Good horsie

I've given this horse a good ride & it's time to share the good bits.

The Pale Horse (PH) is a TS-ish pedal, there's no hiding that. It's even conceived in a TS colour scheme, there's no hiding that either. The VFE philosophy is not solely about cloning & riding on the originator's runaway success, now that, is worth not hiding. What the PH retained from a certain mid-bumped mild overdrive is the value of transparency. In fact, I believe the PH is one of the best in redefining this transparency (whatever it means to you)  which I understood to be unhindered clarity. Theoretically, that's impossible; once a signal is made to go through a clipped processing, the output would be coloured, however audible that may be. The PH, after a personal encounter, is indeed one of the best when it comes to positive intrusion.

Having that in mind, the voicing of this pedal could be manifested into three interpretations- Asymmetrical, LED & MOSFET. Sounds familiar? Of course, these are the standard approaches in regulating intensity in terms of drive. I'm hearing the most transparent of responses in the A mode, leading to more aggression in the L & M modes, the last of which is the thickest in terms of bottom end & closest to a fuzzy response. There are two more EQ related controls in addition to the master tone control defining bass & treble. These shouldn't be too hard to figure out especially when they are rather sensitive in terms of the sweep on offer.

I'm actually not really interested in the details especially so when there are more hidden controls once the base plate comes off. Indeed, there's a pot to control the LED brightness for the battery-conserving dweebs out there. I'm interested in the pedal's overall performance; is it really a clever re-interpretation of a certain other green pedal or just another clone riding on shadows. So here's my understanding of why the Pale Horse was conceived as such- it's a wonderful stand alone unit if you need quality transparency in your signal chain. I'm very happy with it in this aspect especially with the single coil tones- one of the best. In M mode & a little combination with a booster unit or maybe - dare I suggest - a distortion unit, you could have a faux fuzz tone going. Personally, it has the push to drive my amp's dirty channel into dark, black metal territory, with lots of shredder harmonics to boot.

Sadly, the Pale Horse is out of production. Peter Rutter did away with the later series of his effects series, only retaining a key few units for his resume. The Pale Horse was one of the highlights of the initial series of effects units, still featuring that comic-esque graphics; horses, dogs, bees & company. He returned to teaching (his other passion) & spurred students into his electronic engineering track. He is currently funding his newborn son's upcoming surgeries to correct a cleft lip. Do some good & check his stuff out over at his webpage (CLICK). The Pale Horse is still available at SV Guitars going for 50% off if you are still interested.