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@winny_pooh
@Fuengi
Thanks to everyone thus far.
Valve amp buying Wednesday and these pedals would be great to try. Family holiday 23rd Aug to 6th Sept which may scuper diary anyway.
Please let me know Waz.
By far they preferred the dirty 5e3, even over the AC15 dirty.
The team medic works great as a boost, esp with the bass & mids at 1-3 o clock. If the amp is dirty already it's a perfect "hairy" channel to add on top and I by far preferred it to any germanium/top/clean boost I've used for this job!
I usually use drives into a clean amp so the Warthog did not work for this application as it's a bit more fizzy than my blackstone & odr-1, and scooped in the upper mids. However, it was great fun into the 5e3 which has loads of upper mids and warmth to start with and could also work well into a driven Marshall plexi for the same reason. The tone control was very useful, huge range.
A really nice "modern" drive sound with the right amp.
Cons - the volume controls are sensitive and I'd prefer a smaller range.
Other - they are beautiful, esp the team medic!
From past experience the Gunshot & Veteran (next big planned purchase) are more suited to my use but these are both fine pedals in their own right.
Next up is @Fuengi
Hi Folks,
Apologies for the delay, I started a new job and the first two weeks have been crazy busy so I've had no time to sit down and gather my thoughts on the Thorpy FX Tour Box.
As far as expectations go, I think I had a good handle on what the Team Medic would do but it really showed up how dull my rig was sounding. The 3 band EQ is incredibly powerful and let me coax a wide range of tones out of my amp and pedals. The Warthog is a lovely flavour of fuzzy distortion. I had the Gunshot when it was sent round the FB years ago and still love that sound but I found myself really enjoying what the Warthog could do.
I'm no photographer, but here's a bit of a glamour shot of the Team Medic and Warthog when they arrived.
https://i.imgur.com/Gvjhoif.jpg
As I had a couple of gigs during my week with the Tour Box, I rejigged my wedding band pedal board to include them. I also "accidentally" won a BOSS Super Overdrive on Ebay the week before so thought I'd throw that on as well.
https://i.imgur.com/cjrcABr.jpg
I also wanted to do something a bit special whilst I had the pedals so dug out a couple of old songs I had written and recorded some new guitar parts for them.
I still need to put vocals down and mix them properly, but here's a rough mix for the first song -
Guitars
1. Squier Classic Vibe Tele Custom with Dimarzio Twang King and Velvet T pickups https://i.imgur.com/mefJ40s.jpg
2. Squier Simon Neil sig strat https://i.imgur.com/tzsJtrZ.jpg
Amp
Egnator Rebel 30 https://i.imgur.com/4yMkIOh.jpg
The rhythm guitar part on the left hand side is the middle position of the Tele into the clean channel of the Egnator and shaped by the Team Medic. For the Chorus at around 2 minutes I switched to the bridge pickup and stepped on the TM boost, which fattened it up without going into crazy overdrive. The rockier B section has the Super OD with the TM shaping the mids.
The lead guitar part is the Strat with the Warthog into the Egnator clean channel.
A look at some of the settings I used when recording.
https://i.imgur.com/GLtDiGQ.jpg
Safe to say, I had a great week with these Thorpy pedals, and they really turn heads! The guys in my wedding band as well as the engineer who recorded me all took an interest in them, noting the distinctive looks, build quality and sound. The TM and Warthog are an excellent combo. The only negative I would raise, and it's the same one that's been mentioned a few times, is the lack of indicator for the boost+ side of the TM.
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.
The sound clips were great; really liked that sound, and it's similar to my own bands...
Excellent stuff.
Thanks for the lovely words everybody.
I wanted to show the pedals in a band context because a lot of pedal demos are focussed on isolated soloing, which can sometimes give a false impression of what a pedal sounds like.
I'm trying to get the other song (which used the dirty channel on the Egnator) finished but work is killer at the moment. Once I do, I'll put them both up on Bandcamp and post a link.
I hope everyone else is having as much fun as I did with the tour box.
Right then, have spent the week with these two pedals and have formed some ideas and opinions based on using them.
Gear:
Mesa Maverick amp with EL84’s, mostly on the clean channel
Mexican Fender SSS Strat with Entwistle pickups
Chinese Fender Mustang with stock P90's.
I pretty much exclusively play in my home studio with the occasional jam session. I can crank it beyond usual home volume.
Preconceptions: I own both The Peacekeeper and The Fat General and really rate both pedals. Always wanted to try the Warthog so was particularly looking forward to trying that. Didn’t really understand what the Team Medic is or why you would need it.
First impressions:
Pedals look great in the v2 format. Still can’t read the writing (might have to try some black boot polish on mine to see if I can etch it in black). Feel even more robust - if that is possible - than the v1’s.
In use:
Warthog
Straight away I got a bunch of great sounds from this. It’s intuitive and fun to play with, you can really mess with the Calibre and Gain on the fly to create different tones and textures. Sounds good to me everywhere. Tone control is great once you work out what it is doing.
The dynamics and harmonics are truly excellent. I found everything from a decent stab at The Stones Satisfaction tone to Dire Straits Money For nothing to Thin Lizzy and with a bit of digital delay it put me in mind of Steve Rothery on single note runs, something I was very pleased about.
Ideally I’d like some more play in the volume control as I had to set it around 9 o clock maximum and the Calibre was only really usable between 10 and 3 but it is still very versatile and may interact differently with a different amp.
With the Mustang P90’s it really provided grit, sustain and harmonics. Both chords and single notes are absolutely gloriously clear and singing. Really musical and highly addictive.
Single coils on the Strat were slightly more restrained but with more volume from the guitar or a twiddle of the Calibre or Gain on the Warthog there is loads of drive and distortion options. I love the voice on it and to me this is what a driven electric guitar should sound like. Fabulous.
Team Medic
The Mesa has two channels with full EQ on both so I was sceptical as to why I’d want an EQ pedal. The boost is pretty much redundant being a more or less exclusively home player. However, the Mesa EQ is cascading – each control affects the one afterwards – so it’s a bit of a fine balance to get everything just right and you really don’t want to mess with it once it is. I found the Team Medic really very handy indeed to unlock some different tonal options in the Mesa.
What it did do superbly is affect the tone of the amp, and really worked brilliantly with the Warthog to tame any harshness and has a smoothing clarity which is wonderful.
As a low gain transparent drive with the gain cranked up it works well too, particularly on the drive channel brining out the best of the amp. An incredibly useful and versatile pedal.
In an ideal world it would be handy to have a visual indication of when the boost is activated, and personally I’d prefer to have the option of a lighter boost, possibly with an internal dip switch (I have absolutely no idea how feasible this might be).
Conclusion:
Loved the Warthog so much that I bought a new one in Guitar Village on Saturday. I’m 95% certain that I’ll buy a Team Medic this week too because the two pedals work so incredibly well together, and it does loads of other things so well. In fact, I will probably replace my Fat General with a Team Medic.
Probably the best compliment I can pay is that they have really made a difference to my playing in a week. It has been addictive and great fun to use them and it has led me to explore different techniques and phrasing, and after all, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Next up is @JonHosker - Jon, can you send your address over as my spreadsheet is not on this iPad Im using ?
Thanks,
Waz
@theimageofall
@Scovell001
Chris and Ian,
Fancy being next up on the Tourbox ?
Thanks,
Waz
That's a great review and its encouraging to see how the pedals encouraged and developed your playing, to move into new directions. It's good when we find new pedals that inspire, and I guess that this is a big part of the GAS that we have...
Glad its worked out for you mate