Merry Christmas Kats und Kitties! I have been drooling over this here pedal fer a coon's age and now I gots it!! Nice crisp growl and sweet boosta! All the hype is right on, it does bring out the tone that we are all lookin fer! The really cool thing is that I can turn my Playboy down and still get that sweet crunch! Thanks Tavo! :D

maybe i will get me one of them.

man, i cant wait till tavo comes out with an echo/verb of some sort.

It's unreal is it not?
I won't play my Falcon without it, and the abby is perfect for soloing!

It's unreal is it not?
I won't play my Falcon without it, and the abby is perfect for soloing!

Yes it is wild and yes the abby will work nicely!;)

Mine will be here on Tuesday.

I gotta get one of those.

Congrats Bobkat, it looks great!

you lucky girl thats the exact one i want,happy xmas.

Congrats on your new brain! Guess Tavo's been a busy boy lately. Got my Billy Brain & Fuzz Ray a few days ago[just like he promised] and I'm loving life right about now.

you lucky girl thats the exact one i want,happy xmas.

Ha fooled ya! my avatar is Bettie Page, but dis is me! I am about as far from a girl as you can get!:D

Many have the wish! Few are rewarded:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKK8mAkiUI

Merry Christmas BK!

Lee

Merry Christmas Lee!

Here is a pic of my Atomic Brain and Fuzz Ray. They sound awesome with my Gretsches and single coils. The Atomic Brain plays nice with overdrive pedals too (Maxon OD808 and Fulltone OCD). For some reason in combination the Brain and the Fuzz are a bit over the top and kind of spitty sounding (settings suggestions Tavo?) They both work really well with mini humbuckers too. The brain in Abby mode with a Fulltone OCD and a Gibson Firebird on the neck pickup just nails that Ziggy Stardust sound Ronson gets on Moonage Daydream.

You use the Fuzz and the preamp together at the same time? yewow! I hope you had the fuzz in front of
the Brain though?

Brain in front of Fuzz. Didn't sound too great but didn't break anything. Didn't bother to try it again. The brain in front of a Barber Trifecta on Super Bender setting is way cool though. In front of the overdrive pedals it is totally brain-tastic. Hope the Nailhead gets here soon. If it is as cool as the other two I will be overjoyed.

there is no way one pedal pushing into another pedal is going to break anything, except for maybe a speaker cone on a small amp? :) The fuzz before the brain works best because the transistors arent gonna clamp down.

nailheads are starting to ship, I just finished #7

nailheads are starting to ship, I just finished #7
Cool, but when u-bangin' out Ubangi's? :)

Cool, but when u-bangin' out Ubangi's? :)

not for another 2-3 weeks. Boxes are being drilled and shipped this saturday from NY,then I gotta shoot them. circuit boards are being populated right now.

there is no way one pedal pushing into another pedal is going to break anything, except for maybe a speaker cone on a small amp? :) The fuzz before the brain works best because the transistors arent gonna clamp down.

nailheads are starting to ship, I just finished #7

Woo Hoo, Snow Globe White tremolo here we come.

Yep, just meant that I didn't blow my speaker. Will try the Fuzz Ray into the Brain just for kicks but my pedal board layout into a Carl Martin Octaswitch will not really allow that as a permanent solution that makes sense for me, and it sounds great on it's own.

Finding that the Fuzz Ray is a little noisy in my house. Not your fault, this is a very dirty RF/EMI environment and it is really disconcerting that my rig sometimes picks up the local (less than a mile) crazy, screaming, yer all going to hell preacher radio station. A bit too My Life In the Bush of Ghosts for me but sometimes it is in between song comic relief. A hint of compression is usually enough to keep the bad dirt out (radio) while keeping the good dirt in (Fuzz Ray). It is a really awesome fuzz pedal, especially with some reverb (new EH Holy Grail) as in your demos.

I also find that I like the Brain into the bright channel of my Victoria 35115 as well as into the normal channel. Since the rest of my effects are optimized to work with that channel, I will continue to do so. I noticed there is an emphasis in your documentation about the normal channel of a Blonde Bassman 6G6-B. Is this strictly related to emulation of a Setzer tone or something else interesting that would be good to know concerning your pedals or Fender amp circuits? As you can tell from my amp choice I am primarily a tweed guy so just curious.

I find your pedals to be a very good value for something that is clearly artisan built and not just another garden variety clone. Keep up the good work.

Also forgot to say, Brain into Strymon El Capistan set for slapback is out of this world.

Woo Hoo, Snow Globe White tremolo here we come.

Yep, just meant that I didn't blow my speaker. Will try the Fuzz Ray into the Brain just for kicks but my pedal board layout into a Carl Martin Octaswitch will not really allow that as a permanent solution that makes sense for me, and it sounds great on it's own.

Finding that the Fuzz Ray is a little noisy in my house. Not your fault, this is a very dirty RF/EMI environment and it is really disconcerting that my rig sometimes picks up the local (less than a mile) crazy, screaming, yer all going to hell preacher radio station. A bit too My Life In the Bush of Ghosts for me but sometimes it is in between song comic relief. A hint of compression is usually enough to keep the bad dirt out (radio) while keeping the good dirt in (Fuzz Ray). It is a really awesome fuzz pedal, especially with some reverb (new EH Holy Grail) as in your demos.

I also find that I like the Brain into the bright channel of my Victoria 35115 as well as into the normal channel. Since the rest of my effects are optimized to work with that channel, I will continue to do so. I noticed there is an emphasis in your documentation about the normal channel of a Blonde Bassman 6G6-B. Is this strictly related to emulation of a Setzer tone or something else interesting that would be good to know concerning your pedals or Fender amp circuits? As you can tell from my amp choice I am primarily a tweed guy so just curious.

I find your pedals to be a very good value for something that is clearly artisan built and not just another garden variety clone. Keep up the good work.

addressing the noise in your AC environment.. MY home is from 54' and the worst electrical situation ever. We've got rusting conduit pipe under the cement in the backyard and grounding issues.. even the street lights make everything buzz more.. the savior of all this is a $50 little plug in "isolation transformer" called the HumX by ebtech. I've used the rack mounts for yrs in tandem with the furman PL8-II (its lift technology rules) for PA but never got anything for my guitar rig.

that little Xmas video would have been a noise nightmare if I didnt have my
pedal board and amp plugged into that single little Humx but it did the trick.

regarding the blonde fender amp always being referenced. It definitely involves setzer emulation but not for "his" tone as it pertains the blonde bassman 6G6-B but rather WHAT the amp is circuit wise compared to others and how it is SO responsive to preamplification is what sets it apart. There are other amps that have the "presence" control like a vox AC30 (they call it cut and it uses a reverse direction) ...this is a negative feedback control and when fully dimed on a blonde fender 6G6-B, it removes the negative feedback which makes it far more dynamically responsive.. and coupled with the tapped 350K tone pot and fixed mids in the amp, its responsiveness plays out with early clipping in the upper mids while leaving the low mids clean and tight.

In addition the normal channel of the 6G6-B uses one preamp tube and most of its sound is power tube/output transformer based. As the amp is pushed, its output transformer saturates and you get the "Setzer" tone.. which really is very close to a loud rocking marshall JTM45. You can come close with a vintage VoxAC30 if you can flatten the mids abit in the circuit.

If I plug my preamp into my dads 65' twin, it is such a different circuit.. response is night and day different than my fender amps

addressing the noise in your AC environment.. MY home is from 54' and the worst electrical situation ever. We've got rusting conduit pipe under the cement in the backyard and grounding issues.. even the street lights make everything buzz more.. the savior of all this is a $50 little plug in "isolation transformer" called the HumX by ebtech. I've used the rack mounts for yrs in tandem with the furman PL8-II (its lift technology rules) for PA but never got anything for my guitar rig.

that little Xmas video would have been a noise nightmare if I didnt have my
pedal board and amp plugged into that single little Humx but it did the trick.

regarding the blonde fender amp always being referenced. It definitely involves setzer emulation but not for "his" tone as it pertains the blonde bassman 6G6-B but rather WHAT the amp is circuit wise compared to others and how it is SO responsive to preamplification is what sets it apart. There are other amps that have the "presence" control like a vox AC30 (they call it cut and it uses a reverse direction) ...this is a negative feedback control and when fully dimed on a blonde fender 6G6-B, it removes the negative feedback which makes it far more dynamically responsive.. and coupled with the tapped 350K tone pot and fixed mids in the amp, its responsiveness plays out with early clipping in the upper mids while leaving the low mids clean and tight.

In addition the normal channel of the 6G6-B uses one preamp tube and most of its sound is power tube/output transformer based. As the amp is pushed, its output transformer saturates and you get the "Setzer" tone.. which really is very close to a loud rocking marshall JTM45. You can come close with a vintage VoxAC30 if you can flatten the mids abit in the circuit.

If I plug my preamp into my dads 65' twin, it is such a different circuit.. response is night and day different than my fender amps

Interesting, thanks for the info on the Bassman. My Victoria 35115 also has a presence control. My typical settings are: presence 9 3/4, bass 7 1/2 treble 7 and bright volume 4 1/4. So delicious I marked them with an erasable marker. I like it because it has warmth when I play lightly and bite when I dig in. The Brain is like a great steak sauce. It doesn't work with every pedal combination I have but when its right it's mouth watering.

I have an ebTech but it doesn't really work for me because ground loops don't seem to be the issue in my electrical environment. My problem is other signals riding on top of the AC current. What works best for me right now is an EH Hum Debugger at the front of my chain. While it is advertised as a hum eliminator it really strips out most of the extraneous signal without killing my tone (except when it doesn't).

to qualify the EH box never kills my tone, but the occasional ghost in the machine still finds its way into the signal path.

Interesting, thanks for the info on the Bassman. My Victoria 35115 also has a presence control. My typical settings are: presence 9 3/4, bass 7 1/2 treble 7 and bright volume 4 1/4. So delicious I marked them with an erasable marker. I like it because it has warmth when I play lightly and bite when I dig in. The Brain is like a great steak sauce. It doesn't work with every pedal combination I have but when its right it's mouth watering.

I have an ebTech but it doesn't really work for me because ground loops don't seem to be the issue in my electrical environment. My problem is other signals riding on top of the AC current. What works best for me right now is an EH Hum Debugger at the front of my chain. While it is advertised as a hum eliminator it really strips out most of the extraneous signal without killing my tone (except when it doesn't).


If you find with your AC dilemma's the ATomic being hissy more than you'd like you can sacrifice some of the compression of the stock chip for a hifi Burr Brown OPA chip instead.

I could nt play without the hum x.

Followup - switched back from Mogami to George L cables and the hissyness went away. Was tired of the inflexible jackets on the George L for a while, so I swapped them out. I got over it.

Followup - switched back from Mogami to George L cables and the hissyness went away. Was tired of the inflexible jackets on the George L for a while, so I swapped them out. I got over it.

Why dont you ditch the dumb George L connectors but keep the George L cable? MY george L's last about 6yrs before the connects come apart and I got tired of replacing them when the tips fall off so I soldered those suckers.

To me this is one serious guitar cable for gretsch that will outlast anything. I ordered some canare and the GL cable and soldered up some myself. The canare sounds better with the teles and the GL is king for the gretsch.
(although the canare adds a fatness in the low mids that gives a bit more body to dynasonics..canare is suppose to be low capacitance superior in lengths over 20ft, setzer's choice for his 50footers)

Congrats 'Kat.