GearGeek01
Tele-Holic
Just arrived off the FedEX truck, haven't even taking it all the way out of the box yet, nor have I plugged it in...
First, I am more than just a big fan of the Source Audio (SA) One Series of guitar effects.
There are several reasons. The first way they impressed me was by having beyond amazing customer service, more on that later. The main eason is that in a day when so many effects require immense butt time with a manual, they make effects that are deep and tweakable, but made for the rest of us that for their whole life have loved pedals with a couple knobs, plug it in out of the box, turn a couple knobs... voils. No manual required... That's me to a T... You'll never catch me dinking around with a Line 6 anything, or a Boss multi-something, etc, etc. I hate reading, I don't learn by reading (It's not my learning style) ... well you get my drift if you've been there. If you're not 60 years old like me, and you are way far into techie stuff, my hats off to you but it's way way NOT for me.
All of the SA One Series can be fun daddy go baby right out of the box, no manual necessary on day one. I have almost all of their One Series pedals now, I've been drooling over and couldn't wait to get my hands on their brand new Atlas Compressor.
OK, so great customer service, easy to use AND deep (with the free Neuro desktop editor)... what else?
With the very easy to use Neuro desktop editor (very self-explanatory, I have yet to open even one SA manual)... Each of their pedals comes with additional algorhithms (sounds i.e. other pedals so to speak) inside. For example, their L.A. Lady Overdrive has FIFTY more pedals inside when using the editor. All accessible by a simple drop-down menu... Fuzz, distortion, overdrive, preamps, etc etc... 50 of them.
ALL of the One Series has multiple algorhithms inside. Their Lunar Phase has 12 different algo's inside. In fact it has all of the algo's from their Mercury Flanger and Gemini Chorus, so you buy one pedal, you have all the sounds of all three modulation pedals in this series. With the L.A. Lady, (and the Neuro editor to access them) you get all of the algo's in the Kingmaker Fuzz, and the After Shock Bass Distortion. Or the other way around, buy the Gemini Chorus and get all the mods from the other 2 pedals, or buy the KLingmaker Fuzz and get everything from the L.A. Lady or the Aftershock.
Their Vertigo Tremolo has 24 different tremolo algo's with the free Neuro desktop editor. The Nemesis Delay and Ventris Reverb also have scads of algo's inside, as do the entire One Series line-up
That, my friedn is truly the biggest reason I love these pedals.
Plus the sounds I am finding in the SA ne Series are awesome right out of the box. I have a Boss GT-1 all-in-one board and the sounds are weak right out of the box... After I bought the thing and got it home it was a huge and major disappointment... and there is no bypass... you have to spoend butt time with the manual, learn how to do a preset, and make a user preset just to bypass the effects, otherwise the effects are always on... weeee... what dillweed engineer figured that one out... like... how about a double tap on something to get this weak sounding piece of meteal and plastic junk out of the way... (???) (You might have guessed, NOT a fan of anything Boss)...
Here's a scale model I've made using Microsoft Excel of the pedals on my pedalboard. Everything is powered from beneath by a single Strymon Zuma power supply. Also underneath is a GFI System Cabzeus mic/speaker emulator and stereo direct box (velcroed underneath) as well as a Neuro Hub device from Source Audio that allows all of their One Series pedals to be plugged in via MIDI (something I am brand new at, but is there). I'll list the pedals below...
The list (row by row, not in order of signal path):
Pedaltrain Classic 2 Pedalboard
Top Row, L to R:
- Electro-Harmonix 720 Looper
- Source Audio Ventris Reverb
- Source Audio Nemesis Delay
- Source Audio Spectrum Intelligent Filter
- Source Audio Lunar Phaser
Middle Row, L to R:
- Source Audio Vertigo Tremolo
- Source Audio EQ2 Programmable EQ
- Source Audio L.A. Lady Overdrive
- Source Audio Atlas Compressor
Bottom Row, L to R:
- Disaster Area DPC-5 Gen 3 MIDI Controller
- Keeley Mini Katana Boost
- Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork "Polyphonic Pitch Shift Harmony Pedal" (LOL)
- Korg Pitchblack Mini Tuner
With this board I do Praise and Worship music for a Mega church in my area. Every week we have different songs and we are asked to play as close to the original recordings including all effects and such. We have 5 services Sat/Sun and somewhere around 18,000 people visit the church during the services. Here's what we do... Thursday the music director hands out our songs through an online system called "Planning Center". We have that weekend and all next week to practice and learn the songs. Before the first service, we all meet for the first time in a green room. There are multiple people who volunteer for every instrument. I rarely play with the same folks more than once. There is no weekly rehearsals. We are expected to know our parts when we meet. Every week it is a different guitarist, bass player, drummer, keyboardist and group of singers. There are around 25 electric guitar players who rotate in and out every week. A similar amount of other musicians as well.
We tune up, go through the songs one time, then the singers work some on their harmonies. We might play through the songs one more time in the green room. Then we go out on the stage and plug in to the main house system, and we do a sound check. There are no wedge montirs on stage, and their are no guitar or bass amps on stage. Everything is back stage (the bass goes direct) in an isolation cabinet that is miked. We use an Aviom digital monitoring in-ear for montiors, and everyone on stage has a 16-channel personal monitor so they can mix exactly what they want to hear in their ear buds. It's pretty cool. The idea is that this gives the sound engineer the best control over the stage volume... everything is going out front and each musician and singer hears themself in the ear buds.
A couple of the guys have the Line 6 Helix boards but after hearing them tell when they first got them that for ohne song it took about 3 hours to figure out the patches (plus butt time to read the manual)... I was sure that wasn't going to be me.
This next picture is an older one of the back of my pedalboard. In the upper right corner is the GFI System Cabzeus. It exits in stereo via 2 x balnaced XLR connectors. In fact all of the Source Audio pedals are stereo. Even the looper I have is stereo... I simply Velcro the Cabzeus to the bottom side of my board and the XLRs match up to the rails on the back of the Pedaltrain Classic 2 board.
The Strymon Zuma power supply is also Velcroed on, but Strymon's engineering and size leave a bit to be desired IMHO. As (IMHO) the Pedaltrain boards are some of the most common, it seems like thay would have learned from VoodooLab that the size of the PSU could match the space between the rails on the back of a Pedaltrian board. With the VoodooLab unit, it matches perfectly for the power supply. Velcro it under a Pedaltrain board, done. And it never comes off... But with the Zuma, I had to make a 3-5/8 x 5-5/8" piece of plyswood to Velcro underneath the Zuma to get the Zuma's power connector to the wall outlet to match up. Of course Strymon will sell you a $20 gadget that you screw in withy power tools, etc... but I use my ZAuma on more than one board, so just peeling off the Velcro is a lot easier than unscrewing, then re-screwing, then unscrewing, and re-screwing... Besies I am severaly mechanically challenged, and I don't bid so well with power tools or hand tools. Velcro is my best friend. And it DOES NOT come off. I've used Velcro on the underside of my pedalboards to hold extra doo-dads for a long long time and never had it come off. Best to use the Industrial Strength version
One thing that isn't in this picture is my SA Neuro Hub. It is currently Velcroed to the left of the Zuma, it has the connections to plug the smaller SA One Series (such as the size of the Atlas Compressor) into the MIDI controller.
Here's an older pic of the underside... the little squares are computer cable anchors I bought at a computer store, I stick them everywhere and use small zip tiues to keep my paych cables tidy underneath...
I did have a Diamond CPR-1 Compressor, which I thought was the best compressor ever. I got into a major financial bind during 2020/Covid and a lot of my gear and guiutars got sold off. Now Diamond is out of business and their compressors are going for stupid prices on Reverb... Thus I thought since I love Source Audio, I'd give theiur brand new Atlas Compressor a whirl.
So here the Atlas sits, haven't even fully taken it out of the bix yet... and it was my muse to write all this pedal stuff and Source Audio love...
Now to go jam and make some music with it...
Weeeeeeee
First, I am more than just a big fan of the Source Audio (SA) One Series of guitar effects.
There are several reasons. The first way they impressed me was by having beyond amazing customer service, more on that later. The main eason is that in a day when so many effects require immense butt time with a manual, they make effects that are deep and tweakable, but made for the rest of us that for their whole life have loved pedals with a couple knobs, plug it in out of the box, turn a couple knobs... voils. No manual required... That's me to a T... You'll never catch me dinking around with a Line 6 anything, or a Boss multi-something, etc, etc. I hate reading, I don't learn by reading (It's not my learning style) ... well you get my drift if you've been there. If you're not 60 years old like me, and you are way far into techie stuff, my hats off to you but it's way way NOT for me.
All of the SA One Series can be fun daddy go baby right out of the box, no manual necessary on day one. I have almost all of their One Series pedals now, I've been drooling over and couldn't wait to get my hands on their brand new Atlas Compressor.
OK, so great customer service, easy to use AND deep (with the free Neuro desktop editor)... what else?
With the very easy to use Neuro desktop editor (very self-explanatory, I have yet to open even one SA manual)... Each of their pedals comes with additional algorhithms (sounds i.e. other pedals so to speak) inside. For example, their L.A. Lady Overdrive has FIFTY more pedals inside when using the editor. All accessible by a simple drop-down menu... Fuzz, distortion, overdrive, preamps, etc etc... 50 of them.
ALL of the One Series has multiple algorhithms inside. Their Lunar Phase has 12 different algo's inside. In fact it has all of the algo's from their Mercury Flanger and Gemini Chorus, so you buy one pedal, you have all the sounds of all three modulation pedals in this series. With the L.A. Lady, (and the Neuro editor to access them) you get all of the algo's in the Kingmaker Fuzz, and the After Shock Bass Distortion. Or the other way around, buy the Gemini Chorus and get all the mods from the other 2 pedals, or buy the KLingmaker Fuzz and get everything from the L.A. Lady or the Aftershock.
Their Vertigo Tremolo has 24 different tremolo algo's with the free Neuro desktop editor. The Nemesis Delay and Ventris Reverb also have scads of algo's inside, as do the entire One Series line-up
That, my friedn is truly the biggest reason I love these pedals.
Plus the sounds I am finding in the SA ne Series are awesome right out of the box. I have a Boss GT-1 all-in-one board and the sounds are weak right out of the box... After I bought the thing and got it home it was a huge and major disappointment... and there is no bypass... you have to spoend butt time with the manual, learn how to do a preset, and make a user preset just to bypass the effects, otherwise the effects are always on... weeee... what dillweed engineer figured that one out... like... how about a double tap on something to get this weak sounding piece of meteal and plastic junk out of the way... (???) (You might have guessed, NOT a fan of anything Boss)...
Here's a scale model I've made using Microsoft Excel of the pedals on my pedalboard. Everything is powered from beneath by a single Strymon Zuma power supply. Also underneath is a GFI System Cabzeus mic/speaker emulator and stereo direct box (velcroed underneath) as well as a Neuro Hub device from Source Audio that allows all of their One Series pedals to be plugged in via MIDI (something I am brand new at, but is there). I'll list the pedals below...
The list (row by row, not in order of signal path):
Pedaltrain Classic 2 Pedalboard
Top Row, L to R:
- Electro-Harmonix 720 Looper
- Source Audio Ventris Reverb
- Source Audio Nemesis Delay
- Source Audio Spectrum Intelligent Filter
- Source Audio Lunar Phaser
Middle Row, L to R:
- Source Audio Vertigo Tremolo
- Source Audio EQ2 Programmable EQ
- Source Audio L.A. Lady Overdrive
- Source Audio Atlas Compressor
Bottom Row, L to R:
- Disaster Area DPC-5 Gen 3 MIDI Controller
- Keeley Mini Katana Boost
- Electro-Harmonix Pitchfork "Polyphonic Pitch Shift Harmony Pedal" (LOL)
- Korg Pitchblack Mini Tuner
With this board I do Praise and Worship music for a Mega church in my area. Every week we have different songs and we are asked to play as close to the original recordings including all effects and such. We have 5 services Sat/Sun and somewhere around 18,000 people visit the church during the services. Here's what we do... Thursday the music director hands out our songs through an online system called "Planning Center". We have that weekend and all next week to practice and learn the songs. Before the first service, we all meet for the first time in a green room. There are multiple people who volunteer for every instrument. I rarely play with the same folks more than once. There is no weekly rehearsals. We are expected to know our parts when we meet. Every week it is a different guitarist, bass player, drummer, keyboardist and group of singers. There are around 25 electric guitar players who rotate in and out every week. A similar amount of other musicians as well.
We tune up, go through the songs one time, then the singers work some on their harmonies. We might play through the songs one more time in the green room. Then we go out on the stage and plug in to the main house system, and we do a sound check. There are no wedge montirs on stage, and their are no guitar or bass amps on stage. Everything is back stage (the bass goes direct) in an isolation cabinet that is miked. We use an Aviom digital monitoring in-ear for montiors, and everyone on stage has a 16-channel personal monitor so they can mix exactly what they want to hear in their ear buds. It's pretty cool. The idea is that this gives the sound engineer the best control over the stage volume... everything is going out front and each musician and singer hears themself in the ear buds.
A couple of the guys have the Line 6 Helix boards but after hearing them tell when they first got them that for ohne song it took about 3 hours to figure out the patches (plus butt time to read the manual)... I was sure that wasn't going to be me.
This next picture is an older one of the back of my pedalboard. In the upper right corner is the GFI System Cabzeus. It exits in stereo via 2 x balnaced XLR connectors. In fact all of the Source Audio pedals are stereo. Even the looper I have is stereo... I simply Velcro the Cabzeus to the bottom side of my board and the XLRs match up to the rails on the back of the Pedaltrain Classic 2 board.
The Strymon Zuma power supply is also Velcroed on, but Strymon's engineering and size leave a bit to be desired IMHO. As (IMHO) the Pedaltrain boards are some of the most common, it seems like thay would have learned from VoodooLab that the size of the PSU could match the space between the rails on the back of a Pedaltrian board. With the VoodooLab unit, it matches perfectly for the power supply. Velcro it under a Pedaltrain board, done. And it never comes off... But with the Zuma, I had to make a 3-5/8 x 5-5/8" piece of plyswood to Velcro underneath the Zuma to get the Zuma's power connector to the wall outlet to match up. Of course Strymon will sell you a $20 gadget that you screw in withy power tools, etc... but I use my ZAuma on more than one board, so just peeling off the Velcro is a lot easier than unscrewing, then re-screwing, then unscrewing, and re-screwing... Besies I am severaly mechanically challenged, and I don't bid so well with power tools or hand tools. Velcro is my best friend. And it DOES NOT come off. I've used Velcro on the underside of my pedalboards to hold extra doo-dads for a long long time and never had it come off. Best to use the Industrial Strength version
One thing that isn't in this picture is my SA Neuro Hub. It is currently Velcroed to the left of the Zuma, it has the connections to plug the smaller SA One Series (such as the size of the Atlas Compressor) into the MIDI controller.
Here's an older pic of the underside... the little squares are computer cable anchors I bought at a computer store, I stick them everywhere and use small zip tiues to keep my paych cables tidy underneath...
I did have a Diamond CPR-1 Compressor, which I thought was the best compressor ever. I got into a major financial bind during 2020/Covid and a lot of my gear and guiutars got sold off. Now Diamond is out of business and their compressors are going for stupid prices on Reverb... Thus I thought since I love Source Audio, I'd give theiur brand new Atlas Compressor a whirl.
So here the Atlas sits, haven't even fully taken it out of the bix yet... and it was my muse to write all this pedal stuff and Source Audio love...
Now to go jam and make some music with it...
Weeeeeeee
