Clean: Re-visited (sort of)

Confession: I'm not a clean fan. OK maybe the jazzy stuff- that, I can tolerate. Lately, due to a single coil preoccupation, I'm appreciating clean tones. The cleans which contain traces of drive when cranked up. Nick Johnston- that's my best reference. So the adventure requires me to add a pedal into the signal chain because the single coils I'm dealing with are not the high output type; the Ashburn's Bloodline pickups are polite entities. A clean boost is added as seen above, it's a Protone Clean Boost which turns into an overdrive at maximum setting.

What's the benefit of approaching tone from this perspective? It allows the player to clean up the signal via the volume control. Not all pickups-boost combo will give you this luxury, it's a matter of trial & error.

Selling: Pedals...

One Control ABD mini pedal. Unlike others, this one works with battery as well.

Protone makes some of the best pedals around. This clean boost is under-used, in superb condition & going for half price.

ONE CONTROL: Anodized Brown Distortion

• Condition: 9/10, box included
• No reservations, no trades
• queries: subversion.sg@gmail.com
• Self-collect: CCK mrt stn
• Price: $85 (final)

Protone: Clean Boost

• Condition: 9/10, box included
• No reservations, no trades
• query e-mail as above
• Self-collect @ CCK mrt stn
• Price: $99 (final)

Pro Loomis

You know Jeff Loomis, you know how much distortion/gain he has on board. That in mind, Mr. Loomis has recently teamed up with Protone for a signature drive pedal. I own a Protone drive pedal & must say it's one of the best in terms of saturation & harmonic trigger but it doesn't come cheap.

Protone: The reek of death (2)

Setting the record straight: I'm not a boutique name fan. I just don't look forward to such offerings because there's more hype to them than a concrete 'better' performance. For much lesser money, we can easily obtain a very pleasant sounding pedal simply due to the level of technology today; manufacturers know what to do without spending too much.

However, in my case, there are exceptions every now & then. The case in question is Protone's Dead Horse as seen above. It's nothing refreshing, really, a regurgitation of the Tube Screamer philosophy but it's taken a mod-type turn. The Dead Horse is what your Tube Screamer would sound like if you'd send them for a mod make-over (OK, so I've said this before in Part 1). The saturation response is just way above what a typical drive would offer. Adding the fact that there's no excessive midrange typically heard in the Tube Screamer (which isn't a bad thing considering it was conceived for this purpose), the Dead Horse is a very appealing manifestation of what a souped-up Tube Screamer should be. Please bear in mind that regardless of whatever additional saturation there is on offer, it doesn't cross over into the distortion territory. 

Moving into performances notes, I like what the Dead Horse has to offer for both single coil & humbucking guitars. It's not biased towards either pickup, in fact, it does what it's supposed to do regardless of the pickup source. What you'd hear is the pedal saturating signals without adding inclined internal flavouring when they reach the amp. It's as if the pedal has an in-built clean boost in there without announcing its presence. That diode switch there is for you to check out symmetrical & asymmetrical clippings which has everything to do with harmonic type generation. Don't think too much about it, hear it in action, let your ears do the picking.

Many of you would balk at the fact that a mere overdrive pedal would cost you very close to $300 but that's the boutique reality; you pay for the technicalities of it all in addition to the name. I couldn't pass this one up simply because it's my kind of pedal, it gives me what I want to hear in a single serving, no multiple cascading pedals necessary. 

Protone: Dead Horse

Availability: Davis GMC

Price: SGD295