Impulse Responses have been making big waves in recent years. Now they've finally started to make their way into the compact pedal format, making realistic speaker simulation available to smaller pedalboards and lighter budgets. Here are some of the latest and greatest:
For a long time, acoustic players have struggled when trying to amplify the natural sound of their acoustic guitar live. Simple EQ or compression, never seemed enough to recreate the warm natural tones of their instrument.
Direct recording of electric guitars took a big leap forward when guitarists and sound engineers started applying Impulse Responses to more accurately capture the dynamics of real speaker cabinet.
Now similar technology can be applied to acoustic guitar, and offers some excellent results. Here are a few ways you can get started right now:
Mini pedals seem to be taking over the pedalboard world, but just because many people are moving to smallboards it doesn't mean you have to without your trusty volume pedal. Here are 5 of the best mini volume pedals available:
You may or may not have heard that PRS recently released the Silver Sky, a signature model for John Mayer. It quickly blew up the internet with lots of opinions for and against. What was missed though, was that this wasn't that different a departure from some previous PRS models. So here are 5 times that PRS made a Strat before the Silver Sky:
Whether for backup, or an ultra portable rig, there has been a steady growth in the number of guitar amps built into a pedal format. We count down some of the most popular listed by wattage. There was also a recent episode of That Pedal Show comparing a few of them, along with the latest micro amps from Vox, which we didn't include because they're not a pedal!
Another theme from NAMM this year was higher quality speaker sims and other direct solutions.
