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Concrete Brillo
July 30th, 2012, 02:40 PM
Found a VS Open Road on Kijiji for $50 CAD so I went for it (they sell for ~ $130 CAD new). Actually, I picked it up on Friday and spent the weekend with it. My impressions:
It has a lot of warm open gain... bordering on distortion/fuzz with the gain at around 3 o'clock. This was with my LP with stock 500T and 498R pickups which isn't surprising. The Tele with SD Vintage Stacks and Strat with DiMarzio Injectors surprisingly also sounded rough and woolly. Very BIG sounding. Muted Apreggio's with some pinch harmonics ala Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love (for lack of a better reference) were convincing. Low to medium gain it was really good too... much more transparent.
The tone knob doesn't do enough to tame the woolliness of the pedal. With gain past 12 the pedal gets dark and its true voicing comes through (almost Bassman-esque with the treble turned down?). If it had better EQ controls it would be killer. I was using my RAT as a boost to enhance the treble response at high gain. I also set my amp (stock BJr.3) with mids at 9 o'clock, bass at 9 o'clock and Treble at 3 o'clock to get the pedal to sound right at basement levels. I find it hard to believe that this pedal would cut through in a live situation without serious help (treble booster/Naga Viper/MXR 10-band EQ perhaps?). At bedroom levels it was awesome though.
The pedal is pretty amp like and cleans up pretty well with a light attack and the guitar's volume knob (well not with the LP... I can't get that guitar to clean up anything with those super-hot PUPs - time for a PAF upgrade, but that is another story).
When I first plugged it in on Friday at bedroom volumes I loved it but hated it at basement volume levels. On Saturday, I tried it again and found myself using it for hours on end. I was surprised to find that I started playing at 10 AM and looked at my watch and it was suddenly 3 PM. I can't remember the last time I was that inspired by a pedal before (even my ME-70 with all of its effects didn't do enough for me to make me play as long as the VS Open Road did).
TLDR: Amp-like (transparent), loads of gain (does light OD better but the high gain sounds killer), tone control lacking, needs EQ support/modding to get rid of the woolliness, great pedal for the bedroom musician at the price.
The jury is still out and I'm not sure if I will keep it. In the meantime I'll keep looking for the sweet spot because I really am looking for a mid to high gain OD (not distortion).
It has a lot of warm open gain... bordering on distortion/fuzz with the gain at around 3 o'clock. This was with my LP with stock 500T and 498R pickups which isn't surprising. The Tele with SD Vintage Stacks and Strat with DiMarzio Injectors surprisingly also sounded rough and woolly. Very BIG sounding. Muted Apreggio's with some pinch harmonics ala Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love (for lack of a better reference) were convincing. Low to medium gain it was really good too... much more transparent.
The tone knob doesn't do enough to tame the woolliness of the pedal. With gain past 12 the pedal gets dark and its true voicing comes through (almost Bassman-esque with the treble turned down?). If it had better EQ controls it would be killer. I was using my RAT as a boost to enhance the treble response at high gain. I also set my amp (stock BJr.3) with mids at 9 o'clock, bass at 9 o'clock and Treble at 3 o'clock to get the pedal to sound right at basement levels. I find it hard to believe that this pedal would cut through in a live situation without serious help (treble booster/Naga Viper/MXR 10-band EQ perhaps?). At bedroom levels it was awesome though.
The pedal is pretty amp like and cleans up pretty well with a light attack and the guitar's volume knob (well not with the LP... I can't get that guitar to clean up anything with those super-hot PUPs - time for a PAF upgrade, but that is another story).
When I first plugged it in on Friday at bedroom volumes I loved it but hated it at basement volume levels. On Saturday, I tried it again and found myself using it for hours on end. I was surprised to find that I started playing at 10 AM and looked at my watch and it was suddenly 3 PM. I can't remember the last time I was that inspired by a pedal before (even my ME-70 with all of its effects didn't do enough for me to make me play as long as the VS Open Road did).
TLDR: Amp-like (transparent), loads of gain (does light OD better but the high gain sounds killer), tone control lacking, needs EQ support/modding to get rid of the woolliness, great pedal for the bedroom musician at the price.
The jury is still out and I'm not sure if I will keep it. In the meantime I'll keep looking for the sweet spot because I really am looking for a mid to high gain OD (not distortion).