This month, we'll begin exploring some “factory
stock" mods found on certain Fender
models, starting with the “passing lane"
mod. Fender started using this mod with a
push/push button on the new 2010 American
Deluxe HSS Strat, and advertises it as follows:
“The all-new 'passing lane' switch instantly
routes your signal from any pickup position
to the bridge position with the tone circuit
bypassed, blasting overtones and volume
straight into the Strat-o-sphere."
Well, I have to confess I really love Fender
marketing and their tradition of using cheesy
hot rod themes to sell their instruments. This
mod is really cool for a humbucker/single/single (HSS) configuration, but it also works
with any given pickup combination. This is not
really a new or “Fender first" mod. John Suhr
has used a similar “blower switch" on his guitars
for several years, Yamaha equips some of
their instruments with this feature, and you can
find comparable mods on the Internet, often
called “solo switch mods" or “lead mods."
Currently, the circuit drawing is not available
on the Fender website, but they're bound to
add it soon. In the meantime, I'll show you
how to add this circuit to your Stratocaster.
Wiring diagram courtesy of Seymour Duncan Pickups. Seymour Duncan and the
stylized S are registered trademarks of Seymour Duncan Pickups.
Getting Started
You don't need much for this mod, just a DPDT
(on/on) switch and some wire. As you probably
know, there are plenty of options for switching
devices. Besides a mini-toggle switch, you
can also use the round push/push button from
Fender, which is available through any authorized
Fender dealer. Alternatively, you can use
a push/pull or push/push pot. Either of these
lets you avoid drilling holes in your pickguard
and keeps your Strat looking completely stock.
Personally, I like the idea of the push/push button
and the location Fender chose for it. The
button is easy to reach and easy to operate—
perfect to hit when you want to wail.
In a nutshell, here's how it works: When the mod
is engaged, you bypass the Volume and Tone
controls, as well as the 5-way pickup selector
switch, and automatically engage the bridge
pickup. This works from any pickup-selector
position. The idea is to switch to solo mode with
the single push of a button.
For example, let's say
you're playing a rhythm
part using the neck
pickup and the volume
and tone controls
slightly rolled back for
a warmer tone. Then
you switch to the bridge
pickup—which is now
directly connected to
the output jack for maximum
volume and brightness—
to lay down a solo
part. To return to your
former rhythm mode,
you simply push the button
again. This naturally
works best with a HSS
configuration, but many
Strats equipped with
three single-coils have
a hotter bridge pickup, so this mod makes
sense for these guitars as well. It's like having
two presets you can toggle between by simply
pushing a button.
Those of you who read my column regularly
will notice this mod is very similar to the “direct
through" mod we talked about some months
ago. It too bypasses the Volume and Tone
controls, connecting the chosen pickup or
pickup combination directly to the output jack
for maximum volume and twang. There is one
difference: The “direct through" mod does
not bypass the 5-way pickup selector, so you
can route any pickup combination directly to
the output jack. In contrast, Fender's “passing
lane" mod bypasses the 5-way pickup selector
and automatically jumps to the bridge pickup.
From a technical point of view, bypassing all the
controls noticeably lowers the circuit's overall
load. It's like soldering the pickup wires directly
to the lugs of the guitar's output jack. This way,
you'll hear your pickup as never before, with full
volume and maximum high-end response.
Too Much?
Depending on your sonic taste, this mod may
yield too much treble. If so, you can tame the
tone by soldering a small capacitor in series with
the pickup to bring in more capacitance. (This
is what we did last month to simulate vintage
spiral guitar cords.) Try a value between 220pF
and 1000pF, depending on your taste and equipment.
I recommend adding an on/off switch for
this extra cap, otherwise it will always be active.
To start, print out the standard Stratocaster
wiring and put it on your workbench. This
makes it much easier for you to see and
understand the differences between the stock
and modded schematics. You can download
the standard wiring scheme from the
Seymour Duncan website (seymourduncan.com/support/wiring-diagrams/). The diagram
shown here is the standard Stratocaster wiring
enhanced with the “passing lane" mod.
All right, that's it! This mod is not difficult, yet
it's sonically powerful. Stay tuned for more
Strat mods in the coming months, including
a discussion about the good 'ol Fender TBX
tone control.
Dirk Wacker
Dirk Wacker lives in Germany and has been a guitar addict
since age 5. He is fascinated by anything related to old
Fender guitars and amps. He plays country, rockabilly,
and surf music in two bands, works regularly as a studio
musician, and writes for several guitar mags. He is also a
hardcore DIY-er for guitars, amps, and stompboxes, and he
runs an extensive webpage (singlecoil.com) on the subject.
Effects Bakery MECHA-PAN BAKERY Series MECHA-BAGEL OVERDRIVE
Konnichiwa, guitar lovers! 🎸✨
Are you ready to add some sweetness to your pedalboard? Let’s dive into the adorable world of the Effects Bakery Mecha-Pan Overdrive, part of the super kawaii Mecha-Pan Bakery Series!
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The Mecha-Pan Overdrive is like a delicious bagel for your guitar tone, but it’s been upgraded to a new level of cuteness and functionality!
Effects Bakery has taken their popular Bagel OverDrive and given it a magical makeover. Imagine your favorite overdrive sound but with more elegance and warmth – it’s like hugging a fluffy cat while playing your guitar!
Loopers can be complex enough to make beginners cry. They are fun if you have time to venture for whole weeks down a rabbit hole. But a looper that bridges the functionality and ease-of-use gap between the simplest and most maniacal ones can be a sweet spot for newbies and seasoned performers both. The JamMan Solo HD lives squarely in that zone. It also offers super-high sound quality and storage options, and capacity that would fit the needs of most pros—all in a stomp just millimeters larger than a Boss pedal.
Fast Out of the Blocks
Assuming you’ve used some kind of rudimentary looper before, there’s pretty decent odds you’ll sort out the basic functionality of this one with a couple of exploratory clicks of the footswitch. That’s unless you’ve failed to turn down the rhythm-level knob, in which case you’ll be scrambling for the quick start guide to figure out why there is a drum machine blaring from your amp. The Solo HD comes loaded with rhythm tracks that are actually really fun to use and invaluable for practice. In the course of casually exploring these, I found them engaging and vibey enough to be lured into crafting expansive dub reggae jams, thrashing punk riffs, and lo-fi cumbias. Removing these tracks from a given loop is just a matter of turning the rhythm volume to zero. You can also create your own guide rhythms with various percussion sounds.
Backing tracks aside, creating loops on the Solo HD involves a common single-click-to-record, double-click-to-stop footswitch sequence. Recording an overdub takes another single click, and you hold the footswitch down to erase a loop. Storing a loop requires a simple press-and-hold of the store switch. The sizable latching footswitch, which looks and feels quite like those on Boss pedals, is forgiving and accurate. This has always been a strength of JamMan loopers, and though I’m not completely certain why, it means I screw up the timing of my loops a lot less.
Many players will be satisfied with how easy this functionality is and explore little more of the Solo HD’s capabilities. And why not? The storage capacity—up to 35 minutes of loops and 10 minutes for individual loops—is enough that you can craft a minor prog-rock suite from these humble beginnings. Depending on how economical your loops are, you can use all or most of the 200 available memory locations built into the Solo HD. But you can also add another 200 with an SD/SDHC card.Deeper into Dubs
Loopers have always been more than performance and practice tools for me. I have old multitrack demos that still live in the memory banks of my oldest loopers. And just as with any demos, the sounds you create with the Solo HD may be tough to top or duplicate, which can mean a loop becomes the foundation of a whole recorded song. The Solo HD’s tempo and reverse features, which can completely mutate a loop, make this situation even more likely. The tempo function raises or lowers the BPM without changing the pitch of the loop. As a practice tool, this is invaluable for learning a solo at a slower clip. But drastically altered tempos can also help create entirely new moods for a musical passage without altering a favorite key to sing or play in. Some of these alterations reveal riffs and hooks within riffs and hooks, from which I would happily build a whole finished work. The reverse function is similarly inspiring and a source of unusual textures that can be the foundation for a more complex piece.
HD, of course, stands for high definition. And the Solo HD’s capacity for accurate, dense, and detail-rich stacks of loops means you can build complex musical weaves highlighting the interaction between overtones or timbre differences among other effects in your chain. I can’t remember the last time I felt like a looper’s audio resolution was really lacking. But the improved quality here lends itself to using the Solo HD as a song-arranging tool—and, again, as a recording asset, if you want a looped idea to form the backbone of a recording.
The Verdict
With a looper, smooth workflow is everything. And though it takes practice and some concentration in the early going to extract the most from the Solo HD’s substantial feature set, it is, ultimately, a very intuitive instrument that will not just smooth the use of loops in performance, but extend and enhance its ability as a right-brain-oriented driver of composition and creation.
The Warm Bender dishes these sounds with ease and savage aplomb. Outwardly, it honors the original MkII—a good way to go given that the original Sola Sound unit is one the most stylish effects ever built. But the 3-transistor NOS 75 MkII is only one of the Warm Bender’s personalities. You can also switch to a 2-transistor NOS 76 circuit, aka the Tone Bender MkI. There’s also a silicon 3-transistor Tone Bender circuit, a twist explored by several modern boutique builders. Each of these three voices can be altered further by the crown-mounted sag switch, which starves the circuit of voltage, reducing power from 9 to 6 volts. From these three circuits, the Warm Bender conjures voices that are smooth, responsive, ragged, mean, mangled, clear, and positively fried.
The Compact Wedge Edge
Warm Audio, quite wisely, did not put the Warm Bender in an authentically, full-size Tone Bender enclosure, which would gobble a lot of floor space. But this smaller, approximately 2/3-scale version, complete with a Hammerite finish, looks nearly as hip. It’s sturdy, too. The footswitch and jacks are affixed directly to the substantial enclosure entirely apart from the independently mounted through-hole circuit board, which, for containing three circuits rather than one, is larger and more densely populated than the matchbox-sized circuit boards in a ’60s Tone Bender. Despite the more cramped quarters, there’s still room for a 9V battery if you choose to run it that way. Topside, there’s not much to the Warm Bender. There’s a chicken-head knob for output volume, another for gain, and a third that switches between the NOS 76, NOS 75, and silicon modes. Even the most boneheaded punk could figure this thing out.
A Fuzz Epic in Three Parts
Most Warm Bender customers will find their way to the pedal via MkII lust. If you arrive here by that route you won’t be disappointed. The Warm Bender’s NOS 75 setting delivers all the glam-y, proto-metal, heavy filth you could ask for. It sounded every bit as satisfying as my own favorite MkII clone save for a hint of extra compression that falls well within the bounds of normal vintage fuzz variation. My guess is that when you’re ripping through “Dazed and Confused” you won’t give a hoot.
“There’s more color and air in the NOS 76 mode.”
If the NOS 75 circuit suffers by comparison to anything, it’s the 2-transistor friend next door, the NOS 76. The lower-gain NOS 76 mode is, to my ears, the most appealing of the three. It’s the most dynamic in terms of touch response and guitar volume attenuation and delivers the clearest clean tones when you use either technique. There’s more color and air in the NOS 76 mode, too. Paired with a neck-position single-coil, it’s an excellent alternative for Hendrix and Eddie Hazel low-gain mellow fuzz that’s more like dirty overdrive. The silicon mode, meanwhile, lives on the modern borderlands of the ’60s-fuzz spectrum. It’s super-aggressive and focused, which can be really useful depending on the setting, but lo-fi, spitty, and weird when starved of voltage via the sag switch. It’s deviant-sounding stuff, but extends the Warm Bender’s performance envelope in useful ways, particularly if you hunt for unique fuzz tones in the studio.
There’s a widely accepted bit of wisdom that says most germanium fuzzes sound lousy unless you turn up everything all the way and use your guitar controls to tailor the tone. This is partly true, especially with a Fuzz Face. But in general, I respectfully disagree and present the Warm Bender as exhibit A in this defense. The gain and volume controls both have considerable range and fascinating shades of fuzz within that can still rise above the din of a raging band.
The Verdict
Some potential customers might balk at the notion of a $199 vintage-style fuzz made in China—no matter how cool it looks. But the Warm Bender looks and feels well made. The sound and tactile sensations in the three circuits are truly different enough to be three individual effects, and $199 for three fuzz pedals is a sweet deal—particularly when consolidated in a stompbox that looks this cool. There is a lot of variation in old Tone Benders, and how these takes on the circuits compare to your idea of true vintage Tone Bender sound will be subjective. But I heard the essence of both the MkI and MkII here very clearly and would have no qualms about using the Warm Bender in a session that called for an extra-authentic mid-’60s fuzz texture.
Walrus Audio’s Monumental Harmonic Stereo Tremolo is far from the only modern tremolo pedal that offers stereo panning. And it’s one of many that digitally approximates the elastic, phasey sound of brown-panel Fender harmonic tremolo. But the Monumental’s economical design and compact dimensions conjure memories of PN-2s I’ve known and missed. It brims with features an old PN-2 user could only dream of in the midst of a stereo amp reverie: the harmonic tremolo, a more traditional optical tremolo-style voice, the ability to blend the two, six wave shape options, and a subdivision switch that enables precise rhythmic variations on any given modulation pattern.
Rhythms Carved in Rock
The Monumental is, as any Walrus-watcher will know, is an evolution of theMonument, which was built around harmonic and optical-inspired tremolo voices, and features tap-tempo, subdivisions, and five waveform types. So, the big news here is the stereo capacity, presets, and the ability to blend the harmonic and optical tremolo types. You’ll pay 60 extra bucks for these extended capabilities. But if you really get into using tr-molo to its fullest potential, these are no small matters.
“The big news here is the stereo capacity, presets, and the ability to blend the harmonic and optical tremolo types.”
The Monumental uses the same-sized enclosure as the Monument V2. The only real drawback from this layout is the proximity of the tap-tempo switch to the bypass, and, as I was reminded at a jam last week, I for one, can easily miss my footswitch target if I’m deeply involved in a musical moment. That issue aside, the Monumental is impressive for the way it accommodates stereo in and out jacks, a tap and expression pedal jack, six knobs for volume, wave shape, stereo pan spread, rate, depth, and the optical/harmonic blend. The subdivision button is situated just below these and is easy to access and operate. None of it, save for the footswitches, feels cramped or difficult to navigate.
Soaring Skyward
It’s good that Walrus added presets to the Monumental, because while it can often seem subtle, the deeper you venture into the possible textures, the more detail and difference you hear among them. Waveforms like the square and sine wave sound great at low- and medium-depth settings. Other options benefit from a more-aggressive depth setting. I tended to like the optical and harmonic tremolo voices in their purest forms, but you can find many intricacies to probe and unravel in the blended settings. Some of those differences might go missing in the wash of a dense arrangement, but when they breathe in more spacious musical settings they are lovely. This is especially true when you use the pedal in stereo.
If you don’t intend to use the Monumental in stereo, you should carefully consider whether the presets and blendable voices merit the extra expenditure. For many, they will. But using the Momumental in mono alone means missing out on some of the pedal’s most infectious sounds. While square, sine, sawtooth, and random waveforms sound particularly exciting here, the other waveform types bubble and percolate all over the stereo field, often sounding percussive in optical mode and woozy in harmonic settings. Maximum depth settings sound particularly immersive. You can also enhance the effects of a dramatic stereo spread by equalizing your two amps differently. I boosted the bass and removed most of the treble from a black-panel Fender and did the inverse with a Vox-style amp for my stereo experiments. The resulting combination of detailed pick attack, strong transients, and peaky top-end popping over a fat, rubbery foundation sounded liquid and surreal—even with the pronounced treble peaks in the mix—making an already basically rich tremolo voice sound extra three-dimensional. By the way, yes, I tried the “How Soon Is Now” riff through a stereo setup. And yep, it sounded fantastic.
The Verdict
At $279, you will want to ask yourself how much tremolo you intend to use before you invest in the Monumental. There are certainly simpler ways to swamp-rock. The Monumental also lives at the more expensive end of its category—coming in a little pricier than pedals like the Keeley Hydra and the crazy-feature-rich EHX Super Pulsar. But there’s no contesting the high quality of this USA-made pedal or the thoughtful way the sounds within were conceived. And studio rats and texture obsessives that love the sensation of swimming in a stereo field may find the Monumental worth every penny.
Walrus Audio Monumental Stereo Harmonic Tap Tremolo - Orange
