Gear Review: Strymon el capistan dTape echo

Strymon El Capistan dTape Echo

Review by: Ryan Nelson

In 2008, a new kid moved into the guitar effects village by the name of Strymon founded by Terry Burton. In 2009, Terry teamed up with the talented folks at Damage Control. Ever since, they have been cranking out some of the most diverse and creative pedals I have ever seen. The guys at Strymon have been recreating and perfecting the timeless classics all while redefining the limits of what these effects are capable of. For those of you not familiar with this phenomenal company, it is my pleasure to introduce you.

I was recently on Strymon’s website and noticed that in the specs section of each pedals manual, it state “Made with love in the USA.” And they really do mean it. These guys are passionate about creating amazing pedals, and they love their devoted fans. This last December, I received an email thanking their fans for their loyal support. It was a small thing, but lets you know these guys love what they do. Their Facebook page is filled with crazy gear-heads, who at points, seem more ga-ga for these pedals than a 13 year old girl expressing their love for Justin Bieber. Each individual pedals release is like the ticket sales when U2 comes to town; they all sell out within hours leaving those who did not get to their computers fast enough to order one in a heightened state of G.A.S. (Gear Acquisition Syndrome) remorse.

Their customer service is also top notch. Their marketing guy, Ethan, tries to ensure that all questions are answered on their FB feed, which is greatly appreciated by those trying to learn how to use their newly bought effects or those wanting to know if a certain pedal will give them the sounds they are looking for. All reports I have heard of pedals in need of service have been positive. One other awesome thing they do is host a give away contest of each new pedal they release. Just another way they say thanks to their fans.

It is not just their crazy fans that love them, the accolades are flying in from many trusted sources. Perhaps the greatest fan of Strymon is Premier Guitar magazine. They have awarded almost every new Strymon pedal an award of highest excellence.

Today, I am going to introduce you to Strymon by submitting a short & sweet review on the El Capistan dTape Echo. The El Cap is a digital pedal utilizing DSP that seeks to give you all the best sounds out of all the classic Tape Delay/Echo’s without any of the maintenance hassle that goes with them. They absolutely nailed what they set out to do. I would go as far as to say that this pedal is the best Tape Delay/Echo pedal on the market today due to its versatility, sound quality, build quality, and board footprint. Now before any original Tape machine purists stone me, hear me out.

What makes the El Cap so excellent is range of sounds you can get out of this one pedal. You can make it sound like a perfectly tuned Tape Echo with pristine repeats or you can set it to where it sounds like the tape is beyond repair and going to snap at any moment or anywhere in between. Original tapes are not capable of this because they rely on real tape to achieve their sound which will either be in pristine shape or trashed. It can also do the crazy noise making sound with barely any effort. Perhaps the best part of this pedal is how much fun you have using it.

As you see from the picture, this pedal has two three way toggle switches and five knobs. What you don’t see in the picture is that each one of the knobs have additional features that can be utilized when you press down both stomp switches at the same time. Here are all the knobs primary settings: Time, Mix, Tape Age, Repeats, and Wow and Flutter. The secondary features on the knobs are: Spring Reverb, Low End Contour, Tape Bias, Tape Friction, and +/- 3DB. I will not go into great detail here about what each of these knobs can do, but the combo of these 10 knobs working together is what makes it so you can achieve a wide variety of sounds. The toggle switches represent different variations of three distinct styles of Tape Delay/Echo’s, Fixed Head, Multi Head, and Single Head. There are 9 different modes to be selected which can all be customized with the knobs. A huge plus is that this pedal has tap Tempo. Some modes also give you tapped sub-divisions like dotted 8th.

Another great feature on this pedal is that it has a built in looper. What sets this looper apart is that all the tone shaping parameters that affect the sound of the pedal still function in this mode making it so you can dirty or clean up a loop after it has been recorded. It is a really nice nod to the original Sound on Sound that inspired looper pedals.

Strymon is so proud of what they have created that they released the White Paper behind what makes this pedal work. For those of us who are gear nerds, it is a great read and will go into great depth on how they created this pedal and how it works. Here is a link to it:

http://www.strymon.net/2010/07/14/strymon-dtape%E2%84%A2-technology-white-paper/

I could go on and on about this pedal, but my advice to you is if this has peeked your interest in this fine pedal, go to Strymon’s El Capistan product page to hear sound clips, read more about what each knob/toggle does, see great videos of what the pedal is capable of, and so much more. Trust me you will not be disappointed. They do a lot better job explaing what this beast can do than I ever will be able to. Here is a link to the site:

http://www.strymon.net/products/elcapistan/

My review of Strymon’s El Capistan dTape Echo in a nutshell is this: The marriage of true vintage effects and digital technology that takes place with the El Capistan has set a new precedent in the field of Tape Echo/Delays. Do yourself a favor and get familiar with Strymon. You will not be disappointed!!!

 

Gear Review: Franklin Prodrive

Franklin Pro Drive

Review By: Brian Porter

Up for a Talk Guitar Review today is the Franklin Prodrive from www.franklinpedals.com I’ve had this pedal for a few months now and have truly given it the run through. I’ve used this pedal with most every type of pickups and several types of amps since it’s on the test board for Porter Pickups and used in our sound clips.

At first glance, it might be tempting to say “Not another 3 knob pedal!” but the more time I spend with the Prodrive, the more I realize it’s so much more. On the Franklin Pedals website it says this about the Prodrive:

“The ProDrive is quickly becoming “The” Overdrive/dist to have…known as the “Glory Tone”. The ProDrive has a huge sound and tons of sustain…the tone knob works like a treble boost if you need it to..turn it clockwise and there’s a boost on the treble..back it off and there’s bass response galore…so this is a very very versatile pedal with a ton of tone available.”

With the basic Level, Tone, and Drive knobs, it’s easy to dial in a variety of good tones with this pedal. Lower the drive knob and you can get more of a clean boost, raise up the drive and you have a chunky tone fest for great leads or cool riffs. This pedal can handle riffs from classic rock to heavier sounds. Some of the thickness of tones reminded me of some of Collective Soul’s tone, and yet it can pull off the blues as well.

All the knobs seem to work together in harmony. There’s really not a bad sound in this pedal, and it doesn’t take long at all to dial in an appropriate tone for whatever application you might need it for. The Drive knob has a nice range from slightly dirty to a full in your face tone fest. The Tone knob really adds more treble as you turn it up, but in a good way. it adds and compliments your settings and you can really hear it’s versatility as it is turned.

The face melting tone was enough to be pretty satisfied with the pedal, but something else make it even more of a must have for pedal boards: The Versatility. The pedal really worked well with all pickup types. We ran it with the tele, 3 different strat pickup types, and 5 different types of humbuckers. We also ran it with P90s and it worked well with those. If you left the settings on the pedal the same, it still would sound good when you change to a new pickup type. Each pickup type worked even better when we adjusted the knobs, but the tones were great right from the start, For Humbuckers, we turned the drive and tone to about 2-3 o’clock, and for SIngle coils (Strat, Tele and P90) we backed the tone off to about 11 or 12 o’clock and the drive slightly below that for a nice vintage tone.

The Prodrive also works well on different amps and in different live settings. We found one of the headaches for some people is playing in smaller or low volume venues like a small club or a church. Many times, you can’t get a decent tone at low volume with amp distortion or other pedals. With the pro drive, we were able to get a great tone even when we couldn’t turn up to the volumes we preferred to! It compliments both tube and solid state amps very well.

Sound Clips!

P90 Bridge Position

PAF Humbucker Style Pickup

P90 Blues

As guitarists, we’re always searching for the right overdrive or distortion pedal. Maybe it’s a specific artists tone we’re after, or just the right sound to nail the guitar riff we’ve been working on. If you’re like me, you’ve gone through countless distortion/overdrive pedals trying to find that sound. Often times the amp distortion on most amps leaves a lot to be desired. We highly recommend the Prodrive as one of the most versatile and killer sounding pedals out there.

 

New Gear Reviews Coming Soon!

We’re working on a new set of gear reviews for the talk guitar blog. Is there anything you’d like to see? What type of reviews would you like?

 

Watch for more soon!

 

Guitar Video of the day: Monte Montgomery “When Will I”

Great guitar work, and killer licks. All on an acoustic and a three piece band. Thoughts?

 

Gear Review: Fender Pro Jr. Amp

Todays gear review is of Fender’s pro jr. guitar amp. It’s a small tube combo with a 10″ speaker with two knobs. One knob is for volume and one is for tone. It’s the smallest amp in Fenders Hot Rod Series Lineup. It features 2 12AX7 Pre-amp tubes and 2 EL84 power amp tubes.

Plugging it in:

Overall, the amp has a nice clean sound you would expect from a fender tube amp. It works well with both Strat and Tele guitars. The Tone knob and the Volume Knob interact nicely, making for a nice range of tones as you add or take away one or the other. When humbuckers are used, the amp is pushed a little more causing the classic tube “Breakup” sound. Initially, this can be a little harsh, but it can be dialed in to a decent overdriven sound with a little tweaking.

Recommendations:

For the money, these are great little practice amps. they take pedals well, and can sound good when they start overdriving. the 10″ speaker is enough to give a little clean headroom with single coil pickups, but it is pushed pretty hard when used with humbuckers. It may be a little small for a band practice setting unless it is mic’ed up.  It would work well for smaller gigs, where it could be used as a stage monitor, or in gigs where you need to have some good tones, but can’t crank your amp. It’s a very light and compact amp, thats easy to throw in the car and head to a practice.

If you’re looking for a good practice amp, but still want to keep the tube tone, this may be the amp for you.

 

 

 

Tube amps in the $100-$300 range

As many of you have noticed, there has been a new wave of tube amps well under $1,000. Tube tone used to be out of many people’s price range, but now there plenty of choices for a tube amo with any budget. Today, we will focus on what tube amps are available for between $100-$300. Here are a few with pretty good bang for the buck.

Vox Ac4tv8: 4 watts, and sells for aorund $119

Epiphone Valve Jr. Head: $129

More to come!

 

Saguaro Sedona Review

Here at the Guitar talk blog, we often get a chance to review gear that is sent to us by manufacturers. Many manufacturers are looking for non magazine reviewers to talk about their gear, in the hopes of introducing a new model and product to the guitar playing community.

Saguaro Guitars our of Temecula, California sent us their first prototype of the Sedona model for review last week. After several hours on the guitar, it was time to write up the review.

Out of the Case: First impressions
We’d seen pictures on the Saguaro website (www.saguaroguitars.com) of the exact guitar we were getting, so we had some idea of what it would look like. Upon opening up the case, the guitar screams class through and through. Everyone loves that feeling when opening up a guitar case and being blown away by the instrument they see. The Saguaro Sedona does just that. You could smell the freshly cured nitro finish, and not help but notice the flame maple neck. We couldn’t wait to look into some of the Sedona’s other features. Spend any time at the Saguaro Guitars website, and you’ll see what makes these guitars different.

Worth a second look
From the front the Sedona looks like a regular Strat Copy with their own flavor designed into the headstock. The Sedona’s headstock works well with the overall design, and keep the brand unique. We like that it doesn’t look exactly like a Fender headstock, and applaud the folks at Saguaro for making great use of the minimal design area with 6 in line tuners.

Where the Sedona shines is in it’s innovative features. Turn the guitar on it’s side an you’ll see that the thickness tapers towards the upper horns allowing you easier access to the upper frets. The heel on the guitar is maybe 1/2″ thick. Much of us have been used to the larger heels on guitars and have dealt with the way they were designed. Now with the Saguaro Guitars heel, you can reach more comfortably to the upper notes.

Part of the way they can get such a small heel and keep the strength of the neck pocket is that there is an aluminum block running through the center of the guitar. This block reinforces the neck pocket and goes all the way through to the bridge. The guitar is extra resonate partly due to the nitro finish, as well as the plate through the guitar. The resonance of the neck is truly connected to the rest of the body and the bridge. Play a chord unplugged on this guitar and it will ring for a long time.

Final Thoughts: What we’d change
There wasn’t much we didn’t like about the Sedona. For our taste, the neck thickness may have been a little too big, but as we played it more we didn’t notice it much at all. We actually got used to the feel of the neck as we played more and more. Mike at Saguaro guitars will custom build you the neck shape of your choice, so this isn’t the only neck design they have on their guitars. The sunburst of the guitar wasn’t the traditional pattern of a sunburst on the back of the guitar. Part of that is our eyes are trained to see the sunburst one way, and anything different stands out. Also, with this being a prototype, the finish will probably change.

Final Thoughts: What we like
Saguaro Guitars seems to be on the right track with their guitar designs. We appreciate a company that is doing something different with the classic designs, and not just building another copy with the same bodies. The guitar is a blast to play, looks great and sounds great. Right now they are available at an introductory price of $1700 with a case. It’s a great price for a custom build instrument.

For more information on Saguaro Guitars, visit www.saguaroguitars.com

Since we are first on the demo tour for this guitar, you can email saguaro guitars through their website and get on the list to try the Sedona for yourself. All you have to do is pay return shipping.

 

Acoustic Guitar Genius

Andy McKee’s Song Rylynn. Simply Amazing.

 

Sunburst Finishes

Here’s some sunburst guitar finishes. Which ones do you like, and on what body styles? What other shades and bursts that you like aren’t pictured here?

 

Voyage Air Guitars

Acoustic guitars made with a folding neck design for travel. They can fit in an overhead compartment on an airplane. Seems like a great idea for taking a guitar with you if you travel a lot. Plus if the neck already folds over, the airlines won’t make a regular guitar do that (Which they too often do)