Cornell Fuzz Box

I'm an absolute pedal nerd, i absolutely love them, even if i can't afford many. I simply have Boss DD-3, which i bought myself, a Marshall Jackhammer, which i robbed from the guy who recorded my bands last recordings, and a Dunlop Crybaby which is technically Andys and is battered, but i still make the use of it. The Jackhammer sounds excellent through my AVT 250 head and cab, but through practice amps it sounds appauling.

Anyway, to the next item which took my fancy. The picture which you can see above is the Cornell Fuzz Box. The first thing that caught my eye is the sheer simplicity of it, two knobs, volume and fuzz, and a simple metal housing, there's no doubts about the sturdiness of that beauty. Another nice bonus is the true bypass. Apart from this, i can find little information about this pedal. They are selling it for £120 at Guitar Village, and reading the reviews on Harmony Central, it looks well worth the money. People are calling it the best fuzz they have ever used, etc etc. So if you have £120 spare and are looking for a nice boutique fuzz, heres your answer.

Fender Elvis Costello Jazzmaster

Elvis Costello is a musical legend. There's no doubt about it. With 35 studio albums, a huge number of collaborations and a number of operas under his belt, he is nothing short of talented. And his guitars are nothing short of beautiful. He has always been known for his trademark use of Fenders, especially the Jazzmaster. So it is only fair that after all this time, Fender give him his own signature Jazzmaster. And what a beauty it is. When i saw it today i came close to dribbling over it.

I have never been a great fan of the Jazzmaster, but i love this one. The first thing that struck me was the amazing finish on the Alder body. Fender call it 'Walnut Rosewood'. I sports a rosewood fretboard on a specially designed 70's style neck design, a pair of lush-sounding specially designed P90 pickups and the turtleshell finish scratchplate. Add to this to the specially designed tremolo arm, which has been bent away from the guitar to allow room for more travel, and you have yourself a beautiful guitar. Look HERE for more detail and pictures. It selling on websites like Dolphin Music for £1,500, a fair price compared to some of Fenders other signature models. Oh, if only i had that amount of money spare!

Peace out for today. x

The Vox Satchurator

Up next we have the Vox Satchurator. Why the weird spelling of the word saturated? Because the one and only Joe Satriani helped design the thing, idiot. For those of you who aren't familiar with Joe Satriani, he is a guitar virtuoso, there isn't much he cant do with a guitar. Watch THIS if you want an idea of what he is like. Watch it all too. When it comes to signature equipment, Joe Satriani is pretty much a pro. He has his signature line of Ibanez guitars, his signature Peavey Head and cabinet and now his own distortion pedal.

The satchurator is an analog distortion pedal designed to Satch's exact specifications. The first impression when looking at it is that it's a very straightforward pedal. Three main knobs, Gain, Tone and Volume. Fair enough. There are also two main footswitches, the on/off switch, and the footwitch on the right which is simply called 'more'. This switch acts as a boost, applying more distortion, handy for when you need to cut through the mix with a solo. The 'more' switch is set to a specific amount of distortion, so if you set the gain knob to a low setting, pressing the 'more' switch will be a dramatic increase in gain, whilst having the gain switch on a high setting and hitting 'more' would result in less of an impact.

Looking closer, you can spot a switch in between the gain and tone knobs. This is the 'Pad' switch. When turned on (the up position), the input of the pedal is reduced slightly to allow high gain pedals to be placed before the Satchurator in the pedal board. Without the 'Pad' switch, things could end up sounding very messy if you use more than one high gain pedal.

The pedal is said to be very responsive thanks to its neat dynamic circuit, and you can always expect to get that super smooth Satriani distortion. Want to read more about it? HERE YOU ARE.

Boss SL-20

First up is the new Boss SL-20 Slicer. This is a new addition to Boss's excellent twin pedal range, which includes the DD-20 Delay (which i would die for) and the RE-20 Space echo, along with many others. The SL-20 is very basically a groove generator. Plus a guitar, bass or any other instrument into it and listen to the instrument pulsate and groove. Think of the guitar on 'Map Of The Problematique' by Muse.

You can choose from over 50 slice patterns and it also has an interesting feature called the Harmonic Slicer feature, which creates sort of percussive melodies from what you play. You can also loop record. Interesting, i want to try one out. I'm not sure if it will ever become a classic, i can see a lot of people not being fond of it at all. Go HERE to see more, watch the video.

Second Blog, First Post.

A few of my closest friends will know this, but i've always thoroughly enjoyed looking at guitars, effects and amplifiers and finding out about them and their technical specifications. Sad i know, but what else is there to do when you don't have the money to afford them? So i thought i would start up a second blog so i can share my interest with other people.

I will be posting the latest guitars, effects and amplifiers that come out on the market and anything interesting regarding this subject. So i hope you enjoy. xx