One of my favorite gear discoveries in recent years is the original Boss Slicer SL-20. A friend hipped me to its wild percussive magic and what I call “big vibe.” When the first dual-pedal version came out as part of the company’s 20 series, I was under the impression it was a fancy tremolo. That might be the closest classic guitar effect, but the Slicer lives in its own world: The effect chops a signal into preset rhythmic patterns and applies filters and pitch shifters to create everything from propulsive grooves and melodies to glitchy, warbled tones.
Lead parts played in the single and dual settings with the tempo cranked and a lower attack setting evoke a broken-Leslie kind of sound, especially in 3D modes.
The Slicer is a unique effect that’s more in line with what you might find on synths and drum machines than a pedalboard. That, plus an original production run that lasted just a few years, has made it kind of a deep-cut, sleeper favorite. What a surprise, then, that Boss is reissuing the effect in their standard—and much more compact—enclosure.. Even better, the new SL-2 features deeper functionality. So, does it live up to the hype surrounding the original?
Clip 1 – High attack and duty settings, single type.
Clip 2 – High attack and low duty settings, full wet, harmonic type.
Clip 3 – Low attack and high duty settings, tremolo type.
Clip 4 –High attack and low duty, various tempo settings, sfx type.
Clip 5 – Example of how the Slicer can fit into a track. Recorded with two guitars (each with various other effects) each with different Slicer modes (rhythm is stereo, lead is mono).
Deep Functionality, Limited Space
The SL-2 fits a lot of functionality in very little space. It would be impressive just to squeeze all the features of the much larger original unit into the new one. Yet the SL-2’s 88 preset rhythms exceed the original’s 50, and they can be swapped out via USB with Boss’ Tone Studio app. Two stacked knobs cover balance (mix) and tempo as well as attack and duty (sample length). Another single-function knob selects effect type. These include options for a single signal-slicing path, dual signal-slicing paths, tremolo, a harmonic mode (pitch modulated rhythmic patterns), and an SFX mode (multiple effects on each pattern). Another knob selects 11 possible variations on each effect. The Slicer also features dual-jack stereo ins and outs, a MIDI input for syncing with external devices, and an expression/footswitch input.
That extensive list still doesn’t cover all the Slicer’s functions. And to access the rest, things get trickier. Using the pedal’s stereo functionality is critical to making the most of the effect, but to access those seven settings, you may need to keep the manual nearby. For example, if you turn the first four knobs to the right, the type knob to the eighth position, and power up while holding down the footswitch, you can use the variation knob to choose a corresponding stereo setting. Sound confusing? It can be. And there are several of those footswitch tricks to master. Another example: you can set the output volume can range from -7 dB to a very hot 20 dB, which is helpful. But as I learned the hard way, you can easily set the too hot, and it can only be adjusted by holding down the footswitch and turning the tempo knob, which gives you no visual reference for the setting. You’ll also do a lot of footswitch tapping to access tap-tempo settings.
Flying Blind Is Fun
The best way to understand what the Slicer is capable of is to try everything. It’s not particularly intuitive, and it can feel hard to discern differences in some sounds. But there’s some method to the madness. Starting with the relatively straightforward single setting—which chops the signal without additional effects—and trying each variation explains a lot. But there’s no comprehensive list of what effects or rhythms each setting will feature, so you’re flying blind when you work through the variation and type knobs. This led to lots of fun discoveries, though. And I rarely failed to find a pattern that inspired something new in my playing.
Plugging into a stereo rig opens up the Slicer’s capabilities. There are seven stereo settings: fixed (both amps get the same signal), efx/dir (wet/dry), random, ping-pong, auto (which pans across the stereo field), 3D cross, and 3D rotation. The two 3D settings are the most psychedelic, creating the illusion of a forward/backward kind of movement as sounds pan across the field. Any of these settings can change the feel and impact of a pattern or setting, so there’s a lot of room for experimentation.
Inspiration Machine
With such a wide range of capabilities, the Slicer is an inspiration machine, and it can be used in a lot of ways. For the most part, I found myself playing sparsely and letting the Slicer do most of the work, especially when using delay or reverb.
Each effect type offers a wide range of fun. Using harmonic and tremolo effects with slow to medium tempos creates lots of ambient space. Using the ping-pong stereo setting, sometimes feels like multiple guitars. Lead parts played in the single and dual settings with the tempo cranked and a lower attack setting evokes a broken-Leslie kind of sound, especially in 3D modes. But for recording, I preferred this kind of sound in mono, where I captured more direct, glitchy sounds.
The Verdict
The Slicer is a fun effect, and if you’re into exploring ambient ideas, glitchy rhythms, minimalism, or any other kinds of sounds with room for movement, you’ll probably find sounds you love. You also might find new ideas to refresh your playing, like I did, which I think is the ultimate reward. The many pedal and knob combinations that you’ll need to remember in order to access key features can make the SL-2 confusing. I’d prefer the larger footprint of the original with the added functionality of the new model. But at $169, there’s not much room for complaint. The SL-2 is a powerful, creative effect that delivers.
KingTone’s The Duellist is currently Ariel Posen’s most-used pedal. One side of the dual drive (the Bluesbreaker voicing) is always on. But there’s another duality at play when Posen plugs in—the balance between songwriter and guitarist.
“These days, I like listening to songs and the story and the total package,” Posen told PG back in 2019, when talking about his solo debut, How Long, after departing from his sideman slot for the Bros. Landreth. “Obviously, I’m known as a guitar player, but my music and the music I write is not guitar music. It’s songs, and it goes back to the Beatles. I love songs, and I love story and melody and singing, and there was a lot of detail and attention put into the guitar sound and the playing and the parts—almost more than I’ve ever done.”
And in 2021, he found himself equally expressing his yin-and-yang artistry by releasing two albums that represented both sides of his musicality. First, Headway continued the sultry sizzle of songwriting featured on How Long. Then he surprised everyone, especially guitarists, by dropping Mile End, which is a 6-string buffet of solo dishes with nothing but Ariel and his instrument of choice.
But what should fans expect when they see him perform live? “I just trust my gut. I can reach more people by playing songs, and I get moved more by a story and lyrics and harmony, so that’s where I naturally go. The live show is a lot more guitar centric. If you want to hear me stretch out on some solos, come see a show. I want the record and the live show to be two separate things.”
The afternoon ahead of Posen’s headlining performance at Nashville’s Basement East, the guitar-playing musical force invited PG’s Chris Kies on stage for a robust chat about gear. The 30-minute conversation covers Posen’s potent pair of moody blue bombshells—a hollow, metal-bodied Mule Resophonic and a Fender Custom Shop Jazzmaster—and why any Two-Rock is his go-to amp. He also shares his reasoning behind avoiding effects loops and volume pedals.
Brought to you by D’Addario XPND Pedalboard.
Blue the Mule III
If you’ve spent any time with Ariel Posen’s first solo record, How Long, you know that the ripping, raunchy slide solo packed within “Get You Back” is an aural high mark. As explained in a 2019 PG interview, Posen’s pairing for that song were two cheapos: a $50 Teisco Del Rey into a Kay combo. However, when he took the pawnshop prize onstage, the magic was gone. “It wouldn’t stay in tune and wouldn’t stop feeding back—it was unbearable [laughs].”
Posen was familiar with Matt Eich of Mule Resophonic—who specializes in building metal-body resonators—so he approached the luthier to construct him a steel-bodied, Strat-style baritone. Eich was reluctant at first (he typically builds roundneck resos and T-style baritones), but after seeing a clip of Posen playing live, the partnership was started.
The above steel-bodied Strat-style guitar is Posen’s third custom 25"-scale baritone. (On Mule Resophonic’s website, it’s affectionately named the “Posencaster.”) The gold-foil-looking pickups are handwound by Eich, and are actually mini humbuckers. He employs a custom Stringjoy set (.017–.064 with a wound G) and typically tunes to B standard. The massive strings allow the shorter-scale baritone to maintain a regular-tension feel. And when he gigs, he tours light (usually with two guitars), so he’ll use a capo to morph into D or E standard.
Moody Blue
Another one that saw recording time for Headway and Mile End was the above Fender Custom Shop Masterbuilt ’60s Jazzmaster, made by Carlos Lopez. To make it work better for him, he had the treble-bleed circuit removed, so that when the guitar’s volume is lowered it actually gets warmer.
"Clean and Loud"
Last time we spoke with Posen, he plugged into a Two-Rock Classic Reverb Signature. It’s typically his live amp. However, since this winter’s U.S. run was a batch of fly dates, he packed light and rented backlines. Being in Music City, he didn’t need to go too deep into his phone’s contacts to find a guitar-playing friend that owned a Two-Rock. This Bloomfield Drive was loaned to Ariel by occasional PG contributor Corey Congilio. On the brand’s consistent tone monsters, Posen said, “To be honest, put a blindfold on me and make one of Two-Rock’s amps clean and loud—I don’t care what one it is.”
Stacked Speakers
The loaner vertical 2x12 cab was stocked with a pair of Two-Rock 12-65B speakers made by Warehouse Guitar Speakers.
Ariel Posen’s Pedalboard
There are a handful of carryovers from Ariel’s previous pedalboard that was featured in our 2021 tone talk: a TC Electronic PolyTune 3 Noir, a Morningstar MC3 MIDI Controller, an Eventide H9, a Mythos Pedals Argonaut Mini Octave Up, and a KingTone miniFUZZ Ge. His additions include a custom edition Keeley Hydra Stereo Reverb & Tremolo (featuring Headway artwork), an Old Blood Noise Endeavors Black Fountain oil can delay, Chase Bliss Audio Thermae Analog Delay and Pitch Shifter, and a KingTone The Duellist overdrive.
Another big piece of the tonal pie for Posen is his signature brass Rock Slide. He worked alongside Rock Slide’s Danny Songhurst to develop his namesake slide that features a round-tip end that helps Posen avoid dead spots or unwanted scratching. While he prefers polished brass, you can see above that it’s also available in a nickel-plated finish and an aged brass.
Between a keen awareness of those cultural forces and Gallagher’s not-even-kinda-subtle worship of the Beatles, it’s little wonder he found his way to the Epiphone Riviera that inspired this signature model. Gallagher’s original Riviera, which was a Japan-made 1980s model, is a very different guitar than the Beatles’ hollowbody, P-90-fitted Epiphone Casinos, though. In fact, with its center-block, semi-hollow construction, PAF-inspired humbuckers, and Tune-o-matic bridge, it’s much more like a Gibson ES-335.
Epiphone currently makes several very nice ES-style guitars, from their own ES-335 to the closely related Riviera and Sheraton. Most of those guitars, save for the B.B. King, Emily Wolfe, and Joe Bonamassa signature models, sell for $599 to $699, which begs the inquiry: What does this Noel Gallagher Riviera give you for 200 bucks extra that its cheaper stablemates do not? If you’re a hardcore Oasis fan, that’s a non-question. But even at $899, this guitar is a great value. It feels and plays like a more expensive instrument. The build quality is pretty close to faultless. It comes with a hardshell case. It growls, sings, and stings in classic style. And by amalgamating several elements from Casinos, vintage-style Rivieras, and Gibson ES instruments, the Noel Gallagher Riviera adds up to a unique twist on a classic profile.
An E for Elegance
I’ve longed for a Gibson ES-335 since … forever. They loomed large in images of some of my biggest heroes: Keith Richards on the back of the Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! album, Roky Erickson, and Jorma Kaukonen to name just a few. Usually, an Epiphone Dot was the most affordable means of satisfying my 335 desires, and I’ve played a lot of them in shops and some that belong to friends. But I had weird luck with those Dots. When I found a good one, my interests seemed to be somewhere else. When I was feeling enthused, I could never find one that was quite right. But I feel like if I had ever come across an Epiphone 335-style as nice as the Noel Gallagher Riviera, I might have dropped the cash down on the spot—regardless of my current musical predilections. It’s a very inviting and easy-to-hang-out-with kind of guitar.
If you haven’t taken a break from your pedalboard for a while and need a taste of straight, mainline amp thrills, the Noel Gallagher Riviera is a satisfying means of getting there.
For starters, the Noel Gallagher Riviera feels next to effortless to play. Not everyone digs cradling a 16" body. And not everyone loves a 12" fretboard radius. But just about anyone else that touches this guitar is at risk to succumb to its smooth-playing charms. The action could fairly be called delicious, and the setup perfect, even after a cross-country journey.
The Noel Gallagher Riviera looks good, too. The wine-red finish and binding, aged to a biscuit-tan hue, look like a rather scrumptious meal. But the guitar also holds up to scrutiny at the detail level. I couldn’t find a construction or finish miscue. If there is any possible complaint, it’s that the finish might be a tad thick. All the same, I love looking at it. And though dogmatic Gibson players will probably scream heresy, I prefer the way the slim, florid hourglass headstock looks on this guitar compared to a Gibson. The white, curvaceous pickguard is also a pretty contrast to the wine finish, which I prefer to a Gibson ES-335’s black guard.
Air and Cultured Muscle
If you haven’t taken a break from your pedalboard for a while and need a taste of straight, mainline amp thrills, the Noel Gallagher Riviera is a satisfying means of getting there. The Alnico Classic Pro humbuckers, which aspire to a late-’50s, low-output PAF sound and feel, might lack some sense of the wide-screen, aerated texture you hear in the real thing or a top-flight replica, but they are a very nice facsimile. The top end zings and is neither too soft nor too bossy. And though the low end can be a touch woofy in some settings—a quality that applies to just about any PAF to a degree—it just as readily offers growling counterweight to the sweet treble tones. Like any PAF-profiled pickup, the Alnico Classic Pro is scooped in the midrange. In a great PAF, there’s usually enough personality in the scooped mids to lend a little purr to the output. That edge is slightly blunted here. But on balance, this a very nice set of pickups for a guitar in this price range.
The pickups are also a beautiful match for the semi-hollow construction, which I always think feels a little more dimensional than a Les Paul. The bridge pickup and combined pickup settings in particular seem to benefit from the extra body resonance, which lends them size and firecracker energy. The neck pickup alone, meanwhile, feels and sounds a little extra smoky, vocal, and soft around the edges. Each of these settings, by the way, pair to thrilling effect with overdrive tones. But I particularly love how it matched up with Marshall-style and raspy ODs, where the extra midrange adds a sweet toughness.
The Verdict
The knock on the Noel Gallagher Riviera will almost certainly be that it’s 200 extra bucks for what is, elementally, an Epiphone ES-335. But the little details—the parallelogram markers, the curvaceous, white Rivera pickguard, and the wine finish and aged binding, add up to a very pretty, distinctive, and unique twist on an ES. It’s also a very classy alternative to a Les Paul if you want PAF sounds in a less common instrument. I might also argue that it’s just a touch more versatile in some musical situations, thanks to the combination of airy resonance and growl. If you’re a songwriter, you’ll love how great it sounds nowhere near an amplifier. But this guitar is a joy to hear loud, alive, electrified, and unadulterated.
Epiphone Noel Gallagher Riviera Demo | First Look
The Amulet’s 15-watt, 1x10 combo configuration delivers a lot of flexibility: a simple control panel, nice tremolo and reverb sections, and a useful attenuator, which offers power scaling ranging from 15, 5, or a single watt. The output stage, meanwhile, is Class A and driven by a 6L6GC tube, rather than pairs of smaller 6V6s or EL84s, which drive the most common 15-watt tube amps. Together, these design features make Amulet an interesting and unique Princeton Reverb alternative.
Young, Free, and Single
The Amulet’s control panel will make any 1960s combo amp fan feel right at home. Volume, treble, bass, reverb, and tremolo speed and depth make up the control compliment, save for the 3-position output power switch. The Amulet is a looker, too, like just about everything we’ve seen from the revitalized Supro. Housed in a compact 17.5" x 17" x 8" poplar cabinet and weighing just 29 pounds, it’s covered in stylish black Scandia vinyl with cream piping and a cream grille cloth. A large leatherette handle makes for a super-comfy carry. The speaker is a Celestion G10 Creamback rated at 45 watts.
Given the Class A output stage, you could view the Amulet almost as a beefed-up Champ with extras. The past couple of decades have seen a variety of creative Class A offerings, like the THD UniValve, Victoria Regal (and double-single-ended Regal II), Emery Sound Microbaby, Blackheart Little Giant, the original Carr Mercury, and others. But only the Carr came with a built-in attenuator like the Amulet’s, so it’s nice and rare to see power scaling in this circuit type, at this power level, and at this price. Amulet’s true class-A output and the associated second-order harmonics add to the brew, which most will hear as lively, deep, overtone-rich, and more multi-dimensional in overdriven settings.
The whole of the Amulet’s circuit is tube-driven. There are 12AX7 preamp tubes for the preamp gain stage, reverb gain make-up, and tremolo sections, and a single 12AT7 driving the front end of the spring reverb. Inside, a rugged-looking printed circuit board is populated with quality, through-hole components and board-mounted tube sockets.
Good Luck Charm
The Supro Amulet is a pretty handy box of tricks, given the small package. At lower settings on the volume knob and ranging up to about 11 o’clock, it sounds clean, crisp, and detailed, with body and balance. And despite the modest 15 watts, it feels powerful enough that you could maintain those clean tones in a small club with a volume-conscious rhythm section. Add lush reverb and rich, warm tremolo to taste, and there are some superb atmospheric cleans to be found—offering great sonics for retro swamp-rock, surf, alt-country, and indie textures.
The Amulet offers nice shades of breakup between 1 o’clock and 3 o’clock, but roars when it’s cranked. Assuming that you’ll want to use this capability often, the 15-watt setting will likely be too loud for many home studios. But you can still hit this sweet spot at 5 watts. And apartment dwellers and bedroom jammers that need to use the 1-watt position will still find lots of nice tones. At its sweetest, though, Amulet generates chewy, thick, rowdy, vintage-flavored overdrive and loads of compression without totally sacrificing dynamics.
While the amp’s natural overdrive is expressive in the right setting, it’s awesome with overdrive pedals, too—particularly with amp volumes around 10 to 11 o’clock. One of my favorite pedal/amp recipes was a grinding, plexi-like Friedman overdrive with the Supro set to 15 watts and a clean-but-almost-dirty volume. With a Telecaster out front, the Amulet had the sting of Jimmy Page’s early Led Zeppelin solos. Class A amps are rarely blessed with much low-end thump. Faster onset of compression and sag is usually part of the brew, too. The Amulet is no different in either regard, but it has a way of reminding you how these characteristics can be real virtues and makes the Amulet an exciting amp live or in the studio.
The Verdict
The Supro Amulet is a super-likeable and super-useful amp. The retro styling is a winner. Tones range from crispy to juicy at a range of output levels thanks to the built-in attenuator. The reverb and tremolo are both very good, and it pairs beautifully with overdrive pedals. If, to your ears, that adds up to fun and musical versatility, you’d be wise to give the Amulet a listen.
Supro Amulet Demo | First Look
Mariner Tremolo
Just ask Keith Richards. For the spooky-as-hell guitar track that underpins “Gimme Shelter,” Keith used a Triumph solid-state amp that legendary engineer and producer Glyn Johns hated. But while Johns may have thought the Triumph sounded lame, it had a tremolo circuit Keith loved. Go ahead, give the song a listen. It’s hard to imagine “Gimme Shelter” without that haunting pulse.
Maestro Mariner Tremolo Pedal
Maestro’s Mariner tremolo has the same potential to rescue a lifeless track or performance. It’s not the most refined tremolo (it can come on a bit strong at times), nor does it sound like an approximation of any vintage standard. (It sounded very different from a black-panel Fender Tremolux and Vibroverb, as well as an excellent digital take on those circuits.) Functionally speaking, it will probably remind many players of the Boss TR-2, with its depth, speed, and wave shape controls, which move between sine and square waveforms. Even its controls are arranged in an inverse triangle like the Boss. But the Mariner offers a second, more phase-y mode that it calls harmonic tremolo, which approximates, to some extent, the harmonic vibrato on some early-’60s Fender brown-panel amps. That extends the practical and fun potential of the Mariner.
Pick Your Pulse
If you’re a stickler for vintage-correct emulations, Mariner might not be your first pick for a pedal tremolo. That doesn’t mean it lacks vintage feel, though. In classic mode (it’s not clear if this all-analog circuit was designed to approximate an optical tremolo circuit, bias tremolo, or neither), you can dial in very pretty, immersive modulations that will sound more than adequately vintage-like in a mix. Classic settings are also easy to shape in creative ways with the waveform knob. Compared to what’s arguably the affordable analog tremolo standard bearer, the Boss TR-2, the Mariner’s maximum depth and square wave settings are more pronounced and intense. Some of this intensity might be due to the fact that the Mariner is flat-out louder. Tremolo-pedal makers often build in a very mild boost to compensate for the perceived loss of signal that accompanies some tremolo effects, and Maestro certainly seems to have included one here. The Mariner is perceptibly louder than both a TR-2 and a Strymon Flint.
Even still, Mariner’s harmonic mode is rich and charming, and the wobbly pulses lend a very psychedelic edge.
The Mariner could be more nuanced at times. The classic mode’s pulses, for instance, sometimes seem more hard-edged than liquid. These less-fluid modulations can be even more pronounced in the harmonic tremolo mode. Many players, however, will prefer this texture, even though amp-based harmonic tremolo tends to sound smooth and contoured. Still, Mariner’s harmonic mode is rich and charming, and the wobbly pulses lend a very psychedelic edge. And at slower rates, in particular, the harmonic mode finds its stride. The modulations are phasey and elastic and can sound both beautiful and striking in the right setting.
The Verdict
At nearly 160 bucks, the Mariner is priced near the top end of the affordable tremolo class. But Mariner’s secret weapon may be the fact that it sounds vintage without clearly imitating other circuits or sounding too generic. That relative individuality, plus its extra output, make it an appealing option for those who’d rather not default to the most obvious standard.
Orbit Phaser
One of my favorite ways to make a tremolo pedal like the Mariner sound even cooler than it already does is by situating a phaser downstream. I tend to disagree with guitarists that regard phase as one-dimensional. I’ve seen ripping players with great dynamic touch and broad tone palettes that almost never turn them off. And it’s always impressive how they weave a phaser’s cool mysterious sense of motion into a complex whole instead of placing the modulation front and center.
Maestro Orbit Phaser Pedal
There’s a lot more flexibility to do that these days now that phasers have evolved so considerably from early one-knob classics. Maestro’s Orbit Phaser walks the line between contemporary and complex, and vintage and stupidly simple, though it tends toward the latter. So, while it lacks some of the fine-tuning features you see on more powerful units, it facilitates creation of subtle, backgrounded blends and much more prominent modulations.
You Gotta Move
The Orbit’s phase is bold and clear. There is no perceived signal loss—a problem that plagues a lot of older analog phasers and which becomes a fear among many first-time phaser shoppers. In some situations, the Orbit cuts because of a very pronounced midrange emphasis. The pedal adds a distinct tone color—midrange-y enough to evoke a cocked wah or filter at certain settings and with certain guitars. There are some awesome applications for the voice. For example, I paired the pedal with a Telecaster on which I rolled the tone way back. The resulting skwonky waveforms I heard could transform an otherwise dull part into something hooky and weird. The midrangey voice also meshes very nicely with PAF-style humbuckers, creating pronounced, muscular waveforms that cut in jangly settings or psychedelic blues solos. The Orbit sounds extra cool and assertive at fast modulation rates—another neat way to pepper up a same-old fake-Jimi solo. It also sounded bolder in this setting than the very old and familiar Small Stone and Phase 90 I used for reference.
The Orbit sounds extra cool and assertive at fast modulation rates.
At slower rates—the kind that, say, you would use for The Dark Side of the Moon tracks, soul ballads, or Waylon Jennings jams—the Maestro’s mid-focused voice works less well. Rather, the more open-ended and less specific voices of the Phase 90 and Small Stone let your signal breathe a lot more across the frequency spectrum, while the Orbit feels punkier and more snarling. Which flavor is better is totally subjective. But I would say Orbit’s slow phase tones read as a little less liquid than those from the old MXR and Electro-Harmonix units.
The Verdict
The Orbit Phaser can be a real joy for how unique it sounds. Faster rate settings are particularly rich. The ability to tailor width and feedback enables loads of contrasting subtle-to-robust waveforms. The 4-and-6-stage modes provide additional versatility, though the differences between them is less pronounced than on some phasers with that option. The Orbit’s range would make it the ideal candidate for an always-on phaser, and there will be players who use it in just that fashion. But the strong midrange emphasis will probably dissuade many from using it that way— especially those that primarily use single-coils. Humbucker players might have a different experience. The Orbit’s voice gets along great with a PAF. And that’s just one of many intriguing and satisfying sounds here.
Agena Envelope Filter
To a large segment of the guitar-playing populace, “envelope filter” usually means “auto wah” or “that quacky thing.” Most good envelope filters do that stuff. It’s probably what most buyers expect of them. But envelope filters can do other really cool things. They can effectively work like high-contrast EQ presets—transforming solos as radically as a fuzz can. They can also work like dynamic phasers and summon interesting phrasings from pedestrian chord changes and melodic lines, particularly when you get used to working in bendy, elastic give-and-take tandem with the effect. Correspondingly, they are great tools for digging out of a rut.
Maestro Agena Envelope Filter Pedal
Maestro’s Agena lives a little less on the quacky end of the filter spectrum, trading some of those hyper-vowely, percussive and snappy filtering qualities for a more expansive dynamic palette and a little more control over attack. But for anyone keen to explore the effect beyond Jerry Garcia and Bootsy Collins sound archetypes, it will seem much more forgiving and usable than many more clearly Mu-Tron III-derived circuits.
Practical in Practice
If you’re at all put off by envelope filters because their controls are counterintuitive on the surface, you should not fear the Agena. Even if you’re not familiar with how envelope filters are supposed to work, it’s easy to feel your way through how they interact and respond to the input from your guitar and fingers.
The sense knob governs how much picking energy is required before the envelope is activated. Attack controls how fast the envelop opens. Decay regulates how long the filter stays open. A small toggle will be familiar to old-school Mu-Tron and Electro-Harmonix Q-Tron users. It assigns emphasis to higher or lower frequency ranges. The controls are fairly interactive. You can set up classic quacky sounds by cranking up the sense and attack controls and situating the decay control in the middle third of its range. More subdued, less vowel-y tones lurk at faster decay rates, where you can also coax great narrow-focus filter sounds that evoke old octave effects like the Ampeg Scrambler or Dan Armstrong Green Ringer.
You can also coax great narrow-focus filter sounds that evoke old octave effects like the Ampeg Scrambler or Dan Armstrong Green Ringer.
Because the Agena is a dynamically controlled filter, it responds to any change in your input signal. So, it reacts differently to varied pick attack and heavier or thinner picks. Boosts and overdrive remove dynamic range but can add emphasis to quacky and vowelly filter responses or filter effects that highlight specific frequencies. Different guitars and pickups can have very different relationships, too. Telecaster bridge pickups were especially good for coaxing dynamic phase sounds at high-sense/fast-attack/medium-decay settings. PAF-style humbuckers, meanwhile, sounded hot and vocal.
The Verdict
In some ways, the Agena could be the envelope filter for people that don’t like envelope filters. It rarely feels like an all-or-none proposition, and the filter is capable of many sounds in between Grateful Dead caricature and less loaded voices. It also rewards players who pursue less obvious, droning playing approaches as opposed to those who play it funky. But even if it’s just classic quack you’re after, the Agena gives you many shades to work with.