 | |
 | Download Example 1 Les Paul Metal tone |
| Download Example 2 Godin Redline Shred tone |
| Download Example 3 Hamer Korina Special, classic rock tone |
| Clips recorded with a Shure SM57 into a Chandler LTD-1 mic pre directly into Pro Tools. | |
Looks Boss
The ST-2 comes in the same aluminum casing Boss has used for an eternity, but in this case it’s entirely black to convey its strictly rockist intentions. The pedal uses Boss’ excellent silent footswitch, and the relatively simple control set includes Level, Bass, Treble, and Sound. As you’d expect, the Level control is an output knob you can use to match the volume to your clean setting or hit hard to push the front end of your amp. Bass and Treble offer wide-sweeping EQ to fit many different tonal profiles. The Sound control ranges from Crunch to Drive and then Ultra—in other words, light distortion to extreme metal gain.
Built for Heaviosity
I spent the vast majority of time with the ST-2 playing my ’74 Les Paul Custom into a 3rd Power American Dream amp switched to the amp’s exceptionally clean blackface channel—an ideal blank slate for evaluating the ST-2’s distortion characteristics. With all controls set midway, the pedal already sounded aggressive. And the halfway mark on Sound could easily be the full up setting on many gain pedals I’ve played. When cranked, ST-2 turned into a screaming banshee!
Because there is such a wide throw on the Bass and Treble controls, they can boost the volume significantly—necessitating adjustments to the Level knob. As mentioned, Sound changes the character of the distortion, thickening the sound more and more as you turn it clockwise. Right around 11 o’clock, I dialed up a pretty mean approximation of Ritchie Blackmore’s “Man on the Silver Mountain” tone that remained fairly dynamic and responsive to a varied pick attack. And that’s one thing that’s consistently impressive about the ST-2: Every note is sharp and percussive, and pick attack nuances only become more defined as you increase the Sound settings.
Perhaps the ST-2’s only shortcoming is a lack of midrange control. There is an inherent midrange heaviness that can sound like a half-cocked wah depending on your amp and guitar tone settings, and this can be a challenge to get rid of. And while the added presence surely adds something to the pedal’s capacity for note articulation, it could be the difference between certain players loving or having little use for the ST-2.
The Verdict
The ST-2 is a kind of embodiment of the go-big-or-go-home concept. It’s clearly a pedal for making your tone heavy. And given that there are plenty of gain/overdrive/distortion pedals in the Boss line for creating more sedate overdrive flavors, it’s pretty cool to have such a heavy-hitting specialist in the mix. The ST-2 may not be for everyone, but for those who want portable, raging tone and killer pick attack without hauling a 100-watt head and ten tons of 4x12s will be thrilled.
Buy if...
you need access to aggressive, heavy-gain voices in your combo amp.
Skip if...
your Blues Driver provides all the distortion you need and Extreme isn’t your middle name.
Rating...
Street $99 - Boss US - bossus.com |
| Tone Games 2010: 30 Stompboxes Reviewed | Next in DIRT: Earthquaker Devices Chrysalis |
Supro Montauk 15-watt 1 x 10-inch Tube Combo Amplifier - Blue Rhino Hide Tolex with Silver Grille
This month’s mod Dan’s uses a 500k linear pot, a 1.5H inductor (L) with a 0.039 µF (39nF) cap (C), and a 220k resistor (R) in parallel.
Don’t let the name fool you, this is a purely passive device—nothing is going to be boosted. In general, you can’t increase anything with passive electronics that isn’t already there. Period. But you can reshape the tone by deemphasizing certain frequencies and making others more prominent (so … “boost” in guitar marketing language). Removing highs makes lows more apparent, and vice versa. In addition, the use of inductors (which create the magnetic field in a guitar circuit) and capacitors will create resonant peaks and valleys (bandpasses and notches), further coloring the overall tone. This type of bandpass filter only allows certain frequencies to pass through, while others are blocked, and it all works at unity gain.
“You can’t increase anything with passive electronics that isn’t already there … but you can reshape the tone by deemphasizing certain frequencies and making others more prominent.”
All the systems I mentioned above are doing more or less the same thing, using different approaches and slightly different component values. They are all meant to be updated tone controls. Our common tone circuit is usually a variable low-pass filter (aka treble-cut filter), which only allows the low frequencies to pass through, while the high frequencies get sent to ground via the tone cap. Most of these systems are LCR networks, which means that there is not only a capacitor (C), like on our standard tone controls, but also an inductor (L) and a resistor (R).
In general, all these systems are meant to control the midrange in order to scoop the mids, creating a mid-cut. This can be a cool sounding option, e.g. on a Strat for that mid-scooped neck and middle tone.
Dan Torres offered his “midrange kit” via an internet shop that is no longer online, same with his business website. The Torres design is a typical LCR network and looks like the illustration at the top of this column.
Dan’s design uses a 500k linear pot, a 1.5H inductor (L) with a 0.039 µF (39nF) cap (C), and a 220k resistor (R) in parallel. Let’s break down the parts piece by piece:
Any 500k linear pot will do the trick, in one of the rare scenarios where a linear pot works better in a passive guitar system than an audio pot.
(C) 0.039µF cap: This is kind of an odd value. Keeping production tolerances of up to 20 percent in mind, any value that is close will do, so you can use any small cap you want for this. I would prefer a small metallized film cap, and any voltage rating will do. If you want to stay as close as possible to the original design, use any 0.039 µF low-tolerance film cap.
(L) 1.5H inductor: The original design uses a Xicon 42TL021 inductor, which is easy to find and fairly priced. This one is also used in the Bill Lawrence Q-Filter design, the Gibson standard Varitone, and many other systems like this. It’s very small, so it will fit in virtually every electronic compartment of a guitar. It has a frequency range of 300 Hz up to 3.4 kHz, with a primary impedance of 4k ohms (that’s the one we want to use) and a secondary impedance of 600 ohms. Snip off the three secondary leads and the center tap of the primary side and use the two remaining outer primary leads; the primary side is marked with a “P.” On the pic, you can see the two leads you need marked in red, all other leads can be snipped off. You can connect the two remaining leads to the pot either way; it doesn’t matter which of them is going to ground when using it this way.
Drawing courtesy of singlecoil.com
(R) 220k: use a small axial metal film resistor (0.25 W), which is easy to find and is the quasi-standard.
Other designs use slightly different part values—the Bill Lawrence Q-filter has a 1.8H L, 0.02 µF C and 8k R, while the old RA Gresco Tone Qube from the ’80s has a 1.5H L, 0.0033 µF C, and a 180k R, so this is a wide field for experimentation to tweak it for your personal tone.
This mid-cut system can be put into any electric guitar not only as a master tone, but also together with a regular tone control or something like the Fender Greasebucket, or it can be assigned only to a certain pickup. It can be a great way to enhance your sonic palette, so give it a try.
That’s it! Next month, we’ll take a deeper look into how to fight feedback on a Telecaster. It’s a common issue, so stay tuned!
Until then ... keep on modding!