March 1999

PINT-SIZED PEDALS THAT PACK PLENTIFUL POWER

By Greg Grant

Are you running out of room on your pedal board? Hey, I know the feeling. But then again, what guitar player has a pedal board with a ton of room on it? And if such a player exists, I'll bet it's the same person who decides not to overload his or her plate with food at the local "all-you-can-eat" buffet. Let's face it, most of us are gluttons - especially for new toys. But that's okay, because Guyatone has just made it easier to fit more stompboxes on your ever-shrinking pedal board.

Who the heck is Guyatone? According to Godlyke, Guyatone's North American distributor, these pedals have gained significant popularity throughout Japan (where they're manufactured) and Europe over the past five years. But until now, they have never been imported into the States or Canada.

MC-3 MICRO CHORUS
The analog MC-3 was a little thin-sounding at first, but nowhere near as thin as most mainstream digital chorus pedals I've played through. It was easy to compensate for by turning up the bass on my amp or backing off on my guitar's tone knob. The MC-3 has no output control, but it does give a slight level boost when engaged, which allows the effect to jump out in the mix. Experimenting with the Depth and Rate knobs, I found my favorite setting was with the Depth set at high noon and Rate at a little above 10 o'clock. Cranking the Depth knob gave me a very cool tremolo effect, similar to a Dunlop Uni-Vibe, which I could change from slow to fast by twisting the Rate knob. All in all, I was pretty impressed with how the MC-3 performed and sounded and I dug the tasty winter-mint paint job.

WR2 WAH ROCKER
The WR-2 is an auto-wah pedal built around an envelope-controlled filter. To be quite honest, I've never been hip to auto-wah pedals. After all, I wah when I wanna wah - not when the pedal thinks it's time to. Regardless, I let down my guard and found that setting the Threshold knob close to 12 o'clock with the decay at 10 gave me a really ballsy wah effect, strikingly similar to the sound of a Crybaby (although I noticed the envelope filter opened more easily, triggering the wah effect, on the down-pick than on the up-pick). Also, the effect can get very thin when the Threshold and Decay knobs are turned past 2 o'clock.

MD2 MICRO DIGITAL DELAY
Without doubt this is one of the best digital delay pedals I've played through to date. The effect was warm without the cold, high-end return of many digital delay pedals. Also, unlike some delay pedals on the market, there was no effect bleed when the MD-2 was in bypass mode. With the pedal in the "A" setting, I was able to get a nice subtle slapback for funk playing or warm arpeggiated chords. Increasing the Delay Time and Feedback allowed me to fatten up solos while maintaining my guitar's tone. Switching the MD-2 to its "B" setting provided a range of cool echo effects. Increasing the Delay Time and Feedback in the "B" setting yielded a bunch of "spacey" oscillation effects that were fun to experiment with.

TZ-2 THE FUZZ
What can I say? It's pretty much a no-frills fuzzbox that delivers a very thick retro-style fuzz tone with great sustain, similar to an old Maestro Fuzz but with a little more compression on the high end. It's especially good for thick slow leads and chunky barre chords, Sabbath-style. The Depth control offered a slight variation in sound characteristics. Moving it past 2 o'clock, the attack of the effect became a bit more aggressive; turning the knob counter-clockwise gave me more of a creamy, Hendrix-type fuzz. Very psychedelic.

HD2 HARMONIC DISTORTION
I found this pedal to be a toned-down variation of the TZ-2 - a transistor based, no frills distortion effect, similar to a Big Muff but with much more compression - good for high-gain/classic rock style leads but with little variation beyond that. Also, and finally, the Level control didn't push the output of the effect as much as I would have liked.