Members WRGKMC Posted May 23, 2016 Members Share Posted May 23, 2016 Picked up one of these for $18 on EBay the other day. http://www.ebay.com/itm/141975403354?_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT Thought it might be fun to play with. If not its no big loss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted May 26, 2016 Author Members Share Posted May 26, 2016 Gave this one a try out last night through my small practice amp. Its kind of an oddball pedal. It seems to have some built in compression in it to emulate tube sag. I think they have the compression after the drive gain too. I tried it using a guitar with mini humbuckers and wasn't pleased with the results. I was experiencing a bunch of dead notes that flat lined into a nasty bass resonance. I messed with the gain knob on low settings and was able to get it to sound somewhat like an amp. The high gain settings farted out badly. I tried backing my pickups down and got better results but still nothing spectacular. Because the pickup height made a difference I thought to try a Tele because the pickups had lower gain and were single coil. I got much better results and had much better range in gain. The volume on the guitar made a big difference dialing up usable gain settings too. So far it seems the pedal does allot better with single coils. I'll probably try a strat with vintage pickups in it tonight. If that sounds better then I may have a use for the pedal because that guitar is fairly anemic sounding with TX Specials in it. I still have to try it recording. The full frequency response of an interface may make it sound more like the video I had posted. This may not be a pedal for an amp, and strictly for recording direct. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted May 27, 2016 Members Share Posted May 27, 2016 If there's a way to pull the fat part down would be perfect. How's it do with Les Pauls? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted May 27, 2016 Members Share Posted May 27, 2016 I like the DS-3 model. Another Mike Hermans clip. [video=youtube;isXvdDgDzFY] If you wanna sell an OD, let Mike Hermans demo it. User results may vary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted May 27, 2016 Share Posted May 27, 2016 If there's a way to pull the fat part down would be perfect. How's it do with Les Pauls? I got the same impression when watching the video - it seems like it's a bit too girthy in the lows. Maybe try a high pass filter when recording it direct? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted May 27, 2016 Author Members Share Posted May 27, 2016 ^^^ I suspect the pedal will do better recording. I'll find out this weekend. Many pedals have the ability to switch between amp or recording modes using either a hard push button or soft switch which cuts down the treble and sets it for line level gain. The simplest method adds a little capacitance to to produce a speaker emulated tone. I've in fact installed many speaker emulated line level output jacks on older amps for the purpose of recording or connecting to a PA. The circuit us ultra simple consisting of two caps and two resistors. I believe this pedal may be set up for recording direct only. That kind of makes sense anyway given its name, Amp Simulator. Simulating an Amp plugged into an Amp is redundant. I'll find out for sure though and let you know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 1001gear Posted May 28, 2016 Members Share Posted May 28, 2016 Imagine two 12s going down the front of your amp! How much would YOU pay for this? But wait, that's not all... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members LulaNord Posted April 13, 2017 Members Share Posted April 13, 2017 Hi....It seems to have some built in compression in it to emulate tube sag. I think they have the compression after the drive gain too. I tried it using a guitar with mini humbuckers and wasn't pleased with the results. I was experiencing a bunch of dead notes that flat lined into a nasty bass resonance. I messed with the gain knob on low settings and was able to get it to sound somewhat like an amp. The high gain settings farted out badly. I tried backing my pickups down and got better results but still nothing spectacular. pcb turnkey assembly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted April 17, 2017 Author Members Share Posted April 17, 2017 ^^^ I set that pedal aside and its been doing nothing but collecting dust. I may experiment with the circuit at some point to try and get something usable from it. As is, its a total piece of garbage.What amazes me is Its got more parts then most pedals out there. Its hard to believe they intentionally designed it to sound that bad. Maybe they had a prototype that was better and the production units failed because of cheap or improperly installed parts. It may explain why it was selling so cheap. If I took the time to draw the schematic for it I could probably figure out its faults and possibly improve it. Its had to think it could get much worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.