New wave

If you've come across the Ibanez SW bass amps, you'd know they are some of the best value-for-money products out there- a respectable performer beyond brand name excess.

This year, the manufacturer added some features which are useful for us players as these are the common effects we'd invest in pedal form so the integration into the amp is much appreciated, especially the distortion & envelope filter.

Indecisive?

This is a neat effects unit by Empress; a 3-in-1 pedal on days when you can't decide what to employ in your set-up. It' sports a 3-band EQ & a further 3-channel offering for the distortion so there're options for you to experiment with- great! I'm not aware if this is in the shops here (if you see it, do disclose the location- thank you in advance) but seeing Davis GMC inventorizing the Empress pedals, the might be hope of its debut.

Germ again

This is a first take on the Big Muff Germ 4 pedal, essentially a 2-in-1 entity which isn't too fuzzy for all you Muffers but the signature, grizzly overtone is still present.

As the label suggests, the pedal consists of 2 channels a mild overdrive side & the darker, meaner distortion side but both being Muff-sounding. Also, the control labels aren't typical Muff affair, the BIAS feature for instance, offers some manipulations for both tone & drive/ distortion intensity. Ditto the VOLTS feature while the TONE label is a familiar shaping feature to many of us with our other pedals. The labels here aren't really an upfront offering, they might influence other aspects of tone which aren't in their direct domain.

To be cont'd...

JOYOusly crunchy!

Was at Standard Value & Mike presented some Joyo pedals to try. I was most impressed with the above Crunch Distortion for its gain sweep; you can dial in a mild, DS-1 type voicing, pump it up for some crunchy (but not muffled) settings & then full-on to metal, despite the manufacturer not peddling this unit for such intensive applications. If you know MI Audio's Crunch Box capacity, I'd say the Joyo take here has a little more whack at upper distortion settings. All for a good $75.00.

PS: Thanks Mike for letting me try this with different guitars.