“I am proud to announce my first signature pedal, the DETOX EQ by H.B.E. (HomeBrew Electronics)
I’ve been using this pedal for the last few months and I am officially addicted to it.
Why an EQ? Here’s a detailed answer:
I have always liked to get distortion by playing through a cranked-up tube amp.
I have always liked to get a clean sound by turning my guitar’s volume knob down.
This works really well with some guitars and not so well with others, depending on the pickups and electronics in the guitar. On my Spaceship One tour, my main guitar was an Ibanez Rocket Roll II (Flying V shaped) guitar with two humbuckers. This guitar sounds amazing when it’s cranked up, but it doesn’t get that sparkly clean sound like I can get from the pickups on a PGM (which has a single coil and a 5-way switch).
To solve this problem, I bought a Boss EQ pedal and used it to turn down the “muddy” frequencies as well as turning down the overall gain. The pedal became a virtual “clean channel” and was really useful for cleaning up my sound while performing live.
But the Boss EQ was hissy (even though I wasn’t boosting anything), and the frequencies weren’t set as musically I would have liked.
Recently I have been using several pedals from H.B.E. and liked everything about them. So I contacted the people there to see if they would be interested in building the ultimate EQ pedal for me. And the DETOX EQ was born!
The DETOX EQ is noise-free and has very musically tuned EQ knobs. I used it to make subtle adjustments to my tone on the United States CD, and I’ve road tested it on my European tour. I love it!
(If you look at photos of my pedalboard, I’m still using my prototype which is a gray box with red tape on it. I got a new one from H.B.E. and let Craig Martini use it for his bass rig. That one is yellow. I’m going to switch to a new one when I get home!)
Anyway, whether you use the pedal to clean up, boost, or just tailor your tone, there is no EQ pedal that touches the DETOX in quality in tone. H.B.E. did an awesome job.
Check out the Detox EQ Pedal here
> I like noise-free pedals! Paul, is there a demo of you playing it anywhere?
Sound samples using this pedal, recorded by Paul, are here.
Notes written by Paul, about the usage of this pedal, are here.
A review of this pedal is here.
Check out the song called “Bad Times Good” from the United States CD. This song has a bunch of cool clean tones that I got using the Detox EQ into a cranked-up Marshall amp.
> Do you use the Detox EQ for your current lead tone, ala Curse of Castle Dragon solo or is that something else?
> (any idea when these hit the streets?)
My basic tone and distortion come from the Marshall Vintage Modern amp.
I use an H.B.E. Bajo Mos booster to drive the amp harder for solos.
I also use an H.B.E. CPR compressor for more sustain.
The Bajo Mos is very tight and accurate sounding. The CPR is looser and more organic. Sometimes I use them separately. Sometimes I turn them both on if I want heaps of distortion and sustain.
Lately I have also been using a Keeley Nova Wah for the solo on “Castle Dragon”.
The Detox I use mainly as a virtual “clean channel”. But it sounds really cool with the CPR compressor before it. With both those pedal “on”, I can get lots of sustain, but with a clean sound and very little noise.
Thank you for being interested in the details!”
Here is a link to a brief write-up on Paul’s official site.
(Jenn says: This entire post is excerpted from the Racer X board, Guitarist forum folder, and is straight from Paul. These pedals are already available for purchase.)
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Links:
Enjoy!
Tags: 2009 ibanez guitars, AF2, Airplane Flanger, bio, concert, Detox EQ, Fireman, Freddie Nelson, freddienelson, interview, Japan, lyrics, metal, Mr. Big, NAMM, Paul Gilbert, paulgilbert, pedal, PGM, PGM 401, Racer X, review, rock, setlist, tour, United States, unitedstates, video
June 3, 2009 at 6:50 am
For more details, Jenn (aka Metalichicka) did a great blog post about Paul Gilbert, check it out!