Today's I LOVE Pedals giveaway is from Empress Effects. Enter for your chance to win an Empress Heavy! Ends Feb. 17, 2022.
Empress Heavy
In this aptly named box, you'll find a huge range of killer high gain tones. From crisp, mid-driven 80's metal, to scooped, modern down-tuned brutality, this little box of sonic mayhem does it all. The two independent channels can be voiced similarly so that one channel can be used as a solo boost, or they can be voiced entirely differently by using the mid-range control in conjunction with the 3 position mid-frequency select switch. Add in separate weight controls to shape the low-end response of each channel, and a global hi/low eq section that allows you to fine-tune your particular amp and cab combination, and you've got a serious tool to create a supremely heavy sounding rig.
On top of all this, we've added an extremely responsive and hassle-free noise gate that will ensure dead silent operation with even the most obscene amounts of gain added.
If you dig English non-master-volume amps, this "foundation preamp" will drive you straight to heaven. The PG Dry Bell Engine review.
Recorded using a Schroeder Chopper TL into a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe IV miked with a Shure SM57 feeding a Focusrite Scarlett going into Logic with no EQ-ing, compression, or effects.
Clip 1: Preamp side, bridge pickup, level at 1 o'clock, gain at noon, tone at noon, shape at 2 o'clock.
Clip 2: Boost side, bridge pickup, range at 2 o'clock, level at 1 o'clock, low at 1 o'clock, high at 11 o'clock.
Clip 3: Both sides engaged. Boost feeding into preamp.
RatingsPros:Big, burly tones with plenty of control. Each effect works great on its own. Cons: Expensive. Street: $299 DryBell The Engine drybell.com |
Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
Here’s a newsflash: Gritty tube-amp distortion sounds really good. Just about any overdrive or boost pedal tries to emulate that cranked-up amp feel. But DryBell’s The Engine is billed as a “foundation preamp,” and that seems to suggest that it’s meant to be as integral as your amplifier to your signal chain. Unlike a lot of pedals that make such claims, The Engine seems up for the task.
The Engine is a two-channel pedal of sorts. Channel A or “side A” as DryBell calls it, is a distortion circuit that takes inspiration from early Marshall designs. Side B is DryBell’s take on a Rangemaster circuit, which we first heard (and loved) in their Unit67 pedal. Naturally, both can be used independently and in either order (more on that in a bit).
Amp Approximations
For my test of The Engine I used a T-style Schroeder Chopper TL and a Fender Hot-Rod Deluxe—which is not a very “British” pairing. But The Engine’s success at making big British sounds with this set up says a lot about how capable it is. Just setting all the knobs at noon makes the pedal sound fantastic. It has a big, burly presence and is rich with the same kind of harmonics that are excited in a loud vintage JTM45. I was also especially impressed with how DryBell handled resonant bass frequencies—a part of the JTM recipe that’s difficult to capture in a pedal. There was plenty of bottom without ever getting flabby, even at more extreme bass settings.
The control setup for side A features three knobs that are typical for a preamp: tone, master level, and gain. But the secret sauce is the shape knob, which loosely approximates the function of a Marshall’s presence knob. It tunes both the mid and treble frequencies and it does an exceptional job of matching the pedal to specific guitars and amps. There’s a lot of extra control in the shape knob, and given that guitars are mid-focused instruments, the additional control of those essential frequencies is a very good thing.
Like any great British-inspired circuit worth its diodes, The Engine is very touch sensitive. Digging in gave me Gibbons-like squeals and harmonics and practically forced me into playing ’70s ZZ Top riffs. The breadth and scope of the gain control was extremely impressive. And while the master tone control might not offer super-minute tonal adjustments, it’s nuanced and powerful enough to re-shape the profile of both single-coils and humbuckers to suit The Engine and whichever amp you use with it.
Treble Boost On Top
DryBell’s excellent Rangemaster-style circuit is the cherry that tops the dessert. By itself, it would be a world-class boost worthy of attention. But combined with side A it’s sometimes too tasty to turn off. The control set for side B offers low and high controls, a level knob, and a range knob, which allows you to choose which mid frequencies to boost.
As with the preamp side of the pedal, I started with knobs at noon to get a feel for the boost’s range and base line. At this setting my basic tone felt bigger and a lot more responsive. As I rotated the range knob I could hear how effectively the sweep control attacks a very specific slice of the EQ profile. If you’ve ever worked with sweepable mid controls, the function and feel of this knob won’t be foreign to you. It’s even more effective thanks to extra space and headroom that the pedal imparts by internally boosting voltage to 23V.
Running the boost into the distortion sounds glorious. When combined, each knob retains its integrity and sense of space. And let me tell you, this preamp is loud. It might be one of most powerful and robust gain circuits I’ve ever played.
The Verdict
The Engine is a combination of good design, a keen ear for vintage sound and dynamics, and considerable thought for how a modern player might use these tones. Both effects are outstanding, but combined they take the amp-in-a-box to a higher level. If you’re a meat-and-potatoes player who likes your sounds straight-ahead sand in your face, The Engine might be all you need to run your rig.
The PG Pettyjohn Rail review.
RatingsPros:A warm, thick-voiced fuzz with heaps of gain when you want it, and a very original take on the format overall, for those seeking alternatives in the dirt department. Cons: Simply be aware that use and performance are quite different from traditional fuzzes overall, if that’s more your line. Street: $199 Pettyjohn Electronics Rail pettyjohnelectronics.com |
Tones: Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value: |
Ain’t it something—that more than five-and-a-half decades after the first commercial fuzz was introduced, clever companies still build creative new takes on the form? Pettyjohn Electronics definitely took the path less travelled with the new Rail fuzz, which forgoes transistors and clipping diodes for a circuit that utilizes op-amps and voltage rails to generate complex overdrive to full-on fuzz tones. While this approach to fuzz building is unusual, Pettyjohn is not the only builder to employ a variation of this design technique. Yet the Rail often feels and sounds unlike anything else out there.
Compact and Flexible
The Rail, which is from Pettyjohn’s new, more compact Core Series, is a comparatively streamlined affair. There’s not a mini toggle or tiny knob anywhere, and the enclosure is downright austere compared to its bigger, more feature-rich cousins.
Controls on the Rail are mostly simple and self-explanatory, though the drive knob, in a departure from convention, is an 8-position rotary switch. The level governs overall output, and the “highs” and “lows” tap wide-ranging active EQ stages. The lows control sweeps from 30 Hz to 1 kHz and is situated before the gain stage, which can add considerable heft to the distorted output. The highs control sweeps from 1 kHz to 22 kHz and is situated after the gain stage, which enables you to hype or tame distortion-accentuated high harmonics. Both the level and highs controls are independently buffered from the rest of the circuit, to avoid loading the signal. (Pettyjohn also claims that this arrangement makes the Rail more stackable than many fuzz pedals.) As with other Pettyjohn pedals, on/off status is indicated by a big Fender-amp-like jewel light. The footswitch is a soft-relay true bypass unit, though a hard-click true bypass is available as a Custom Shop option.
Riding the Rails
Rather than relying on transistor and/or diode clipping to excite the guitar signal like most traditional fuzzes do, the Rail uses op-amps to crank extremely high gain into the circuit’s voltage rails, which produces dynamic fuzz and distortion. Additionally, the pedal’s voltage-doubling power circuit will mirror the input from any regulated, isolated DC source of 7–18V, and because the effect generates clipping by overdriving the power rails, the voltage you employ shapes the sonic character and response of the fuzz considerably.
I used a tweed Deluxe-style combo, a Freidman Small Box head and 2x12 cab, a Novo Serus J with P-90s, and a Hahn 228 with single-coil Tele pickups to test the Rail. And even with these very familiar instruments and amplifiers, the Rail opened up scores of new and unfamiliar tone flavors. It takes a little time to understand how the Rail’s controls translate to specific sounds, and the powerful EQ controls can significantly transform the output in ways that seem less than immediately familiar. But that doesn’t mean the pedal isn’t ultimately intuitive.
The 8-position drive knob sometimes seems to transform the Rail into a different pedal at each position. But while the gain profile can be profoundly different from position to position, each voice shares the same girthy core sound and impressive capacity for articulation.
As great sounding as the lower gain settings are, the Rail is really about the distortion and fuzz. And from the 4th through 8th positions, the Rail reveals many interesting and individual fuzz tones. The sounds are predominantly thick, creamy, warm, and soulful. And the Rail often has the feel of a hybrid distortion and fuzz because there’s less of the raspy, spitty, Velcro-y tones that distinguish many pure fuzz circuits. The big payoff is that it can simultaneously be heavy, musical, and clear.
The 8th position, Infinity Mode, is genuinely gnarly—generating temperamental, gated fuzz sounds with unpredictable decay characteristics. At 15 volts, the distortion sounds even more extreme and, in general, higher voltage makes each voice hotter and tighter with discernably more headroom.
The Verdict
The ruggedly built Rail is a creative twist on traditional fuzz circuitry. Deviation from same-old transistors and clipping diodes fuzz formulas adds up to an impressive variety of overdrive-to-fuzz settings. It’s also surprisingly dynamic and responsive. It may not replace every fuzz in your collection, particularly if you love the compression, sag, and unpredictability of vintage circuits. But if crafting tight, articulate, and controlled fuzz-tinged distortion is your obsession, the Rail hits the nail on the head.
Watch the Demo: