Back in February, Fractal Audio, maker of the Axe-Fx modelling guitar processors, discretely announced the AX8. A pedalboard version, the AX8 features more or less half the DSP power of the rack version, but it has the same amp and effect models, just less of them at the same time (and no two amps at once).

Anyway, there was no release date for it but it looks like things are moving along and it might hit the streets at USD 1399, give or take half the price of the Axe FX II! Something tells me that a lot of gear is about to hit the second hand market.

Fractal audio has just released a teaser, a Toto cover performed by the staff at Fractal Audio, featuring the Axe AX8 for the guitar tones, sounds pretty good to me!

Source Audio Lunar Phaser

September 8, 2015 romain Leave a comment

There is a lot of boutique pedal manufacturers nowadays but not that many explore the digital side of things, I mean how many Fuzz Face clones do we need?

Source Audio have been releasing a steady flow of digital pedals over the past few years and the Lunar Phaser caught my ear. It has a pretty interesting stereo sound that seems to magnify the guitar tone. Also, it can be loaded with Flanger and Chorus tones through the Neuro Mobile App, making it a 3 in 1 pedal really:

Guitarists

Jennifer Batten Rig Rundown

September 8, 2015 romain Leave a comment

Premier Guitar’s rig rundowns are usually highly enjoyable but I must say Jennifer Batten’s really caught my attention. She is an amazing guitarist but also her rig is very efficient and versatile.

Her amp is a new marvel from Germany, the Amp 1 by Bluguitar, weighing only 1 kilo and delivering 100 Watts of Tube Amp like tone. For effects, she uses a Digitech RP 1000 and the video below shows some of the tones she gets. Kudos to John Bohlinger for hosting those.

Effects, Guitar Tone, Timeless Classics, Tone tips, Underrated Greats

Tone Building with Classic Boss Pedals

April 26, 2015 romain Leave a comment

Hi all, it’s been quiet lately on Guitar Tone Overload, day job, family, you know the drill!

Here is a little experiment captured on video. There is so much “Boss bashing” by the experts lurking in forums, experts being ironic here of course, that I thought a little demo of an “All Boss” pedalboard would be fun.

Most of the pedals shown in this video are still available except for the HM-2 and the RV-3. The video is about tone building, I like how the CH-1, DD-3, RV-3 trio enhances the tone.

I feed various distortions to said trio and, as a bonus, I show how the good old HM-2 can be used as a booster. This pedal has gained legendary status as a booster in the realm of extreme metal, we can see why! As an aside, the HM-2 was also used by David Gilmour to boost his Big Muffs in the mid/late eighties (think Momentary Lapse of Reason).

Here is the video:

guitar TONE OVERLOAD

Fractal Audio AX8

Source Audio Lunar Phaser

Jennifer Batten Rig Rundown

Tone Building with Classic Boss Pedals

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