Eventide MicroPtich Review

The Eventide Micropitch Delay has been out for a few months and I grabbed it as soon as it came out. I've seen a lot of videos and reviews on the in's and out's of this pedal but I've had a lot of questions about it too. What is it exactly? What can it do? What does it do that other pedals don't? How does it sound? And why would you want it? 

What is it exactly? 

For those that don't know the Micropitch it is ONE algorithm from the H9 pedal in a stand alone pedal. That might make it sound like it only does one sound, which is far from the truth. The "sound" comes from the early H910 and H949 studio units that led to the powerhouse H300 that was popular in professional studios in the 80's and 90's. Then guitar legends like Steve Vai and Eddie Van Halen started using them in their racks to get bigger guitar sounds. This is why I bought it. That 90's EVH W/D/W sound.  

What can it do?

At its core the Micropitch Delay has two independent delays that can be run in mono, stereo, or w/d/w. Along with the normal blend, tone and feedback controls each of these delays can be manipulated in various ways including pitch (up or down  a half step) and modulated. It even has filters for how the modulation is effected. On top of that you can MIDI control any of the functions! You want a wetter signal on the fly, sure. How about longer delay times, easy. You want a wider stereo spread? This is what it's all about!

What does it do that other pedals don't?

A lot. First off if your a fan of that 90's EVH sound and you own a 5150 amp (preferably at least two) then you want this pedal. Secondly most delay pedals don't have dual delays that are completely independent of each other and most of the ones that do are more expensive. Thirdly Eventide stuff has a certain "HiFi sheen" that I've never heard in anything else, and it adds a unique sound quality to your overall tone. Fourth, and this was a big seller for me, it has 5 presets you can access from the front of the pedal. More if you do MIDI which I don't. 

How does it sound?

In one word, Amazing. Seriously, other things get close but nothing is quite like the real thing. I run this in stereo going through the loop of my 5150 and into the return of a second amp. The first setting is perfect for that 90's EVH tone and while I've gotten pretty close with software this really does nail it. Of course ideally if you can go W/D/W it's even better. I've done this in a DAW and it's pretty insane. I also use a dual delay al'a Andy Timmons or David Gilmour (approximately 300ms and 450ms) and I use the envelope filter to add tape sag to the delays which sounds pretty wild even if it's subtle. And even after all these months I still feel like I'm scratching the surface of what it can do. 

Why would you want one?

1) You want the 90's EVH tone. Eddie was using this "still chorus" sound a bit more subtly all the way back to Diver Down, it just became more prominent on OU812. Some people love it, some don't. I'm someone who enjoys it. 

2) If (like me) you don't need all the functionality of the H9 but still want an incredibly flexible dual delay, with a handful of presets. 

3) This pedal can get some pretty wild tones out of it (barber pole delays anyone?) and those sounds can be inspiring. 

If your looking for a do everything delay you can get an H9 (it does a lot of other things) or a Timeline or for the price of a Micropitch a Source Audio Nemesis. But if you want "that" sound, that Eventide sound, that 90's EVH sound...  this pedal is well worth the price of admission. 

I did not receive compensation in any way for this review and my thoughts and comments are completely my own. 

Getting Started into Recording

 I'm making progress with recording and mixing and all of that fun stuff. And I'm the first to admit I have a long way to go. But over the last couple of years I've learned a lot and I feel like there are some rabbit holes that are worth it and some that are not. So if your looking into learning this stuff I thought I'd start compiling a list of things. Some of these things are things I forget and need to remind myself. 

The order of importance

What's important? At the end of the day the song comes first, everything you do needs to be there to serve the song. To add to and not take away from, but this is subjective. And it's easy to think oh if I had a different DAW or Microphone (or pedal) or what did Stevie Ray Vaughn use? But none of that really matters. What matters first and foremost is the song. Is it good? Maybe. Now what about when it comes to recording... A great song recorded on a cassette tape through a cheap mic will be better than an ok song recorded at the legendary Ocean Way Studios and perfectly engineered by one of the masters. Ok? 

Second- The performance of the song is the second most important thing, and I think it's a close second. There is nothing like nailing a song on stage with the band and when recording it's the same. Yes you can time-align everything after the fact in most modern DAWs but when everyone nails their part it really does sound better for some reason. 

Third is the quality of the instrument.... ok we have a bit of a caveat here. Samples can go a long way to helping a lot of instruments and I've heard some incredible stuff done with samples. But it will help if the main instruments recorded. If your song is a just a vocal and a piano you should really try to find a real piano to record if at all possible. It will sound better. Are you playing an acoustic instrument? Tune it between every take. Is there a better quality acoustic guitar you can borrow for the recording do it, if not don't stress over it just make sure you nail the performance. 

Fourth is Mic choice and placement. If you look around on tutorials you'll find a lot of different mics mentioned but also a lot of people saying you just need a large condenser mic and that's it.  More and more I think that getting one large condenser mic and using that is fine for almost everything. But the reason for that is that it forces you to listen to the more important factor and that is PLACEMENT! How the mic and instrument and the room work together. One of the biggest pop stars on the planet right now is Billie Eilish and for her first two albums her brother recorded her with a $100 AT2020. Learning how to place the mic, and use it to get the best sounds is way more important than buying another mic. SOOOOO why does everyone spend all this money on more mics? Well they do sound different and some mics WILL lend themselves to different voices and instruments. But not nearly as much as placement. 

Fifth and way way way way down on the list is outboard gear. Preamps, compressors, EQs and all of that stuff is kind of fun, and expensive. Do you need it? nope. Can it be useful? yep. The fact is that most of that stuff can be modeled in your DAW by plugins. BUT I do believe it is better.... but only marginally. If you've got the budget then spend the money. If your trying to make things 2% better then do it. But if your mixes sound like mud (which mine did for a long time) no outboard gear is going to help. Sorry. 

Sixth and even farther way down the list is the analog to digital converters. The reason for this is that most AD converters these days are really great and you don't have to worry about them unless you going in and out of your DAW to run those sounds through rack gear. 

So if You don't need that what do you need?

Where should you spend your money? My vote for most people is lessons, there is a lot of people on YouTube showing you different ways to do things at different levels. But find a couple of people who explain things to you in a way that makes sense to you. Maybe that's Recording Revolution, or Joe Gilders Home Studio Corner, or Produce like a Pro, just to name a few. If you're on a budget sign up for their mailing list and then wait for a sale. 

The next thing is to start recording stuff. Do you remember when you started playing guitar (or whatever instrument you started on)? Could you play like Steve Vai right away? nope, I've been playing for years and I still can't. But if you're like most people you started learning easy songs, I think my first one was Rock you Like a Hurricane. Revisit those first few songs and record them, You'll learn a ton, including what you don't know and what you need to work on. 

I've messed around with recording for several years and it's only in the last couple of years that I find myself getting to where I am happy with the sound of my mixes. My vocals on the other hand, that's going to take a lot of work. haha

Mojo Hand Fx Iron Bell Review

David Gilmour has become a name synonymous  with both Tone and Phrasing. But his tone has evolved over the years the tone on Wish you Were Here vs the tone from On An Island is quite different even if the playing is similar. There is nothing wrong with playing fast, it's fun and entertaining and can be somewhat impressive. But as I've matured as a player I find myself being drawn to people who slow down and make every note count. David is one of those players who always caters to the song, and he knows how to make a single note sound more impressive than a hundred.

Iron Bell in Rusty finish

If your looking for a dead on Muff clone to stack with compressors and overdrives the Iron Bell isn't what your looking for. Big Muffs, like many other fuzz pedals, can be tricky. Played into the wrong set up they can sound awful. Loads of bottom end, rough distortion and no definition are not the terms you think of when you think of David Gilmour. And while the Iron Bell is a muff based pedal it's smoother, articulate, and more responsive than most Muff based pedals that I have played as if there is already a compressor before the Muff and an Overdrive after it.

This is a pretty easy pedal to get a great sound out of no matter what your setup. Start with all the knobs at noon and start tweaking. Add a delay pedal and your favorite Gilmour licks and you'll find your way very quickly. 

The thing that makes this pedal so versatile is the contour knob which can give you a more pronounced mids like the Civil War Muff or scoop them out like an old Rams Head Muff. This has since become a very popular mod with a lot of muff builders, some adding a mids knob others adding 3 way switches. This combined with the smoothness and overall character of the tone make this an easy go to pedal for Gilmour tones.  

David also uses overdrives like the BK Butler Tube Driver and early on the Colorsound Powerboost. It's not really bright enough for the Powerboost but the Iron Bell can do a decent Tube Driver, even though I tend to use an OCD clone for these sounds. The APS2's in my Strat can get a bit lose on the bottom end and the Iron Bell is just tight enough to tame any kind of fartiness. It won't go from scream to clean when you turn down your volume but it does clean up quite a bit and the top end tends to open up when you do this.

Using EMG's with the Iron Bell and combined with my old Visual Sound H2O can nail most of the sounds from the 80's and 90's. Throw in a phaser for Wish You Were Here, a flanger for Animals or The Wall and a UniVibe for Dark Side of the Moon or Live at Gdansk and you can get 95% of the way there for just about anything.

While not my first thought I was surprised when I played Steve Vai's For the Love of God and Blue Powder with this pedal. Normally I'd grab a Suhr Riot or the Wampler Pinnacle for this but the massive smooth articulate sound of the Iron Bell works surprisingly well for shredding. 

The @mojohandfx Iron Bell with some Blue Powder type stuff. #tonetools #shredguitar #thatsnotafloyd #imnovai

A video posted by @adhd_guitarist on Nov 21, 2016 at 10:01am PST

I've been a fan of Mojo Hand Fx for years, their Zephyr is one of my favorite fuzz pedals ever and their Rook pedal is a favorite on pedalboards everywhere. One of the most impressive things about Mojo Hand as a company is their commitment to quality. I bought this pedal second hand and after I posted posted a picture on Instagram. They reached out to me because they noticed one of the letters had rubbed off and they asked me if I wanted to them to replace it. I declined because I really don't care about such things. The pedal works great. But they did tell me during the exchange that if I ever had any problems or questions to reach out to them and they would  help. Fantastic customer service for sure.  

The Fulltone Fulldrive 2, the Ultimate TS Pedal

I'm an Overdrive junkie. It all started with a friend of mines Tube Screamer back in the early nineties. It was versatile and could be used for so many different sounds, whether or not you needed a boost for a solo or used it to smooth out or fatten up your tone it could handle the job. Or maybe you were trying to get the Stevie Ray Vaughan sound. It seems like there are endless TS variations in the boutique market. Some people on forums like to point to all the Tube Screamer variations and laugh but the truth is the TS9 circuit is very tweakable.  It can have more bottom end, or less of a mid hump, more gain, or more touch sensitivity, there are really are a lot of different variations to be had. And of course experimenting is part of the fun here. One of the original and best boutique clones out there is the Fulltone Fulldrive 2.

There are even different versions of this from Fulltone and a lot of boutique builders have used this version of the circuit as a jumping off point. It features more gain, more bottom end, standard or mosfet clipping (for even more smoothness) and a transparent boost at the front to push the pedal into even more gain. This is perfect for everything from Steve Ray Vaughan to Steve Vai. The other day while thinking about my next overdrive I happened to look up this monster of a pedal and noticed the price has dropped everywhere to $119.20. Not sure when that happened or if it's permanent but if your looking for an Overdrive and haven't tried one, I highly recommend this beast. Check it out below.