Full Tank
The Chameleon is the latest offering in T-Rex’s Fuel Tank line of power supplies, which includes the Fuel Tank Classic, the Juicy Lucy, and the Fuel Tank Junior. With a list price of $249, the handsome green Chameleon is the most expensive and the heaviest of the three power supplies we review here. It’s also the most versatile.
One thing that distinguishes the Chameleon from its cousins is that it offers five outlets that are switchable between high and low voltage—three between 9V DC and 12V DC (300 mA each) and one between 9V DC and 18V DC (also 300 mA), all with negative center pins. A sixth outlet provides 12V AC, and you can use up to five of the outlets simultaneously. The Chameleon includes a bounty of cables for plugging in your gear: nine pedal links ranging between 20 and 100 centimeters in length, plus a barrel-to-mini-jack cable, a red AC cable for the T-Rex Replica Delay, a blue AC cable for Line 6 pedals, and a daisy chain with five connectors.
Weighing in at 3.1 pounds, the Chameleon is the heaviest of the power supplies we auditioned. But with its heavy steel casing, it’s extremely sturdy, and measuring 6.3" x 3.2" x 1.7", it takes up little real estate in a pedalboard.
To test the Chameleon, I played my recent Gibson ES-335 1963 Historic in conjunction with a Dunlop Crybaby wah (9V), a Frantone Brooklyn overdrive pedal (9V), a Boss DD-3 digital delay, (9V), a Pigtronix EP-2 Envelope Phaser (18V), and a blackface Vibrolux Reverb amp.
It was easy enough to connect each pedal to the Chameleon, but adjusting the voltage was slightly tricky. To change settings, you have to flip tiny switches, and at first, when I tried to change the voltage for just one outlet, the switches in close proximity followed suit. Once I had everything set up, I played around with the pedals for a while, gladly observing that the Chameleon was noiseless, and, true to its color, quite green, for it precludes battery consumption.
Buy if...
you’re looking for maximum flexibility in a power supply.
Skip if...
you’ve got a smaller rig with less complicated power requirements.
Rating...
Street $199 - T-Rex Engineering - t-rex-effects.com |
| Tone Games 2010: 30 Stompboxes Reviewed |
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During the 1950s and ’60s, Gibson used Kluson tuners almost exclusively. There were different marking variations used throughout the years, but for the most part, the Kluson tuners’ overall appearance remained the same. (Gibson did offer Grover tuners as a special order option beginning in 1959.) The style of tuners we will be resurrecting on this guitar are referred to as “3-on-a-plate” Kluson tuners.
Tuner Removal and Prep
The tuners were carefully removed from the headstock while keeping an eye on the press-in bushings, as they seem to find a way of falling out at times. This is a good moment to remind you to keep your bench top clean—you might need to crawl around with a fine-tooth comb to retrieve one of these bushings.
With the tuners off, I modified my Angle Vise by adding maple baseplates to the jaws, to avoid compression damage once the string posts were clamped in. Some 1/8"-thick maple bridge plate stock (item no. 1121 online at stewmac.com) works well for cutting out two sections of 8" wide x 7/16" tall baseplates. You can attach these to the jaws with double-stick tape. With the string post clamped securely into the vice, I positioned the knob shafts so I had clear access to work on them.
Since the tuner knobs were already gone, I was able to avoid the steps of using heat and removing the knobs with pliers. All I really needed to do was thoroughly clean the tuner shaft with a bristle brush and razor blade before installing the knobs. I really recommend the file cleaning brush for this task (Stew Mac item number 0825), as it provides you with a lot of control. While cleaning, I was careful not to go past the portion where the knobs end, so the exposed section of the shafts would look original and unaltered.
Aging the Knobs
Stewart MacDonald has a wide variety of vintage-style replacement knobs. Their 11/16" x 9/16" oval plastic knobs are the perfect replacement for deteriorating vintage tuner knobs. For this project, I chose Stew Mac item number 0113 in white, and aged the knobs using my own mix to really help the color tone and sheen match the guitar. The instrument certainly didn’t look brand new, so I detailed the knobs accordingly.
For the detailing mix, I used 1 ounce of acetone to 1 ounce of water (an equal part ratio) in an E-Z Mix disposable mixing cup. The water dilutes the strength of the acetone so that when the knobs are submerged, the plastic will not react and simply liquefy. For the vintage tint, I added 13 drops of red mahogany and 14 drops of lemon yellow ColorTone liquid stain to the 2 ounces of acetone and water. I then put the six knobs into the mix for two sets of 10 minutes, gently stirring with a popsicle stick, and included five minutes of air drying while gently burnishing in the toner with a lint-free cloth in between. Always remember to be safe when working with chemicals by using proper protection and ventilation.
By submerging the knobs in timed increments, I was able to control the degrees of tint and enhanced, aged-looking fingerprints I was looking for. (If you peer very closely at a new, untainted knob, you will see a variety of what I call “fingerprints.” Those fingerprints can be enhanced with this diluted form of acetone while melting in the toner, giving the knobs that real vintage look.) This idea originated from the days when I saw my father restoring and building concertinas and accordions. He would soften the celluloid plastic so it could be bent and shaped to the instrument’s wooden frame.
Installing the Knobs
After the knobs were ready, I used a Radio Shack soldering gun on the 150-watt setting to heat up the tuner knob shafts (Weller soldering guns also work well for this procedure). A standard soldering pen or iron will work for this job as well, but you should use a heat sink and a moist cloth to avoid damaging the gears from excessive heat.
The key element to using the gun is a custom tip I designed and made for this specific job out of 5/32" brass rod. Both legs of the inside surface of the tip are beveled at an 1/8" length so that the tip legs can slide over the tuner shaft. The legs set themselves and lock to the pre-radiused notch, completing the connection. Heat is then evenly transferred through the tuner shaft, and in seconds the knob goes on like butter. Use some Tri-Flow to lubricate the tuning gears and you’re done!
The following tools and supplies used in this repair are available from Stewart McDonald:
- Guitar Tech screwdriver set
- Stew Mac steel Angle Vise
- Maple bridge plate stock, 4" x 8" x 1/8"
- Double-stick tape
- White vintage-style tuner knobs
- Red mahogany ColorTone Liquid Stain
- Lemon yellow ColorTone Liquid Stain
- Mixing cups
- Tri-Flow
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 | Download Example 1 Volume: 10 o'clock, Vig: 2 o'clock |
| Download Example 2 Volume: 3 o'clock, Vig 10 o'clock |
| All tracks recorded with a humbucker-equipped Gibson Les Paul and a 1966 Fender Bassman. | |
The guitar-playing citizens of Portland, Oregon, may know Jack Deville
as the man who can fix their amp in a pinch. But elsewhere in the world,
this esteemed Northwest amp repairman is fast making a name for himself
as designer of two unique-sounding pedals, the Dark Echo delay
and the all-germanium Buzzmaster fuzz reviewed here.
All Business
The Buzzmaster’s bold, gold text and matte black box has a utilitarian,
let’s-get-down-the-biz-of-heavy-rocking look—something Lord Vader
would have in his rig, perhaps. The control set couldn’t be much simpler—
at least on the face of the pedal. There’s a Volume knob and a
gain labeled Vig, which is short for "vigor." The latter is appropriate,
given the pedal’s potential energy and range, but maybe not quite as
suggestive of the evil this dial can introduce to your tone. Inside the
casing, there’s a miniscule bias trim knob that helps you fine-tune the
pedal’s first stage and can assist in overcoming the inherent instability
of germanium transistors in varying climates.
The footswitch is a clickless, true-bypass switch of Deville’s design (you
can also buy it as an aftermarket product for retrofitting other boxes)
that eliminates popping—particularly at super high-gain settings—when
you kick the pedal on.
A Rangy Voice
For a pedal that looks so straightforward, the Buzzmaster has a very
complex personality. I got to know the Buzzmaster using a blackface
Fender Bassman driving a 2x12 cab, a 50-watt Ampeg SuperJet 1x12
combo, a Marshall 1987 Plexi, a Fender Jaguar, Rickenbacker 330, and a
Guild Starfire with DeArmond humbuckers.
With the Vig control rolled almost entirely off and the Volume kicked up
a bit past unity, the Buzzmaster was gritty, but not buzzingly overdriven.
It inhabited a bluesy territory, but a plot much more akin to Cream-era
Clapton making a Marshall sing than SRV and a Tube Screamer. Though
the Buzzmaster gave the Bassman a nasty, cutting quality on top of its rubbery
low-end signature—particularly with the semi-hollow Rickenbacker
and Guild—I sensed the pedal wasn’t quite in its comfort zone.
But with a twist of the gain knob, now set just short of noon, I felt
the Buzzmaster was working in the manner its creator intended.
The Jaguar’s neck and bridge pickup took on a nasty, nasally snarl
with detectable low-octave tones that flirted with octave fuzz territory
and sustained mightily with the help of some aggressive finger
vibrato. The harmonic spectrum was even wider when using the semi-hollowbodies.
The Rick’s top-end detail remained intact and floating
above the burly, low-mid growl and heavy low-octave traces that
offered more than a hint of vintage Univox Super Fuzz. The Guild’s
DeArmonds drove the Buzzmaster further into the ice pick zone on
high single-note lines, but with the same traces of low octave booty,
and first-position chords roared almost like a vintage Big Muff with a
dry, high-end bump.
The Buzzmaster can get delightfully unruly too. Maxing the gain knob
and dialing up the volume induced a very useful, killing-my-amp kind of
breakup where high end decayed chaotically over a bed of sustained
low-end grumble. And while it isn’t a setting that’s suited to sustained
Townshendian power chords, it works well for faster single-note picking,
enabling you to relay a lot of melodic data without too much mud.
The Verdict
The Buzzmaster packs a lot of fuzz flavors in a single box. Fans of vintage
Big Muffs, Super Fuzzes, and even the crispy, crackling sounds
of Mark I Tone Benders and old Maestros will find familiar and friendly
tones within. The biggest surprise, and perhaps the pedal’s strongest
point, is the heavy octave sound that emerges in the Buzzmaster’s fuzz
voice at high-gain settings. The pedal is likely to work best in front of a
clean amp (things can get hectic fast in front of hotter Marshall circuits).
But if you need the kind of fuzz that can punish with personality and cut
through any mix, the Buzzmaster is more than up to the task.
Buy if...
you like a bossy, multi-voiced fuzz.
Skip if...
you’ve begun to embrace subtlety in your ripping leads.
Rating...
Street $250 - Jack Deville Electronics - jackdeville.com |
| Tone Games 2010: 30 Stompboxes Reviewed | Next in DIRTIER: Stomp Under Foot Ram's Head |