Studio Stomp Boxes

1
Under his Mr Black brand,
Oregon-based pedal
designer Jack Deville has
released a string of impressive
compact pedals in recent years, with
a particular penchant for reverbs and
delays. The Echoverb is a multi-tap
modulated echo and reverb pedal. It
doesn’t have the broad range of
something like, say, Strymon’s
excellent El Capistan, featuring only
three controls – Level, Decay and
Span (delay time). The sound is
lovely and authentically retro,
however, so as a one-size-fits-all
echo effects box, it’s a winner.
www.mrblackpedals.com
VerDICt 7.9
2
The Deluxe Plus replicates
the combination of reverb
and tremolo most
commonly associated with classic
Fender guitar amps. It’s a sound that
instantly brings to mind vintage Surf
Rock guitar, but it adds a lovely
quality to almost anything you put
through it; we could see this being a
great tool for adding a bit of
ambience and character to a synth
lead, for example. There aren’t
masses of tone shaping parameters
here – just intensity, reverb level and
speed knobs – but the results are
still impressive.
www.mrblackpedals.com
VerDICt 8.1
3
The Mel 9 Tape Replay
Machine is a pedal that
takes an input signal – it’s
primarily designed for guitar, but
works nicely with a clean-ish
keyboard sound too – and converts
into a Mellotron emulation. There are
nine sounds on offer, covering a
broad range of knowingly inaccurate,
gorgeously retro ‘orchestral’ tones.
The technology works impressively
well, tracking the input sound well
across a broad frequency range (EHX
say it will work as low as the A string
of a bass guitar). Attack and Sustain
controls help create those classic
swelling string sounds, while
independent Effect and Dry outputs
make it easy to dial in the sound
alongside the original signal. A very
cool studio tool at a good price.
www.ehx.com
VerDICt 9.1
4
This compact little pedal
features emulations of six
different varieties of reverb.
These range from a straightforward
room verb through to plate and
spring varieties, via a delay-driven
Epic setting and a modulated reverb
mode. All six modes sound gorgeous
– with glistening highs dialled in and
out to taste via the Tone control.
Connect up an expression pedal
and you can morph between two
different reverb settings too, which
is a great touch.
www.jimdunlop.com
VerDICt 9.5
5
The Lester K is a rotary
speaker emulation designed
for keyboard players (EHX
also have a Lester G model for
guitarists, which adds a built-in
compressor). It works in both stereo
and mono, with adjustable fast and
slow modes for tailoring the sound.
The sound is full and gorgeously
authentic, instantly adding a classic
feel to organ or keyboard sounds,
and great for adding width and
movement to static synth pads. A
built-in tape overdrive emulation
adds a nice bit of crunch too.
There’s also a Speed switch, which
allows the creation of speed-up/
slow-down effects.
www.ehx.com
VerDICt 8.9
The Retro Wonder: EHX Mel 9 Whether you like the
string machine sound is a matter of taste, but this is a
winner for adding some retro magic to your tracks.
FM VerDICt
The Studio Essential: MXR M300 With six high-quality
reverb effects in one tiny, well-priced package, this will
prove to be a great little tool to have around the studio.
5
Electro-Harmonix
Lester K
£139
Group Test | Reviews
93
FMU308.rev_grouptest.indd 93 14/07/2016 14:41