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Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 3TS Semi Hollow

Will Chen — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:00:00 -0600

Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 3TS Semi Hollow

by Will Chen

As you’ve probably read before, I’m a sucker for a semi-hollow...and that goes double for thinline Tele style guitars. Something about the design reaches deep down into my soul and makes my heart skip a beat. So when Rondo recently added the Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 to its inventory...well I simply had to get my hands on one.

The Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 is an OEM guitar manufactured by Saien in China and offered in a black or 3 tone tobacco sunburst with a flame maple laminate top. This review is for the latter which, as the name implies, features dual P90 pickups and a fixed bridge (similar to those on hard tail Strats rather than the typical Tele bridge plate) on an platform inspired by Fender’s Thinline Tele. Cosmetically, the guitar is an absolute stunner with it’s 3-ply tortoise shell pickguard, bound top/f-hole, and deep sunburst. The interior of the f-hole is even painted black to accentuate it’s binding. With the exception of an extremely sloppy nut (very rough cut with glue overfill marks on the end of the fretboard and above the nut on the headstock) and some slight roughness on a small section of a pickguard edge, the axe presents itself that denies its extremely affordable herritage. The advertised specs indicate a 3 piece basswood body and a 25.5 scale 13.7 radius rosewood on maple neck with 21 jumbo frets.

From a construction point of view, things feel solid. With the exception of the aforementioned sloppy nut, the attention to detail on the neck is pretty high with very nicely dressed fret ends and smoothly polished crowns. The neck has a chunkier and slightly wider feel than those who dig Fender spec instruments will appreciate, but personally I found it extremely comfortable. This is a high gloss affair though, so if you’re one who enjoys a satin neck finish you’ll need to look elsewhere or get to work with some sand paper (being the tinkering type, I find the latter a very easy and worthwhile mod). Factory setup was admirable and with the exception of lighter string gauges than I prefer the instrument was playable straight out of the box. I didn’t love the tuner’s gear ratio making fine tuning a bit of a chore (though this is typical for instruments at this price) and the the nut job was poor enough to bind the stings making tuning less stable than it could be.

I auditioned the Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 using a POD HD500, VHT Special 6 Ultra, and Zt Club. The bridge pickup offered solid tones which were much closer to a traditional tele than I had anticipated with just a touch less twang and slight midrange bump. Clean tones were nice and spanky with good definition and attack while upping the gain resulted in a nice smooth midrange crunch with a tight low end. I felt equally comfortable performing chicken picking licks as chunky hard rock riffage, quite a feat in my opinion as I’m typically the type to dedicate several guitars to specific tonal genres. The hum cancelling middle position yielded some very cool and interesting sounds with a tonality somewhere between the cluck of a Strat 2/4 position and balanced warmth vs brightness you might find in a Tele or P90 equiped LP. Unfortunately, the neck pickup’s output dwarfed the bridge. As such it came off sounding muddy and unrefined requiring significant tweaking compared to the settings used with the bridge pickup. Things sounded most balanced using a rig with a tight low end, but a sweet happy medium was hard to find. Slight bummer, but even considering the price of swapping the neck pickup (or both) the instrument is still quite a bargain.

I had always been curious about the Douglas line of guitars carried by Rondo as all of the Internet buzz seems to gravitate towards their SX and Agile Brands. If the Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 is an example of their typical quality, I’d say Douglas gives you a slightly more refined instrument with a greater attention to detail than the SX brand but doesn’t quite measure up to the material quality and craftsmanship of the Agile line, which is a direct reflection of its pricing among the instruments available at Rondo. The Douglas Gravity NT FMP90 offers a nice playing experience, fantastic looks, and some very good bridge tones at an extremely low price point to those looking to add some P90 spice to their tonal stew.

Price USD $159.95
Pros: Good playability with impressive bridge tones.
Cons: Neck pickup muddiness, poor nut work

Telecaster Roundup

Will Chen — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:00:00 -0600

Affordable Tele roundup

Company	Model	Description	Price	Review Date
Jay Turser	JT-LT-Custom-Dlx	Chinese made Deluxe Telecaster tribute.	~$250	4/7/2008
Xaviere	XV-600	Unique semi hollow design with P90's.	$159	5/5/2009
J3	Atlantis	Fat Strat/Tele Hybrid.	$180	6/2/2008
Ravenwest	590T	Unique semi hollow with P90's and high end cosmetics.	~$400	7/7/2008
Xaviere	XV-820	Traditional Tele tribute w/ GFS Pickups	$170	7/7/2008
Tradition	Jerry Reid Signature Pro	Korean made axe with high end cosmetics and custom wiring.	$700	3/2/2009
SX	STL62	Traditional tele tribute with nice chunky neck.	~$110	3/2/2009
Squier	Classic Vibe Telecaster	An affordable Tele with excellent upgrades stock.	~$350	3/2/2009
Main Street Guitars	Thinline (MTLSHTSB)	An original take of the thinline concept	~$220	3/2/2009
AXL	Eldorado SE	Creative distressed interpretation of the Telecaster	~$225	3/2/2009
Arbor	AS340	Traditional Telecaster tribute with a mini humbucker in the neck.	~$195	3/2/2009
Douglas	Gravity NT FMP90 3TS Semi Hollow	Dual P90 Thinline Tele.	~$160	6/8/2011

VHT Special 6 Ultra

Will Chen — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 01:00:00 -0600

VHT Special 6 Ultra

by Will Chen

With its “essentials only” approach and mod friendly construction (not to mention great tones), VHT’s Special 6 has generated a bit of a cult following. I gave it a very positive review with my only small concern being the amount of volume necessary to get significant breakup was greater than your typical bedroom rocker requires. Enter the Special 6 Ultra which expands upon the Special 6’s Volume and Tone (with pull/foot-switchable boost) controls with an additional 11 position Depth switch, 3 position Texture switch, Watts dial, and secondary Ultra input with its own dedicated (gain) knob. So all these new controls sound cool, but what do they do? Good question.

The Depth and Texture controls are functionally high and low pass filters inspired by the selectable frequency feature of Pultec equalizers fine tuned for the guitar’s tonal curve and the Watts control is a power scaling control promising beefy crunch at bedroom volumes. Around back, the amp has two parallel speaker outputs with a 3 position ohm switch (worth noting - the under chassis speaker output does not mute when the external speaker jacks are used. Kudos!), a line out, and a tube buffered effects loop. And as if all that wasn’t enough, the Special 6 Ultra is housed within an birch ply cabinet rather than the MDF you typically see at this price point. Construction is very neat and sturdy across the board yielding an experience one might expect with a much more expensive amp. Just like its little brother the Special 6, components are wired to a mod friendly eyelet board and its 6 watts are delivered via a 12AX7 based preamp (2 tubes in the Ultra vs 1 in the Special 6 due to the additional features) and 6V6 power. And if you order in the next 10 minutes...I know, I know. I sound a little like an over excited infomercial announcer, but VHT is really serving up a ton of features at a street price right around $330.

Tonally I wouldn’t go as far as dubbing the Special 6 Ultra an ultimate tonal chameleon, but it covers a very wide range of fine tones. The aforementioned Texture and Depth controls are very effective at respectively smoothing out the highs and tightening the lows relative to the Tone control’s overall voicing. As you might expect, all of the Ultra’s controls are very interactive. Despite the unique approach to EQ, the amp is surprisingly easy to dial in. With an SX SST 57 Stop Tail (Strat style), it was easy to get extremely convincing Texas blues tinged grit from the cranked up clean channel. Dialing back the Watts control reduced headroom and gave the amp a spongier feel not too unlike a cranked up Bassman. I was equally comfortable dialing up old school jazz tones using a Luna Athena (semi hollow w/ mini-humbuckers) with the amp at lower volumes, but as you might expect at 6 watts clean headroom at performance volumes is pretty limited. Plenty for bedroom practice, small room rehearsal or maybe a small coffee house with a drummer using hot rods or brushes, but you’ll run out of clean headroom real quick in a louder club setting with anything more than a light handed drummer. Of course clean is a fairly relative word in the rock world. Plugging into the Ultra channel with PRS Singelecut SE the amount of gain on tap is increased exponentially with a tonal signature leaning solidly to the modded Fender/Mesa side of the spectrum perfect for chunky riffing and liquid leads with enough dirt on tap to cover everything from 70’s vintage rock up up through 90’s alt rock stopping just shy of the most aggressive modern metal tones. Again, dialing back the Watts control decreased the headroom of the amp, increased saturation, and generally provided a spongier/saggier response while lowering the volume.

Plugging into the Ultra channel...the amount of gain on tap is increased exponentially with a tonal signature leaning solidly to the modded Fender/Mesa side of the spectrum perfect for chunky riffing and liquid leads

To round out the Ultra test I fed the amp a variety of stomp boxes ranging from the mid boosted spit of an Ibanez TS9 to the Muff like roar of a MOEN Fuzz Moo and the amp responded well to all. I also wired the amp up to a Line 6 POD HD500 both into the tube buffered effects loop return and using the 4 cable method and in both cases I was happy with the performance. Though as stated earlier, 6 watts doesn’t provide a ton of clean headroom for rehearsal or gigging. Though I was able to coax just a bit more oomph out of this little combo by flipping the back panel ohm selector to 8 Ohms and plugging in a VHT Special 6 1X12 Closed back Cabinet. The slightly more focused tones of the closed back cabinet paired nicely with the more airy response of the open back combo creating a very nice mini stack setup with a combined street price under $500.

If this was a higher priced amp I might note that the Watts control can get fairly fizzy at minimal settings (especially when using the Ultra input) or that having a dedicated input for each channel seems slightly quirky to me. Having a single input with a 2 button footswitch (one for boost, one for channel) would be more user friendly. But given the performance/price ratio I feel a bit silly being so critical. In a world where low wattage tube amps are generally feature handicapped, VHT has delivered a very liberating experience in the Special 6 Ultra. Tonally the amp covers a ton of ground and from a feature point of view I believe it is a market leader at its price.

Price: ~$330
Pros: Feature rich with a wide range of very good tones.
Cons: None.

The Search For an Affordable FRFR

Will Chen — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:00:00 -0600

The Search For an Affordable FRFR

by Will Chen

Through my years of playing, I often feel like I’m on a gear merry-go-round spinning between traditional amp and pedal board rigs and multi-fx/modeling units. Both have their strengths and weaknesses but with the recent advances of the Digitech RP and Line 6 POD HD line I may be coming closer to moving to a modeling based rig for good. That’s not to say I won’t still enjoy plugging into an amp and cranking it to 10, but current modeling units just present a very compelling argument consolidating nearly everything one could want into an economical and practical unit. Then there’s the flip side of the equation. Sometimes, I like to experiment looking to find ways to make my guitar sound closer to a synth and in these cases a traditional rig requires so much outboard gear that it becomes nearly unmanageable. As such, I thought I’d venture to the dark side of guitar rigs...the full range/flat response monitor.

First, a 10,000 foot primer. A full range/flat response (FRFR) monitor is essentially the type of thing you’d see in a club/auditorium FOH(front of house) system typically consisting of a larger diameter woofer to handle the mids and lows paired with a high frequency “horn” (commonly a piezo, or in more expensive systems ribbon, tweeter to handle the highs). In order to divide the signal into the lower and higher frequencies, these systems employ something called a crossover which can be as simple as a passive system consisting of a single capacitor to much more advanced active analog and/or digital circuits including complete biamping of the single (ex a 300 watt system with 250 dedicated to the woofer and the rest for highs). A common issue with such systems , especially in more affordable units, is they tend to place the crossover frequency in the midrange right where the guitar lives.

In typical Frugal Guitarist fashion, my goal was to find a unit under $300 which would not only sonically pair with the Line 6 POD HD500 but also work for vocals. A modular style unit was also a concern in able to scale it bigger (and louder) in the future if needed. A 12” speaker was also on my list as utilization of a 15” for guitars just seemed completely alien to me (I can justify digital modeling and a PA cab for an amp, but can’t justify using a 15” speaker...sheesh). The unit needed to be loud enough for rehearsal with a band as well as fill in as a makeshift PA for smaller gigs in which there wasn’t one provided. Also, I wanted to limit my selection to what was easily available to audition and return if it didn’t cut the mustard. While there may be better and/or cheaper solutions, I didn’t want to mess with return shipping cost and delayed refunds. As such, I headed out to my local GC. Unless otherwise noted, the following conclusions were made auditioning the systems over the course of a few days a piece becoming as familiar with each piece as I could.

Harbinger APS12 ~$200 - Harbinger was once a big name in live sound. This is not that company. Apparently, Bain Capital has bought the name and it is the house brand for their retailers (Guitar Center, Musician’s Friend, Music 123, et al). This is a very feature rich unit especially considering its rock bottom price...which is often a red flag for me. I’m all about a bargain, but when things seem too good to be true...well lets just say the the APS12 may be 150 watts, but they're some of the dirtiest watts I've heard. As such, I didn't spend much time on this one just briefly auditioning in the store.

Behringer K1800FX ~$270 - I previously owned one of these and used it with a Digitech GNX3000 and I recall there being a lot to like, so I’d figure I’d give it another go with the POD HD500. Response is tilted more towards the mids and highs, but a built in graphic EQ allows tailoring the tone to even out the response. Its really a mini-PA as it has a built in 3 channel mixer, actually a better option than any PA system I've seen in this price range especially considering the built in effects (with individual effects level control per channel) and multiple I/O options. The unit even has the ability to run stereo using a second unit as a slave and a subwolfer output for transforming it into a full blown PA system. I found it much easier than I like to overdrive the tweeter with the HD500 (though never had the issue with the GNX3000), which if you've never heard before sounds essentially like turning off cabinet modeling. Of the auditioned units, its the closest to a traditional guitar amp featuring wood (likely MDF) construction in a cube design (the rest were plastic shelled wedges). A very loud 180 watts, but heavy (40+ pounds) and somewhat bulky compared to the other options. You can read my full review of the Behringer K1800FX here.

Behringer B212D ~$270 - A few years ago, I had auditioned the Behringer B212A (full review of the B212A can be found here) and found them too boomy tuned more for the DJ market than for traditional live sound reinforcement. Behringer refined that design with a class D power amp in the new B212D reducing the weight and upping the wattage to 550 (450 watts peak to the woofer and 100 watts peak to the tweeter, RMS was specs at 345 watts total), so I thought I’d give them a shot. For the tones I dig, the bass and lower midrange was still pretty heavily over emphasized. Even turning down the built in dual band EQ’s low control (centered at 80hz, a high end control is also included centered at 12khz) all the way down, every amp model on the HD500 sounded like a cranked up 4X12 cabinet with a deep low end thump. Though perhaps with an an external mixer with a more versatile EQ (or even a dedicated EQ unit) the low end could be tamed for more traditional tones. That being said these are extremely loud, likely louder than you’ll ever need. And if you're a player that runs the gain high, tunes down, and needs to feel the bass and still cut through the mix, these may actually work perfectly for you. The build quality seemed nice and solid though and the weight was nice and comfy at 32 pounds. I imagine the B210D has a bit less boom and might be worth checking out...

Mackie TH-12A ~$299 - On my initial audition plugging the HD500’s right XLR out directly into the TH-12A’s input I felt the 400 watt spec of the unit was a bit overstated. It seemed closer in volume to the 180 watt K1800FX. Referencing the spec sheet, the 400 watts is a peak figure and the unit is perhaps more accurately described as 150 watts to the woofer (class D power amp, 300 watts peak) and 50 watts to the tweeter (class Ab power amp, 100 watts peak). Still, things seemed like they should have been louder. So I tried hooking up a a cable with a ¼” jack on one end and XLR on the other to the HD500 and TH-12A respectively and...whoa momma! When fed a healthy line level signal (the POD HD500’s XLR’s signal strength is closer to mic level than line level) and cranking up the TH-12A has a punchy low end, rich mid range, and articulate yet smooth highs. Though carrying the “Thump” name, the Mackie TH-12A was by far the flattest sounding of the group despite the spec sheet showing a response tilted towards the low mids with a rather drastic fall off around 100hz. Goosing the low end at high volumes results in a very slight rattle however the three band EQ (bypassable with sweepable mids) is very effective at tightening up the low end. I’ve used it in a number of rehearsals and a couple gigs thus far and its performed very admirably. But it ain’t all roses...as the unit is a high wattage affair it does exhibit some hiss. Now, hiss is acceptable to me to some degree in this scenario as when cranked up to performance levels its really unnoticeable. However, there is a built in noise gate which kicks in to squelch the hiss when there is no signal coming through the unit. As such under the microscope of low volume bedroom playing the hiss cutting in and out can quickly become bothersome and I much prefer using something designed for lower volume performance. Minor quibbles aside, the unit sounds darn nice at rehearsal/gigging volumes and to top it all off it only weighs 25 pounds!

In summary, I would likely choose the Behringer B212D for DJ work, electronic drums, and potentially even a compact FOH system given an external dedicated EQ. If I needed a full blown budget PA, the feature-to-volume ratio of the K1800FX is tough to beat. But the TH-12A just sounded the best for my specific rig. Its got more than enough volume for my current needs and if I needed wider disbursement in short order, I could have one fairly easily due to local availability. So for this round, the Mackie TH-12A gets the gig.

5 POD HD500 Programming Tips - Part 1

Will Chen — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:00:00 -0600

5 POD HD500 Programming Tips - Part 1

by Will Chen

You you splurged a little and scored the top of the line POD HD500 and...dang this sucker is a little tricky! While there are some great sounds in the unit, it can take some experimentation to get the best tones. As such, this is the first of a 3 part series covering some POD HD500 programming tips. I should note that new gear is certainly an aphrodisiac and like like many of you the first thing I dig was plug up and dive in head first. A bit of advice, download the Advanced Guide and really dig into it. Many things are a bit more complex than they appear. Without further delay, here are a few to programming tips to point you in the right direction:

1. Reduce the hiss. - The POD can be a bit hissy when the gain is cranked up with anything other than the quietest guitar. At first I questioned whether I would be able to even use single coils with it. However, there is a weird quirk to the POD HD500’s input architecture: 2 inputs are always active. In the default setting, this is essentially doubling the input the unit is receiving which means its also doubling the noise. I’ve found setting the primary input to “Guitar” and the secondary to any of the Variax settings is the quietest option. Since you’re lowering the input signal you will likely have to readjust the gain/volume of your preset but the end result will be much quieter.

2. Can I have a little subtlety with my ambiance? - Line 6 has included a decent collection of reverb models but IMHO the mix parameter doesn’t offer a ton of flexibility. I mean, even with the dial down at the 20% mark the mix is still very wet sounding especially when monitoring via headphones. So for subtlety, I don’t ever even use the reverb and instead look to the early reflection parameters in the mic modeling section of the amp block. Raising the early reflections into the 20% to 30% mark results in a much more realistic amp in a room sound.

3. The best overdrives on the HD500 are...the compressors! - Have you been struggling to find a more neutral sounding overdrive? Or perhaps a less neutral overdrive with more of a treble boost? The boost comp is almost always my first stop when looking for a pedal overdrive tone. With parameters for bass, treble, compression, distortion, and level its really one of the most versatile effects in the unit. Want to tighten up the lows and add a bit of presence to the JTM45 model? Try the Blue Comp treble model. Get experimental and try stacking 2 compressors, one a bit more subtle and the other really goosing the level. Another great use for compression to the limit dynamics. Wait, don’t we want a more dynamic signal? When most guitarists talk about dynamic response, they’re usually meaning the illusion of a dynamic response via the use of compression. Inserting the Tube Compressor model set fairly subtlety after an amp model helps limit the volume fluctuation between the loudest and quietest signals. What this means is less volume difference when you turn down your guitar’s volume knob cleaning up your signal. Try it and you’ll immediately start to see the magic of compression.

4. What, no auto-wah? - I’ve seen posted several times on different forums that the unit is missing an auto-wah effect or they modeled a broken one. While there isn’t an auto-wah type effect which cycles at a given speed, there is absolutely a working auto-wah envelop filter effect, the version in the POD HD is modeled after the legendary Mu-Tron III made famous by players such as Stevie Wonder and Bootsy Collins. In order to program it you really need to know a little about how this model works. First off, for classic envelope filter tone select the Tron Up model. Next up, toggle to the fourth parameter named “Type” and choose BP which stand for “Bandpass” (just like the original pedal there are options for HP, BP, and LP which stand for Highpass, Bandpass, and Lowpass respectively). Now play a little and you’ll hear some of that familiar funk. Dial the other parameters to taste.

5. The tremolos sound...not quite right - I struggled slightly with this one. Neither the bias or opto trem really do it for me tonally. One just has a weird wave shape resulting in a tone not as smooth as I’d like while the other just seems too square waved...and the mix control for both seems to move from in your face to invisible with little in the way of subtlety. Is there no usable tremolo? Enter the panner. Panner effects are essentially stereo tremolos and the HD500’s is nice and robust including selection of wave shape. There’s only one problem...when you sum the stereo signal of a panner to mono the result is an unaffected signal! Fortunately, there are 2 workarounds. The first option is to place the panner effect in either of the parallel loop locations. This results in only the left or right side of the effect and a correct sounding mono tremolo. The second (and more complex) option is to place the panner prior to the parallel chain, set both channel’s pans to center, and set the right channel volume to 0. Voila! A tremolo with a wide range of of tonal possibilities from extremely smooth and subtle throb to full on helicopter chop.

Next time, I'll take a look at 5 genre specific tones and how to create them on the POD HD500. Good luck and have fun!

5,000+ posts in the FG forum!

Will Chen — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:27:00 -0600

The FG forum just surpassed 5,000 posts! Perhaps more exciting is as of this writing the forum is receiving nearly 8,000 unique visitors a month with a growing amount of referred traffic from web search engines such as Google.

Thanks so much for helping me achieve this goal.

Just published reviews of the POD HD500 and some Artec Pedals

Will Chen — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 07:06:00 -0600

Hello Frugal Guitarists!

Its been a while since I posted any reviews, so I wanted to include something big for the first update of 2011. The biggest piece of hyped gear over the last few months has without question been the POD HD500. Does it live up to the hype? Also posted up a review of 3 Artec Pedals: the Twin Head, Cool Drive, and Duo Drive.

2010 was a fantastic year for FrugalGuitarist.com with over 144,000 unique visitors and almost 306,000 pageviews. Thanks so much for helping make the site such a success! Here's to hoping 2011 is even better!

If you haven't been by the forum in a whle, stop by and say hello. talk to you soon!

Line 6 POD HD500

Will Chen — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:00:00 -0600

POD HD500

by Will Chen

If my memory serves me well, Line 6 was the first company to actually advertise the actual name of the amps they modeled. They even took it a step farther claiming to not model based on schematics or theoretical, but discussing and describing specific amps to which they painstakingly compared in order to ensure ultimate authenticity, an absolutely brilliant marketing move painting the illusion of owning a room full of expensive vintage amps at a very affordable price. As such Line 6 has long been a leader in the world of modeling, but to a great degree the tones generated have been a bit polarizing with some championing the accuracy of their modeling while others claiming their digital algorithms can never compete with the real thing. Even among those who embrace digital modeling, there has been a lot of criticism of fizz in the high gain models and an overall lack of feel. Line 6 looked to address these criticisms with the release of their new HD series which feature all new “high definition” modeling algorithms rebuilt from the ground up. The initial hype has a great many toting the Line 6 party line, but are these new floorboards really all that? Let’s dissect their current flag ship model, the POD HD500, and find out...

First off, this is an very feature ridden processor rivaled only in complexity, assign-ability, and internal routing by Boss’ GT-10, a unit often criticized for it’s complexity. Line 6 has opted for an architecture based around the unit’s DSP (digital signal processing) limit rather than locking the user into a set order or number of effects. This feature is unique to the 500 in the HD line and offers the user a virtual signal chain which can be split in to dual signal paths and any effect (up to 8) can be placed in any order on the main or within either of the split chains. You want five tubscreamers and three delays? You got it. Want to run dual parallel pitch shifters? You got it! How about dual amps? You got it...almost. This is where you start to run into the DSP limit. The unit can handle any two amps fine but try to add much more than a dirtbox and reverb and you’re out of luck. While the ability to run dual amps in parallel will be a feature I imagine studio cats and home recording enthusiasts will dig, the live usage of this feature is a little limited unless you’re more bread and butter when it comes to effects. Virtually any parameter can be assigned to the on board dual expression pedal (a toe switch toggle between expression one/two), optional external second expression pedal, or toggled on./off by eight of the ten footswitches (looper, tap, bank up/down are reserved). The switches can even be assigned to toggle multiple effects. And patch changing is super fast, fast enough that I you could easily call it instant. Very nice! The POD HD 500 includes numerous ins/outs including dual XLR/1/4” outs, headphone output, a main and aux input, XLR mic input, MIDI, SPDIF, USB, Variax (for use with Line 6 Variax guitars), and Line 6 Link (for coupling to the new DT line of amps).

Programming the unit is actually pretty intuitive. All the amp controls (and the master volume) have dedicated knobs across the face of the unit allowing quick and painless adjustment. Everything else is controlled by a bank of four rotary encoders which offer an intuitive matrix style control. The first dial selects the category of effect, second the specific effect, third the effect parameters, and forth the parameter’s value. A four way button control, four flush mounted buttons and a dual knob/button are provided for some of the deeper functionality and system settings of the unit. But all this talk about features and programming is nonsense if the unit doesn’t sound good, so let’s get to it.

...the Park 75 and Marshall JTM-45 MkII models are perhaps the most authentic...However, my favorite amp model may be the Divided by 13 model whose dual interactive gain controls allow a wide range of gain options covering almost any style...

Line 6 has pared down it’s gargantuan list of amps modeled in its previous generation of products down to 16. That’s right, only 16! While this seems rather slim compared to the competition, they’ve carefully selected a nice collection of timeless classics and modern boutique amps which run the tonal gamut. The list consists of the Bogner Uberschall, Divided by 13 JRT 9/15, Dr. Z Route 66, ENGL Fireball 100, Fender Bassman, Fender Blackface Deluxe Reverb, Fender Twin Reverb, Gibson EH-185, Hiwatt Custom 100 (DR103), Marshall JCM-800 (2204), Marshall JTM-45 MkII, Mesa/Boogie Dual Rectifier, Park 75, Supro S6616, Vox AC-15, and Vox AC-30 (Top Boost). Before speaking on how things sound, a brief note on Line 6’s modeling approach. Line 6 doesn’t take the approach of trying to model an idealized version of an amp, but strive for ultimate realism including the warts and all. If the modeled amp exhibits ghost notes when playing in certain registers, so does the model. Even the AC hum is modeled. One the one hand, I must applaud their dedication and they get an A for effort. But all the same, I wish Line 6 had allowed more control over these tonal idiosyncrasies allowing them to be dialed down or turned completely off.

Now to the tones. In this reviewer’s opinion, the Park 75 and Marshall JTM-45 MkII models are perhaps the most authentic. Vintage Marshall tones have been a strength of Line 6 products since I can remember. The low end delicately teetering between big/warm and tight, the complex mid-range, the krang, it’s all there and it sounds damn good. If your tonal Nirvana lies between Angus and Eddie, I think you’ll be more than satisfied here. A big surprise was the Gibson EH-185 which I keep finding myself coming back to. I’d never even heard of this amp prior to giving the HD500 a spin, but its certainly an amp I’d love to check out in person. The AC-30 is among the better I’ve heard nailing the Vox chime and shimmer and though I’ve never played a Dr Z, I’m certainly digging Line 6’s interpretation of it balancing bite with a nice slightly saggy attack. However, my favorite amp model may be the Divided by 13 model whose dual interactive gain controls allow a wide range of gain options covering almost any style, at lower gain settings it has a sweet high end clarity and rich mid range crunch which blues and country players are really going to dig but upping the gain gets you firmly into roots rock and even 70’s era hard rock. I could easily do a whole gig with just some minor variations on this model. Very nice!

I didn’t have quite the same enthusiasm for the completely pristine side of things. Now I’m being a bit picky and holding Line 6 to a high standard based on the marketing of this new line, but the response when trying to dial things in absolutely clean without a hint of breakup isn’t quite there. Things just feels a bit stiff for lack of a better word, particularly with the Fender models. In fact, I did not find the overall dynamic response/feel to be significantly better than the competition nor close to dynamic as several analog dirt boxes I have, and I’m talking affordable options not high dollar boutique stuff. I should add that this appears to be a minority opinion based on the general consensus on several forums, as such your mileage may vary. Even with that criticism, I must state that every model is more than usable...a situation which is rather uncommon with modeling devices which typically include a plethora of choice with only a few models which are actually usable. I’ve run the unit in every possible scenario I could, into a pair of M-Audio monitors, using a few different types of headphones, into the front of a VHT Special 6, and into the returns as well as using the 4 cable method with both a Tech 21 Trademark 60 and ZT Club. While the unit performed admirably in all the scenario’s, things sounded most convincing using the return of the Tech 21 TM60 with the POD’s cabinet emulation disengaged. I should note that the response of the return of the TM60 is far from flat and full range, so take that for what its worth.

Line 6 has included a bunch of extremely inspiring synth-like filter and ambient pad styled effects...Fans of artists like Radiohead, Muse, and the Edge will have a blast dialing in everything from resonating howls to cosmic chirps.

Another big selling point of the HD line is the incorporation of Line 6’s hugely popular ‘M’ series of effects. First off, the looping on the HD 500 is implemented better than any of the competition by a long shot. It is always available by clicking the dedicated looper footswitch and once engaged, seven of the eight middle footswitches are dedicated to triggering looping and playback (including ½ speed and reverse). You can even toggle into and out of looping mode with the loop still playing and switch patches. Unlike some of the competition which treats looping as sort of an after thought, Line 6 has really given looping its due respect. Kudos! Also very well implemented is delay of which multiple flavors are included to meet the appetite of almost anyone from dirty and dingy to pristine and everything inbetween. I wasn’t as inspired by the dirt boxes, of which the selection are overly focused on fuzz pedals. While Line 6 did a very good job with the Tubedrive and Screamer models (the Chandler Tube Driver and Ibanez Tube screamer, respectively), a couple others come off a touch brash. Even more discouraging were the Univibe and Rotary effects which sound like some kind of modulated tremolo instead of the swirling ramp of the real deal. Another slight disappointment was the lack of control provided in the compressors. Granted, they’ve included controls of the modeled originals but the majority offer only two parameters; a real handicap for those who like precise control over their compression ratio, attack, and sustain. One more little bother is that modulation effect speeds are denoted in hertz. While this is technically accurate, I’m a musician and think in beats per minute (BPM) not cycles per second. Thankfully, Line 6 also included the option of musical division of beats easily synced to the tap tempo switch.

Back on the plus side of things, Line 6 has included a bunch of extremely inspiring synth-like filter and ambient pad styled effects for the more experimental player. In fact, the analog sounding girth and growl on tap are among the best I’ve experienced without requiring dedicated hardware and/or a hexaphonic pickup. Fans of artists like Radiohead, Muse, and the Edge will have a blast dialing in everything from resonating howls to cosmic chirps. You can even get pretty close to the synth lead tones of Metheny and Holdsworth. Honestly, I’ve not played another modeling device with the breadth and quality of avant garde effects allowing the transformation of your guitar into more or less a synthesizer. The vast majority of these effects are intended for monophonic usage, which feels a touch limiting at first. However, the unexpected glitchy-in-a-cool-way results of playing two or more notes on a couple settings was simply mind blowing. I realize these effects won’t be appreciated by many, but the fact that Line 6 choose to include them anyway is a huge plus in my book. Two thumbs way up!

Finally, the pitch effects are well delivered. Tracking was spot on even during fast runs and the tone of the synthetic harmonized notes is very organic and glitch free. I didn’t particularly care for how the smart harmony effect was programmed using a relative key identifier for mode. Being a player who thinks in chord/mode combinations rather than relative major key, it would be far more intuitive to select “A Dorian” rather than “G Major” when choosing a preferred harmonization for a Amin7 chord.

The POD HD 500 certainly offers a lot to love. The $499 price tag is quite a bargain considering the flexibility of programming/virtual routing and the quantity/quality of effects. While the modeling is generally good to great, things still have a touch of Line 6’s sonic fingerprint. And in my opinion, the claims of a vastly improved feel are just a touch oversold. If you’ve never been a fan of the sound of Line 6 gear, amp model-wise this unit might be a bit of a hard sell. But the POD has oh so much more to offer than just amp modeling. Anyone considering an all in one floor processor would be doing themselves a disservice by not checking out the POD HD 500.

Price: $499
Pros: Good to great amp modeling/effects, flexible routing/programming architecture
Cons: Poor rotary/univibe emulation, difficult to dial in pristine clean tones which retain an organic feel.

Artec Pedals

Will Chen — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 01:00:00 -0600

Artec Duo Drive, Twin Head, and Cool Drive

by Will Chen

While the brand Artec isn’t exactly a household name with most guitarists, they are a fairly well known brand in Asia and parts of Europe, In fact, you might actually be using one of their products already as Artec is a OEM supplier of pickups which come pre installed in many affordable guitars and are also rebanded and sold as aftermarket upgrades by a handful of companies. Artec offers a full line of stomp boxs covering pretty much every niche of effects, today we’ll take a look at their Duo Drive, Cool Drive, and Twin Head pedals.

SE-DDB Duo Drive Blender

I must say, I was extremely intrigued with the concept of the Duo Drive’s inclusion of 2 different types of drive built into a single pedal. Unlike most pedals which include dual overdrive/distortion, the Duo Drive doesn’t stack the dirt one into another, but rather runs them in parallel mixing the output. Very cool concept, but will it deliver?

The Duo Drive packs its dual personality into a very compact pedal board friendly enclosure with side mounded input/output and 9V DC power jacks. This pedal, like the majority of Artec effects is true bypass. The controls of the unit are intuitive, but laid out creatively to accommodate the pedal’s small size. standard sizer knobs control the level and tone while mini knobs are used to control the independent crunch and heavy gain controls.

I auditioned the Artec Duo Drive using a PRS SE Singlecut and clean channel of a Tech 21 Trademark 60. I immediately began concocting different combinations of the drives and it was easy to find some very cool combinations which benefited from the cleaner attack of the crunch side and the sustain and low end wallop of the heavy side. Unfortunately, to get the pedal to output a unity gain signal the gain had to be cranked up pretty high and the level dimed which pretty much nixed many of the lower gain combinations. Bummer. That being said, the higher gain tones do deliver in a late 80’s on steroids type of way with gobs of sustain but lacked the thunderous low end of more modern styles.

The SE-DDB Duo Drive Blender is a fantastic concept which I’d love to see further refined and expanded. I imagine an enterprising modder could turn this into their go to overdrive. In fact, if I had my wishes, I’d put it into a larger enclosure offering dual footswitches to be able to toggle between the drives or use them in parallel.

Price: ~$55 USD
Pros: Parallel dirt tones in a compact package
Cons: Unit struggles to hit unity gain

TWH-1 TWINHEAD

The Artec TWH-1 Twin Head is a dual amp simulator in a pedal board friendly package. Across the top of the nicely powder coated box are controls for Level, Amp/Gain, Bass, and Treble. Input/output and a 9 volt power jack are mounted along the top of the unit. A clip style battery compartment is located on the back of the unit, and a quick note on detail: the unit ships with 4 adhesive plastic feet in a little bag allowing the user the choice of affixing them for standalone usage or ignoring them allowing a flatter surface for velcro based pedal board usage. Kudos! the final feature is a footswitch labeled direct (true) bypass.

In standard fashion, I plugged my Luna Athena into the pedal then into my VHT Special 6 to see what she was capable of. The controls all seemed pretty intuitive, or so I thought. As I looked at the pedal I wondered exactly how to switch between the different amp emulations. A bit of fiddling and it became quickly apparent. The Amp/Gain knob functions a bit differently than one might expect. At noon, the pedal functions as a low gain drive (as indicated via a center detente conveniently labeled “Low”) but dialing the knob clockwise engages the Classic overdrive while counterclockwise the Crunch. Genius, at least on paper...while I applaud the design efficiency in application things get too hot too quick and seem to function almost like a glorified toggle than a smooth tapered pot. However, tonally I realized pretty quickly that this pedal is really intended to be a direct device rather than feeding a guitar amp. So I unplugged from my amp and plugged directly into my computer interface and monitored using a pair of M-Audio AV40s. Run direct, both voices of the pedal sound convincing. The Classic side delivers Marshall JCM flavored dirt in spades really capturing the signature sizzling krang and a palm mute friendly low end. Both the high and low controls were well voiced allowing me to dial in the brighter and tighter tone of the 80’s to the the fuller and darker tones of the 90’s with a couple twists. I found the Crunch side similarly nice with a sweet bite, rich midrange, and slightly tubby lowend kind of like a hybridized Tweed Bassman and JTM-45. Again, the tone controls were very effective, perhaps even more so than with the Classic side, with different combinations of treble and bass almost altering the core character of the drive in very cool ways. I threw a bunch of different guitars at the Twin Head including an SX SST57, PRS SE Singlecut, and Highland Royal and all sounded great.

The Artec TWH-1 TWINHEAD is a nice direct amp modeler disguised as a stomp box with a wide range of great sounding dirt. While Artec pedals are a bit hard to find stateside, I imagine once players start getting there hands on this one they’re bound to develop a bit of a reputation among bargain hunting tone junkies.

Price: ~$65 USD
Pros: Great sounding and versatile amp in a box
Cons: Gain control quite touchy.

CDV-1 Cool Drive

Read up a bit on overdrive and distortion design and you will certainly stumble upon the concept the pre and post tone shaping are keys to a good dirt box. Tricks like cutting the low end before clipping to keep things tight or boosting the mids have been employed by pedal builders for years to try and emulate the smoother tones of tube amps. Many modders have made names for themselves by carefully manipulating the pre and post eq of otherwise pedestrian pedals. What if a pedal allowed you to control the pre and post clipping EQ? Well, frankly I’m a bit surprised I haven’t seen a pedal like this on the market previously but this is exactly what the Artec Cool Drive offers.

The Cool Drive features top mounted input/output and 9V DC jacks with four controls across its face: level, gain, and dual controls for shape (pre/post EQ). Like the TWINHEAD, the unit features a nice powder coated exterior and true bypass.

To audition the Cool Drive, I fed it into a Peavey Bandit and VHT Special 6 using a variety of guitars. As one might expect from a conceptual pedal such as this, there are a wide variety of tones on tap...and not all of them are good. Let me clarify, since Artec has provided the user with so much control, they’ve allowed you to dial in some potentially bad and down right odd tones as well as good. As you might expect from that statement, a fair amount fo experimentation is required to find the magic combinations. However, once dialed in the Cool Drive covers a pretty wide range of stomp box flavors from Tubescreamer-esque mid hump maxing out at darn close to scooped buzz of the Rat. In fact, I was rather surprised at how different the pedal was able to sound at different settings. Despite being given such power over the signal’s shape, I found myself occasionally yearning for a traditional tone control.

The Artec CDV-1 Cool Drive is a very cool concept. However, I imagine more conservative players might get frustrated trying to dial in the box and the more adventurous wishing for more knobs and switches. Aretec has the right idea, but I’d love to see them go for broke with a pedal such as this combined with the Artec Duo Drive Blender in a large box with a bunch of switches and buttons ala the ZVex Inventobox. If they could hit an affordable price point, I imagine they would sell to the aural mad scientists like crazy.

Price: ~$55 USD
Pros: Wide range of overdrive colors
Cons: Dual shape concept requires a fair bit of experimentation.

VHT rocking NAMM 2011 with some cool new products!

Will Chen — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 11:37:00 -0600

Well, just got some confirmation on some very cool new products from VHT hitting 2011 NAMM show. They're really expanding with a line of speaker cabinets and a very cool EL84 to 6V6 adaptor (with an extremely affordable street price under $20). however two products really caught my attention.

VHT is expanding into the pedal market with the V-Drive. On paper, this thing sounds very impressive...a bit of a tweakers dream. It features an 11 position switch to select 10 different clipping diode configurations (or no clipping diodes) and a voltage multipling circuit which they claim offers "a tighter, punchier, crisper, quicker responding and more authoritative tone". Fingers crossed!

And the pièce de résistance, following on the success of the Special 6 VHT is launching the Special 6 Ultra in head and 1 X 12" combo versions. All of the features of the Special 6 are included plus an additional overdrive stage (hence the Ultra), unique texture and depth controls, and a variable Watts control promising cranked up tone at bedroom volumes. I can't wait to get my hands on this one!