Undone

This is a new battery. Just installed it into one of my pedals & was wondering why there's no sound coming out of the amp. I noticed the pedal's LED wasn't lit up as well. So a quick check & saw this. There's a reason why B-Stock products are sold for a bargain. Yes, I still use battery for my pedals.

Batt

I am indeed the very small percentage of players out there who power pedals with batteries. I will use, at most, two pedals at any one time so investing in a pedal board with isolated power supply is pointless. The GP extra heavy duty battery you see above came with one of the boss pedals I bought some time ago. I put it in my Snakestortion pedal & it lasted for nearly 2 months before going completely dead. 

Philips

I can't remember which pedal came with this Philips battery as default. It's obviously not available over the store counters, parts of the battery was masked off to indicate special manufacture. In any case, this is the longest serving, non-alkaline battery that I've come across. Part of its lasting nature might be the fact that it's serving a tuner pedal, something that consumes very little power compared to drive or delay pedals. Thank you, Philips, for the 3 months of service. 

Kodak

Once upon a time, the Kodak brand name was quite the king of camera film. Yes, it's that thing one loaded in one's camera in order for photo-taking to happen. It had to be sent to the developer for the photos to be developed & printed. We have pictures in hard copies back then & keep them in photo albums. Gone were those days but not quite the Kodak name. I have no idea if the batteries you see here are actually in active production or leftovers but they are going for $0.80 each at the ABC Discount Store. Thanks to blog reader, Steve, for the heads up. I will always look forward to such bargains because I still run my pedals on batteries. If you are like me, only having one pedal hooked up to the amp during most play time, running it on battery rather than a PSU, makes more sense. 

CC

I've been messing around with clean tones lately in an attempt to level up my finger picking. It's a little tricky if one is too accustomed to excessive gain / drive levels. A light touch won't work well because poor attack would translate into barely audible notes at the amp end. So I appreciate the role of my (hard) picks in making me play well. To address this concern, a chorus pedal is added into the effects lineup to spur some gain into the mix. Folks, pedals have a gain capacity even though no GAIN control is present. This is true if you have at least a VOLUME control in there. 

The chorus pedal you see here is One Control's Little Copper Chorus. Is one of those pedals in a space-saving format but unlike the rest, it's designed to house a battery as seen above - awesome! I'm only using this pedal for cleans, don't wish to have it run on PSU, too cumbersome. The Danelectro battery was the nearest available one  - grabbed & used. I'm just happy that there is a manufacturer out there who does this so it's a win-win situation for players. 

Once Control pedals are available at Davis GMC.

Alkaline

I am perhaps the very few players left in guitardom to be powering pedals with batteries. The GP 9V you see here came with one of the pedals I bought, can't remember which one it was. Due to its alkaline nature, it managed to keep my Korg Pitchblack tuner alive for nearly 3 months (just a few days short). I do not power up other pedals with an alkaline unit less the ones which are not power-sapping, an example of which is this pedal tuner. Alkaline batteries sustain a pedal on lower power over time so they do affect tone for drive / distortion pedals mostly. If you hear these fuzzing out on you despite the battery indicator looking rather bright; it's the battery.

New screamer

Greetings, gear geeks & Tube Screamer fans alike. The following is my personal take on the Ibanez NTS which debuted this year. I have always held the Tube Screamer as the standard in that slight drive in kicking an already driven amp into finer definition (whatever that means to you). I also own some TS-alike pedals/ variations to keep things in perspective.  

Be informed that this version of the TS is devoid of the iconic JRC4558D that gave the pedal its individual flavour. In lieu of this goodness, Ibanez had teamed up with Korg to create a tube equipped PCB-based substitute seen here, dubbed the Nutube technology. 

Despite the tube technology on board, the NTS is still accommodating battery power in addition to PSU applications. The implication here is that the current draw for this technology is small & not power sapping as many of us would've expected. I've been playing mine with a 9V battery in there to keep track of possible tonal changes if the pedal is running on a draining dry cell unit.

This isn't exactly the best visual representation of the pedal in use but that's the amount of light given off by the on-board tubes once the pedal is put to use. The tubes also double as a clipping device so the brightness corresponds to the guitar's string vibrations which trigger the magnetic/ electrical inputs accordingly. The other major difference is the pedal's MIX knob which allows the player to balance the level of NTS drive performance against the instrument's unaffected signals.

In use, the Nutube technology kerbs the pedal's peculiar midrange hump by making the overall tone a little warmer & less prickly with all controls set at noon. This is more obvious if you turn your amp's volume up. Be informed that there's no extra drive to be heard just because there are tubes in there. If you wish for a more commanding Tube Screamer in this aspect, the Turbo version or even the TS7 in its boosted mode would be a more practical consideration. 

Moving on to single coil equipped guitars, this is where the MIX feature proved its exclusive worth. The usual approach in cleaning up driven voicings with any given overdrive unit in use is to - you guessed it - lower its drive level. As such, we have players who eliminate the drive entirely & dimed the level knob to retain the twang from their single coils. The MIX knob here allows the player to retain whatever drive saturation they prefer but reducing its dominance by allowing more unaffected signals through. I must say I enjoy this application with clean-esque tones coming from single coils, definitely. 

In conclusion, the NTS is not a fresh take on the TS tone but a differentiated one. It might be a preferred pedal for a certain camp of players with a certain tone take but the NTS is definitely a proven drive booster regardless of the incarnation. That white-based colour scheme is not ideal for a device designated to be stepped on, yes? 

Active power

Spent some time with the EMGs last night. These are the only EMGs I can tolerate; the 57/66. I find active pickups very synthetic sounding. Some of us like this very boosted output, others simply prefer no battery influence in the guitar's electronics. 

Speaking of batteries, I was wondering why the 57/66 sounded half-baked, they were singing like single coils, in fact. There was this strange twang living in them which would be very enjoyable should I be in the mood for non-humbucking pickups. A hunch told me it was the power source. True enough, the EMG battery was on the verge of dying. So my friends, if you hear your active pickups sounding a little crispy & veering towards the clean end, the battery is the likely culprit. 

PS: Hello October 😄

Cinders battery

Someone asked me if the new range of TC Electronic pedals could be run on battery- here you go. If there is a battery option for pedals, I'd run it on battery first to see if there are issues. Subsequently, I might run it on PSU, that's the ritual. 

Pop(ped) juice

The battery popped in one of my pedals. Nobody was harmed largely due to the fact that the pedal was tank grade & contained the explosion. This battery came default with my Seymour Duncan Killing Floor unit. I was wondering why this happened since:

• it was never connected to any PSU
• no guitar cable was left in tact when the pedal was at rest

I have a fresh 9V battery in my Killing Floor just to make sure it wasn't the pedal killing it (no pun intended). Safety first, everyone. 😛 #justsharing

Battery!

Remember the EHX East River drive shown here recently? This is everything you'd see upon removing the base plate.

Interesting battery, yes? Do you think you know this guy? :-)

Found power

Was clearing some stuff when I found this unused Danelectro 9V battery. It's still sealed. I have yet to locate some other misplaced items, 2 of which are a Slayer t-shirt & an Animals as Leaders CD. Hmm...

Snark tuner: Ver. Red

OK, so I bought another Snark tuner, this time, the red version. What's the colour significance? It represents the different models with different on-board features. But first, let me address the query of which battery type powers this cutie. It's the tablet version as seen above, the cheapest of which (as sold at my neighbourhood budget store) is $0.70- yes, I did a little scouting. 

The red version features an on board metronome but it's devoid of any 'beep' sound; it's the perfect silent ticker. The user is also given the option to set his/ her preferred BPM, I started with a 100bpm as seen above...

...retarding it to 40bpm much later while I was noodling with some doom riffs. The 'heart' you see there is the ticker indicator, it blinks according to the bpm set. Neat, huh? The absolutely best thing about Snark tuners is that they are all very affordable, they don't exceed $20...

Snark tuners are available at Davis GMC/ TYmusic.

In need of juice

 

Last evening's play was met by a minor scare when my volume suddenly took a dip then died. Silence. The amplifier giving way? Guitar giving way? What was it? My amp's LED was still burning bright, so were the LEDs of the other pedals in use. My first diagnosis was the guitar since it has no light indicators to imply its working condition. A straight through plug in revealed that my amp & guitar to be in OK condition. So I had to test each & every pedal in use; the culprit was my Cool Cat chorus. Strangely, the dying battery still had enough power to keep the LED going.

Battery change

I did not replace the battery in my KORG Pitchblack tuner since I bought it last December & today it went dead. So that's about a half-year's worth of endurance on a non-alkaline power source.

GP battery

Good news for us dweebs who still prefer batteries for pedals; things just got cheaper at Mustaffa Center- GP 9V battery @ $0.70 each. Great!

9V Battery- slight return...

Remember some time ago, I did mention Mustafa Centre not selling the 90c Vinnic battery any more? Well, they are now selling Sanyo ones for that sub-$1.00 consideration...