by Bernd Meiser, this time looking at the MXR Distortion+ device. I remember well how, when it became available and known here in Germany in the mid-1970’s, it was the go-to distortion device. Personally, I did not like it a lot, preferring the pre-amp overdrive of my, […]