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The Suhr Shiba Drive is a low/medium gain Overdrive pedal which sits between the Koko Boost and Riot Distortion pedals. The Shiba drive is perfect for bluesy overdrive tones or classic rock crunch taking you from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Angus Young in the twist of a knob. Put this amp in front of an already overdriven amp and you will get awesome sustain and drive for searing leads.

“There is a slight midrange hump that helps you cut through the mix, but the sonic integrity of your guitar and pickups comes through loud and clear. The tone is musical and balanced with firm lows, punchy mids with just the right amount of cut, and sweet silky highs.”

Like all of the current Suhr Pedals lineup this unit comes with a 3 way midrange EQ switch in this case called a “Smooth” switch which will give you slightly different voicings, it also has the FX link for hooking up with external switching devices and the battery alert for when your 9V battery is low on power. Of course you can also use a mains adaptor, from 9 - 18V to power the pedal. This pedal is perfect for stacking and especially with the Suhr Koko boost which beefs up the signal going into the Shiba.

If you are in Australia or New Zealand and would like to purchase one of these fantastic pedals or any other Suhr pedal head over to Guitar Noize Gear Factory for the latest pricing info and give me a shout.

The MXR Dyna Comp that was produced in 1976 has long been regarded as the ultimate stomp box compressor. There’s something inherently musical in the way it “tightens up” a guitar signal, raising the volume of quiet notes and leveling off peaks to create rich, full bodied sustain. From country twangers to metal monsters, guitarists have long relied on the MXR Dyna Comp to make their riffs stand tall in any live or studio mix. Now the MXR Custom Shop brings back that highly sought-after sound with the ‘76 Vintage Dyna Comp. Meticulously researched and superbly crafted, it features the exact same circuitry used in the original 1976 Dyna Comp, identical in its component layout, silkscreen and handmade wire harness. The key component is the old school CA3080 “metal can” integrated circuit (IC), which yields quieter operation, greater transparency and increased dynamic range. These ICs have been out of production since the ‘80s, but MXR has tracked down a stash of them - enough to produce a limited run of these little red boxes of compression bliss. With supplies limited, the MXR ‘76 Vintage Dyna Comp is destined to quickly become as ultra collectible as its noble ancestor. So get yours now. Available only from the MXR Custom Shop.

I think you will agree when you hear the demo above that this is a really nice sounding compressor. This is a really vintage tone lover’s pedal so if you are put off by the lack of LED and mains input you can get the pedal modded by your local effects specialist. If you are in Australia then Christian from Cubis Effects is your man.

I have played through a lot of Distortion pedals and I was eager to see why there was so much buzz around the Suhr Riot pedal. I had to wait over 3 months for delivery of this pedal because Suhr have so many orders they simply cannot produce the Riot fast enough to meet demand. Each Suhr pedal is hand built so they can’t just churn these off a production line so if you are one of the people currently waiting please just be patient, they are worth the wait. In my quest for the ultimate distortion box so far my favourite distortion has been the Way Huge Fat Sandwich which is incredibly tweakable, the Riot has all the balls of the Fat Sandwich in a much more compact and simplified unit. But don’t be discouraged by the lack of presence, resonance and internal trim pots that you get with the Fat Sandwich, the distortion, tone and a level or volume knobs are capable of creating monster tone. There is also a 3 way switch to change the EQ voicing which actually makes quite a difference from mid boosted to slightly scooped. The on/off switch on the Suhr pedals are really nice, they have a nice smooth spring loaded operation without that clunky click that most pedals have. If you are a 9v battery fan this pedal has the bonus feature that it will indicate when the battery is about to die and switches to true bypass when it does so as not to interrupt the signal path.

This pedal is incredibly high gain is designed to be used in front of a clean amp to turn it into a raging 100 watt overdriven stack and it certainly succeeds, as you will hear in my demo.

If you would like to order a Suhr Riot pedal please contact me, check out http://gearfactory.guitarnoize.com for the latest pricing info.

If there is one thing that I love it is simple effects pedals that do something well without lots of fiddling, I have a LovePedal Vibe that has just a single knob and it is perfect. Dunlop have taken on this idea following in the foosteps of their legendary Phase 90 with the MXR Micro Chorus by releasing this analog 80’s reissue which ”...delivers a stunning range of rich chorus textures, from sparkly watery shimmers to intense rotating speaker simulation with a twist of the Rate control. The Micro Chorus is designed with old-school bucket brigade technology for warm analog tone and features true bypass for pure guitar tone when the pedal is off. Its road-worthy hardware and components are housed in a space saving Phase 90 sized box.”

Check out the product page over on Dunlop’s site

Well it is finally official after Way Huge officially released the Aqua Puss Mk II as expected at NAMM 2010. We had a tip off thanks to John Mayer’s Twitter feed a while back as you would have no doubt seen here on Guitar Noize. Here is the official press release:

The Aqua-Puss MkII is making its triumphant return, ready to bathe a tone thirsty world in gorgeously smooth delay. One twist of the Delay knob takes you from a tight 20ms delay to a cavernous 300ms. The Feedback control regulates delay duration and intensity. But watch out. Extreme settings can send the Aqua-Puss MkII into self-oscillating psycho-freak-out mode! Meanwhile the Blend knob lets you set a balance between dry and delayed signal from mild to wild. The Aqua-Puss MkII delivers all the spooky mystery of vintage analog delay and tape-based echo, with none of the hassle of creaky, ancient gear.

Check out http://www.wayhuge.com/ for more info.

AmpTweaker is a new company founded by James Brown, no not that one, this James Brown used to be an engineer at Peavey Electronics and was responsible for some classic Peavey Amp designs. For a start you may have heard of the Peavey 5150, well James was the lead engineer working with Eddie Van Halen for 13 years to make this historical classic amp. Aside from the 5150, James also designed the JSX series in collaboration with Joe Satriani, the XXX, the Classic 50, Classic 30 and DeltaBlues. James has since moved on to become chief engineer at Kustom amps.

So onto James’ new venture, AmpTweaker, the first pedal James has designed is called the TightDrive and you can hear it in action in the videos above. Here is some info from the AmpTweaker site:

The TightDrive TM overdrive pedal is the first Amptweaker product, a gain pedal that features the TIGHT control. This tweaks the amp’s attack, and when combined with the Gain, Tone, and Volume controls, a lot of different distortion sounds are possible. It has the ability to dial in varying amounts of crunch, from barely clean singing blues tones, to crunchy rhythm sounds, all the way up to seriously overdriving your tube amp for tight chunky lead solos. Whether you’re using it with a clean amp or to beat up your heavy amp, this pedal has the range to handle the job.

[There is an] ...effects loop to the back so you can add whatever you want to this pedal. And there’s a Pre/Post button underneath the pedal so you can move that outboard effect to in front of or behind the TightDrive. When you bypass the TightDrive pedal, the other effect or effects will be bypassed as well. This feature is great if you want to further tweak the distortion tone with an EQ in front of or behind it, or to add compression, or a delay.

Check out AmpTweaker’s site for more info.