A two-in-one pedal that is way more than the sum of its parts.
For the better part of a decade, the RC Booster by Xotic has pleased many 6-stringers who like some hair on their boost. A new collaboration with fusion guru Scott Henderson has created the RCB-SH, a dual-channel version of the flagship pedal. For as much tonal ground that was crammed into the RCB, Xotic didn’t add much in the way of controls. With an additional footswitch and a mini knob, a two-headed beast was born.
Henderson had a few goals with his namesake stomp, and high on that list was transparency and better note definition. Spoiler: Mission accomplished. The blue channel is basically a transparent boost and is stunningly clear and warm. There's less gain than say, a Tube Screamer, and it's way more sensitive to attack—welcome additions for more dynamic players who shuffle between pick and fingers. The red channel, which has a separate gain control, walks that fine line between sweetly singing leads and over-the-top saturation. On the gig, I pretty much left the blue channel on and flipped the red channel on for more soaring lead work. Simply put, this pedal isn’t the equivalent of a heavy-handed tonal facelift, but if your basic tone is already happening, the RCB-SH can surely find a spot on your board.
Test gear: Fender Stratocaster, Gibson Les Paul Custom, Dr. Z Z-Lux, Fender Deluxe Reverb
Ratings
Pros:
Wonderfully powerful boost options. Harmonically rich overdrive.
Cons:
Could use more definition in the bass control.
Street:
$168 direct
Xotic RC-Booster SH
xotic.us
Tones:
Ease of Use:
Build/Design:
Value:
The final day is here! Enter Stompboxtober Day 31 for your last chance to win today’s pedal from Keeley and finish the month strong!
Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Does the guitar’s design encourage sonic exploration more than sight reading?
A popular song between 1910 and 1920 would usually sell millions of copies of sheet music annually. The world population was roughly 25 percent of what it is today, so imagine those sales would be four or five times larger in an alternate-reality 2024. My father is 88, but even with his generation, friends and family would routinely gather around a piano and play and sing their way through a stack of songbooks. (This still happens at my dad’s house every time I’m there.)
Back in their day, recordings of music were a way to promote sheet music. Labels released recordings only after sheet-music sales slowed down on a particular song. That means that until recently, a large section of society not only knew how to read music well, but they did it often—not as often as we stare at our phones, but it was a primary part of home entertainment. By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language. Music is probably the most common language on Earth, yet I bet it has the highest illiteracy rate.
Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.
At the heart of this all-tube amp is a matched pair of military-grade Sovtek 5881 power tubes configured to deliver 35-Watts of pure Class A power. In addition to the upgraded power section, the Black Magick Reverb TB also features a “bright cap” modification on Channel 1, providing extra sparkle and added versatility when blended with the original Black Magick preamp on Channel 2.
The two complementary channels are summed in parallel and fed into a 2-band EQ followed by tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo effects plus a master volume to tame the output as needed. This unique, signature variant of the Black Magick Reverb is dressed in elegant Black Scandia tolex and comes loaded with a custom-built Supro BD12 speaker made by Celestion.
Price: $1,699.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.