Awesome discovery - weird cheapo japanese pedal

[Thermoboy]

I was cleaning tons of old stuff today from my storage space when I found something that made my day: under a bunch of Commodore 64 floppy disks I found an extremely weird, cheap looking pedal with no label. The only mention of a brand / model was the name “Session” on it, in what looked like an early 80’s font. The back said “Made in Japan” and had a serial number. Knobs were missing, too.



The only thing I could remember was that it was some kind of overdrive I got once as an auction, amongst some really kickass pedals (Bixonic Expandora, Proco Rat and Prescription Electronics Experience). I remember trying it for maybe 15 seconds, and throwing it away cos’ it looked like a real cheap Chinese pedal. I don’t think I even listened to it, probably to excited about the others I got on that day.

I almost threw it away today, until I got curious and proceded to check out what kind of electronics was in it. So I dusted it off and proceeded to open the cheap gray platic case. I was first surprised to find an internal cover, with a tiny spring.



Took it of, and that’s when I saw a little LM308N chip on the board, chuckled a little, then started making little monkey noises and ran around the house all excited. I started feeling bad for never giving it a real try. So I grabbed a power supply and fired it up, persuaded that it’s broken anyway or longtime dead. And it was ALIVE! What’s more, it’s got a kickass tone and seems to be a perfect RAT clone… I’m really blown away by this thing, I plugged it right in my Rat and my amp and got the EXACT same tones while comparing the two, with even a wider range of tones (it covers the whole Rat spectrum, plus an extra treble boost). Very transparent pedal, it keeps the low ends intact and goes from crunch to warm overdrive to crazy compressed fuzz… It’s really great and unexpected.



I’m gonna keep this one and piss my friends off as usual, as I always manage to get kickass gear at bargain price.

So I’m just sharing, in case someone else had one of those weird “Session” pedals. I spotted what seemed to be a newer catalogue of this brand on www.effectsdatabase.com, the whole range looks dead cheap and low-quality Boss clonesque. Bah.

So anyone got one of these?

[garytelecastor]

Many years ago I was looking for a tremolo pedal and the only ones available were the TR-2 and they were out of production.
After much search I found a pedal by Rocktek called a Vibrator (no, I am not going to go for the easy joke here). The pedal is ghastly cheap looking. I have been using amps since that time that have tremolo built in-Twin, Cube 60, etc. So I stashed the pedal in my gear storage.
I recently bought this new amp and it doesn't have tremolo on it, but it does have an effects loop. I was going through my old pedals and ran across this Rocktek thing.
Only problem is that since it hasn't been played in a long time it has lost some of it's zing. I tried it through the loop and it's....meh...okay.
I just popped for one of the new Artec trem pedals off ebay.
I am waiting for it as we speak. Will do a review when I get it.
I also got a $20 cash card from GC this month. That plus the 20% discount will take the TR-2 from 99.99 to 59.99, so I am going to pick one of those up before the month is out as well.

[NWinther]

Got an Aria overdrive made by same company...it was a TS style od:)
Nice find!

[Thermoboy]

Do you mean that Session could be a subdivision of Aria?
The rubber part of the pedal sure looks like Aria pedals...

[lasthippy]

I could be way off beam here, and claim no knowledge, but could your pedal be from this company?

http://www.award-session.com/

As I understand it "Session" went out of business and re-emerged as "Award Session" some time later. My local music shop / PA / Amp hire place were huge fans of their combos which 'allegedly' punched well above their weight in the size vs volume stakes.

[RomanS]

I doubt that - Award-Session is a British company, and that pedal says "Made In Japan" on the bottom.

[rob2]

To me it looks very like one of the late(80's,early 90's?)and now lamented Arion brand in its general appearance and layout-the little earthing spring through the shielding plate connecting to the baseplate,the PCB,jacks and the plastic housing look very like an alternative branding of the same basic units-even the script on the serial no looks similar!Only the actual black "pedal" looks like a different moulding.
I think in fact Rocktek were a slightly cheaper relation,but the casing here looks very like the Arion unit,missing its clip on plastic battery cover.In fact,they are a surprisingly robust unit,I guess parts have been taken/lost here rather than broken.
These were also very good,at the time I preferred them to the blander Boss sound,the Phaser,Chorus,Analogue Delay and Tubulator(tube screamer type od) are apparently considered almost vintage quality to-day-I have a few and reckon they still sound better than Boss equivalents,esp the above mentioned.
Incidentally Stewart Ward (of the renowned Session amps and pedals) posts here so you could ask him,hes been active on some Solid State amp threads.....
If its from the Arion family though you do have a potentially interesting and fine sounding pedal...

[david_lewis93]

Why kant I ever find anything good loke that anymore,???All I find is deepfried caca.

[Octave Doctor]

The only real difference I see is the Arions were all stereo outputs, but otherwise the build is very similar, maybe a variant built for a different distributor.

The Arions were fast and loose copies of Boss pedals, but most of them were decent--we sold lots of them at the store I worked at.

+1 on picking up odd equipment, I have a Shin-Ei fuzz-wah I got at a yard sale for $5.00--it's easily the nastiest fuzz I've ever owned.

[NWinther]

Arion...Prince I think the company was called??

[Thermoboy]

Originally Posted by Octave Doctor

The only real difference I see is the Arions were all stereo outputs, but otherwise the build is very similar, maybe a variant built for a different distributor.

The Arions were fast and loose copies of Boss pedals, but most of them were decent--we sold lots of them at the store I worked at.

+1 on picking up odd equipment, I have a Shin-Ei fuzz-wah I got at a yard sale for $5.00--it's easily the nastiest fuzz I've ever owned.

Actually, there is a hole for a second output, covered with a plastic part, though there's only one output on the board.



That is indeed very Arionesque

[rangercaster]

i have a Rocktek delay that has the same type of case ...