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Buy the Tonebone Classic Distortion at Zzounds

Radial’s Tonebone range are all over the press at the moment with some pretty big user names (Vivian Campbell, Neal Schon, Steve Lukather, Kirk Hammett, the beardie guy who plays with Genesis etc etc).

I recently spent an evening with the award winning Tonebone Classic pedal, many cans of lager and 2 fellow guitarists (my brother Dom & our friend Nigel). We plugged a MIJ 62′ Strat reissue into the bone and then nto the clean channel of a Marshall JCM2000 head & 4 X 12. Heres whats happened.

The Classic is well made and has a basic level, Gain, treble, bass and a contour control, plus 3 mini switches controlling the EQ frequency curve and the level of gain. Its generally designed to give you that nice sweet Classic Rock Overdrive distortion. Y’know a JTM45/Hi-Watt kinda crunch

Passing the guitar around we got some quite nice sounds….I’ll repeat that again…..some quite nice sounds….. As this is the Classic pedal Nigel went off on a Diamond Head rifforama that made us all chuckle, I played the outro to ‘Who’s Crying Now’ by Journey. Meanwhile Dom gave it some Knopfleresque lead lines and……… it sounded ok nothing was earth shattering or award winning though. When playing staccato lines you could hear the preamp tube sag a little. It sounded organic yes and it was reasonably low noised given that we were playing a strat with stock pickups.

The problem here was that we were playing at sensible volume levels, so nothing the Tonebone did really cut the mustard. We got a nice creamy classic rock overdrive, but nothing better than a pro co RAT pedal, we got a nice lift to an already distorted amp, but nothing you couldnt get out of a Ibanez Tubescreamer or a Boss Super Overdrive.

Nigel was cynical of the 15Volt adaptor giving ther circuit enough juice in the first place. But it sounded okay…..not amazing…..or award winning…..but okay.

The problem is that this pedal costs £170 and I’ve just been comparing it to overdrive distortion pedals costing half as much.

I see what there trying to do, but if your spending this sort of money on organic valve tones with a traditional bite I’d personally go for the Coopersonic Twin overdrive this has had some good reviews and my experience of this was in the studio when I recorded some parts of the HoS album back in 2006, its far more convincing, sounds better, is better made and while lacking fancy endorsees. I think you’ll find it does what it says on the tin with far more aplomb.

The Classic’s manual was a triumph of marketing over common sense, it claimed that it was impossible to get a band sound out of it. Sorry Radial, Nigel found one very quickly and boy it sounded horrible as I played the intro to Journeys ‘Don’t Stop Believin’ if the knobs are turned the right way. Which begs the question, if you throw more money at Marketing and PR than on the actual design and technology, what gets you awards and endorsees????

I wouldn’t write Radial’s valve pedal concept off, the Plexitube and Hot British pedals look like they could be worthwhile. But I’m not sure who this pedal is aimed at. A studio would want something that sounds versatile & convincing at lower volume levels. A gigging guitarist may as well buy a cheaper overdrive unit. The price is Boutique, but I’m not convinced that the sounds are.

File under dissapointing

6/10

(my thanks to Nigel for the loan of the pedal)
Buy the Tonebone Classic Distortion at Zzounds

Now even though I play guitar in a band associated with Shoegazing it may suprise you I hardly use any effects…..thats right, a wah wah for a bit of tone shaping, a Pro Co Rat II for solo’s and a bit of echo and thats it for me…..as many a Gourmet Chef would only use a few simple ingredients to cook with, in order to preserve the flavour of meat or fish. I follow suit and let the tone come from my fingers and the amp. Some guitarists I know sprinkle FX everywhere like Domino Pizza Chefs going mad…piling on dollops of Chorus/Flange and phasing to the point you can hardly hear the original note…..good luck to em, but its not for me.

However I do like a good Echo unit.

Probably the most successful FX pedal of the last decade has been the Line 6 DL-4 Delay Modeller. For around £200.00 you got a great delay with a myriad of amazing echoes…………

Now I don’t buy into the idea that modelling works and I don’t think for a minute that the modelled tones of the Line 6 sound remotely like those of a Boss DD-3, Roland Space Echo or EHX Memory Man plus or anything else it claims to emulate.

However it doesn’t matter, the sounds themselves are very useable and the DL-4 has quickly found itself the mainstay of many a touring professional or weekend warriors pedalboard. I bought one myself in 2000 and aside from the tap/tempo button falling off somewhere outside the Buffalo Bar in Islington, ownership has generally been a hassle free experience.

Now recently I’ve found myself needing another delay unit as the nature of my bands music changes and we add to and consolidate the sound. I did try a Marshall Echohead a while back, which is amazing and incredibly cheaply priced, but it seemed a bit “classic rock” maybe.

I then bought a Boss-DD3 off Ebay last year,but it had a fault and I got a refund. It was 50 quid used and seemed ok. But heres my beef…..

Roland have just released the “Space Echo” as a COSM modelling pedal. It probably won’t sound like an Original RE-201 or 301 Space Echo but I bet it’ll be useable and have a range of delays to get you excited, yet there like £120.00 excluding mains adaptor and thats a lot of pedal for the money.

Boss DD-3’s are around £84 new. So for less than £40 more your getting twice the functionality and twice the pedal. It seems mad. Out in retail land there are loads of cheap affordable and excellent didgital delay units that all outspec the DD-3 in a heartbeat. Line 6, Digitech,Marshall, Yamaha etc….all have a delay pedal under or around £100…..so do people still actually buy the DD-3???? If so………….. Why???

I know its an evergreen classic used on many a hit record, but surely the time has come for Roland to make it really cheap like they have with the SD-1 Super Overdrive. Come on Roland, Time marches on…you make it in China now to save money…so bring the price down;)

I was trawling through some web forums the other day, when I came across a conversation between 2 guitarists about Zachary Vex Pedals.  This was of no suprise as in these sonically diverse times, ZVex have managed to corner a market in Zany out there boutique FX pedals. A friend of mine bought a Seek Wah a few years ago and it came in a handpainted box with half a dozen sweets and a girls hairband. The noise it made was…..how shall we say….out there. But I was impressed.

My personal favourite however is the Nano Head, roughly the size of a Hamster it manages to be an all valve guitar head with monster Marshallesqe tones and powerful enough to drive a 4 x 12 cab. The all valve signal path uses old stock millitary valves from the guidance system of a Pershing missile. A Sonic Weapon indeed.

Yeah Zacary Vex is a sonic mentalist allright, and reading the comments on the webforum of these two players discussing how it might sound, I reckoned these guitarists must be doing some pretty out there things and noticing a link to one of the players bands, out of curiosity I decided to check out their Myspace page.

How wrong I was:(

Without mentioning any names to protect the innocent, why anyone plying their trade in what appears to be a sub grunge Christian Rock band, would need a ZVex pedal for is beyond me. Its like Cliff Richard going to a sex shop to buy a big rubber dildo.

I concluded that this fella was buying a ZVex pedal simply so he could say he had one…..a strange sort of Penis substitute perhaps?

I remember a few years ago playing a support gig at the Toby Jug in Doncaster to a Blues Rock band. The Bass Player had a pedalboard the size of the Ark Royal with various Fuzz’s Overdrives, Delays and a Whammy pedal. As I watced their set expecting to hear all manner of spaced out Funk noise. I noticed the Bass player just playing Root 8th notes with a dry signal to a decidedly unimaginative set. Later on I found out this guy worked in a music shop and most of the pedalboard was “stock” and “open to negotiation”.