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28 Feb

Reviewed: MoogerFooger MF-107 FreqBox

Innovative Music Australia | innovativemusic.com.au | Expect to Pay: $859

For those of you who are not entirely familiar with the MoogerFooger range of pedals from Moog Music, you are really in for a treat with this fun tool. The MF-107 FreqBox is big, brash and full of attitude, allowing you to integrate your synthesisers for additional filter options. But the real fun comes when you get the MF-107 into your guitar signal chain and really start experimenting with your playing and making the features of this outlandish pedal stand out. This is not just your typical envelope filter pedal that offers that same sound we’ve all heard time and time again. This thing will mess your tone up and spit it out at a different frequency to what you intended, if you let it. But if you can tame the beast, some really cool sounds can be achieved.

28 Feb

9 Feb

Reviewed: Ernie Ball 40th Anniversary Volume Pedal

CMC Music | cmcmusic.com.au | Expect To Pay: $295

As a company Ernie Ball has always positioned itself as the young upstart on the market. The peak of their popularity came hand in hand with the rise of southern Californian pop punk in the late ‘90s. Even on the occasion of their 40th anniversary much of the marketing is peppered with rapacious youthfulness. Checkerboard Vans shoes, brightly coloured gaffer tape and scrawled, handwritten logos render the company the Bart Simpson to their competitors Mr. Burns, the brackish provocateur skateboarding just ahead of the old guard. Be that as it may, they are four decades into their lifetime and have not shied away from the wisdom that comes with age. Aside from their neon packaged string sets, their most popular design has been their line of volume and expression pedals and what better way to celebrate the big four zero than to do a better version of what they do best.

9 Feb

6 Jan

Reviewed: TC Electronic Quintessence Harmony pedal

Amber Technology | ambertech.com.au | Expect to pay: $319

Just when you thought every possible avenue of weirdness and tone bending had been explored, along come the Scandinavians. There must be something in the water along the northern European coast that makes its inhabitants relentless explorers. From Viking invaders up through renaissance upheaval to the boundless creativity of modern design, there is no frontier too intimidating for these powerful minds to cross. TC Electronic has been to the music world what The Bauhaus was to furniture design, consistently turning pre-existing thought on its head to see what else they can come up with. Their takes on classic distortion and delay sounds are concurrently more interesting and subtle than ever before, and it doesn’t end there. In their newest stompbox, the Quintessence Harmony Pedal, TC Electronic have found a way to stretch the outer reaches of pitch shifting technology in such a way as to leave just about every other iteration in the dust.

6 Jan

5 Dec

Reviewed: T-Rex Effects Shafter Wah-Wah Pedal

Amber Technology | ambertech.com.au | Expect to Pay: $329

If ever there were a pedal based effect that was difficult for me to put my finger on, it’d have to be wah. Call me immature, but every time I have a long-board at my feet I can’t help but imitate the cheesy, rhythmic chant that populates the background of so many blue movies from the 70’s. I wish that I could take it seriously enough to find space for the rapid-fire tonal opportunity that these units offer, but I just can’t for the life of me get my mind out of the gutter. If ever there was a wah that would rescue me from myself, however, T-Rex’s new design The Shafter has a shot at the title.

5 Dec

29 Nov

Reviewed: T-Rex Effects Mudhoney II distortion pedal

Amber Technology | ambertech.com.au | Expect to Pay: $449

Here’s an embarrassing story for you all. As a precocious child who had just started stringing three chords together on my first electric guitar, I remember having a dream that I’d started a band that was destined to return grunge music to its rightful place as the king of genres. In this imaginary, post-Nirvana future, I was going to be the one to remind people of the power of loud music and rescue them from their addiction to saleable, saccharine swill. Skip a few years down the track and it seems people never really forgot it in the first place. Kids still come into my place of employ with White Zombie patches on their army disposal store backpacks and bands like Violent Soho ignite mosh pits every time they spew forth an impassioned, ‘Hell, fuck yeah’. The effect that the early 90’s Seattle music scene had on the world is so lasting and profound that some thirty years later a Danish company sees fit to produce a pedal dedicated to one of its chief proponents.

29 Nov

14 Nov

REVIEWED: MAD PROFESSOR DUAL BLUE DELAY

Dunphy Imports | madprofessor.com.au | Expect To Pay: $415

With such a wide variety of delay effects on offer in today’s pedal market, the eternal quest for the perfect reflection can at times feel a little overwhelming. Our innovative friends over at Finland’s Mad Professor Amplification have taken successful steps and eliminated the guesswork from this arduous decision making, harkening back to the good old days while striking a harmony with the present.

14 Nov

20 Oct

REVIEWED: TC ELECTRONIC HALL OF FAME II REVERB PEDAL

Amber Technology | ambertech.com.au | Expect to Pay: $319

TC Electronic’s Hall of Fame pedal quickly became a part of pedalboards the world over for its ease of use and great sound. Now, the second incarnation of the best-selling effect is ready to take the stage, taking what the original did and updating it for a new generation of players.

20 Oct

27 Sep

Mixdown's Pedal Special: Multi-Effects, Compressors & Preamps

Here at Mixdown we wholeheartedly believe that there’s a pedal out there for every guitarist. A stompbox soul mate, if you will. That’s why we have fought tooth and nail – day in and day out – to put to together the most comprehensive, toe-tingling and tone rich pedal effects special for this month’s issue. From pummeling distortion that leaves you gasping for air, to the purest of sweet delays, our writers have sourced the cream of the crop. So go forth, find your perfect match, and head down to your local distributor.

27 Sep

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