Though they have steadily built an impressive and varied lineup of top-quality pedals, England’s Origin Effects is probably best known for its Cali76 series, which channeled many facets of the legendary and coveted Urei 1176 studio compressor into top-quality stompboxes and set a new standard for pedal compressors.
Origin is not afraid of new directions though. Nor, it seems, are they afraid of entering very crowded effect categories. And the Halcyon Green Overdrive reveals how meticulous, imaginative pedal design and rugged construction can make even a circuit derived from the ubiquitous Tube Screamer feel like something special.
Code Green
In pedal code, green almost always means “Tube Screamer,” or some version of it. Many makers offer their own renditions of the green meanie. And like all manufacturers that take on the task, Origin Effects had to consider all that is great about the TS808 along with its shortcomings. Origin, however, seems to have been tantalized by the possibilities.
Inevitably, some of you will cry out, “Of all the things this great company could do—another riff on the Tube Screamer!?” But hold your fire. A creative company like Origin Effects isn’t likely to put out “just another” anything. Origin promises better-than-TS dynamics, more sensitivity, improved clarity and articulation, and a more balanced frequency range. The pedal also comes with switchable voicing that tightens the output and flattens the midrange hump. Appetite whetted yet?
The Old Switcheroo
Halcyon’s controls feature the drive, tone, and level knobs you’d see on any TS. But there’s also a dry knob, so you can blend in as much bypassed signal as you like. A 2-way voice toggle delivers classic 808 or mod, which shifts the mid hump to something more like a presence boost that has distinct resonance characteristics and generates tighter lows and highs. Finally, there’s the 3-way adapt toggle, which is the revelation of Origin’s circuit. It vastly improves the circuit’s response to playing dynamics and improves clarity by reducing the midrange hump when you pick lightly or attenuate your guitar’s volume control—gradually returning to a flat frequency response as the Halcyon cleans up. The “O” position bypasses the adaptive circuit for a more traditional Screamer sound. “II” delivers the most frequency-balanced output at reduced guitar volume. Position “I” is somewhere in between.
Like other Origin Effects pedals to date, the Halcyon is built like a brushed-aluminum brick, with a heft that signals ultra-roadworthiness and pro player input. At 4.75" x 2.5" x 1.75", the enclosure is slightly more compact than many of the company’s offerings, and positioning the input, output, and 9V DC center-negative jack (external power only) on the top makes it even more pedalboard friendly. The footswitch toggles between on and buffered bypass.
Green Goddess
Initially, I approached this review thinking that I didn’t need to take yet another Tube Screamer update for a spin. After just a few minutes though, I was grinning from ear to ear. The “Green Overdrive” label (which appears right on the pedal’s faceplate) can make it hard to have an open mind, clear ears, and an absence of preconceptions about the pedal. But the Halcyon utterly slays and is one of the most enjoyable overdrive pedals—of any type—that I’ve sampled in good, long while.
A good Tube Screamer can be sweet, juicy, touch-sensitive, and tube-like. But the Halcyon’s more balanced frequency response, enhanced clarity, and improved dynamics make the Halcyon feel deeper and more thoughtfully engineered. Like the original, it works great as a semi-dirty boost with drive around 9 o’clock, but it’s also more delectable as a gained-up OD than many originals, issuing addictive saturation and bite when you get drive past 2 o’clock or so. Even when the pedal is pushed hard, the adaptive circuit feels like the stuff of genius, making it possible to move from girthy definition and precision at attenuated guitar volume settings to roaring and gainy—all without ever switching the pedal off.
Like other Origin Effects pedals to date, the Halcyon is built like a brushed-aluminum brick, with a heft that signals ultra-roadworthiness and pro player input. At 4.75" x 2.5" x 1.75", the enclosure is slightly more compact than many of the company’s offerings, and positioning the input, output, and 9V DC center-negative jack (external power only) on the top makes it even more pedalboard friendly. The footswitch toggles between on and buffered bypass.
The Verdict
In the shape of the Halcyon, Origin Effects created what is probably the best-sounding TS-inspired overdrive pedal I recall playing. Comparisons aside, they’ve built a well-rounded, low-gain overdrive that is stunning. And by overcoming the classic TS’s acknowledged shortcomings, Origin has made the platform much more flexible, while retaining the toothsome, tube-y delectability that made the TS series ubiquitous in the first place. Yes, it’s expensive for what, on the surface, might seem like just another Tube Screamer. But when your goal is to create the best-ever rendition of a thing—no-holds-barred quality and price be damned—then this is where the road takes you. If you can part with the cash—and really, if you consider the design and engineering here, it’s not that much—the rewards to you, the player, will be considerable.
Origin Effects Halcyon Green Overdrive Demo | First Look
Origin Effects Halcyon Green Overdrive Pedal
- Delivers overdrive tones that make it a worthy contender with some of the world's favorite overdrive pedals
- Origin Effects' first pedal built with Adaptive circuitry, which can meld itself dynamically and interactively to a user's playing habits
- A simple pedal with hard working circuitry that provides exceptional voice, drive, clean signal, and epic saturation
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Fender’s American Vintage II Series
It’s a little difficult to separate fact from fiction given these guitars aren’t easy to get your hands on. Fender Telecasters manufactured in the 1950s and 1960s sell for upwards of $20,000. But old is about to become new again. Fender’s American Vintage II series features 12 year-specific electric guitar and bass models from over two decades, spanning 1951 to 1977, that replicate most specs on their original counterparts, but are produced with modern technologies that ensure uniform build and feel.
Chronologically, the series begins and ends, fittingly, with the Telecaster—starting with the butterscotch blonde, blackguard 1951 Telecaster (built with an ash body, one-piece U-shaped maple neck, and 7.25" radius fretboard) and ending with the 1977 Telecaster Custom, which features a C-shaped neck, a CuNiFe magnet-based Wide Range humbucker in the neck position, and a single-coil at the bridge. The rest of the series spans the highlights of Fender’s repertoire: the 1954 Precision Bass, 1957 Stratocaster in ash or alder, 1960 Precision Bass, 1961 Stratocaster, 1963 Telecaster, 1966 Jazz Bass, 1966 Jazzmaster, 1972 Tele Thinline, 1973 Strat, and 1975 Telecaster Deluxe. The 1951 Telecaster, 1957 Strat, 1961 Strat, and 1966 Jazz Bass will also be offered as left-handed models. Street prices run from $2,099 to $2,399.
Fender '72 American Vintage II Telecaster Thinline Demo | First Look
Spec’d To Please
Every guitar in the series sports the era’s 7.25" radius fretboard, a mostly abandoned spec found on Custom Shop instruments—Mexico-made Vintera models, and Fender’s Artist Series guitars like the Jimmy Page, Jason Isbell, and Albert Hammond Jr. models. Most modern Fenders feature a 9.5" radius, while radii on Gibsons reach upwards of 12". Videos experimenting with the 7.25" radius’ playability pull in tens of thousands of viewers, suggesting both a modern fascination with and a lack of exposure to the radius among some younger and less experienced players.
T.J. Osborne of the Brothers Osborne picks an American Vintage II 1966 Jazzmaster in Dakota red.
Bringing back the polarizing 7.25" radius across the entire series is a gamble, and it’s been nearly five years since Fender released year-specific models. But Fender executive vice president Justin Norvell says that two years ago when the Fender brain trust was conceptualizing the American Vintage II line, they decided the time was right to “go back to the well.”
“We’ve been doing the same [models], the same years, over and over again for 30 years,” says Norvell. “We really wanted to change the line and expand it into some new things that we hadn’t done before and pick some different years that we thought were cool.”
“It takes a lot of doing to go back in time and sort of uncover the secret-sauce recipes.”—Steve Thomas, Fender
To decide on which years to produce, Fender drew from what Norvell calls a “huge cauldron of information” from Custom Shop master builders to collectors with vintage models to former employees from the 1950s and 1960s. The hands-on manufacturing of Fender’s golden years meant guitars produced within the same year would have marked differences in design and finish. So, the team had to procure multiple versions of the same year’s guitar to decide which models to replicate. Norvell says some purists would advocate for the “cleanest, most down-the-middle kind of variant,” while others would push for more esoteric and rare versions. Norvell says that ultimately, the team picked the models that they felt best represented “the throughline of history on our platforms.”
Simple and agile, the Fender Precision Bass—here in its new American Vintage II ’54 incarnation—earned its reputation in the hands of Bill Black, James Jamerson, Donald “Duck” Dunn, and other foundational players.
Norvell says the American Vintage II series was developed, in part, in response to calls to reproduce vintage guitars. Just like with classic cars, he says, people are passionate about year-specific guitars. Plus, American Vintage II fits perfectly with the pandemic-stoked yearning for bygone times. “For some people, these specific years are representative of experiences they had when they were first playing guitar, or a favorite artist that played guitars from these eras,” says Norvell. “These are touchstones for those stories, and that makes them very desirable.”
Cracking Codes
Fender’s electric guitar research and design team, led by director Steve Thomas, dug through the company’s archive of original drawings and designs—dating all the way back to Leo Fender’s original shop in Fullerton, California. They found detailed notes, including some documenting body woods that changed mid-year on certain models. Halfway through 1956, for example, Stratocaster bodies switched from ash to alder. That meant the American Vintage II 1957 Stratocaster needed to be alder, too. That, in turn, meant ensuring enough alder was on hand to fulfill production needs.
Among the series’ Stratocaster recreations is this 1973-style instrument, with an ash body, maple C-profile neck, rosewood fretboard, and the company’s Pure Vintage single-coils.
Thomas and his team discovered another piece of the production puzzle when researching how pickups for that same 1957 Strat were made. “We realized that if we incorporated a little bit more pinch control on the winders, we could more effectively mimic the way pickups would have been hand-wound in the ’50s,” says Thomas. “It takes a lot of doing to go back in time and sort of uncover the secret-sauce recipes.”
Thomas proudly calls the guitars “some of the best instruments we’ve ever made here in the Fender plant,” pointing to the level of detail put into design features, including more delicate lacquer finishes which take longer to cure and dry, and vintage-correct tweed cases for some guitars. New pickups were incorporated in the series, like a reworking of Seth Lover’s famed CuNiFe Wide Range humbuckers, which were discontinued around 1981. Even more minute details, like the width of 12th fret dots and the material used for them, were labored over. Three different models in the line feature clay dot inlays at unique, year-specific spacings.
Ironically, modern CNC manufacturing now makes these design quirks consistent features in mass-produced instruments. While the hand-crafted guitars from the ’50s and ’60s varied a lot from instrument to instrument. “Everything needs to be located perfectly, and it wasn’t necessarily back in the day,” says Norvell. “Now, it can be.”
Don’t Look Back
With this new series so firmly planted in the rose-tinted past, Fender does run the risk of netting only vintage-obsessed players. But Norvell says the team, despite being sticklers for period-correct detail, sought to strike a balance between vintage specs, practicality, and playability. The 1957 Stratocaster, for example, has a 5-way switch rather than the original’s 3-way switch. Norvell also asserts that the “ergonomic” old-school radius feels great when chording. “It might not be [right for] a shred machine, but it feels great and effortless.”
The 1966 Jazz Bass is also represented, shown here in a left-handed version.
Norvell also pushes back on the notion that Fender is playing it safe by indulging nostalgia and leaning on their past successes. He says that while the vintage models are some of the most desirable on the market, the team “purposely did not stick to the safe bets,” citing unusual year models like the 1954 P Bass and the 1973 Stratocaster.
There’s a good reason why anything that hails back to “the good ol’ days” hits home with every generation. We’re constantly plagued by a belief that what came before is better than what we’ve got now. But with the American Vintage II series, Fender makes the case that guitars from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s can very easily be a relevant part of the 2020s.Boss announces the SL-2 Slicer, the latest addition to the company’s legendary compact pedal lineup. This original Boss effect chops sound into unique percussive patterns—including many processed with internal filters and effects—and provides multiple output options that bring grooves to life across the stereo field. Offering 88 onboard patterns, MIDI control support, and additional patterns via the Boss Tone Studio app, the SL-2 is an inspiring tool for all types of creators, from guitarists and keyboardists to loop performers, DJs, beatmakers, and beyond.
The SL-2 has 88 onboard memories preloaded with eight pattern types and 11 variations. Users can connect to Boss Tone Studio over USB to audition and load alternate patterns and organize memory setups for different songs.
With the SL-2’s efficient interface, users can dial in sophisticated textures in seconds. Attack and Duty knobs provide waveform control for a wide range of audio effects, from hard, percussive chops to soft, fluttering tones. The tempo can be adjusted with a dedicated knob or hands-free by holding the pedal switch to enable tap tempo mode. A Balance knob and +/-12 dB of output level adjustment provide complete command of the direct/effect mix.
The SL-2 dishes up loads of impressive sounds with a standard mono setup. But things get even better when using the two outputs and seven output modes. Players can surround listeners in animated movement using a variety of stereo and 3D processing options, and it’s also possible to send direct and effect sounds to different destinations. And with its stereo input, the SL-2 can be used with other stereo pedals to bring further magic to grooves.
With its generous external control options, the SL-2 flows with any creative setup. Connecting an external footswitch provides instant tap tempo access or the ability to engage the effect with momentary presses. Alternatively, an expression pedal can be used to control knob parameters or the overall level. With the TRS MIDI input, users can sync SL-2 grooves to a drum machine, DAW, or any other device that sends MIDI clock. It’s also possible to control expression, tempo, and bypass functions via MIDI CC messages.
Boss SL-2 Slicer Audio Pattern Processor Pedal
- Single and Dual: These modes are relatively self explanatory. Single has one slicer; Dual has two slicers operating at the same time.
- Tremolo: The SL-2’s tamest setting, this mode is about as close to traditional tremolo as the SL-2 can get!
- Harmonic: This mode brings in wild modulation, adding even more complexity to your rhythmic experimentation.
- SFX: Perhaps the most peculiar mode, SFX introduces additional effects to your signal depending on which sub-mode you choose.
For more information, boss.info.
