Too fickle and tempted to let it pass, I ordered the Revival Drive Compact from Andertons and it arrived today.
It will be a week before I can trial this in a band rehearsal setting, so these ramblings are concerned with
home use and volumes. And, these thoughts are initial, honeymoon and thus in that initial period of excitement.
BackgroundI mainly play clean-light break up - The Jam/Tom Petty/Clash are as heavy as it gets for me.
I owned both the Standard and Custom 'big box' Revival Drive, and was very impressed with it. At the time, I was using a Redplate amp, which itself really doesnt need any additional pedals; the footswitch boost and drive offered all I needed.
If I'm being honest, I never really got my head around the knobs and options on the big box. Here's hoping my mind can learn, understand and implement this smaller version !
Now, I find myself rehearsing and gigging with the excellent Carr Mercury V; this amp only needs a good boost/OD for solos, as I use the vastly underrated JHS Clover for pre-amp warmth and loveliness.
I'm currently feeding the GAS by experimenting with a two-amp set up; this will take the form of the Kemper Stage into a Seymour Duncan PS170 (man, how GOOD are these ?!?!) into a Zilla 1x12 equipped with the Celestion Neo G12. Noice.
The test was done with just the 4 pedals shown below, and the SD 170 into the Zilla.
Guitars used - Suhr Alt T Pro (Thornbuckers), Fender Masterbuilt '63 Jason Smith Strat.
Initial ThoughtsThe usual lovely Origin Effects build quality, and excellent packaging. Again, like all the Origin stuff, this pedal is heavy, and feels extremely well engineered, crafted and
loved. A lot of care and thought seems to go into all their stuff.
I do like pedals with 'blend knobs'. The old T Rex Muller used to have one, and one of the big advantages of the Helix, Kemper etc is the ability to blend and mix each pedal. For me, it means a raucous drive can be tamed, or a slight warm always-on feel can be livened up a bit.
The Quick Start booklet which comes with the pedal is extremely useful, and I started with these recommended 3 settings.
1.) Pushed PlexiNot my normal sound, but nonetheless really enjoyable. I love how you can back off your guitar volume to clean it up, and likewise, back off the blend knob to produce similar results. If you play old school 'on-the-pots', you're gonna love this pedal ! The OD can somehow stay clean in the initial attack (to my ears), yet somehow have all those dynamics and harmonic undertones.
There is almost unlimited control of
your sound; if its in your head, its most likely in this pedal too. In ALL modes, the pedal is VERY touch sensitive and easily adjusts to your pick attack. The less powerful Abbys in the Strat loved this option. Neck pick up cleaned up lovely, for those slight break-up Mayer-esq licks.
2.) Tweed TwinHmmm, me likey. This setting can be adjusted to get more Blackface tones, which is where my heart really lies. Turn down the lows, and we strat to get those sparkly, chimey tones. Single Coil heaven here, imho. Very versatile setting, and by now I'm understanding the EQ1 and EQ2 settings a wee bit more, and could then instinctively tweak the sounds as I changed to the Suhr.
Those 'Rebel Rebel' tones come easily here !
3.) Parallel PathSo, this moves us into Vox territory a bit more. A bit of tweaking, and the Suhr burst into Jam-style 'Set The House A Blaze' riffs. Chimey with lots of harmonics ringing out - sounds really loud and full, at very low home volumes.
Another great setting for the Strat. A couple more tweaks, soft playing with overtones, and then raise my neck volumes for some dig-in and break up ! Lush.
AND I HAVENT EVEN PLUGGED IT INTO THE CARR or KEMPER YET !!!
To summarise ?Very musical - an overused term and I mean it to say, it makes me play better, more inspired and more varied styles.
I actually understand this one ! We are going to see a LOT of these on boards me thinks.
Very versatile. Highly recommended.
Comments
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.
The real test is next Monday in the band setting. If it excels there, and I cant see no reason why not, it's a keeper.
If not, back to those lovely people at Andertons
As Wazmeister says, it has all the quality feel of an Origin pedal
the RD compact is it’s own thing, not ‘half a big box’.
The ‘rectifier voice’ is set ‘half way’ between the Silicon and valve side.
The high and low controls seem to act differently to the larger box. I’d recommend reading the online manual . They are not like the usual eq knobs
.
Output control seems to be set differently too, requiring a far higher setting to achieve unity volume
the ADJ control works on both EQ1 and EQ2 and is clear and simple to use
(on the custom, it only works on EQ2 , and even then has a smaller effect I think..)
It sounds great , even though I would say that. It will work for those who were put off by the large version. The one thing it lacks is the ghost noting, but I gather it wouldn’t have been technically feasible to fit it in the compact size.
On that latter subject, it just occurred to me that a huge part of what I loved with the Foxrox Octron pedal ( an octave pedal ) were those octave notes that mimicked the ghosting notes on the big version
Blimey, I know it’s versatile, but I didn’t think it would do that!
Duly amended, although it shows how powerful they are !!
Its the one thought behind getting the RD Compact, to run with the SD 170 and a real cab. Oh, and the Kemper as well !
Thanks a lot Warren.
The big box one still remains top of my list however, for no other reason than I like big boxes.
Behave.............
Been uploading old tracks I recorded ages ago and hopefully some new noodles here.