New Non-BOSS Pedals

[Pepe]

Only the CMP-1 Compressor left, then I have had them all! ALL!!!



I'm going to sell the Noise Gate again (don't need it) and the awesome Tone Booster as well, because at the moment I have two of these.

[Pepe]

Last week I received a pedal that I was very eager to try out for a few years now: the EBS Stanley Clarke Signature Wah. Since Dirk is so happy with his EBS Billy Sheehan Signature Drive I thought that I would love this red beauty. Sadly I don't. And that's not because of the sound quality.



Overall it is a very well-built wah pedal that has a good (high) weight, plus a very cool function to adjust the pedal torque (at first my exemplar was too loose, always automatically tilting back to the maximum position). There are four modes and two controls plus a passive/active switch. You can even decide to have true bypass or a volume pedal function if you turn off the wah. And it was designed with my bass guitar hero Stanley Clarke.



So what's not to love? The sound per se is great and the different functions are cool, but there is a noticeable and rather strong volume drop, no matter if I use the active or passive mode or other pedals before the wah. I use a passive Squier Vintage Modified Jazz Bass with normal output, so I don't see a problem with the instrument itself. Sadly there is no way to adjust the effect volume. I saw that some users are also complaining about that in bass guitar forums. A trimpot for the volume had been a great feature and I reckon that it had been easy to implement it on the ciruit board.

Another thing that I think is a clear mechanical design flaw: whenever the footswitch gets pressed down the rack gear pushes against the bottom plate, because it is a few millimetres too long for the height of the pedal. The bottom plate always gets bent down. I have never had a wah pedal that does this. It's absolutely weird.

So this first EBS pedal might have already been my last one. I expected so much better quality. Especially since a new pedal costs over 300 EUR!

[fuzzbuzzfuzz]

Well the wah certainly looked very smart, but the design flaws would also seem off-putting! Quite odd considering how many other makers avoid such issues. I recall the Maxon "blubber" wah (a Japanese crybaby of sorts), had a raised circular area protruding slightly from the base to allow for the rack part to descend without issue.

Just as a thought, has somebody removed the rubber stoppers under the treadle and thus allowed the wah to travel further down that it should?

[fuzzbuzzfuzz]

a very nice selection of KORGs too. I see that series (though usually more Yamahas) alot here, but once I start with one I'll end up having to collect the lot, and I'm already space/cash pushed

[Pepe]

Just as a thought, has somebody removed the rubber stoppers under the treadle and thus allowed the wah to travel further down that it should?

There are no rubbers, but the switch was adjusted in the highest possible position when I received the pedal and it already bends this way. I just see in a demo video that there should be rubbers, but the bottom would still bend then.

a very nice selection of KORGs too. I see that series (though usually more Yamahas) alot here, but once I start with one I'll end up having to collect the lot, and I'm already space/cash pushed

Don't start collecting them. For me it took years and a lot of patience and tons of luck to expand my collection of KORG floor units. I'm very close to a complete set of all the '70s and '80s models*. Only a few ones are missing - I even had some of these in the past, but I didn't intend to keep them**, because I wouldn't use them. I really only keep what I like and those KORG units are simply wonderful.

The only early unit that I still don't have is the KORG V-C-F, which is a filter pedal that has the nowadays very famous and sought-after KORG Traveler filter, just like the reissued miniKORG 700S synthesizer.


* rack units excluded
** the Compressor and Noise Gate of the PME-40X Series and the LIM-1 Limiter and NGT-1 Noise Gate

[Dirk]

That's sad to hear, Pepe. It looks cool though.

I normally rate EBS gear, maybe this is their late Friday afternoon design?
And if so, why would Stanley Clarke put his name on it?

Yes, the Billy Sheehan pedals are great, all 3 of them. I only have the original purple one.

[Pepe]

Just as a thought, has somebody removed the rubber stoppers under the treadle and thus allowed the wah to travel further down that it should?

There are no rubbers, but the switch was adjusted in the highest possible position when I received the pedal and it already bends this way. I just see in a demo video that there should be rubbers, but the bottom would still bend then.

I just ordered replacement rubbers and a replacement door for the battery compartment at EBS in Sweden. Let's see if that bottom plate will still bend with the rubbers installed. I am going to put the pedal up for sale and I don't want to hear complaints about that from the potential buyer.

[Pepe]

The replacement parts arrived yesterday. As I supposed, the bottom plate does indeed still bend a bit when the switch gets depressed. And there is still the strong volume drop in the modes 1 to 3. Mode 4 is "almost" on par with the bypass volume.

They should have asked a guy like Laurie to ensure that the pedal is worth its over 300 EUR!

[laurie]

The replacement parts arrived yesterday. As I supposed, the bottom plate does indeed still bend a bit when the switch gets depressed. And there is still the strong volume drop in the modes 1 to 3. Mode 4 is "almost" on par with the bypass volume.

They should have asked a guy like Laurie to ensure that the pedal is worth its over 300 EUR!

Thank you for the thought

Is it worth filing off the bottom 0.5mm of the rack gear?

[Pepe]

The next owner can do that if he wants it. But he has to live with the volume drop.