NPDs - roundup of latest stuff

Grocer_Jack

  Been doing a bit of buying and selling to get a few groovy new sounds for inspiration . In the last few weeks:

1) EHX Holy Grail Nano. Not a very exciting one to start but I’m very pleased with it. I sold my Flint as I don’t like the spring reverb sound and I have bias Trem on my amp. Also it’s a bit posh for me and I like a simple set-up. Great spring sound and the other modes are useful too. Doesn’t really ‘drip’ but it’s close enough for me.

2) Fulltone Soul Bender. For my 60’s style Yardbirdsy, garagey fuzz requirements a fuzz face is fine, but I fancied getting into the tonebender world with this fella.  I was looking for something smallish in size that wouldn’t take up too much board space for the 2 or 3 songs that I need it for at a typical gig.  I like it, but need to spend more time trying different combinations of EQ and gain. Can do woolly and can rasp as well, so I think it’ll do the job. Got a nice ‘Psychotic Reaction’ type tone out of it the other night.

3) Lovepedal Les Lius – a cool forum deal from @Soma1975. Now we’re talking!  I’ve tried quite a few Tweed type pedals, but never been really happy. A lot of them seem to go for that Neil Young thing and nothing else. The Formula 5 is cool, but doesn’t do the lower gain tweed jangle that I need. I sold the Wampler 57, as there’s something just not right about the eq on that pedal for live use, but had high hopes for the Les Lius. So far it’s bloody great, especially on the Tweed Twin mode – nice deep mids and it really does that jangly ‘ping’ on the high strings. Dig in a bit on chords and it breaks up to give a nice garagey, Dave Davies style growl. All of the Day and All of The Night!

4) Barber Direct Drive Compact – another great deal, this time with @Wazmeister. ;; Fancied this for a bit of Live at Leeds crunch that some of our songs need when I’m not janglin’. Didn’t have a lot of time to try this at rehearsal this week, but all I can say is that it’s the toppermost of the poppermost! Once I’d figured out the switching I couldn’t get a bad drive sound out of this, from just breaking up to power tube meltdown with screamin’ harmonics. Whoa – what a pedal!! I had my Fulldrive 3 on the board next to it and I did a quick A/B with them. I do like the Fulldrive and I’ve done some good recordings with it recently, but it’s now back in its box. I reckon I could do a whole set with just the Direct Drive, using volume clean up for different tones – might just do it sometime.  Anyway, this is an absolute beast of a pedal and I wish I’d had it for years. I want a Gain Changer now as well, so If anyone’s selling .....

Oh, all of the above was mainly Tele and Jaguar into a Custom Vibrolux Reverb (the blackface panel one from the late 90s).

It would be great to hear from any users of the above about how you like them and how you’re using them.

soma1975

Glad you're enjoying the Les Lius mate. It's definitely a 'got something' pedal. 

Beexter

Never tried the Direct Drive but the Gain Changer is great. Unfortunately , I'm not selling mine.