It''s the first day of madness at this year''s winter NAMM show in Santa Anna-besieged Anaheim, California. A few quick hits from the morning:
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Fender kicked off the proceedings with the announcement of the New American Standard Series, featuring “evolutionary, not revolutionary” updates to time-honored Strat, Tele, J-Bass and P-Bass designs. “This is about a tonal journey – this is not about a fresh coat of paint,” said Justin Norvell, Senior Product Manager of Electric Guitars. There was a lot of talk of evolution, Fender’s biology and Leo’s never ending quest to build a better mousetrap. There''s a host of refinements, including the addition of two screws at the top of the Tele bridge, giving it a more secure base. Fender was also showcasing a hot mess of custom color ‘50s Relic Top Bound Esquires in the Custom Shop area. Featuring thin nitro finishes, ’59 Esquire C-shaped necks and a ton of cool colors – Burgundy Mist, anyone? – these beauties will set you back $5k. 
Gretsch was celebrating 125 years in business and was showing off a cavalcade of gorgeously vibrant guitars, including their G6136DL David Lee Limited Edition, featuring a simplified White Falcon design with TV Jones pickups. There was also a tasty, race-striped G. Love artist model Corvette and the ever-popular White Penguin reissue, featuring TV Jones and enough gold to make plenty of challises for Lil’ Jon and his crew. Yeeah!
We hung out with Billy at Digitech, and he was cordial enough to hip us to their new HardWire true bypass effects. A frenzied demo of the new GSP1101 precluded us from giving them a listen, but they look bullet proof and are priced reasonably – starting at $119. They also feature a new design that promises to deliver more consistent voltage to your pedal as the battery wears down, meaning more consistent tone. Add in new precision pots that click with every adjustment and a Stereo Reverb pedal that boasts of its Lexicon heritage, and you''ve got some sure winners.
ZOOM was rocking their new ZFX interface, designed to get guitarists and computers grooving together symbiotically. The idea in a nutshell is to warm up the signal before it hits your USB port, and responded really well to input dynamics during the demo. Our friendly ZOOM sales rep informed us that the program can run comfortably on a standard laptop, eliminating the need to lug your expensive MacBook Pro to those smoky gigs -- a definite plus for those guitarists looking to get into computer modeling but holding off due to the expense. It can be coupled with the C6.1t foot controller or the S2t desktop interface. Geeky!
That does it for now -- look for more updates from the beautiful Anaheim Convention Center later!
Revv G3 Purple Channel Preamp/Overdrive/Distortion Pedal - Anniversary Edition
The Revv G3 revolutionized high gain pedals in 2018 with its tube-like response & tight, clear high gain tones. Suddenly the same boutique tones used by metal artists & producers worldwide were available to anyone in a compact pedal. Now the G3 returns with a new V2 circuit revision that raises the bar again.
If 3 Were 6
With six times the controls found on the 1 and 2 versions (if you discount the original’s on/off slider switch,) the LPB-3’s control complement offers pre-gain, boost, mid freq, bass, treble, and mid knobs, with a center detent on the latter three so you can find the midpoint easily. A mini-toggle labeled “max” selects between 20 dB and 33 dB of maximum gain, and another labeled “Q” flips the resonance of the mid EQ between high and low. Obviously, this represents a significant expansion of the LPB’s capabilities.
More than just a booster with a passive tone, the LPB-3 boasts a genuine active EQ stage plus parametric midrange section, comprising the two knobs with shaded legends, mid freq and mid level. The gain stages have also been reimagined to include a pre-gain stage before the EQ, which enables up to 20 dB of input gain. The boost stage that follows the EQ is essentially a level control with gain to allow for up to 33 dB of gain through the LPB-3 when the “max” mini toggle is set to 33dB
A slider switch accessible inside the pedal selects between buffered or true bypass for the hard-latch footswitch. An AC adapter is included, which supplies 200mA of DC at 9.6 volts to the center-negative power input, and EHX specifies that nothing supplying less than 120mA or more than 12 volts should be used. There’s no space for an internal battery.
Power-Boosted
The LPB-3 reveals boatloads of range that betters many linear boosts on the market. There’s lots of tone-shaping power here. Uncolored boost is available when you want it, and the preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.
“The preamp gain knob colors and fattens your signal as you crank it up—even before you tap into the massive flexibility in the EQ stage.”
I found the two mid controls work best when used judiciously, and my guitars and amps preferred subtle changes pretty close to the midpoint on each. However, there are still tremendous variations in your mid boost (or scoop, for that matter) within just 15 or 20 percent range in either direction from the center detent. Pushing the boost and pre-gain too far, particularly with the 33 dB setting engaged, can lead to some harsh sounds, but they are easy to avoid and might even be desirable for some users that like to work at more creative extremes.
The Verdict
The new LPB-3 has much, much more range than its predecessors, providing flexible preamp, boost, and overdrive sounds that can be reshaped in significant ways via the powerful EQ. It gives precise tone-tuning flexibility to sticklers that like to match a guitar and amp to a song in a very precise way, but also opens up more radical paths for experimentalists. That it does all this at a $129 price is beyond reasonable.
Electro-Harmonix Lpb-3 Linear Power Booster & Eq Effect Pedal Silver And Blue
