Newfablesam
Tele-Meister
I've become something of a very fickle pedal lover over the years. I can immediately seem to find things I don't like about an overdrive pedal- the more expensive the pedal- the more extensive my list of complaints. It seems like the only pedal that is safe from my constant ruination is the tuner. However, when you go through as many pedals as I do every once in a while you stumble across something truly great.
I can name on one hand the number of truly great overdrive pedals I've owned.
I loved the OCD and consider it truly great but it has a funny output impedance and so refused to play nice with my delay and so left my first great overdrive
I loved the JHS Morning Glory but at $200 dollars I expect a brand new pedal to function reliably. After a warranty trip and an unchanged problem I said goodbye to my second truly great pedal
I have since futzed around with various boutique and non-boutique pedal companies but never found something that really made my fingers jump from fret to fret the way my first two great pedals did until about a year ago. There is a man in my state named TC Jauernig who makes pedals one by one and sells them for what I consider to be reasonable prices (considering the absurd prices some manufacturers ask for technology that is as old as it is).
Enter The Plexian Herb. At the time I had just bought my current amp- a Fender Bassman LTD and was having trouble finding pedals that would play nice with its "full frequency swirl". Most boutique pedals came off far too bright with annoying bright fuzzy decay you seem to get from overdrives amplified by the seemingly unhinged top end of the Bassman.
Obviously the Plexian Herb is supposed to imitate the sound of a Plexi- I don't hear it. I have played through 'plexi' type pedals before and they always seemed scooped in a weird way with a boomy useless bottom nasal mid section and very fizzy top end. To me this pedal sounds transparent but with a sort of perfect warmth to the voicing. The low end gets bigger but not floppy, the mid range seems to obey your amps tone knobs and the high end isn't as fizzy as any other pedal I've heard through my bassman- and it sounds great with other amps too.
In addition to the regular Volume, Tone, and Drive controls you get a switch for more gain and another switch to choose more or less bottom end. It works truly fantastically as a low drive 'grit enhancer' to just help warm up the tone of your amp and just as marvelously as a medium to high gain raucous distortion pedal. Really I'm quite impressed. If I had one complaint it would be that the tone control seems to max out at noon and barely changes the tone after (I've noticed pot tapers are pretty wacky on boutique amps and pedals) that but the pedal is voiced so perfectly it hardly seems to matter. Truly a brilliant sounding pedal with or without the plexi reference.
Recently I traded it in during a momentary lapse in judgment during my ever advancing quest for tone and went back for it the next day.
There are a lot of impressive names in pedal building and I'd like to add Jauernig to the list. All of his pedals are fine instruments and relatively affordable but this Plexian Herb holds a special place in my heart. We've been together for over a year and I don't see and end in sight. If you get the chance to try one out for the love of tone do it.
I can name on one hand the number of truly great overdrive pedals I've owned.
I loved the OCD and consider it truly great but it has a funny output impedance and so refused to play nice with my delay and so left my first great overdrive
I loved the JHS Morning Glory but at $200 dollars I expect a brand new pedal to function reliably. After a warranty trip and an unchanged problem I said goodbye to my second truly great pedal
I have since futzed around with various boutique and non-boutique pedal companies but never found something that really made my fingers jump from fret to fret the way my first two great pedals did until about a year ago. There is a man in my state named TC Jauernig who makes pedals one by one and sells them for what I consider to be reasonable prices (considering the absurd prices some manufacturers ask for technology that is as old as it is).
Enter The Plexian Herb. At the time I had just bought my current amp- a Fender Bassman LTD and was having trouble finding pedals that would play nice with its "full frequency swirl". Most boutique pedals came off far too bright with annoying bright fuzzy decay you seem to get from overdrives amplified by the seemingly unhinged top end of the Bassman.
Obviously the Plexian Herb is supposed to imitate the sound of a Plexi- I don't hear it. I have played through 'plexi' type pedals before and they always seemed scooped in a weird way with a boomy useless bottom nasal mid section and very fizzy top end. To me this pedal sounds transparent but with a sort of perfect warmth to the voicing. The low end gets bigger but not floppy, the mid range seems to obey your amps tone knobs and the high end isn't as fizzy as any other pedal I've heard through my bassman- and it sounds great with other amps too.
In addition to the regular Volume, Tone, and Drive controls you get a switch for more gain and another switch to choose more or less bottom end. It works truly fantastically as a low drive 'grit enhancer' to just help warm up the tone of your amp and just as marvelously as a medium to high gain raucous distortion pedal. Really I'm quite impressed. If I had one complaint it would be that the tone control seems to max out at noon and barely changes the tone after (I've noticed pot tapers are pretty wacky on boutique amps and pedals) that but the pedal is voiced so perfectly it hardly seems to matter. Truly a brilliant sounding pedal with or without the plexi reference.
Recently I traded it in during a momentary lapse in judgment during my ever advancing quest for tone and went back for it the next day.
There are a lot of impressive names in pedal building and I'd like to add Jauernig to the list. All of his pedals are fine instruments and relatively affordable but this Plexian Herb holds a special place in my heart. We've been together for over a year and I don't see and end in sight. If you get the chance to try one out for the love of tone do it.
