Streamlined simplicity belies a capacity for appetizing spring-style reverb tones.
Evocative and lively spring-style tones that work across disparate styles. Simple!
Pulsing reflections come on sooner than on some digital emulations. Some might like a darker basic voice.
Eastwood Dusty Spring eastwoodguitars.com
If, like many of us, you hail from a style-minded and vintage-oriented but budget-constrained segment of the populace, you’re probably grateful that Eastwood Guitars exists. Though the company’s offerings tend to favor the obscure, Eastwood is good at building functionally unique, well-made, and practical homages to weirdo styling. I know players who make Eastwood instruments front-line, first-choice guitars as much for their unique sound and feel as their looks.
Given their history, it’s easy to be tantalized by Eastwood’s new guitar-pedal endeavors. The new Black Box series may forego the flash that one associates with the brand. But they use much-loved vintage touchstones as a jumping-off point. And the uniform, utilitarian appearance of the pedals (which fits nicely with a certain branch of vintage-pedal aesthetics, if you think about it) helps Eastwood achieve more approachable pricing—another pillar of the company’s ethos. The Dusty Spring reverb, with its two knobs and very straight-ahead functionality, is an especially fine embodiment of the Black Box Series’ substance-before-style philosophy.Sprung From the Cage Digital approximations of spring reverb have always been tough to execute. For starters, the mechanical, clanging, and metallic overtones of a spring reverb are tough to reproduce in digital formats that aren’t high-horsepower, number-crunching DSP applications. Further, “authentic” spring reverb can be a lot of things. Even if you’re a Fender reverb purist, the spring in, say, a black-panel Vibrolux can sound pretty different from that in an outboard Fender Reverb. And that’s before considering the differences between those units and a Space Echo’s awesome spring sounds, or a Bandive Great British Spring, or a Grampian—or, for that matter, two different Fender Vibroluxes. As with most things music related, I take a very liberal view of what constitutes the “best” spring-reverb sound, so I didn’t listen for a spot-on Fender reproduction in the Dusty Spring. I’m glad, because what I heard is a spring-reverb approximation that sounds great on its own merits while delivering a lot of what any player—Fender fans included—would want from an affordable digital spring reverb. Pinging and Swinging The Dusty Spring’s economical layout—there are just controls for wet/dry mix and dwell, which is essentially decay time—means it’s very easy and intuitive to move between pretty disparate sounds. Such simplicity can feel like a gift from the gods if you have a busy pedalboard or want to make changes in the heat of a set. But what makes that simplicity doubly satisfying here is that both ends of the Dusty Spring’s range produce tasty takes on spring-reverb flavor.Such simplicity can feel like a gift from the gods if you have a busy pedalboard or want to make changes in the heat of set. More subdued settings are soft around the edges while retaining the ghostly, nostalgic sense of space that gives spring reverb its emotional tug. It’s a cool balance when you find it. Splashier and more extreme settings are super fun as well. The Dusty Spring probably resides narrowly on the slightly brighter side of the spring-sound spectrum (again, it’s a very broad category), and that makes the effect quite lively. It might also accentuate the hard, almost pulsing reflections that spring reverbs and digital spring emulations usually produce, which come on at relatively lower dwell settings here. No matter how right or wrong that may sound to your ears on its own, it sounded great in the context of small-ensemble playing, where the percolating reverberations added a dose of kinetic energy.The Verdict The Dusty Spring is aptly named. There’s an earthiness to the pedal in the way it sticks to spring-style sounds without trying to get too celestial, which often equates to sounding too digital. There are audible trace elements of digital artifacts at the wettest, most ambient settings when heard in isolation. Then again, a spring reverb can produce its own strange overtones at the advanced settings, some of which won’t sound quintessentially Joe Meek- or Dick Dale-style either. The streamlined controls are authentically old-school and provide a useful creative-decision constraint without significantly diminishing the breadth of tones. There are reverbs that do more in the Dusty Spring’s vaguely-$150 price range. But few offer such a nice cross of elegant simplicity and vintage-patina’d tones. Eastwood Black Box Pedal Demos | First Look
Given their history, it’s easy to be tantalized by Eastwood’s new guitar-pedal endeavors. The new Black Box series may forego the flash that one associates with the brand. But they use much-loved vintage touchstones as a jumping-off point. And the uniform, utilitarian appearance of the pedals (which fits nicely with a certain branch of vintage-pedal aesthetics, if you think about it) helps Eastwood achieve more approachable pricing—another pillar of the company’s ethos. The Dusty Spring reverb, with its two knobs and very straight-ahead functionality, is an especially fine embodiment of the Black Box Series’ substance-before-style philosophy.
Digital approximations of spring reverb have always been tough to execute. For starters, the mechanical, clanging, and metallic overtones of a spring reverb are tough to reproduce in digital formats that aren’t high-horsepower, number-crunching DSP applications. Further, “authentic” spring reverb can be a lot of things. Even if you’re a Fender reverb purist, the spring in, say, a black-panel Vibrolux can sound pretty different from that in an outboard Fender Reverb. And that’s before considering the differences between those units and a Space Echo’s awesome spring sounds, or a Bandive Great British Spring, or a Grampian—or, for that matter, two different Fender Vibroluxes. As with most things music related, I take a very liberal view of what constitutes the “best” spring-reverb sound, so I didn’t listen for a spot-on Fender reproduction in the Dusty Spring. I’m glad, because what I heard is a spring-reverb approximation that sounds great on its own merits while delivering a lot of what any player—Fender fans included—would want from an affordable digital spring reverb.
The Dusty Spring’s economical layout—there are just controls for wet/dry mix and dwell, which is essentially decay time—means it’s very easy and intuitive to move between pretty disparate sounds. Such simplicity can feel like a gift from the gods if you have a busy pedalboard or want to make changes in the heat of a set. But what makes that simplicity doubly satisfying here is that both ends of the Dusty Spring’s range produce tasty takes on spring-reverb flavor.
More subdued settings are soft around the edges while retaining the ghostly, nostalgic sense of space that gives spring reverb its emotional tug. It’s a cool balance when you find it. Splashier and more extreme settings are super fun as well. The Dusty Spring probably resides narrowly on the slightly brighter side of the spring-sound spectrum (again, it’s a very broad category), and that makes the effect quite lively. It might also accentuate the hard, almost pulsing reflections that spring reverbs and digital spring emulations usually produce, which come on at relatively lower dwell settings here. No matter how right or wrong that may sound to your ears on its own, it sounded great in the context of small-ensemble playing, where the percolating reverberations added a dose of kinetic energy.
The Dusty Spring is aptly named. There’s an earthiness to the pedal in the way it sticks to spring-style sounds without trying to get too celestial, which often equates to sounding too digital. There are audible trace elements of digital artifacts at the wettest, most ambient settings when heard in isolation. Then again, a spring reverb can produce its own strange overtones at the advanced settings, some of which won’t sound quintessentially Joe Meek- or Dick Dale-style either. The streamlined controls are authentically old-school and provide a useful creative-decision constraint without significantly diminishing the breadth of tones. There are reverbs that do more in the Dusty Spring’s vaguely-$150 price range. But few offer such a nice cross of elegant simplicity and vintage-patina’d tones.
It's time for everyone's favorite giveaway, STOMPBOXTOBER! Enter here for your chance to win the just announced PRS Mary Cries Optical Compressor! Come back tomorrow for another chance to win.
The PRS Mary Cries optical compressor pedal is intuitive and sounds incredible. Based on the storied LA-2A, Mary Cries will thicken your tone, help control signal peaks, lengthen sustain, and push your tone without losing definition or clarity. Depending on your settings, it can be used as a boost as well as a straightforward compressor. PRS pedals were created to be high-end pieces of audio gear. Designed by PRS Guitars in Stevensville, MD, USA. Made in the USA
With its powerful speaker and long-lasting lithium battery, the Nomad is the ideal solution for portable premium tone.
The guitar amp everyone can't stop talking about is back and better than ever!
Templo Device's iconic NOMAD rechargeable lithium-battery powered guitar amp is making a return with new and improved features that will take your playing to new heights.
With its compact design and lightweight neodymium speaker, this amp is decked out to allow you to play wherever you want.
Featuring a new 3-way tone switch and a real spring reverb, the NOMAD 2.0 is designed to please even the pickiest of tone hounds.
The microphone tone is better than ever, with a handy XLR microphone input and retains the indispensable 9 volt output to power your pedals. The presale is now open with limited quantities and you won't find anything else like this on the market. Make sure you get your hands on this unit before it sells out again!
For more information, please visit templodevices.com.
A line of stompboxes designed by PRS.
PRS Guitars enters into the pedal world with three all-new stompboxes. Designed by PRS Guitars in Stevensville, Maryland and made in the USA, the lineup consists of a Transparent Overdrive, Optical Compressor, and Dual Flanger.
“This whole concept started in my home studio. When recording, I was looking for tones and textures I couldn’t get straight from the guitar. When I couldn’t find what I was looking for, I would build a device with the help of some friends. That’s how the first pedal prototypes were born,” said Paul Reed Smith. “Over time, we all got so excited by them, that we decided to offer them to more players. I think these first three designs are the start of something very cool."
The PRS Horsemeat transparent overdrive is a from-scratch circuit designed to enhance guitar tone without coloring it. Using germanium diodes, Horsemeat will give throatiness without sounding nasal or too high-pitched and harmonic richness by boosting both low- and high-end frequencies, all while providing more available headroom. Depending on the setting, the PRS Horsemeat can be used as a clean boost, straight overdrive, or even enhance an amplifier’s distortion by slightly pushing the front end of the amp’s preamp section. In essence, “Horsemeat sounds a lot like a good amp.” – Paul Reed Smith
The PRS Mary Cries optical compressor is based on the storied LA-2A and helps to harness players’ dynamic audio range. When engaged, Mary Cries can boost clean tone, add sustain to leads, help control signal peaks, and push guitar tone without losing definition or clarity. By using the output/gain control and leaving the compression control low, players can also use Mary Cries as a boost pedal.
The PRS Wind Through the Trees dual flanger is best described as two flangers fighting each other, resulting in a sound that is reminis- cent of the wind whipping through the trees. Use the PRS Wind Through the Trees to create airy harmonics, moody frequency swirls, jet-engine swooshes, and fluctuating warbles.
All PRS pedals feature through-hole soldering, which broadened the component selection and allowed for the best-sounding parts to be used. PRS pedals are also true bypass, so they are out of the signal chain when turned off, allowing players to have uncolored tone at the tip of their toes. More info at prsguitars.com.