Pretty cool sounds from the new Tech21 Liverpool pedal. The guy in the demo video goes from Petty/Byrds jangle to Brian May overdrive with a single knob!
http://emusician.com/ms/namm08/video/tech21_character/
The bigger online shops say they won't get them until July :cry: but I got a list of stores who were sent the initial shipments and just ordered one! 8)
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
I think I might HAVE to buy one, based on my being a scouser. :shock:
But I really wanna try out that california............... :P
Got the Liverpool pedal last night and took it for a test drive.
Serious bright and chimey tone on the cleaner settings, using my '51 Bel Air with neck and neck+bridge pickups. A little touch of gain and a slight twist of the "character" knob and it nails the early Tom Petty "Listen to Her Heart" sound with ease. Couple more small twists and it's "The Kids Are Alright." (I think I'll need to get a Rickenbacker 12-string to do the pedal justice!)
It seems reasonably sensitive to picking dynamics. Pick softly and it's clean, dig in and it breaks up nicely with tube-like compression. (I set the output level low enough to ensure that it was the pedal giving the overdriven sound, not my amp.) It's solid state, but 100% analog, so I guess that helps.
The tone knobs are really sensitive, and it seems the "Q" is very wide on these; a little change makes a big difference in the overall tone, and each knob seems to have a fair amount of interaction with the others (e.g., the mid control goes very far into both the hi-mids and low-mids.) I'm not sure, but from reading the manual I get the impression this might be variable depending on the character knob setting.
I need to work on the higher gain settings. The "Brian May" example was too compressed and muddy at first. There are a few factors at play: the pedal's speaker simulator can't be defeated, and I already have a nice Blue Dog alnico speaker in my 1/2-watt tube amp, so there's a bit of redundancy. The Tech21 product manager told me to play with the EQ, especially rolling off the mids a little. This definitely helped but I'm not quite satisified yet. Also, the higher gain added a bit of noise; I may be better off using a lower gain setting on the pedal while turning up the amp. Keep in mind the pedal (like most of Tech21's "sansamp" products) was designed to run directly into a mixer, or to a clean power source, so it's not surprising to need some additional tweaking when running through a guitar amp.
If I can get close to my favorite Vox sound, as heard in Hillsong's Salvation is Here, then this one will be a keeper for me. 8)
(Steaming bowl of scouse is optional, Scrybe. ;) )
"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."
