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GALLERY: Summer NAMM 2016 Day 1

Here's a taste of the gear we came across during the first day of Summer NAMM, with tone toys from Fender, Seymour Duncan, Bullhead Amplification, and more.

323 Effects

Mo Nelson's 323 Effects company previously built limited edition effects for Pure Salem guitars. His own 323 branded effects debuted at ‪‎NAMM‬. Steel City $130 street) is a very nice JFET overdrive sounds great for Stonsey riffs!) His Ram's Head Muff clone ($120 street) is a very versatile take on the breed--with switchable Ge/Si clipping--and a smooth sustaining monster. The Timbers OD ($130) is a great sounding MOSFET/l.e.d. switchable unit. And the Ridges digital reverb ($175) switches between hall, spring, and a tasteful shimmer mode.

Some of these are deep cuts—get ready for some instrumental bonus tracks and Van Halen III mentions—and some are among the biggest radio hits of their time. Just because their hits, though, doesn’t mean we don’t have more to add to the conversation.

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“Sometimes, I’d like very much for my guitar to sound exactly like a supa cobra.”

Luthier Creston Lea tells us about his favorite dirt pedal—an Athens, Georgia-made stomp that lets his guitar be a hero.

Let’s face it: Nobody can tell what overdrive pedal you’re using. Whether you’re in a carpeted suburban basement accompanying the hired clown at your nephew’s fifth birthday party or standing on the spot-lit monitor at Wembley, not one person knows whether the pedal at your feet cost $17 or $700, has true bypass, or has an internal DIP switch. Nobody leaning against the barn-dance corncrib or staunching a nosebleed up in the stadium’s cheap seats is thinking, “Heavens yes!! THAT is the sound of a silicone diode!”

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A dual-channel tube preamp and overdrive pedal inspired by the Top Boost channel of vintage VOX amps.

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The compact offspring of the Roland SDE-3000 rack unit is simple, flexible, and capable of a few cool new tricks of its own.

Tonalities bridge analog and digital characteristics. Cool polyrhythmic textures and easy-to-access, more-common echo subdivisions. Useful panning and stereo-routing options.

Interactivity among controls can yield some chaos and difficult-to-duplicate sounds.

$219

Boss SDE-3 Dual Digital Delay
boss.info

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Though my affection for analog echo dwarfs my sentiments for digital delay, I don’t get doctrinaire about it. If the sound works, I’ll use it. Boss digital delays have been instructive in this way to me before: I used a Boss DD-5 in a A/B amp rig with an Echoplex for a long time, blending the slur and stretch of the reverse echo with the hazy, wobbly tape delay. It was delicious, deep, and complex. And the DD-5 still lives here just in case I get the urge to revisit that place.

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