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Review by Mark Starlin , Back in the early 70’s, channel switching, high gain amps had yet to be invented. To get that soaring, infinite sustain, players would often resort to tricks such as running one amp into another (a disaster waiting to happen) or having someone hot rod their amp (which is how some well known amp makers got their start.) Randy Bachman, who was a member of The Guess Who at the time, and later Bachman Turner Overdrive (BTO), had his repairman, Gar Gilles, build him a tube preamp with two gain stages. This simulated the effect of running one amp into another without the inherent danger. This unique tone was made famous on the classic Guess Who hit American Woman. The Tech 21 American Woman pedal was designed to capture that classic tone in a pedal. Does it succeed? Let’s see.

That Sound

Naturally, any sound on a recording is the result of several factors. In the case of American Woman, it was the result of ’59 Les Paul, the two stage preamp, a Garnet amp, an RCA ribbon microphone, an RCA compressor/limiter, tape saturation, and lest we forget: Randy’s technique and choice of notes. Can one pedal possibly recreate all that? With the exception of Randy’s technique, the answer is yes. In fact, when I popped The Guess Who’s Greatest Hits in my CD player and played along (using my Les Paul) with the lead lines on the song American Woman, it was shocking how close I could get to that famous tone. (more…)

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Review by Mark StarlinWhen I first saw the new Pocket POD and how small it was, I couldn’t help but think of a gadget I had back in the early 1980’s called the Rockman. Guitar players who were around back then will remember that the Rockman was a compact headphone guitar amplifier created by Tom Scholz, the guitarist from the band Boston (who also had a Masters degree in engineering!) When you plugged your guitar into the Rockman and played, you essentially had the guitar sound of the band Boston coming through your headphones. This was way before amp modeling and was very cool at the time. Still, it was limited to a couple of tones and effects that you couldn’t tweak.

The Pocket POD is also a portable headphone guitar amp (plus a performance and recording device), except this one is designed for the 21st Century and has more features and tones than you would expect to fit in such a small package. And instead of sounding like one band, it comes with tones programmed by several different bands (and enough others to sound like just about any band.)

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First batch of pedals…
Alrighty, well this is tougher than I thought.

And are they looking for a true effect that is recognizable or something that sounds like a straight guitar, just leveled and sustained….

Every one of these so far sounds great into a TS10, I wish I would have found this out along time ago… I will never be without a comp again, and none of them is terribly noisy unless set up to do too much…

So it seems the differences come down to features , tweekability, true bypass, size and ease of use……. there is some EQ and tone difference……….anyway here we go……

Like with wine or beer tasting, you are supposed to start with the lightest first…

DOD Milk Box

• I assume its not true bypass. 4 knobs with 2 names each, but the control is over: level Threshold Tone (but its a high end expander) and Attack…..
• this one is a bit noisy if you start cranking the levels and thresholds, but it has a nice control for the high end and you can actually get a nice top end improvement which helps if you are trying to do the squashed thing and keep clarity and attack……..and it will do the crazy squash thing that feels like Grandma pinching you cheek…….pretty good unit, Im suprised.

Korg CMP-1

• Output and Sensitivity knobs and soft/hard attack switch, another nice suprise. this is really pretty quiet and will do a nice Phish fillet, it does kind of thicken the middle and take a hair off the top, great into a TS10.

Menatone JAC

• Gain /Gain Reduction/volume - Second LED that shows comp level rising and falling (and Im a sucker for ‘living’ LEDs)
• this is a studio compressor in a pedal. its paterned after the old LA-2As that were and are in most pro studios…. this is very nice and will get an ‘is it on?’ gold star. This is not really for saturated chicken picking or sustain crazy Phishing, but it sounds real natural and is ‘amplike’ the way most Menatone pedals are described, very nice openess in the lower strings, almost more of an ‘overeasy’ limiting with some compression in there…. this would be a good one to just leave on, and maybe use a different comp for the ‘Squishies’.

Blackbox Oxygen

• Gain/Gate/Limit/Comp/Release/Dirt
• (Flak jacket on - check) Ok I’m going to make some people mad here. It can be noisy, and it does take off some top end. This has ALOT of options, but many of them get noisy. This would be fun in the studio because it will do everything!! But I dont hear the Dirt control giving any real dirt. Maybe its just that I hate that Noisegating sound alot, and if this isnt set just right (tone Dog - you got any frequent flyer miles you can jet over here on) it gets well noisy. BUT it also has a beautiful FAT sustain with some limiting that is addictive. There are great tones in this pedal, but it will take work. and it is taller than the regular Hammond box….. (more…)

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