T-Rex Engineering is a Danish company built initially on the success of their MIDI gear for guitar. Venturing into the world of stomp boxes over a decade ago, T-Rex adopted a philosophy of simple design with focused, high quality performance. With their ToneBug series, T-Rex simplifies design further in order to offer the same high quality at a more affordable price.

The T-Rex Tonebug Overdrive Guitar Effects Pedal!

FRESH OUTTA THE BOX

My initial impression pulling the spartan aquamarine pedal out of the box was that of a vintage 50’s home appliance. This may sound like I’m poking fun but I’m not – the pedal looks cool! The casing is all metal and the base is heavy duty plastic with a little bit of a rubbery feel. The pedal has weight and I feel like I could drive over it with a tank and then have to change the treads on the tank. Three shiny chrome knobs on top serve as the controls and sit atop a brushed aluminum base labeled with the knobs’ functions. They’re thick and turn smoothly with the perfect amount of drag to dial them into place where they’ll stay put. A wide rectangular ON light rests atop the pedal face just above the knobs. The footswitch is equally heavy duty with good action on the spring inside and it’s well clear of the knobs so there’s little risk of tap-dancing your controls out of whack. Metal input and output jacks on either side of a 9V power adapter plug are reinforced with hard plastic washers. The battery compartment is accessible underneath the pedal via a door that swings open. Thank you T-Rex for not making me have to break out a screwdriver to get to the battery! An extra nice touch is the battery door is hinged to the pedal which greatly minimizes the chance of losing it.

SHIFTING INTO OVERDRIVE!

Being in a vintage mood I chose to test this pedal with my Goldtop Epiphone ES-295 which is a hollowbody sporting a pair of P90’s. I used the blend of neck and bridge pickups and took this signal through the overdrive into a Blackheart Little Giant Half Stack. No other effects were used. Here’s the clean unaffected sound.

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With the tone knob set “flat” at 5, I turned the gain knob halfway as well and “kicked into overdrive”. The bright red LED gave me clear indication I was good to go but I was surprised by the lack of feedback from the footswitch. I’m used to a nice ‘ka-chunk’. This footswitch doesn’t ‘ka-chunk’, rather it smoothly presses down and springs back up. At first I was put off by this, but the more I used it, the more I liked it – something I could get used to. More importantly, switching the pedal on and off is totally silent! No pops of any kind. Sweet! Overdriving away, my tone got crunchy with real grit. My biggest problem with a lot of overdrive pedals is how they suck away the lower frequencies while pushing the mids making for a harsh sound. This pedal pushes that mid level crunch but maintains the bottom end so it is more of a full signal. The quality of the crunch is a bit clippy which affects warmth and clarity but the fullness of the tone helps make up for it.

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With gain turned up to 10, I rocked to full overdrive. My tone was dirty, aggressive, and wanted to punch you in the face. The pedal came into its own and I really enjoyed dishing out raw overdrive. Comparing the previous setting to this one, the gain knob feels almost like a blend control in that it’s controlling a mix of dry signal and overdrive rather than the dry signal itself going into overdrive. Still a bit clippy for my taste, but this pedal definitely dishes out the dirt.

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Though not advertised as a clean boost, I tried this pedal with no gain to see how clean a signal I could get. I achieved equality in volume with the pedal both on and off between 3 and 4 on the level knob. This left plenty of room to boost volume to taste. But this pedal is not a clean boost – there’s a little bit of grunge no matter how the pedal is dialed in. This grunge doesn’t change throughout the range of the level control, however, which is helpful in dialing in your sound. The following example starts with a few bars of the dry signal and then you’ll hear the boost kick in. My level setting for this example was halfway at 5 so you can imagine how much more this pedal can be cranked.

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Finally, I tested the range of the tone control. With gain set between 7 and 8, I dialed tone all the way up. This emphasized, as you would expect, the higher end. Happily the lower end was preserved and T-Rex found the right spot to push resulting in brighter, sharper sound without going overboard into piercing harshness – in other words, the tone control is useful all the way to its max setting. The first few bars of the audio example are dry followed by overdrive.

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T-Rex scored again with tone turned all the way down. I was prepared for mud. I was met with a boost in the low to mid frequencies that worked in conjunction with my original sound, preserving the quality of the signal while giving it a round bottom boost.

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THE FINAL WRAP

T-Rex hits the bullseye for simplicity and quality. This pedal is built as well as any I’ve ever used. It looks cool and the controls serve the intended purpose – no more, no less. I’m impressed by how quiet this pedal is even when maxing out the settings. My only two requests would be to trade in the clipping quality of the overdrive for more natural sounding crunch and the ability to completely dial out the gain for boost that is pure and clean.

PROS: Built like a tank. Quiet! Maintains dry signal integrity. Great vintage look.

CONS: No clean boost. Overdrive is a little artificial sounding.

MSRP – $129

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Dan Coplan is senior staff writer at SMG. Dan is a Los Angeles based cinematographer and self-admitting guitar junkie. Email: dancoplan@sharemyguitar.com

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Adventures in Black-Rock with Jimi Hazel of 24-7 Spyz: part 3

SMG writer Oscar Jordan interviews lead guitarist Jimi Hazel of the rock group 24-7 Spyz in this 6 part series.

Oscar: When did you get into the hard stuff?

Hazel: Me and a core group of guys that I grew up with just loved music. Emerson Lake & Palmer, Rush, you name it. As much as we loved The Commodores, Earth Wind & Fire and Rufus, it was prog-rock. We would listen to Farewell to Kings by Rush or anything and everything. The heavy stuff was always there. We also liked heavy stuff in an R&B vein and the best thing that could have happened at that point was Funkadelic: Continue Reading

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Guitar Review: The Buckethead Signature Gibson Les Paul

Each Buckethead Signature Les Paul is crafted from a two-piece maple top attached to a chambered mahogany body. This wood combination is one of the most legendary pairings in the history of the solid and semi-solid electric guitar and yields a beastly tone  that is unmatched. The chambering adds a further dimension, increasing the guitar’s tone, while also increasing its acoustic volume and sustain.

The Gibson Buckethead Signature Les Paul is unlike any Les Paul out there. With an over-sized, chambered Les Paul body, a marker-less ebony fretboard, and Buckethead’s custom Gibson ceramic humbucker pickups: Continue Reading

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Danelectro Transparent Overdrive: CTO-1 vs CTO-2

The CTO-1 is a great pedal and “transparent” is an accurate description. I’ve tried a number of OD’s and have often been disappointed by the way they tend to drop the bottom out of the tone and emphasize the mid range.

Danelectro recently phased out their Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive CTO-1 pedal for the CTO-2 which adds features to let guitarists further customize their sounds: Continue Reading

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The Beatles Guitar Heroes 15 – John Lennon

This short-scale guitar was used on a Dutch TV show, in the studio (Beatles For Sale) and served as a backup throughout 1964, and saw actual use at a show in Boston on 12 September. Tom Hartman, who recorded in Abbey Road as a young man, recalls seeing it in the storage area with a set list taped to it.

At their New York meeting, Lennon asked Hall to make him a twelve-string model to match his 325, and in March ‘64, Rickenbacker shipped this guitar to him in London: Continue Reading

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Session Guitarists: Tips For the Aspiring Musician – part 2

The number one way to get called in for a session work is to be known as a great guitar player. There are many and different ways to do this. For example you could be world famous in that your talent and abilities speak for themselves.

While I’m not a household name, I have plenty of session work experience and feel familiar with a number of topics that I will address in this weeks post: Continue Reading

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If you haven’t joined us yet on the SMG Social Network for guitarists, feel free to sign up and become a part of this awesome new community!

Danelectro recently phased out their Cool Cat Transparent Overdrive CTO-1 pedal for the CTO-2 which adds features to let guitarists further customize their sound. These additions come in the form of four DIP switches located inside the battery compartment. Otherwise the look and function of the pedals and external controls are identical.

Danelectro Transparent Overdrive: version 1: CTO-1 and version 2: CTO-2

A Guitar, Effects Pedal, Amp & Mic

The audio examples were played with a Westone Prestige (Les Paul style double humbucker) using the bridge pickup into a Blackheart Little Giant Half Stack with EQ (bass, mid, treble) set flat at 12 o’clock. The amp was mic’d with a large condenser mic and recorded into Apple’s Logic Pro. No processing was added anywhere along the chain aside from the pedals. Here is an example of the clean signal:

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The CTO-1 is a great pedal and “transparent” is an accurate description. I’ve tried a number of OD’s and have often been disappointed by the way they tend to drop the bottom out of the tone and emphasize the mid range. The CTO-1 maintains sonic integrity qualifying it by my definition as “transparent”. With gain set to zero and volume turned all the way up this pedal acts as a clean boost. It’s not much of a boost at these settings but there is a little bump and the sound is warm and full. As gain is turned up, output is increased and you can get more clean boost this way until the signal starts to give way to overdrive around 3 or 4 o’clock. This pedal gets loud so I had to balance the increase in gain with a decrease in volume. Here’s an audio example of the CTO-1 with gain turned up halfway:

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Pump Up the Volume

With gain cranked all the way the pedal spits out a raw and heavy crunch which is very tasty! EQ controls include treble and bass. The pedal is in its flat setting with these two set halfway. Increasing the treble predictably increases noise but it was quieter than expected. The amount of gain plays a role as an increase smooths out any harshness and offers a razor like crunch. With gain dropped to zero the pedal becomes surprisingly quiet and in this case the increased treble gives the sound presence. In cranking the bass and gain knobs I got beefy, heavy fuzz sounds that made me want to play the riff from “Smoke on the Water” over and over. Dialing gain down to zero resulted in a more muted sound but still with a little extra body.

With the CTO-2 Danelectro reworked the circuity to allow for various degrees of compression by means of three DIP switches, each one offering more compression. A fourth switch offers additional gain of 6 dB. I love options but in this case the re-engineering of the pedal resulted in tone that is more harsh and metallic sounding than its predecessor. The following audio example is the CTO-2 with identical settings as the CTO-1 above with no DIP switches engaged:

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A mid-level emphasis starts to give the sound a harsh and metallic feel that’s more like an electric-sounding boost than a warm analog crunch. For the next example I engaged DIP switch 3 which is J-Fet compression, the most restrictive of the choices. The concept is that headroom is reduced as transients are contained:

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I found that this had a thinning effect and made the sound more brittle and harsh.

With gain turned all the way up on the CTO-2, the sound was very crunchy but not warm at all and it felt like my signal was clipping. Bass frequencies from my original tone were still there but were overpowered by an electronic feeling grit. With gain turned all the way down this pedal shined as a clean boost offering more of a bump than the CTO-1 and with the boost switch engaged, an additional 6 dB of gain is made available.

Cranking the treble is surprisingly quiet – Danelectro nailed that one. It gives a little clarity but not the more pleasant presence of the CTO-1. Adding gain with the treble cranked just adds harshness. Cranking the bass is like adding mud and as this control is increased, the pedal gets farty. Add gain and you get farty distortion. But there is a point at which it starts sounding like a synthesizer. While I’m sure this wasn’t Danelectro’s intention, it’s actually kind of cool for specific applications.

The Low Down

I have a lot of respect for Danelectro as the quality of their gear with respect to price is truly impressive and their pedals are fun! Unfortunately they’ve lost sight of the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” because the CTO-1 is a killer pedal all around while the CTO-2 comes up short in too many ways. I hope they realize their mistake and revert back to the original version because the CTO-1 is nearly impossible to find. If you do come across one, grab it!

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Danelectro Transparent Overdrive: CTO-1

PROS: Great sounding warm, analog, transparent overdrive! Great value.

CONS: None except you can’t find them anymore.

BUILD QUALITY – 8

TONAL QUALITY – 10

DESIGN – 8

VALUE – 10

OVERALL – 9

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Danelectro Transparent Overdrive: CTO-2

PROS: Quiet treble EQ. Up to 12 dB of boost. Affordable.

CONS: Harsh and artificial sounding. Compression switches limit sound even further.

BUILD QUALITY – 8

TONAL QUALITY – 4

DESIGN – 8

VALUE – 7

OVERALL – 6

Oscar Jordan of SMG Reviewing The HardWire CM-2 overdrive pedal from DigiTech

The DigiTech HardWire CM-2 is a tube overdrive pedal that knocked our socks off. This versatile effects stomper can accommodate everything from a little gain bump to enhance those bluesy tones to a killer turbo boost for that screaming distortion you’ve been looking for. The DigiTech HardWire pedal gives you true bypass and high voltage operation. It’s a well made and rugged all-metal casing that is wide enough for your big foot and looks like it can handle a beating. We can go on and on about the features but why not just watch Oscar Jordan explain it live on video, check it out….

From DigiTech: Overdrive should be transparent and responsive to your touch and the CM-2 Tube Overdrive offers this with two modes of operation: Classic and Modified. Classic is transparent and articulate while Modified adds more gain and a “bigger” low end.

MSRP: $139.95

Technical Specifications:

Inputs/Outputs

* Input: 1/4” Unbalanced (Tip-Sleeve)
* Input Impedance: 500 kOhms – effect on
* Output: 1/4” Unbalanced (Tip-Sleeve)
* Output Impedance: 1 kOhm – effect on

Controls

* Level, Low, High, Gain knobs
* Classic/Modified switch, On/Off foot switch

Power Requirements

* Power Input: 9 VDC
* Power Consumption: 220mW
* Current Draw: 25mA
* Battery Type: Single 9 VDC
* Battery Life: 17 Hours

Whether you’re shopping for a guitar or just get warm fuzzies being around them, visiting the businesses making up Sunset Boulevard’s “Guitar Gulch” in Hollywood, CA is a must. Sadly, there used to be several more shops in the area, but over time these gave way to factors like competition and trading in ‘brick and mortar’ for ‘click and order’ presences online. But fear not! There is still PLENTY to keep you enraptured for hours.

Note: Many of these stores deal in more than just guitars but guitars are the focus of this article.

GUITAR CENTER (guitarcenter.com)

7425 Sunset Blvd. / 323-874-1060

While at Winter NAMM 2010, I spent some time with my bands bass player and his old band mates from the 60’s. They kept telling me I needed to go to the Guitar Geek Festival that was happening down the street from the Convention Center. I sat on the fence and almost didn’t go. I was tired, my feet hurt and seen enough for one day. Well, at the last minute I went. My friends had saved me a seat which was a coveted prize they had to fight for to hold for me. It turned out to be the most entertainment I had, including all my interviews with famous icons of the guitar world. Not because it was the hip place to be. It was because everyone there just loved guitars of any kind.

Deke Dickerson performing live at the 7th Annual Guitar Geek Festival

Deke Dickerson was the host of the show, or party, if you will. He emceed and played a variety of instruments throughout the night. Very well I might add. At one point “Deke” who had been dressed as a formal cowboy all evening, came out and did a Ramones tribute with his impromptu band which included Tom Kenny-the voice of Spongebob Squarepants as the lead singer. They were all in costume including the correct wigs.

I thought to myself, “this must be what NAMM would be like if you were on acid.” You see, not only were the mega stars of guitar at NAMM, but every poser on the planet was there too. I’m talking sunglasses and capes, mohawks and zoot suits. You name it. There were freaks covering ever possible mix of genre attire. The interesting thing was that they were not trying to be funny. Deke and his crew were. That is a big difference.

Another segment of the show was the “Electric 12 String Nightmare.” Anyone who brought an electric 12 string could join in on stage to play a song together. There were 17 takers. Have you ever heard seventeen 12 string electric guitars going at once? Me neither. It was worth the price of admission alone.

HoneyBoy Edwards was there and did a set with Joel Paterson, a guitarists guitarist. HoneyBoy is 94 years old and still gigging. Amazingly he had to leave because he had to get to another gig in L.A. Billed as the last living bluesman to play with Robert Johnson, he was worth the price of admission as well. Joel brought up his own band from Chicago and blew everyone away. Now I am an official “Joel Paterson and the Modern Sounds” fan. They were beyond “tight”.

At one point during the History of Lap Steel Guitars segment of the show, Chas Smith loosened some of my fillings with his 28 lbs of titanium fury monster slide guitar. Pushing the envelope with this instrument also was worth the ticket in.

Lots of other amazing stuff went down that night including dueling double neck guitars with Brian Longbeck and Elaine Frizzell and it was all headlined by Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Duane Eddy. He played a bunch of his stuff with Deke and Joel and never dropped a single note. And it wasn’t  just Duane who played to utter perfection, it was all of them. They are all Hall of Famers in my book. Yes, that includes you too, Crazy Joe. You did Enon, Ohio proud.

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The post you looking for is no longer available. Check out lots of awesome guitar articles at our Blog, or…

Join the SMG Social Network!

Share My Guitar has an awesome social network for guitar enthusiasts. SMG is a place where people can come together to talk about guitars, pass around information, and build a community where everyone shares their passion for guitars, no matter who they are or what style of music they’re into. Join up today!

This week’s review brings me to a different type of review. For this week’s review I thought I’d look at a few different guitar starter packs. I went out and tried all the basic starter kits that contain everything you need to get you on your way to becoming a guitar god. After much deliberation and rigorous testing, I found that the best bang for the buck was the ESP LTD M-10 guitar pack.

I ran the gambit with all the packs I could get my hands on and tested them in the following categories: value, components, construction, tone and out of the box playability. I didn’t pay too much attention to the accessories, as almost all guitar pack come with a guitar, tuner, strap, picks, strings, amp and a case.

My biggest issue with guitar packs these days is that right out of the box it’s hard to find a guitar that stays in tune and also feels good. Most of the guitar packs from when I was a kid had horrendous action (string height) and never stayed in tune. So with this in mind I wanted to see if the quality of today’s “beginner guitar” are better made.

I found that of the 10 guitar packs which I tested, the only one that really caught my attention was the ESP LTD M-10 guitar pack. A budget-friendly guitar set up that not only felt great out of the box but scored an 8 on my “stay in tune” scale. I am pretty brutal on guitar strings so a beginner guitar scoring this high is a definite milestone for this price range.

Designed for beginning players or musicians on tight budgets, the M-10 Guitar Pack includes everything a player needs to make amazing music including: a guitar, an amplifier, and a comprehensive set of accessories. With the M-10 pack priced at $229.00 this is a definite steel. The M-10 Guitar is a budget-oriented version of ESP’s well-known M Series guitars made popular by artists like Kirk Hammett (Metallica), Jeff Hanneman (Slayer), and George Lynch (Dokken).

The M-10’s construction is above average, even though it’s a mass produced production model. It’s a little heavier than the custom shop ESP M series however it is also $3000 cheaper. With its beginner set up, the M-10 is easy to maintain for any guitarist no matter what level of skill due to its simplicity.

The M-10 pickups are what you would expect from a guitar of this price range. The tone of the M-10 is definitely more beefy sounding than other standard humbucker pickups, but you can get some decent clean and distorted sounds from them. The string action was far superior to that of any guitar starter kit I played. The M-10 guitar neck was smooth do to its jumbo frets and rosewood fretboard giving the player easy access to all the frets even in the dreaded “F major bar chord” area.

All in all I would recommend this pack to anyone who is looking to pick up an axe and get your rock star status moving. Great price and it comes with everything you need to jam out of the box… oh and it looks FIERCE too. The ESP LTD M-10 is an A+ in my book, so if you are looking to buy a starter kit, try the M-10, you wont be disappointed.

Till next week, thanks for reading and keep shredding!

We made it back to the 2010 NAMM show this morning (day three) and have been roaming the exhibit halls in two teams equipped with video cameras, mic’s and caffeine. Today we managed to gather video interviews with a host of amazing guitarist! Stay tuned for these killer interviews to be posted on the site. We just spoke with Frank Gambale, Alex Skolnick and Gary Sinise. Frank and Alex were super cool and graciously allowed us to speak with them on video. Gary turned us down flat, but to be fair he was holding a sandwich and was about to eat his lunch so you have to give him a pass. Next time Lt. Dan!