Sunday, February 15, 2015

Dual assault

I own a Blackstar amp & I've tried the others at the store. Thusfar, I'm hearing what the manufacturer has in store from the amp's voicings. I've checked the manufacturer's catalog & discover the existence of a drive & distortion pedal (the non-tube LT versions). The LT Dual you see here consists of 2 channels offering drive & distortion. The channels work independently (darn!). CH1 is the drive channel & CH2 offers the player distortion voicings.

I'm pretty much stoked by CH1 as the drive intensity is coupled with great saturation so picking sensitivity is increased as you dial up both GAIN & LEVEL. This channel gives great tone whichever way you turn the ISF knob. CH2 is the distortion channel & I find it a little too scooped when the ISF knob is pointing towards the American way (0 - half-way mark). In any Blackstar product, the ISF feature is very much the philosophy behind the tones you hear & in this pedal, it works well with the manufacturer's patented clipping response.

My subsequent episode with this pedal is to hook it up through the amp's FX loop. In the mean time, I'm keeping all instrument related volume down (for 10 days or so) due the presence of an elderly family member who's just been discharged from hospital. I'm keeping things acoustic & maybe increase the frequency of listening to my favourite CDs, especially those older collection.