THE THORPYFX TOURBOX Commences - Team Medic & Warthog Thoughts & Reviews

builttospill

noisepolluter said:

If any of the recipients are Neil Young and/or Tom Petty fans, please could they do me a favour and include a few words about how the well Warthog does tweed deluxe type sounds, both low and moderate gain. Ta.

Warthog is superb for that Neil Young chug chug stuff, I play mine through a clean Princeton 

noisepolluter

builttospill said:

noisepolluter said:

If any of the recipients are Neil Young and/or Tom Petty fans, please could they do me a favour and include a few words about how the well Warthog does tweed deluxe type sounds, both low and moderate gain. Ta.

Warthog is superb for that Neil Young chug chug stuff, I play mine through a clean Princeton 

...and that’s another piece of gear that I really want...!

UnclePsychosis

Hey everyone...

So the news you're all waiting for is that yes I can confirm both pedals are ace. 

Haven't had a chance to write a review yet but I will ASAP. Planning to post the pedals to the next lucky recipient on Wednesday so they'll be with you on Thursday. 

@Wazmeister who is next in line by the way? You sent me their "real" name but not their tag! 

skay

I think this might be me @UnclePsychosis ;

Looking forward to your review 

Wazmeister

UnclePsychosis said:

Hey everyone...

So the news you're all waiting for is that yes I can confirm both pedals are ace. 

Haven't had a chance to write a review yet but I will ASAP. Planning to post the pedals to the next lucky recipient on Wednesday so they'll be with you on Thursday. 

@Wazmeister who is next in line by the way? You sent me their "real" name but not their tag! 

Indeed ! Steven is up next @Skay ;

mark_jwedge

@Wazmeister are you able to publish the running order for the tourbox? I’m just looking at holidays and don’t want to mess up the system by being away when I’m due to try the tour box

Wazmeister

mark_jwedge said:

@Wazmeister are you able to publish the running order for the tourbox? I’m just looking at holidays and don’t want to mess up the system by being away when I’m due to try the tour box

Oh mate, if only you knew !

I've got a large spreadsheet with all details in it, but the order isn't fixed. 

In fact, yours is the only entry without a holiday in it ! PM your preferred dates, and I'll try to accommodate them.

TO ALL INVOLVED, ANYONE FANCY BEING NEXT UP in a weeks time ?

mark_jwedge

@Wazmeister I’m not actually going to look to go away until 8th September for 2 weeks. So if it solves a headache I’m happy to be next up or anytime in August. I didn’t think I was going away but my girlfriend has decided otherwise!!!

noisepolluter

I can go next if you want

UnclePsychosis

Right. Review time.

Gear wise I played the two pedals through a combination of things, sometimes through headphones using my Helix Stomp as an (amp+cab) sim, other times into my Peavey Studio Pro 112 which is basically a slightly smaller Bandit. I've always run the Peavey clean with pedals as the only source of gain. On the Stomp I only used Fender style amps, either a clean Twin or sometimes a Tweed amp set for a tiny amount of hair. 

Guitar wise I have a Schecter Corsair which is basically a 335, only I've replaced the pickups and have a mojo gold foil and matching humbucker sized p90 in it. My other guitar is a Bullet Mustang, with some Oil City "Havoc" pickups. Best to google these if you want a description. I tend to use these (partially) coil split a lot of the time. Pedal wise I like things like the Dist+, Red Llama, Catalinbread SFT, Timmy (or at least the Hx sim of it). Don't like Tubescreamers.

Sound wise, I'm not really your typical guitarist. The usual guitar heroes leave me pretty cold - I don't like GNR, Pink Floyd and Queen can both get in the fucking sea, Hendrix is pretty good but i don't ever choose to listen to him. Blues rock? More like snooze rock - amirite? My guitar heroes are more along the indie/punk/alternative lines- Marr, Cobain, Mascis, Strummer, Teenage Fanclub, REM, Rangda, Neil Young, etc. 

Now, onto the pedals. 

First things first. The Thorpy design really is beautiful. I was a fan before but the slightly smaller V2 enclosures improve this even further. Unlike some boutique pedals I could name when you open the box they really do scream "quality". I don't particularly like gushing but Thorpy has absolutely nailed it in that regard. 

I've been wanting to try a Warthog for ages so jumped on the tourbox as soon as it was added. Being a four knob drive pedal I thought it would be straightforward but I'll admit that the controls confused me at first. For starters, the tone knob is actually a tone cut and it took me an embarassingly long time to realise. Secondly, I expected the Calibre control to basically work like an additional tone control but it doesn't. Its hard to describe but it's more like a second gain control - turn the "gain" right down and the Calibre up and the pedal getals pretty dirty! The final thing about the controls is that the gain, calibre, and volume are fairly interactive. For a "simple is good" luddite like me this took a bit of getting used to but its also part of the reason why... 

... This pedal is probably the single most versatile drive pedal that I've played. It does "a touch of hair". It does "wall stripping fuzz". It does "classic rock". Now, I don't mean that you can make it sound like any other pedal out there - if you want a TS you'll probably still want to buy a TS. However, if you want a pedal that can cover pretty much every base whilst still sounding like itself then you definitely need to check out the Warthog. Tonally I find it hard to describe - it's definitely got a tweedy flavour to it, but there's also elements of RAT only without the harshness. 

As you can tell, I liked it a lot. I probably preferred it slightly with my "real" amp but I think thats probably because I'm still learning the Stomp. I found myself gravitating towards the lower gain tones the most, but that's because thats how I play guitar these days. Gain at 8 or 9, Calibre around 11. Lovely. 

Now in something of a dilemma - I loved this pedal but I bought a Stomp so that I could cut down on the value invested in my board (and get some great headphone tones at the same time). Hmmm. I also now really want to try the Peacekeeper since I'm more "low gain" these days (anyone compared the PK with the Warthog? Comment please!) 

Now, onto the Team Medic. I didn't really know what to expect from this. I've never really been "into" boost pedals or EQ pedals and this is basically a (very high quality) combination of the two. One of Thorpy's USPs is his commitment to quality and that comes through here, the EQ is pretty much entirely silent across the whole range and even with the boost up massively you don't get unwanted hiss. Quite an achievement. The range of the EQ is well chosen, even with the dials semi-randomly all the way up or all the way down (just for a laugh) it managed to sound surprisingly good! There is a *huge* range of boost on tap, its impossible to imagine needing more. Works very nicely with other pedals, boosting the Warthog sounded great and I also really enjoyed using it as a boost with various Hx models. 

Now, its hard to get *excited* about the Team Medic. It doesn't go bleep bleep bleep or meep or MWARGH or swoosh or make the audience feel seasick. But if you need a versatile boost, and/or a top quality EQ then this absolutely must be on your list. It's not cheap but its very clearly a premium product in every respect. I can easily picture this living in a recording studio or dep guitarist's gig bag and being used all the time. Maybe that should be more exciting than the latest Weird Noise FX Alien Custard Delay, who knows? 

I really didn't want to write a review that had no negatives to it- they tend not to be that useful. However, I'm genuinely struggling here. I'd echo the suggestion that the TM could perhaps do with a way of showing whether the separate boost is on or not (dual coloured LED perhaps). The only other thing is that reading the controls can be a bit tricky, but that said within ten minutes I'd memorised which control was which. Plus, changing them would ruin the beautiful aesthetic. 

So, the pedals will move onto the next recipient tomorrow morning. Big thanks to @Wazmeister and @ThorpyFX for making this happen. 

Finally, obligatory picture. 


  

Wazmeister

So, next two up after @Skay are;

@Noisepolluter

followed by;

@Soma1975

@mark_jwedge do you fancy being after these two ?

Thanks to all involved thus far, and for the patience of those still to come...!

Wazmeister

@UnclePsychosis ;

Sam, wow, that was a superb review ! It's good to know what gear you are using, and how it affected your gear and your sound. Excellent idea.

I also agree about the quality element of all of Thorpy's stuff; we are that used to shoddy packaging and product, that it is a real shock when you open a ThorpyFX pedal. The packaging alone makes you want to own it !

And, it's always great to see a photo in the thread. Thanks mate - two great reviews to encourage the rest !

Wazmeister

I mean, look at how great just the boxes are !

mark_jwedge

@Wazmeister yep that sounds good to me

Wazmeister

mark_jwedge said:

@Wazmeister yep that sounds good to me

Excellent mate - thanks !

soma1975

@noisepolluter ; - If you want to do the handover at the rehearsal studio so we can try them an antisocial volume I'd be up for that

noisepolluter

soma1975 said:

@noisepolluter ; - If you want to do the handover at the rehearsal studio so we can try them an antisocial volume I'd be up for that

That’s a top idea! We can hear them through both a tweed deluxe and a deluxe reverb then. 

soma1975

Might even go crazy and film/record it. 

Wazmeister

soma1975 said:

Might even go crazy and film/record it. 

Top banana !

noisepolluter

soma1975 said:

Might even go crazy and film/record it. 

Now THAT’S someone who’s never heard me play...