Awhile back I did a post about the then new TC Electronic TonePrint pedals explaining what they were and the basic concept behind them. They’ve since become pretty well known (surely because of that post) and are growing further in popularity as more people discover them. One thing I’ve always loved about TC Electronic is how they continue to push the edge with modern features and functionality with their products. Their latest example of this is kind of hard to explain in a few words, so rather than trying to do so – watch this video (the first minute gets the point across).
Beaming data from an iPhone, into a guitar pickup and to a guitar pedal?!?! Space age! Very cool and more than that, very practical if you own one of these pedals. Check out more details on the app here.
On top of this cool new app, TC is offering a special from now until December 24th. Buy any two of their TonePrint pedals and get a free Mojo Mojo Overdrive! That’s a $129 value!
If you’re interested in learning more, or getting your free Mojo Mojo, click here for all the details from TC Electronic.
We just got in the new Homebrew Electronics Cremolo Analog Tremolo. This video is NOT intended to be a full fledged demo of the pedal, rather a “first impressions” video. I literally plugged it in for the first time for this video and just did one take to see what it sounds like, so please excuse any mistakes, etc. It’s a great pedal with a nice variety of vintage styled, analog tremolo tones. It offers a nice variety of tremolo tones – as mentioned, most are vintage, but when maxing out the Intensity and Speed controls you can get some pretty fast and hard trem sounds that are a bit more extreme and can work nice for modern styles or experimental sounds.
The build quality on this is great (as all HBE pedals are). I didn’t notice any excess noise with the pedal either and it does have true bypass switching, so it’s completely out of your signal path when disengaged. Also, for what it’s worth, the S.LED toggle just shuts the speed/depth LED indicator off. There is no tonal change when switching this toggle back and forth.
All in all a great tremolo pedal that’s a great option for most people looking for a tremolo. If you’re looking for something that’s designed for more modern, hard/choppy or super fast trem sounds, probably look elsewhere, but if you want a tremolo that hits a lot of the warm trem tones found in some of the classic old tube amps, the Cremolo is worth considering.
While we mostly sell new gear, we do take in trades and outright buy your used gear. Here’s a list of our current used gear inventory.
Everything is 100% functionally perfect unless otherwise stated. Prices don’t include shipping, but shipping is reasonable ($7-$10 for most pedals depending on your location and around $30-$40 for the guitar domestically). International shipping will be more (roughly $30-$35 for most pedals – email for a firm quote). Feel free to email or call with questions. Paypal, money order or credit card over the phone all work for payment. Please email or call for pictures or with more questions.
1. Homebrew Electronics Paradrive OD/boost – excellent condition with box – $135
2. Homebrew Electronics Power Screamer with fat boost, tweed cover (REAL tweed), and burr brown chip mod done by Joel Weaver at Homebrew – exc cond no box – $165
3. Xotic AC Booster – exc cond with box – $125
4. Ibanez TS9 Tubescreamer with Keeley Mod plus mod – no box – $125
5. Catalinbread Manx Laughton Fuzz – like new with box – $125
6. Electro-Harmonix Holy Grail nano reverb – exc cond with box – $85
7. Guyatone WRm5 Wah Rocker – exc cond with box – $85
8. Hardwire SC-2 Hardwire Valve Distortion – exc cond with box – $60
9. Hardwire CR-7 Hardwire Stereo chorus – exc cond with box – $75
10. Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Man (old big silver box version). Very clean shape with the box, manual & power supply $275
11. BMF Fat Bastard – like new with box – $85
12. Barber Direct Drive – exc cond with box – $85
13. Jack Deville Dark Echo – exc cond with box – $175
14. JHS Mini Bomb Boost (this is the hand painted version, red with a bomb on it) – exc cond no box – $95
15. T-Rex CompNova compressor – $125 includes box and manual. Like new
16. T-Rex Mark Tremonti Phaser – $150 includes box and manual. Like new
17. TC Electronic SCF Stereo Chorus/Flanger – $175 includes box and manual
18. Lovepedal Purple Plexi – $250 includes box. Rare and in clean shape
19. Lovepedal Englishwoman – $250 includes box. Rare and in clean shape.
20. HBE THC Three Hound Chorus – $135 includes box & manual
21. Ibanez CS9 Stereo Chorus – $65 velcro on the bottom, no box or manual, but in clean shape.
22. Digitech Hardwire DL-8 Delay Looper – $125 includes box and manual. Like new!
23. Digitech Hardwire RV-7 Stereo Reverb – $110 includes box and manual. Like new!
24. BBE Free Fuzz – $40 includes box and manual. Very clean.
25. MXR M-78 Badass distortion – like new $65
26. Boss FDR-1 Deluxe Reverb – like new in box w/manual. $80
27. TC Electronic NM-1 Nova Modulator. New, but factory packaging was opened for a 1 time demo (by Macdaddy Music) – $195
28. Source Audio Multiwave Guitar Distortion – new in box with manual – customer return – $99
29. MXR M-109 6 Band EQ – this is a New Old Stock pedal – one of the old blue ones without the foot switch. It’s not a vintage 70′s model – it’s probably 5 years old, but again is 100% brand new, never sold, or used. $55
30. Taylor 315-CE Acoustic/Electric w/SKB molded hardcase. Excellent condition, no issues – $1275
Hey all – it’s been awhile since the ol’ blog had any fresh content – sorry about that! Between a 150 mile move, a new baby and all that goes with those things blogging has been low on the priority list. At any rate – I’m excited about some new amps that will be available VERY soon. The Laney Ironheart series.
These are killer amps with tons of great features. Here’s the quick overview: The Ironhearts are all tube, high gain amps (2×12 combo and heads with matching cabs available) with features and tone found in much more expensive amps, but at a price that your averaging gigging guitarist can afford – street prices UNDER $1000! Again, these are high gain amps – perfect for metal, thrash, hardcore, etc. Not something you’ll want for your blues gig
Exact pricing and availability are still not 100% nailed down, but we will have them listed on our site with all pertinent details as soon as we get that info. Until then, feel free to check out this great demo courtesy of Laney that shows the features more in depth and offers some great audio samples.
Among the new products TC Electronic introduced at the 2011 Winter NAMM show were their TonePrint line of pedals. The models include:
So if you’re like me your first question is “what the heck is TonePrint?“ In as short of an answer as possible, it’s a setting on each TonePrint pedal that allows you to load up a preset tone from world famous guitarists onto your pedal! TC is working with a wide variety of guitarists from different genres to have them create their own TonePrints. Guitarists include John Petrucci, Pete Thorn, Matt Beck, Bumblefoot and more.
How does it work? Each TonePrint pedal has a USB port that allows you to sync up the TonePrint that you want on your computer with the included USB cable. It’s that simple!
Why would I want someone else’s TonePrint? If you ever use multi-effects modelers you know that most presets are based on famous tones of guitarists: “Jimi’s Fuzzy Facey”, “Stevie’s Pride & Joy” “Delay on the Edge” etc. The TonePrint is the ACTUAL tone created with that exact pedal by the stated guitarist! No emulation, no approximations – the real thing. TC also offers a number of TonePrints that they’ve created. I don’t know this for a fact, but it’s possible that TC could enable the TonePrint creation to become public so that guitarists around the world could quickly and easily share their own TonePrints.
I can turn knobs. Why would someone else be able to get any different sounds than I can create? Great question. The answer is that TC allows the creator of each TonePrint patch to define parameters that can’t be adjusted by the pedals knobs. Twelve o’clock on the Tone knob might be voiced darker or brighter from TonePrint to TonePrint depending on the creator. Simply put, the TonePrint patches allow you to get tones out of each pedal that you can’t get just by turning knobs on the other factory settings.
I don’t know if I would ever use the TonePrint setting. Fair enough – maybe you’re the type of guitarist who does your own thing and has no desire to copy anyone else’s tone. That’s the great part about these. The TonePrint pedals are first and foremost great stomp boxes. Their compact, well built, sound fantastic with plenty of options and parameters and best of all, they’re priced right. Between $129 and $169 street price! Maybe you’d never use the TonePrint setting, but that shouldn’t stop you from considering one of these pedals. If you were looking at cars and didn’t need a great stereo system would you rule out a car that had a $2000 system but still fit all your needs and your budget? I’m just saying….
TC Electronic is consistently coming out with great products that have well thought out features, sound great and offer great value for the money. The TonePrint line is no exception!
A few facts about the TonePrint pedals:
- Each TonePrint pedal will store only 1 TonePrint at a time
- USB cable included with each pedal
- TonePrint setting comes preloaded from the factory with a preset
As you may know, winter NAMM wrapped up a couple weeks ago and all reports are that it was the most positive one in years. Dealers were excited, manufacturers were optimistic and offering some fantastic new products. We’ve got a lot of great new products on the way that were released at the show and I thought it might be helpful to put up list of products, their prices and ETA’s. Feel free to email or call with questions on anything listed here (or not listed
Not on our site yet, but here are the following new SD items that are coming… Trembucker spaced SHPR-1 P-Rails (white, black, cream) – $89.95, late March
Blackouts Modular Preamp & Coil Pack – $54.95 (preamp only), $72.95 (Coil Pack – ie pickup only), $184.95 (preamp and set of pickups), mid-late February
Liberator solderless pickup change system – $24.95, mid February
Happy 2011 to you! I hope your Christmas, New Years, Hanukkah, Festivus, etc. was fantastic. So 2010 has come and gone and while it wasn’t the best year in the history of years, it was a bit better than some in recent memory and has me very optimistic for 2011.
At Macdaddy Music I’ve got plans to add a lot of new product lines in 2011. I’ve always tried to give great product selection and 2011 will increase our selection by leaps and bounds. I’ll be adding new pickup lines, new guitar effects lines, new amps, and even new rack processors and multi-effects processors.
I’m also starting up a new ongoing special for Facebook fans. I’ll be offering Facebook fan only specials on a regular basis. Could be weekly, could be monthly, but they’ll be regular enough and good enough deals that it’s worth becoming a Facebook fan if you’re not already!
Until recently using a pedal for heavy styles of music wasn’t a possibility for any serious guitarist. The only options available were thin, fizzy and just plain old cheap sounding. An amp was the only way to go. While some people will always swear by an amp for their heavy distortion tones, pedal designs have come a long way in recent years and there are now a number of great options for someone wanting to use a pedal for their heavy distortion tones. In this video I discuss and demonstrate a handful of of them. Among them are:
Each has its own sound, but all are worthwhile pedals to look into if you are looking for a high gain distortion pedal.
The MXR M-116 is the highest gain model of the four, while the HBE Full Metal Jacket is the lowest gain model. In my opinion the Full Metal Jacket is also the most versatile since it sounds great at virtually any setting and can cover a lot of genres. The Emma is in my opinion the best sounding of the bunch, but is also the priciest. As you might hear in the first set of clips, the Bloody Mary lacks much bite until the Gain knob is set past around 1 o clock/60%.
I’m not the greatest metal player in the world, so take the clips played at face value
For the demo’s all pedals have been set to be as flat as possible – all EQ’s are centered, level knobs are set to similar output levels, so we’re mostly demo-ing the gain controls. The point of this video is to compare and contrast metal pedals, not to give a thorough overview of each pedal.
The Keeley Electronics Overdrive was just released. In this video I highlight some of the features and demonstrate a number of different settings to help give a good overall idea of the tones you can get from the Keeley OD.
The Keeley Overdrive features two tone circuits, which doubles the amount of tones you can get out of it. One circuit (the Classic side) gives you Fender and Marshall type tones, while the other circuit (Modded side) gives you more modern sounding, higher gain OD tones. I’m unaware of an overdrive that’s this compact (the size of a small MXR pedal), with this wide of tonal range – everything from classic lower gain blues tones all the way to more classic rock and rock tones are possible.
If you’re looking for an overdrive that’s compact, versatile, transparent with virtually no excess noise, the Keeley OD is definitely one of the best options out there!
In this video, I’m sticking to just rhythm playing since I’m a rhythm guy – sorry in advance to those who want to hear solos.
In the second of two videos on the Ebow, I discuss and demonstrate some basic playing techniques as well as talk briefly about some effects that are useful when playing the Ebow.
Effects:
You can use virtually any effect you’d like to with the Ebow to create your own sound. I also use overdrive, reverb and a volume pedal at times when playing the Ebow. Volume pedals are nice for controlling the dynamics as well as doing volume swells. The most fun comes with trying out different effects and combinations of effects together. Get creative and see what you can do!
Techniques: In the video below, I demonstrate a few different basic techniques to consider when playing the Ebow. You’ll almost always want to play the Ebow on the neck pickup since it’s the easiest to control. The proximity to the pickup will greatly affect the volume and dynamics of the Ebow. Be careful when getting close to the pickup – the volume can spike VERY fast! This is where a compressor comes in handy.
Just about any playing technique you use with your chording hand when playing with a pick can be used with Ebow. You can do hammer-on’s, pull-off’s, slides, bends (only about 1/2 note bends though due to the size of the Ebow’s rails).
I also demonstrate in the video the differences between the harmonic and standard modes on the Ebow (older versions of the Ebow only have the standard mode). Both are very useful and you can even switch between the two as you play. The harmonic mode will give very controllable amp-like feedback sounds. Another technique you can use for ambient type sounds is to gently push down on the Ebow so that the drive channel of the Ebow briefly touches the string. This causes some added noise and vibration that with a little bit of practice you may find quite useful.
For a fairly lengthy list of musicians and songs which use the Ebow check out Ebow’s Artists page.
