MichaelW
Well-known member
- Build Rating
Continuing on from my previous post on the Blues Lawyer, I build this pedal at the same time.
It seems like from MI Audio this is just a variation of the same series of pedals but from a circuit perspective it's very different.
This too is marketed at a "better Tubescreamer" and the circuit topology is a more familiar YATS style clipping but with additional clippers. (A bunch of 4148s.)
Compared to the Blues Lawyer it sounds COMPLETELY different.
In fact, when I first fired it up with all the controls at noon, it sounded so horrible I thought I did something wrong!
Really bright, trebly, fizzy. Nothing like a TS, and nothing "bluesy" about it. Yet it seems to have great reviews and a loyal fan base.
It too has some goofy components. like a 2U2 electrolytic that I had to hack with two caps.
The original has 3 mini trim pots for the additional EQing called "Character", "Bright", and "Mid".
The Bright and Mid are self explanatory, the Character is similar to the "Body" control of the "Blues Lawyer" in that it fattens the tone up with low mids and some bass.
As I said, with all the controls at noon, the pedal sounds horrible to me. But with some judicious tweaking, mainly rolling off the highs, I was able to get some decent sounds from it. In fact, I actually like it better than the Blues Lawyer at low gain settings.
I used the same color scheme idea of the 3 blue knobs being the standard Level, Gain, Tone controls and the 3 smaller red ones being the "tweaker" controls.
I used the only blue enclosure I had left, which was a cheap one that I don't recall where I got from. But the plastic shrink wrap embedded into the powder coat leaving some really ugly streaking. It was also very thin walled and drilling the top jacks my uni-bit got caught for a second and warped the enclosure.....
I tried buffing out the face of the enclosure but it still looks pretty bad, but I wasn't going to try wet sanding it.
Demo is for both the Blues Lawyer and Blues Captain.
This is on my Faber Goldtop with P90's.
It's also the first time demoing the new Planet Tone neck pickup I posted about here.
In my continuing quest to find the perfect neck position P90, I chatted with Jose from Planet Tone about a recommendation for a neck P90 that's got the clarity and open airiness of a some certain 50's P90's. He recommended this pickup with A2 magnets. It's a great sounding pickup but to be honest it's not that different sounding than what I had in the guitar originally, which was a Lollar 50's Wind P90. They're both very similar sounding. But of course the Planet Tone is almost half the price of the Lollar. Which makes it's a GREAT option if you're looking for some awesome sounding P90's with rich, complex tone and a 3D quality like most Lollars without having to spend Lollar money.
One thing I have yet to try is putting the Zhangbucker Lollipop in the Les Paul. I may try that at some point, for the sake of science...... But it's sounding and playing beautifully right now. Many thanks to my Chief Enabler @szukalski for turning me onto the Faber/Tokai guitars.
It seems like from MI Audio this is just a variation of the same series of pedals but from a circuit perspective it's very different.
This too is marketed at a "better Tubescreamer" and the circuit topology is a more familiar YATS style clipping but with additional clippers. (A bunch of 4148s.)
Compared to the Blues Lawyer it sounds COMPLETELY different.
In fact, when I first fired it up with all the controls at noon, it sounded so horrible I thought I did something wrong!
Really bright, trebly, fizzy. Nothing like a TS, and nothing "bluesy" about it. Yet it seems to have great reviews and a loyal fan base.
It too has some goofy components. like a 2U2 electrolytic that I had to hack with two caps.
The original has 3 mini trim pots for the additional EQing called "Character", "Bright", and "Mid".
The Bright and Mid are self explanatory, the Character is similar to the "Body" control of the "Blues Lawyer" in that it fattens the tone up with low mids and some bass.
As I said, with all the controls at noon, the pedal sounds horrible to me. But with some judicious tweaking, mainly rolling off the highs, I was able to get some decent sounds from it. In fact, I actually like it better than the Blues Lawyer at low gain settings.
I used the same color scheme idea of the 3 blue knobs being the standard Level, Gain, Tone controls and the 3 smaller red ones being the "tweaker" controls.
I used the only blue enclosure I had left, which was a cheap one that I don't recall where I got from. But the plastic shrink wrap embedded into the powder coat leaving some really ugly streaking. It was also very thin walled and drilling the top jacks my uni-bit got caught for a second and warped the enclosure.....
I tried buffing out the face of the enclosure but it still looks pretty bad, but I wasn't going to try wet sanding it.
Demo is for both the Blues Lawyer and Blues Captain.
This is on my Faber Goldtop with P90's.
It's also the first time demoing the new Planet Tone neck pickup I posted about here.
In my continuing quest to find the perfect neck position P90, I chatted with Jose from Planet Tone about a recommendation for a neck P90 that's got the clarity and open airiness of a some certain 50's P90's. He recommended this pickup with A2 magnets. It's a great sounding pickup but to be honest it's not that different sounding than what I had in the guitar originally, which was a Lollar 50's Wind P90. They're both very similar sounding. But of course the Planet Tone is almost half the price of the Lollar. Which makes it's a GREAT option if you're looking for some awesome sounding P90's with rich, complex tone and a 3D quality like most Lollars without having to spend Lollar money.
One thing I have yet to try is putting the Zhangbucker Lollipop in the Les Paul. I may try that at some point, for the sake of science......
But it's sounding and playing beautifully right now. Many thanks to my Chief Enabler @szukalski for turning me onto the Faber/Tokai guitars.
