Driven to Please
The first thing I noticed as I unboxed the V-Drive was the vast array of knobs. Aside from the standard Volume, Tone, and Drive controls, you get a Depth control that pinpoints the low frequency roll-off point, a Texture control for dialing in varying levels of harmonic content, and the Select knob, which handles diode-type switching and configuration. The sleeper in this mix is the voltage control, another unique feature that cuts or boosts the standard 9V power level.
After grabbing a Les Paul, I went straight for the Select switch and set it to position 11, which functions as a clean boost. With the diodes bypassed, I was curious to discover just how many little nasties might be added to my signal. I was impressed—the pedal was low in noise and very transparent. With my Champ’s volume maxed out, the V-Drive’s boost offered a significant increase in volume and a slight increase in gain, with increased high-end clarity. Switching to position 9 and setting the Drive to 5 yielded a slightly scooped classic overdrive, easily tailored through the Tone and Depth knobs. The Texture control was especially cool on this setting, and rolling it back a bit from the maximum smoothed out the sound considerably, moving it from bristly and biting to steamy and evil.
Power at Your Fingertips
Things got really interesting when I reached to the back of the pedal and started fiddling with the voltage knob. Eric Johnson, Duane Allman, and many others have sung the virtues of powering pedals with drained batteries, and the V-drive allows you to experiment with this concept. Dropping the voltage down slightly gave my overdrive tone a wetter, warmer quality, while somehow becoming more visceral. Lowering it all the way down to 5 volts gave me a strangely cool buzzsaw sound that was eerie and dark in dropped- D tuning. Even at low voltage, there was no loss of gain or sustain.
With the Drive knob on 4 and the voltage at a middle setting, I switched to position 3 on the Select control. Suddenly I had a convincing Trey Anastasio lead tone, rich with Tube Screamer-like, midrangey rasp. Juicing up the voltage knob to just shy of the 16-volt maximum dramatically increased the treble response and tightness. And as I increased the Drive and Texture controls, the tone erupted with awesome feedback and ringing musical harmonics. The ability of this pedal to simulate the complexity and sustain of fully saturated tubes is excellent, and I was further impressed by the fact that it stayed faithful to the sound of my instrument. Even at the highest gain settings, the resonant and open-sounding character of my bolt-on Peavey Session guitar was distinct.
The Verdict
In total, the V-Drive is a sonically inspiring tool and its many voices encourage musical exploration. It’s not only fun and intuitive from a usability standpoint, but conceptually exciting as well. Knowing you’ve got the freedom to modify the electronics under the hood is a great leap forward in the democratization of tone.
Buy if...
you’re looking for a do-it-all distortion box with immense tweakability for dirt cheap.
Skip if...
you tend to get lost or distracted with highly adjustable equipment.
Rating...
Street $99 - VHT Amplification - vhtamp.com |
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Truetone 1 Spot Pro XP5-PS 5-output Low-profile Isolated Guitar Pedal Power Supply
The XP5-PS is a package containing the 1 Spot Pro XP5, along with a 12Vdc 2.5A adapter, which allows you to power the XP5 without having a CS11. The adapter comes with an array of international plugs so that you can take it with your pedalboard anywhere in the world. Some musicians may even choose to get one of these, plus another XP5, to distribute their power around the pedalboard and have the dual XP5s acting as two pedal risers.
Reverend Vernon Reid Totem Series Electric Guitar - Shaman
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
