GearDump

For those of you familiar with the Deja Vibe line of products that Fulltone has offered the MDV-2 shouldn’t be to big of a shock. For the rest, the MDV-2 is essentially a period-correct Uni-Vibe stand in. There are features and sounds unique to this pedal that really get to the core of what a real univibe can do. Just check out the proguitarshop.com video from youtube.

As is normal, Mike Fuller declined to comment on this story. Fulltone’s history with the Deja-Vibe started with the original Deja Vibe. It was later trumped by the Mini Deja-Vibe. The Deja-Vibe and Mini Deja-Vibe are great clones right down to the matching of original photo resistors and lamps. For those not in the know, Uni-Vibes are an optical phaser. They use photo-resistors and some lamps inside the pedal to actually create the phasing effect. The Dunlop Univibe that is currently manufactured has photo-cells to but they are nothing like the originals since those parts were no longer being made. Fulltone has apparantley started producing NOS parts for these pedals. The Deja Vibe 2 was the first pedal that Fulltone produced that came with a speed control. The original univibe had a speed control that plugged into the box (which was actually about the size of an echoplex). The Deja Vibe 2 somewhat resembled a Morely Wah pedal in that configuration. Early this year the MDV-2 was unveiled to essentially replace the entire Deja Vibe product line. The MDV-2 looks like a Fulltone Clyde wah except for it’s cream colored casing. Under the hood are the electronics of a complete Deja Vibe including all the controls, an LED and some modifications to the Speed Control circuit.

The Deja-Vibe 2 had a switch the user pushed to turn the speed control on or off. The MDV-2 has an ingenious always-off unless rockered slightly forward operation–the best part is Fulltone actually managed to make a true-bypass pedal with this configuration. I’ll spare the lecture on why you might not want true bypass for another article but if you’ve ever built or modded pedals then putting true bypass in a pedal like this would be difficult to say the least.

Most importantly, does the MDV-2 give those watery textures offered by the other Deja-Vibe products and does it come close to the original Uni-Vibe? In a nutshell, Yes. The MDV-2 actually sounds closer then the Dunlop “reissue” and is frankly the best main-stream uni-vibe clone on the market. It is slightly pricey but if you want those tones without the rediculous pricetag and maintenance fees the MDV-2 might just be the ticket. Hell, even Robin Trower, who has depended on a Vibe pedal of some sort has been spotted with each of the Deja-Vibe products at different times.  If you know Fulltone’s build quality, it is excellent. The parts are top notch, the boards are easy to work with for repairs and are amongst some of the most reliable designs on the market.

Fulltone MDV-2 at www.fulltone.com

PedalTrain hosts a great pedalboard planner application specifically for their boards.

For those of you who don’t know Pedal Trains offer quick cable routing and professional power supply mounting options. They also come in gig worthy hard or soft cases. They aren’t quite as fancy as trailer trash boards but they are tough as nails and built to outlist most of effects. Quite a few manufacturers have offered images of their pedals for use too. Good Stuff, check it out!

Catalinbread's New HiWatt Pedal, the WIIO

HarmonyCentral’s forums were alive with talk of a new Catalinbread Pedal called the WIIO. Catalinbread A/B tested the WIIO against a Hiwatt amplifier and the results were close. When polled most people answered which clip they though the Hiwatt was at first they answered incorrectly.

The pedal is based on the sound of a full-stack Hiwatt amp & cabinet combination popularized by guitarists like Pete Townshend of The Who. The clips did not show if this pedal can also reproduce the famous Hiwatt clean tone. The pedal has controls for Treble, Bass, Gain and Master. The paint is clearly reminiscent of the milispec construction Hiwatt featured in the 1970’s.

The WIIO is $159.00. The WIIO is already sold out the initial run of 100 units. Catalinbread indicated that this was a limited run product and that no more would be produced. Catalinbread has produced some other limited run effects emulating different amplifiers including, the Dirty Little Secret based on a Marshall, and an S.F.T. which is based on an old Ampeg Bass Amp though it works for guitar too.

Catalinbread calls the Dirty Little Secret a “foundation of tone”, suggesting it be used more like a pre-amp then a distortion or overdrive. Since the WIIO has not made it into user hands yet speculation is rampant on whether this pedal will work well in the same roll as the Dirty Little Secret.

I have long been a fan of Line 6 Equipment back in the days when they were still made in the United States. Despite their move to Chinese production the majority of their amp and effects line has remained very popular and effective for working guitar players who need tons of sounds but don’t have twenty or thirty thousand dollars laying around.

Let me just come out and say this up front. The M9 or any Line 6 Product will not replace your five thousand dollar vintage amp. It just can’t. At the same time it has another role, easy to setup and run at a gig. Chances are if you are carting around two pedal boards worth of gear then you can probably find this box useful. The sounds in it are not as good as the real thing but ninety-nine percent of the time the audience wouldn’t know the difference anyway.

Since that is out of the way, The M9 is the follow up to their monsterous rig replacement, the M13. It has plenty of models of overdrive, distortion, and several fuzzes. It also has a ton of realistic to more whacked out delays and modulations. Perhaps the most interesting feature is the looper which can be activated via the footswitches. And finally, it has what is becoming standard nowadays, a looper for you to introduce your favorite stompboxes into the M9’s patches. Frankly I think most people do a bit to much tap dancing live and thats part of the reason I’ve always valued Line 6’s gear.

Special thanks to badbrad’s youtube video for showing some of the less whacked out sounds that the M9 can do. Check his other Line 6 M9 Videos out on youtube!

The models from the M9 are fundamentally the same as the M13 except that there are less of them. Additionally, it has a much smaller foot print. If Badbrad’s video wasn’t good enough to demonstrate what this thing can sound like then you can check out guitar worlds review of it. Frankly if Paul can make it sound good then it must sound decent.

Apparantly even the presets are very good. I’m sure anyone who has stepped on a Digitech or Behringer Device has quickly become aware that to much of the Mod effects, Delays, and Reverbs are applied to the signal. Personally I think the GW review has a bit to much of effects applied on the presets. Whatever the case may be I might trade off something expensive I have for one of these things, if not for the sounds then just for the studio. This into a PodXT would sound fairly tasty for those late night & silent recording rigs.

This is a relatively new fuzz pedal that came out in the last few weeks. It is a Hybrid Silicon & Germanium fuzz. From what you can hear in the demo this might be one of the best black sabbathy fuzzes on the market, period. You can see more information at http://www.tonefactor.com