Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: Denim n Leather on February 24, 2011, 01:31:58 AM
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Problem: In order to get my Studio 2 loud enough to be heard in the band, I need to crank the amp well into saturation territory. This makes it impossible to get a usable clean tone. I'm not a volume control kinda guy; most of my guitars don't even have a volume control, in fact.
Solution:: Well, there are a couple of solutions to the problem, but this started out as using my GE7 to reduce the signal level until it cleaned up. The GE7 works, but not well for a couple of reasons, mostly the fact that I've had mine since High School and it doesn't work very well these days. It's also very noisy!
My search for a pedal that would do what I want yielded two positive results: the HBE Detox EQ and the Heavy Electronics Descend. I opted for the Descend and I couldn't be happier with the results!
(http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq33/Phantom_Isle/DescendFront.jpg)
(http://i431.photobucket.com/albums/qq33/Phantom_Isle/DescendRear.jpg)
Video of the HED @ gig levels: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzDvM69r2cU
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just sounds like its rolling off top end, lots of it.
I saw a video of Paul Gilbert playing something similar on youtube.
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yeah, Paul Gilbert has a signature pedal from HBE, the De-Tox eq. he uses it to clean up the sound on the single channel Marshall Vintage Moderns he's using these days.
i would imagine you did your research Ben, why did you pick this pedal over the De-Tox? i can't see the video at work i'm afraid
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All that with a 2 watt amp!
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just sounds like its rolling off top end, lots of it.
EDIT:
I listened back to the clip on a couple of systems. Yeah, it truncates the highs and the lows a bit, but it's a compromise no matter how you slice it when you're looking to do this sort of thing.
It's actually the smart way to do it, in that you are looking to reduce the frequencies which are producing the most distortion while keeping the midrange intact.
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i would imagine you did your research Ben, why did you pick this pedal over the De-Tox? i can't see the video at work i'm afraid
The Descend has a detented attenuator so it's always cutting at the same amount, every time -- no variable pot to get moved around. I also didn't like some of the artifacts the EQ was introducing to my tone. I wanted simple: just straight wire with gain redution. There is a filter circuit on the Descend that you can dial via mini pot inside the pedal, but I've not played around with it yet and have been using the pedal without the filter in the circuit. I will definitely try it out before I put it into the pedal board, however.