Smash
Hack
I want to be very cautious, because we are all prone to overreact to new gear. That said, I love this fucking pedal.
The Good
The way this pedal works best is to set the threshold with guitar volume rolled all the way down. You just turn the knob to where the background noise goes away (more than likely this will be around 11 o clock). When you roll up the guitar volume, you are going to get a high pitched squeal if you are playing at 112 dbs. This is eliminated by your finger muting the string...kinda like you would if not using a gate.
For me, this is the best solution possible. I like to roll down the guitar volume to silence shit anyway, so when you roll it up to play, you need to be muting, (again) as you normally would without a gate. Obviously the best things for me are the SUSTAIN and the SUPPRESSION of the microphonic noise while playing.
I don't think this was meant to be a gate, but in the loop, I think it gates better than a zuul in the loop. I have run a zuul before the amp at the same time as running a second zuul in the loop and this is damn near matching that as far as gating goes, but it is beating it as far as sustain goes, and of course not hearing the bleed through microphonics.
The one thing that a lot of you may like is that even set at 11 oclock, if you are playing at around 102 or less dbs, you don't get the feedback I am talking about even not silencing the strings. It is a bit picky of me to even mention the feedback while I am facing the cab with amp cranked, lol, but I have to because the Zuul can handle it, even if it isn't a realistic need for people.
I need to play with it a little more, but what I remember from playing with it yesterday is that it has a more natural gating action that any gate I have used because it isn't clamping down. It is just quiet. So when you are playing staccato, it is just natural, and you don't really feel the gate going slow or fast, it just happens. The gating is more natural with the knob at 11 oclock. If you put it higher to eliminate all the noise, then the gating becomes like the zuul where you hear this echo of the palm mute or something.
The Good
- Completely natural sustain This cannot be overstated. This pedal sustains like it is off.
- No noticeable tone suck
- The gating in the loop FEELS like it is in front of the amp. It reminds me of the feel of having the zuul (still tracked at guitar clean signal) but run last before input of amp
- I do not get those random popping or static sounds that I got with the Zuul.
- The static (microphonic noise) isn't bled through since this is a suppressor and not a gate.
- Does not kill the noise in between playing nearly as effective as the Zuul. Now I have only been fucking with this pedal for a couple of hours, but it isn't as effective at suppressing noise in between playing like the Zuul did. I can get it to go completely silent, but it takes going all the way up to 1 clock on the pedal. The zuul could accomplish the same at 11 oclock. I need to play with this more to see the sustain nuances a little more with the knob that high to see if it is an issue. I want to be clear on this point however. If you are muting the string in between playing, then it is dead quiet. I don't know if this feedback issue may be tied to what @RACKSYSTEMS (Dave Friedman) was referring to on the latest Tone Talk about how any gate in the loop needs to have an isolation transformer to eliminate a ground loop.
The way this pedal works best is to set the threshold with guitar volume rolled all the way down. You just turn the knob to where the background noise goes away (more than likely this will be around 11 o clock). When you roll up the guitar volume, you are going to get a high pitched squeal if you are playing at 112 dbs. This is eliminated by your finger muting the string...kinda like you would if not using a gate.
For me, this is the best solution possible. I like to roll down the guitar volume to silence shit anyway, so when you roll it up to play, you need to be muting, (again) as you normally would without a gate. Obviously the best things for me are the SUSTAIN and the SUPPRESSION of the microphonic noise while playing.
I don't think this was meant to be a gate, but in the loop, I think it gates better than a zuul in the loop. I have run a zuul before the amp at the same time as running a second zuul in the loop and this is damn near matching that as far as gating goes, but it is beating it as far as sustain goes, and of course not hearing the bleed through microphonics.
The one thing that a lot of you may like is that even set at 11 oclock, if you are playing at around 102 or less dbs, you don't get the feedback I am talking about even not silencing the strings. It is a bit picky of me to even mention the feedback while I am facing the cab with amp cranked, lol, but I have to because the Zuul can handle it, even if it isn't a realistic need for people.
I need to play with it a little more, but what I remember from playing with it yesterday is that it has a more natural gating action that any gate I have used because it isn't clamping down. It is just quiet. So when you are playing staccato, it is just natural, and you don't really feel the gate going slow or fast, it just happens. The gating is more natural with the knob at 11 oclock. If you put it higher to eliminate all the noise, then the gating becomes like the zuul where you hear this echo of the palm mute or something.
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