Do-It-All Marvels
There’s a certain species of gearhead with a weakness for the contraption
that does
everything. Not that we blame them—multi-channel
amps mean fewer pedals to haul, leave behind, or break. Multifunction
pedals lend performance versatility. And digital recording
solutions can practically stuff Abbey Road in a box. What follows are
some of the finest and most ambitious examples of Swiss Army-knife
thinking we’ve seen at
PG this year.
Digidesign Eleven Rack
Anyone who’s watched
the evolution of the
electric guitar business
for very long has
watched their share of
do-everything products
come and go. But,
like the Pro Tools recording software it’s designed to work with, the
Digidesign Eleven Rack (
April 2010) has the potential to be a major
game changer. The Eleven Rack is a full-featured recording interface
that works seamlessly with the included Pro Tools LE software. But
it’s also a standalone guitar-effects processor with 16 amp emulations,
seven speaker simulations, and another eight microphone
emulations. Its DSP is accelerated to eliminate latency, and it also
has an effects loop so you can through your favorite stompboxes
in the mix. The end result is a lot of creative flexibility and potential—
everything from dialing in hundreds of tones onstage to trying
countless textures while tracking. As reviewer Gary Guzman succinctly
put it, “the Eleven Rack is an all-in-one solution for the modern
guitar player, and it makes it easier than ever to record in the studio
and perform live—while fully integrating the exact same sounds in
both situations.”
Street $899
digidesign.com
Mesa/Boogie 2010 Multi-Watt Dual Rectifier
If you’re a player who needs power and flexibility and considers a
wah very nearly one
pedal too many,
Mesa/Boogie may
have just built your
dream date. That’s
what reviewer Lyle
Zaehringer found
out when he tested
the monstrous Multi-Watt Dual Rectifier (
August 2010 web exclusive)—which can operate between 50 and 100 watts, use either 6L6 or
EL34 tubes (depending on a bias-switch setting), and cover everything
from dirty Texas blues to high-gain metal. The three-channel Multi-
Watt has more tone-shaping capacity than a lot of substantial pedalboards:
Each channel features a switchable mode (Clean and Pushed
on Channel One, and Raw, Vintage, and Modern on Channel Two) and
can be set for 50- or 100-watt operation. Zaehringer found studio-ready
clean tones at lower wattages, while high-wattage Modern settings
propelled the Multi Watt into the shred zone. While players who
are new to the Rectifier interface may find the Multi-Watt has a bit of
a learning curve, Zaehringer stated that “such versatility makes the
amp a good practical buy for guitarists who prefer not to have one
amp per musical style.” And he summed up the Multi-Watt’s many
merits with: “it would be a vast understatement to say that the Dual
Rectifier is a flexible amp. It is the standard of tonal flexibility by which
its competitors are judged.”
Street $1799
mesaboogie.com
Source Audio Soundblox Pro Classic Distortion
There are pedals that just make
sense for the guitarist on the go.
You know, the player who contributes
to three different projects
and uses whatever amp is lying
around the rehearsal studio or
club they’re playing that night—
the player who’s fed up with
lugging around a 10-ton pedalboard
all week. The Source Audio
Soundblox Pro Classic Distortion
(
June 2010) is one of those magic back savers. It’s a digital distortion
that packs convincing emulations of legendary stompboxes—from the
Electro-Harmonix Big Muff Pi and Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face to the Octavia
and Solasound MK II Tone Bender—into a single, easy-to-use chassis. It
also sports Tube Screamer-inspired overdrives, a clean boost section, and
a Tube Drive setting that gives you a taste of that overdriven Marshall
sound. And if all that weren’t enough fun, the Soundblox also works with
the Hot Hand motion sensor—a wireless system built around a finger ring
and an RF receiver that gives you the power to control effect parameters
with a wave of your hand. Imagine that—your quasi-Page/Hendrix gesticulations
applied to a practical musical purpose other than annoyance of
your bandmates! There’s also an optional expression pedal for switching
between presets. Reviewer Gary Guzman had a blast running through
tones as varied as Brian May-style smooth distortion to Dimebag-like
hyper gain settings and crazed Octavia settings. And no less than Adrian
Belew has deemed the Soundblox one of the best distortions ever made.
Street $219
sourceaudio.net
