Vibramate SR1

July 2011 Guitarist 131
QUICKTEST
MISCELLANEOUS
July 2011
Guitarist
131
The Red Square combines two
of Jetter’s overdrive pedals –
the Red Shift and the Helium –
into a single enclosure. There’s
an internal switch to set which
of the two comes first in the
signal chain. The Red Shift
side offers two different
voicings courtesy of the shift
switch and sports volume, gain
and tone knobs while the
Helium side offers volume and
drive plus the lean/rich knob
for tonal tweaks.
Sounds
What you get from both
aspects is a natural amp-like
overdrive – the Helium side
offering a Fenderish flavour
with a useful range of those
low gain just-breaking-up
tones, while the Red side has
more gain and a nice fat sustain
that turns more aggressively
Marshall-like with the shift
switch. The two sides
complement each other really
well (which is the whole point
of putting them together)
giving you plenty of tonal
Bigsby vibratos can be a real
pain in the backside to restring.
There’s a true knack to putting
just the right angle of kink into
a string’s ball end to enable it to
be teased onto the relevant pin
poking unobtrusively from the
central roller. Even with years
of practice, the process of
restringing any Bigsby guitar
can take a frustrating 15
minutes – or even more if you’re
particularly sausage-fingered –
and that’s assuming that the
ball end doesn’t then
inadvertently ping out of the
array just as you’re getting it up
to the correct pitch…
But fret no more, for help is at
hand in the shape of the latest
innovation from Vibramate: the
String Spoiler. This clever
bracket hooks over the
aforementioned pins and is held
in position by the string tension
when tuned up to pitch. Once
you have the first string that
secures the Spoiler in place, the
remainder can be fitted and
tuned in seconds.
variation and, with two
footswitches, a choice of how
you utilise the pedal. Two
distinctly different overdrives
used separately or together, or
one main overdrive with the
other set to just boost it when
needed? The choice is yours.
Verdict
This is one really versatile and
great-sounding overdrive
pedal. In our recent review of
the whole Jetter range, the Red
Shift and Helium emerged as
our favourites – putting both
together in a single box at a
price much less than buying the
individual pedals is a
no-brainer. Excellent. [TC]
In Use
We used the Spoiler with both
a standard B7 and a stripped-
down B5 Bigsby and found
that, not only was it a doddle to
fit and use, it actually seemed
to assist in smoothing the
operation of the vibratos.
Verdict
Available in gold and black
(both $59.95) as well as this
stainless steel example, we
can’t stress enough how useful
a gadget this is and, if you own
any Bigsby-loaded electric, we
can wholeheartedly
recommend it. We’re sure we
can hear Brian Setzer’s guitar
tech somewhere, whooping
with joy… [SB]
CONTACT: Coda Music PHONE: [phone] WEB: www.jettergear.com
CONTACT: All Parts PHONE: [phone] WEB: www.vibramate.com
Vibramate SR1
String Spoiler
from $39.95
Restring your Bigsby in minutes!
No, we’re not joking…
Two classy, complementary
overdrives in a single unit
Jetter Red Square
£199
The Bottom Line
We like: Natural sounding;
good tonal variation;
separate footswitches for
each overdrive
We dislike: Nothing
The Bottom Line
We like: Ease of fitting and
use; price
We dislike: Nothing
GUITARIST RATING
GUITARIST RATING
GIT343.rev_quick 131 5/19/11 5:06:23 PM