It felt like we hardly finished the video on the new UAFX Max, Galaxy and Del-Verb pedals when we at Noisegate got word that there were some new new UAFX pedals for us to check out! Like many others, a new release from Universal Audio always piques our interest so it is with great pleasure that we present this sneak peak of the brand-new UAFX Compact Series. https://youtu.be/QvM4_tuqWEI The first release of the UA Compact series contains four pedals: the 1176 compressor, Orion tape delay, Evermore studio reverb and the Heavenly plate reverb. We were lucky enough to get a…
Author: Andy Mc
The guitar and audio world seemed to be obsessed with the past, in my opinion. We live in our heads in a time where there was all the Brazilian rosewood we wanted, where the BC108 and JRC4558 chips for our fuzz faces and tubescreamers are easy to come by, and where ‘50’s wiring’ is just called ‘wiring’. In our heads, this historical place is tone nirvana. We can buy 50’s Les Pauls, 60’s Strats and 70’s Marshalls for a reasonable price. What we seem to have forgotten, however, is that our original pedals are robbing our guitar of high-end because…
How can we make any affordable guitar sound even better? Well, a good place to start is with the pickups! For the beginner and intermediate guitarist, the quality and choice of instruments available today have never been better. Seymour Duncan is a name synonymous with guitar pickups since its inception in the mid-70s – the JB, the Invader, the Antiquity, and the Quarter Pound are all well-known for their incredible tones. Recently, Seymour Duncan released the Psychedelic and the Scooped strat sets. These are a great set of quality pick-ups that can hot rod an entry-level guitar into a tone…
Blackstar has announced AMPED 3, their third AMPED release in their series of pedalboard amplifiers. Much like its predecessors, the AMPED 3 features a 100w amplifier switchable down to 20 and 1 watt, a plethora of ins and outs including MIDI, USB, XLR and the ability to power a cab or run direct to a PA! AMPED 3 distinguishes itself from its siblings by including a foot-switchable multi-channel amp with reverb and a switchable boost to complement the excellent tone we’ve come to expect from this series. Have a look at our video review of the AMPED 3 below, and…
Blackstar have just released their new Debut line of amps. Why should great tone be the luxury of expensive tube amp players? The Debut 50R has some great tone without the price tag! Blackstar also understands the modern player wants features like effects loops, multiple channels, lush reverb, options for silent recording and inputs for playback via their phone. There is also the option to switch down to 5W for the same killer tone at neighbour-pleasing volumes! https://youtu.be/oPZkDyNQgNA Here’s what Blackstar are saying about the Debut 50R: Debut 50R takes the Debut range to the next level as the perfect…
The first weekend of March saw the return of the Melbourne Guitar Show to Caulfield Racecourse after a couple of years of hiatus thanks to the spicy cough. It was, as expected, wall-to-wall with great gear from the big makers, as well as some amazing and unique builds from new and local luthiers! Andy (and Mel behind the camera) took a walk around the show and had a chat with some of the many friendly faces about some of the awesome products that were on show. Have a look at the video, do some online research and why not follow/like/subscribe…
Source Audio, makers of some of our favourite pedals here at Noisegate, have long had MIDI options for accessing their presets and CC messages on their pedals. The regular-size Source Audio pedals such as the Ventris, EQ2, Collider and Nemesis all had numerous presets that are easily accessible via MIDI using the regular 5-pin MIDI connection. However, for the smaller format One Series pedals such as the C4, Atlas and LA Lady, MIDI is only accessible via USB or alternatively using the Source Audio Hub, which enabled access to presets, albeit in a less direct manner. It was really only…
Last year, we had a look at Blackstar’s AMPED 1 and were suitably impressed with the tones it produced as well as its versatility as a product. Blackstar has followed up with their new AMPED 2. The AMPED 2 is somewhat of an expansion on the first model, adding more features that make this new version an even more powerful and useful tool for the gigging, recording and working musician (as well as the home hobbyist). We took a look at the latest from Blackstar and were not disappointed! https://youtu.be/aaUYRdGOapM The AMPED 2 is slightly larger than its sibling, including…
Recently, the YouTube channel ‘Deadwax’ posted a video talking about the 20 greatest guitar tones. It was striking how few of them on the list were traditional tones: many were lauded for their uniqueness, their unusual textures and/or their ability to be attention-grabbing. Over on our own channel, we were recently talking about the Maestro FZ-1 and its place in rock history as the sound of ‘Satisfaction’ – a sound left in, much to the bemusement of Keith Richards, thanks to its unique and at the time unheard of tone. This got me thinking about pushing the envelope with my…
Earlier this year, Gibson relaunched Maestro and helped the brand get back into the pedal game after somewhat of an absence, despite having in fact been the makers of the first-ever mass-produced guitar effect pedal. It was 60 years ago when the Maestro FZ-1 was first released – a pedal you may not know well, but you certainly know its sound. The intro to Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones is a Maestro fuzz! In fact, the story goes that Keith Richards used it to put in a guide track for what the saxophone should play over the intro of that…
