Jaded Faith
Well-known member
I recently had Pete Turley (Okstrat) do several modifications to three of my modules and wanted to take a moment to write a thorough review after two rehearsals and four gigs over the past week with them. His work is top notch and he has a great ear for tone.
I'll start with my rig. For guitars I use a PRS Custom 22 10-top with Dragon II's and an American Fender Strat with a maple neck, 2 single coils and a SD Pearly Gates humbucker in the bridge. My pedal board is made up of a Crybaby 95Q, a Peterson Strobe II tuner and a ISP Decimator. Switching is done via a RF-4 (modules) and a Rocktron Midimate (FX). From the floor, the signal goes into my RM4, out the Preloop out into a Rocktron Xpression and into an Atomic AR212-50 (50 watts, 6L6's and loaded with 2 Celestion Century Vintage 12's).
I currently have 5 modules: Deluxe, Egnater VX, SL+, XTC and 1086. Pete modified the Deluxe, SL+ and XTC. Here is my take on each.
Deluxe:
I had the clarity and warmth mods done to this module. It now sounds like a richer version of itself with more depth to the notes. It seems to have a little more gain than it did before, but I also changed the tubes from EH to Tung-Sols when it came back. The higher gain settings are sweet and much improved from stock. I tend to run it sparkling clean most of the time and have the gain set at 9:00. Very comparable to a Twin Reverb with the ability to get nasty if need be, which is very cool. It really sounds like a good Fender amp now.
SL+:
In a word....WOW! This module really didn't do much for me before I sent it to Pete. The gain was lacking and the feel was very loose. Think "Lakini's Juice" by Live. I had clarity and warmth mods done, the Stock/JCM800 toggle switch added and a 3-way toggle added to switch between C3 bass caps (0.001, 0.002 and 0.0005uf). It is now my best high gain module by far. It has awesome tone and unmatched versatility. Individual notes in chords stand out instead of bleeding together. There is now more than enough gain. All three bass settings are tighter than stock. After initially liking the 0.002 setting on the bass switch best, I found myself using all three last week. We played 3 different venues and the low end needed to be adjusted differently for each. This was surprising, as I initially though I would only use it for rhythm/lead scenarios. Ironically, it proved most valuable to adjust for room and volume variables. The louder the amp was cranked, the tighter the C3 setting for optimal results (a result of the Fletcher Munson curve). I like the stock setting on the tone stack slightly better, but find myself using both. A very interesting discovery was that the shift in the tone stack and clarity mods allowed me to hear myself much better both in practice and on stage at lower volumes than I had to use previously. A nice "feature" that deserves praise. I run JJ's in this module and it now reminds me of a true Marshall roar.
XTC:
I had been on the fence with this module as well before sending it away. I was thinking it would be my lead module, but had been using a Brown instead. Pete did the clarity and warmth mods and added a push/pull pot on the gain knob to shift the mids. The best praise I can sing about this module is it now reminds me very much of both real Bogner Ecstasy and Uberschalls that I have had the pleasure of playing. It has the same note definition as the SL+, but it is a much thicker tone. It is great for thick, syrupy leads. An interesting application I found for it was as a rhythm channel for my Strat, which is much brighter and has a little less output than my PRS. It was a great way to get a better balance between these guitars and it thickened the maple Strat nicely. The only criticism I can give is that I don't really care for the mid shift when the knob is pulled out. It is quite scooped and the gain knob has very little range in this mode. It is pretty much all out distortion and tons of it. I think of this as "Uberschall-mode", as it really sounds like the Uberschalls I have played through. Although not my cup of tea, I can see how this might be perfect for some players.
Overall, I am in love with my amp and all of the work Pete has done. He was a pleasure to work with and very good about sharing his opinions and knowledge to help me get my modules where I like them. I plan to send him my 1086 soon for warmth and clarity mods, along with a push/pull knob for 2 different C3 settings. If anyone was on the fence, I would suggest sending your modules Pete's way. I went from having 9 modules I was fairly happy with to just 5 that cover most every tone I could want and do an amazing job of it.
As a side note, our other guitarists wife took a hand held video of a cover of the Breaking Benjamin tune "So Cold" we threw into our set last Friday night because the crowd was awesome. You can view it on our Myspace page at
www.myspace.com/jadedfaith. I am on the left and all of the tones I used were Pete's mods. It's a video camera mic, but still pretty cool.
I'll start with my rig. For guitars I use a PRS Custom 22 10-top with Dragon II's and an American Fender Strat with a maple neck, 2 single coils and a SD Pearly Gates humbucker in the bridge. My pedal board is made up of a Crybaby 95Q, a Peterson Strobe II tuner and a ISP Decimator. Switching is done via a RF-4 (modules) and a Rocktron Midimate (FX). From the floor, the signal goes into my RM4, out the Preloop out into a Rocktron Xpression and into an Atomic AR212-50 (50 watts, 6L6's and loaded with 2 Celestion Century Vintage 12's).
I currently have 5 modules: Deluxe, Egnater VX, SL+, XTC and 1086. Pete modified the Deluxe, SL+ and XTC. Here is my take on each.
Deluxe:
I had the clarity and warmth mods done to this module. It now sounds like a richer version of itself with more depth to the notes. It seems to have a little more gain than it did before, but I also changed the tubes from EH to Tung-Sols when it came back. The higher gain settings are sweet and much improved from stock. I tend to run it sparkling clean most of the time and have the gain set at 9:00. Very comparable to a Twin Reverb with the ability to get nasty if need be, which is very cool. It really sounds like a good Fender amp now.
SL+:
In a word....WOW! This module really didn't do much for me before I sent it to Pete. The gain was lacking and the feel was very loose. Think "Lakini's Juice" by Live. I had clarity and warmth mods done, the Stock/JCM800 toggle switch added and a 3-way toggle added to switch between C3 bass caps (0.001, 0.002 and 0.0005uf). It is now my best high gain module by far. It has awesome tone and unmatched versatility. Individual notes in chords stand out instead of bleeding together. There is now more than enough gain. All three bass settings are tighter than stock. After initially liking the 0.002 setting on the bass switch best, I found myself using all three last week. We played 3 different venues and the low end needed to be adjusted differently for each. This was surprising, as I initially though I would only use it for rhythm/lead scenarios. Ironically, it proved most valuable to adjust for room and volume variables. The louder the amp was cranked, the tighter the C3 setting for optimal results (a result of the Fletcher Munson curve). I like the stock setting on the tone stack slightly better, but find myself using both. A very interesting discovery was that the shift in the tone stack and clarity mods allowed me to hear myself much better both in practice and on stage at lower volumes than I had to use previously. A nice "feature" that deserves praise. I run JJ's in this module and it now reminds me of a true Marshall roar.
XTC:
I had been on the fence with this module as well before sending it away. I was thinking it would be my lead module, but had been using a Brown instead. Pete did the clarity and warmth mods and added a push/pull pot on the gain knob to shift the mids. The best praise I can sing about this module is it now reminds me very much of both real Bogner Ecstasy and Uberschalls that I have had the pleasure of playing. It has the same note definition as the SL+, but it is a much thicker tone. It is great for thick, syrupy leads. An interesting application I found for it was as a rhythm channel for my Strat, which is much brighter and has a little less output than my PRS. It was a great way to get a better balance between these guitars and it thickened the maple Strat nicely. The only criticism I can give is that I don't really care for the mid shift when the knob is pulled out. It is quite scooped and the gain knob has very little range in this mode. It is pretty much all out distortion and tons of it. I think of this as "Uberschall-mode", as it really sounds like the Uberschalls I have played through. Although not my cup of tea, I can see how this might be perfect for some players.
Overall, I am in love with my amp and all of the work Pete has done. He was a pleasure to work with and very good about sharing his opinions and knowledge to help me get my modules where I like them. I plan to send him my 1086 soon for warmth and clarity mods, along with a push/pull knob for 2 different C3 settings. If anyone was on the fence, I would suggest sending your modules Pete's way. I went from having 9 modules I was fairly happy with to just 5 that cover most every tone I could want and do an amazing job of it.
As a side note, our other guitarists wife took a hand held video of a cover of the Breaking Benjamin tune "So Cold" we threw into our set last Friday night because the crowd was awesome. You can view it on our Myspace page at
www.myspace.com/jadedfaith. I am on the left and all of the tones I used were Pete's mods. It's a video camera mic, but still pretty cool.
