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| HOTCAKE OVERDRIVE PEDAL - Crowther
Audio |
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 Noel
Gallagher of Oasis swears by it. So do
Pavement, The Melvins, Sonic Youth, along
with the likes of local luminaries Chris
Knox, Neil Finn, and Dave Mitchell of
the 3Ds. So, what is it, exactly? It's
the Hotcake. What? It's a mighty crunchy,
home grown distortion effects pedal that
guitarists the world over swear by. And
they are as rare as hens teeth.
The
hand-made HOTCAKE is considered by many
to
deliver the ultimate distortion sound.
Hand-made in NZ
by Paul Crowther (the original drummer
from Split Enz) it
only has 3 knobs (Gain, Level and Presence)
but that’s
all it needs.
The
Hotcake is designed to leave the undistorted
component of the guitar sound unchanged,
while providing a nice fat distortion
sound without resorting to a treble
cut circuit which will also affect the
guitar
tonality. With the Drive and Presence
controls set to minimum, and the Level
at around 2 o'clock, you should be
hard pressed to hear any change in the
sound
at all when you switch the Hotcake
in and out. You can get a clean volume
boost
by increasing the Level control. Increasing
the Drive will give you a thick distortion
sound with a little bit of edge to
it, and the Presence control adds some
mid-range
punch to the sounds. The Hotcake also
handles chords well. It is recommended
that the Hotcake is patched between
the guitar and amplifier, rather than
into
an amplifier's effect loop. Generally
speaking, if you are happy with your
guitar and amplifier combination, the
Hotcake will work well as a primary
distortion. It works superbly to send
an already
overdriven amp over the edge into smooth distortion;ideal
with non-master volume valve amps.
Price $259
DOUBLE HOTCAKE OVERDRIVE PEDAL $399 1 left
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| Prunes and Custard - Crowther
Audio |
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 The
Prunes & Custard
is a two stage circuit. There is a preamp
stage , the gain of which is adjusted with
the Drive control. This stage followed
by a special waveshaping distortion circuit.
There is some treble roll-off between the
preamp and the special distortion circuit.
The frequency at which this treble roll-off
happens can be changed with the Guitar/Bass
switch. The special distortion stage produces
strong harmonic overtones, mostly odd harmonic.
Higher harmonics are progressively introduced
with increased Drive settings and signal
level, so a decaying bass guitar note can
sound like a mean swept filter. Playing
double notes, like 4ths or 5ths can produce
some strong intermodulation effects, rather
like a ring modulator, but more musical,
albeit more distorted! The Mix control
is a balance between the preamp stage output,
(CCW) and the special distortion stage
output (CW). For bass guitar, the Mix control
would usually be set at around 10 to 12
o'clock. For guitar, a high Mix setting,
along with reduced Drive can give some
rather pleasant overdrive effects. Where
the Drive and Mix controls are set to higher
settings, the sound can become all harmonics,
with very little fundamental signal, and
in some situations may sound a bit thin,
especially for bass guitar, but setting
the Lo Freq. contour switch to the right
takes some low frequency from the Preamp
side of the Mix control and mixes it back
with the special distortion side. When
used as an effect in a live mixing or recording
situation, the P&C can be driven from
from a spare aux send or channel direct
out and returned to a spare input channel.
In this situation the Mix control would
be set to maximum, and there is the added
flexibilty of being able to apply EQ to
the distortion effect, and to use it dynamically
within a mix. This is quite useful for
(yet another) overdriven snare sound, and
for toms. To avoid things getting too out
of hand, inserting a noise gate on the
return, and maybe keying it from the send
signal can be a useful idea
Price $325 |
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