Guitar rig VI: overlooking the obvious

Now, in my on going quest for the ultimate guitar setup,I have tried and used a lot of gear.Many were new to me. However, I named this one over looking the obvious because I found that is exactly what I did and it cost me in tone/sound.

Boomerang I+

I love Boomerang phrase samplers. I was an early user of the first boomerangs when they came out. The boomerang phrase sampler is a pedalboard which allows you to record some of your playing and then plays it back and repeats. you can then add additional layers on top of it to create a symphony of guitar sounds.Now, the boomerang I was fairly simple, but limited to mono and quite noisy.

Boomerang III 

The boomerang III is the latest of the boomerang phrase samplers and it boasted noise free 48k stereo looping and 4 loops at one time. Well, I got one and it is fairly complicated.Well, hell, I was using it and noticed that  I was getting some extra noise even when not playing. I had the boomerang III in a Mackie  mixer with some other looping gear and f/x.Hell, "noise free my ass" I thought. I took down each fader until the noise was gone and to my dismay it was the boomerang III.It was giving out a kind of hiss and amp noise. I love the silent no noise effects and amps. I love plugging into my albion amp and getting this crystal clear sound with no noise.So, this was really disappointing.I thought it was a limitation of the hardware.

While playing, I noticed that I was getting lights lighting on my mixer that showed there was a signal passing through it. I thought it was one of my 20 year old jamman loopers, taking the fader down didn't help. the sound was coming from the boomerang III. Then it donned on me, that  I never set the levels on the boomerang III . I recall that the boomerang I had a big switch that allowed the original guitar signal to pass through as well as the loop signal. this would explain why I was seeing levels on my mixer when there should have been none.

boomerang I kill dry signal switch

Now, I had to get the boomerang III manual as choosing to kill the dry sound is not as obvious as the old boomerang I. Instead of a big switch, it was a series of holding down 2 buttons. so I did and voila, all of a sudden the room became silent, no amp hum,no hiss ,nothing. I thought this cant be. I almost thought the boomerang III would not put out any sound as it was so silent. but I played a chord and recorded it and played it back and amazingly it played back at a healthy volume with no noise.

I felt like a numb nut, a boob, you mean this whole time I had been playing with my dry signal passing through the boomerang II causing a lot of extra noise. Lesson learned: know your gear and pay attention to the small details which may seem too obvious at first.

The hybrid amp: tube vs solid state

The hybrid amp: tube vs solid state

ok, well, its no secret that guitarist covet real tube amps for their glorious sound and I must say that being in a room and playing one of thee amps is spectacular especially when you stop plying and the amp goes deadly silent with no hiss as if not even on and then roars to life even with clean sounds.

Now, tubes present a set of problems. all tube amps are heavy as hell and you have to replace the tubes and they are expensive and fragile.  So, for years, companies have put out solid state amps without these limitations but the tone is usually compromised. So, they come up with these schemes to try to duplicate the tube: modeling, solid state preamps and so on and today i ran into the hybrid amp. A real tube preamp with a solid state power amp. that way you get the tone but not the headache and only 1 tube to deal with instead of 6-9 tubes.

 I was in a local music store trying out a super expensive fender twin reverb and it sounded good, but was freakin heavy as heck. and at almost a grand,wasn't going to happen. but I loved its clean tone. I then went through and tried almost every amp including a cybertwin, some other fenders, a couple of crates and they all paled into comparison. then as a last minute thing, I looked and hidden behind the fender twin ,obviously neglected, was this amp.It looked like a 2x12 combo amp. I just thought ok last amp, why not. I could tell the knobs were dusty and then it finally kicked in and I was stunned. here was that fender twin clean sound again and even at loud settings it still sounded clean like a twin. I mean it has that tube bass thump the solid state amps lacked. it reminded me of the Texas made Alamo amps (old and pretty rare).I then dialed in some of the effects,perfectly clean,not over the top. then the overdrive ch and it was pretty close to a  jcm800 sound ,better than a jcm900 anyway.it nailed a jtm-45 without even trying. not enough to do modern metal, but more like that jcm800 ac/dc tone. I couldn't believe a solid state could sound like a tube amp, this time for real. Best part was the price.I could buy 4 of these for the price of the fender twin.It was a hybrid amp, a tube preamp (1 tube) and a solid state power amp. I am on the hunt for a second one.Its the closest thing to being a full tube amp.The company is obscure and worse, they have discontinued that series of amps sadly. I wont tell you what they are just yet or they will be scoooped up before I can get a few lol..but hearing is believing.

Guitar Rig part V : Eventide H9 max and H9 core vs Lexicon mx series

Guitar Rig part V : Eventide H9 max and H9 core vs Lexicon mx series

ok well, were were we...oh yes, I was working out a new guitar rig and choosing effect processors. Ever since I got a Lexicon mx 200 and mx400 processors I have been obsessed with how clean an effect processor is and its audio quality including how large the stereo spread is, lack of hiss and the lushness of the reverbs and delays. the lexicon's surprisingly are low dollar budget effect processors, yet they are among the cleanest sounding I have encountered.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I thought, wow these lexicon's sound so very good, I wonder what the state of the art processor sounds like. To that end, I purchased, on payments an eventide h9 max pedal and an h9 core pedal for a price near $1000. Compare that to a used Lexicon mx200 for less than $100 and a used mx400 for under $200.                                                                                                   

first, I must tell you how guilty I felt spending $1000 on a couple of guitar pedals.I have always enjoyed and even reveled in using cheap gear and making it sound just as good as the expensive gear.Thoughts of someone slipping the h9 into their jacket and walking off with it at a gig came to mind.In any case, I unboxed the h9 with great care , I went to hook it up.While the lexicon's worked perfectly in my f/x loop, I was stunned to find that the expensive h9 max did not do well at all in the effect loop. I got a nasty distorted sound. So, that was a real disappointment. For the money, I had high expectations for the h9 and expected a lot.I eventually settled on running it in front of the amp as it was designed and using it as a stompbox.

h9 Pros

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I eagerly loaded the software editor on my PC for the h9.This allowed me to choose presets and algorithms. Then, the fun began. I tried every preset just about and each algorithm. My findings are that the sound quality is excellent, it is also super clean with no hiss. 90% of the algorithms sound great and all from a tiny pedal. The imitations of one algorithm at a time sucks and this is why I had bought the second pedal which I did not hook up.The stereo spread was large and the reverbs lush and dense.The delays and reverb were superb as well as the chorus and flanging and even the pitch shifting were super.I also loved the pc editor for editing and choosing presets via usb.So, reading this, you must think ,well whats there not to like then?

h9 cons

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Well, lets begin with the cost. I just couldn't get that out of my mind. $1k isn't that much, granted, but for 2 f/x pedals it is a lot!! you could by 2 budget real all tube combo amps for that and for $1k it had better squeal like Ned Beatty in "Deliverance".

The Sculpt and Crushstations algorithms just didn't do anything for me and sounded terrible in my setup. Kind of 1/2 distortion in a clean preamp sound considered bad by most.So, completely useless for me.I also found some of the presets useless and more like toy sounds. I was also never overcome with sounds I had not duplicated before really. After a while, all the different delays and reverb kind of mesh into one overall type of sound.The pith shifter was just too gimmicky for me anyway other than used as an octaver. However, I did realize the sound quality of each preset was great sounding.

Sound quality wise, I was astounded to find my budget lexicon's holding there own against the newcomer. The Lex's sounded just as good as the h9's.Just as quiet and just as big a stereo spread and the delays and reverbs as good. I suppose not as extreme as in the h9, but the Lex's always seem to stay in the usable range. I would have considered ditching the Lexicon's if the h9 blew them away, but it simply did not at all.

On top of that, the Eventide has the h9 control pc editor which is really well thought out and works great, however , the Lexicon's have their own pc editor as well to control the mx200 and mx400 (mx edit). both run off of a standard usb port. The eventide can use an ios (Apple) device which I don't have so  and no it wont run off my android tablet.The lexicon is usb only and it works great.

Lastly, I tried the h9 with the Lexicon's and it added a little sweetening of the sound but most of the time was so much effects that it turned to a mushy  mess of guitar with over processed f/x sound wise.

Conclusion

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Had I not had the low budget Lexicon's to begin with,I would be thrilled with the eventide h9 .But when you compare the price to the similar sound quality of sounds and the Lexicon's covering all the useful effects I could use and that the Lexicon's also had a pc editor.Granted it was possibly easier to get a good sound with the h9 editor, but not really as the Lexicon mx-edit editor could not be much simpler to use.It became clear that I was paying $1000 for some sounds that are toy like and I would not really use and for effects  I didn't need and made to sound over processed when used with the lexicon's. I re boxed and unboxed the h9 3-4 times to give it another shot,but eventually the conclusion was always the same. So I re-boxed it and returned both the h9 max and the h9 core.

After I returned the h9's I was feeling a bit more relief in my decision to return them and no longer felt the apprehensiveness of paying 1 k for 2 pedals..Lessons I learned, is 1) the most expensive is not always best 2) budget gear can sound as good as the expensive gear 3)take some time and really learn your gear inside and out , all the parameters and effects and what they do,etc...4)sometimes, "less is more", in this case, the Lexicon's and the eventide was way too much effects processing and sounded like an out of control mess of sound. Each repeatedly was plenty for getting  a clear guitar signal.5)for some reason, the small "pedal" form factor is all the rage vs the rack unit such as the lexicon's. Usually this means no midi and very limited number so sounds and presets. you just usually  get more features,connections and options with a rack unit instead of a pedal most of the time, usually due to the pedal size.I prefer rack gear.

 overall, the Eventide h9 is amazing if you can afford it and don't currently own any effects units, but similar sound quality and effects can be had via the Lexicon mx200 and the mx400 for much less money.

author: Denis taaffe

http://www.lexiconpro.com/

https://www.eventideaudio.com/products/stompboxes/multi-effect.../h9