Joker Verox

This is a brief roundup of almost all Z Vex pedals (by Mr. Vex himself) taken from the NAMM exhibition at 2006 by gearwire.com.
Mr. Vex keeps his usual humour and good mood (I love that!) despite the fatigue of the show… My favourite, of course, is the Wah.

Beautiful handcrafted (and handpainted, too!) pedals, but some of them a bit overpriced – even above usual boutique pedals’ prices – and a bit small to be used easily on stage (unless you tape it down and use your finger to switch it on/off to avoid stepping on the knobs as well…)

To Mr. Vex’s immense credit, they are really advanced in terms of electronic design, and not a copy of anything else (a refreshing move in today’s world of pedal clones).

Described by some snobbish people as “gimmicks”, it is true that some of them are too strange for more than one song, and too unpredictable to get a constant sound from, but sometimes today’s music desperately needs to be less predictable… Of course, there are the “normal” ones such as the Box Of Rock, the Super Duper etc. but most of them are completely crazy!

Oh, and by the way, my all time favourite fuzz for my electric guitar would be the Woolly Mammoth – a fuzz initially designed for bass – if it didn’t sound so muffled and so uncontrollable. In reality, it sounds much different than the wonderful clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XW8-9P_FFw .

UPDATE: My snobbish attitude towards the Fuzz Factory is… gone! I am now the proud owner of one. Strange really, because I had played with it a lot before, and never really liked it. It doesn’t do everything, but has the advantage of instant wall-of-fuzz tone on a clean amp (think Fu Manchu, Smashing Pumpkins, Jesus & Mary Chain etc). And in bedroom volumes, too (although I can’t wait to take it on one of the oncoming gigs…)

Duration : 0:6:56

Technorati Tags: 2006, effects, Electric, guitar, namm, pedals, review, roundup, test, Vex, zvex

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