Top: Meet the Hawk—a mix of LP Junior-inspired electronics and Strat-style body, neck, and hardware.
Middle: On this guitar, I keep the 4th string out of the string tree, allowing it to resonate like the other wound strings.
Bottom: Check out the 3-way switch—its placement is reminiscent of an ES-335 or SG.
Ever since a neighbor turned me on to SX guitars a few years ago, I always keep my eyes open for them on eBay. This particular one caught my eye because it looked so cool. It’s a SX Hawk MN P90 done up in vintage white with a tinted maple fretboard. When I went to the SX/Rondo site to check out the specs, their current versions of antique white just didn’t look quite as rockin’ as the eBay one. So I emailed the eBay seller and asked why there was a color discrepancy. He replied that his was a limited edition “Vintage Custom Series” that was “way better” than the regular ones. Yeah, right. Whatever.
I decided to bid on it, and the auction ended with me having the highest bid of $91. But the seller’s reserve price of $115 was not met, so we had no deal. I politely wrote him back explaining that you can buy these new for $109 online. Then he sent me an eBay Second Chance Offer for my $91 bid plus $25 shipping. I decided to accept it on a whim, and I’m glad I did!
Bottom Feeder Tip #266: Never be afraid to contact the seller and make an offer if an auction ended with no sale. All they can say is no.
When it arrived, I really dug the color. In the catalog these look slightly pinkish white with a much darker, cheesy-looking tinted maple neck and fretboard. Mine looks better— to my eyes, anyway—with more of an aged yellow blonde color to the tint.
So how does it sound? The P-90s make the guitar sound full and very Gibson-ish, while the Strat-style body, neck, and bridge give it more of Fender vibe. This guitar is a blues machine and very fun to play. It oozes tone, baby!
My only criticism is the location of the volume control. My right hand is always accidentally bumping the knob and turning the guitar down in the middle of a solo, so I usually remove the knob before any serious playing and set the shaft to 10.
I never did find out if it’s really part of a limited edition series or not, but who cares? I like it and that’s all that matters. She’s definitely a keeper for now.
Will Ray
is a founding
member of the
Hellecasters guitar-twang
trio. He also does guitar
clinics promoting his
namesake G&L signature
model 6-string, and produces
artists and bands at his studio in
Asheville, North Carolina. You can contact
Will on Facebook and at willray.biz.
Silos features six presets, tap tempo, one full second of delay time, and three voices—two of which are styled after bucket-brigade and tape-delay sounds. In the $150 price category, it’s not unusual for a digital delay to leave some number of those functions out. And spending the same money on a true-analog alternative usually means warm, enveloping sounds but limited functionality and delay time. Silos, improbably perhaps, offers a very elegant solution to this can’t-have-it-all dilemma in a U.S.-made effect.
A More Complete Cobbling Together
Silos’ utility is bolstered by a very unintimidating control set, which is streamlined and approachable. Three of those controls are dedicated to the same mix, time, and repeats controls you see on any delay. But saving a preset to one of the six spots on the rotary preset dial is as easy as holding the green/red illuminated button just below the mix and preset knobs. And you certainly won’t get lost in the weeds if you move to the 3-position toggle, which switches between a clear “digital” voice, darker “analog” voice, and a “tape” voice which is darker still.
“The three voices offer discernibly different response to gain devices.”
One might suspect that a tone control for the repeats offers similar functionality as the voice toggle switch. But while it’s true that the most obvious audible differences between digital, BBD, and tape delays are apparent in the relative fidelity and darkness of their echoes, the Silos’ three voices behave differently in ways that are more complex than lighter or duskier tonality. For instance, the digital voice will never exhibit runaway oscillation, even at maximum mix and repeat settings. Instead, repeats fade out after about six seconds (at the fastest time settings) or create sleepy layers of slow-decaying repeats that enhance detail in complex, sprawling, loop-like melodic phrases. The analog voice and tape voice, on the other hand, will happily feed back to psychotic extremes. Both also offer satisfying sensitivity to real-time, on-the-fly adjustments. For example, I was tickled with how I could generate Apocalypse Now helicopter-chop effects and fade them in and out of prominence as if they were approaching or receding in proximity—an effect made easier still if you assign an expression pedal to the mix control. This kind of interactivity is what makes analog machines like the Echoplex, Space Echo, and Memory Man transcend mere delay status, and the sensitivity and just-right resistance make the process of manipulating repeats endlessly engaging.
Doesn't Flinch at Filth
EarthQuaker makes a point of highlighting the Silos’ affinity for dirty and distorted sounds. I did not notice that it behaved light-years better than other delays in this regard. But the three voices most definitely offer discernibly different responses to gain devices. The super-clear first repeat in the digital mode lends clarity and melodic focus, even to hectic, unpredictable, fractured fuzzes. The analog voice, which EQD says is inspired by the tone makeup of a 1980s-vintage, Japan-made KMD bucket brigade echo, handles fuzz forgivingly inasmuch as its repeats fade warmly and evenly, but the strong midrange also keeps many overtones present as the echoes fade. The tape voice, which uses aMaestro Echoplex as its sonic inspiration, is distinctly dirtier and creates more nebulous undercurrents in the repeats. If you want to retain clarity in more melodic settings, it will create a warm glow around repeats at conservative levels. Push it, and it will summon thick, sometimes droning haze that makes a great backdrop for slower, simpler, and hooky psychedelic riffs.
In clean applications, this decay and tone profile lend the tape setting a spooky, foggy aura that suggests the cold vastness of outer space. The analog voice often displays an authentic BBD clickiness in clean repeats that’s sweet for underscoring rhythmic patterns, while the digital voice’s pronounced regularity adds a clockwork quality that supports more up-tempo, driving, electronic rhythms.
The Verdict
Silos’ combination of features seems like a very obvious and appealing one. But bringing it all together at just less than 150 bucks represents a smart, adept threading of the cost/feature needle.
EarthQuaker Devices Silos Multi-generational Time Reflection Delay Pedal
In this episode, we’re celebrating the thrill of guitarmony, sick riffs, and driving 8th-note rhythms by talking about Judas Priest. Before getting ready for this episode, neither of your esteemed hosts had ever delved into the Priest discography beyond the rock-radio hits and Beavis and Butthead—though we’d both spent our time with Heavy Metal Parking Lot. Since so many of the GOATs hold the band in the highest of regard, we knew that K.K. Downing and Glenn Tipton belonged on this list, so we embarked on a journey to find out why.
After hours of listening and watching, we’re happy to report that we get it. From their debut, 1974’s Rocka Rolla, through 1980’s British Steel, deep into the ’80s-production era with 1986’s Turbo, and through the speed-metal bravado of 1990’s Painkiller, plus live videos and records—the super-loud US Festival performance and the crushing Unleashed in the East record—we found a lot that we love.
