Guyatone Dynamic or volume pedals

This pedal is from the Mighty Micro line of effects from Guyatone. These are professional grade pedals with a small footprint that won't take a lot of room on your board. Like all Mighty Micros, the SSm5 is true bypass and rugged to take on the road. I'm a professional musician, educator, and writer. I also play in a cover band and enjoy playing a variety of styles. I received the SSm5 from Godlyke Distributing to review. They retail for $119, which is a great investment for the versatility and quality you get from this unit. <a href="http://www.godlyke.com">http://www.godlyke.com</a> The SSm5 Sonic Shaper has 3 knobs: Level, Color, and Shape. In addition, there's a switch to turn the color function on and off and there's also an input attenuator for use with a variety of guitars. The Mighty Micro line is very well thought out. They feature a solid aluminum housing with a 'Stomp Guard' across the top so that you don't accidentally stomp on the smaller switches located on the unit. The input/output jacks are located on the back of the pedal keeping in line with the smaller size, you can also squeeze more of these pedals on your board side by side. The knobs are very musical for any style you play. The 'Color' knob sweeps across frequencies to enhance a particular range helping you seat your guitar in a mix. The 'Shape' knob enhances different harmonics to emphasize particular tonal characteristics of your guitar. The sound really needs to be heard to understand what this can do for your sound! I use this pedal in my board as a clean boost with a little emphasis in the mid-range when I'm soloing. I find this application perfect for this pedal. I can't think of anything I would change on this pedal. It works perfectly in my rig and I'm always glad I have it there to help aid in the texture and color of my overall sound or more often - as a great boost pedal! The construction of this pedal is professional quality. I've been using this pedal and others in the Mighty Micro lineup for close to 2 years now and I haven't had an issue. The knobs have a tight feel and the engage button is a single switch that feels great. The unit is very quiet as well in bypass mode or engaged. If you have every pedal you can think of and you're STILL missing that certain sound, this may be what you need. If you don't like using effects but need to shape your sound or 'tune' your sound to particular rooms, this pedal will help you achieve that also. https://www.youtube.com/johngorbe#p/u/13/xWwSxfu1-cA <img src="http://www.musicgearreview.com/dbpix/SSm5.jpg" /> This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Guyatone SV2 “Slow Volume” is a unique pedal for electric guitar. It’s an auto volume swell pedal, which isn’t something too many pedal manufacturers are making. It’s got your basic pedal characteristics with ¼” connections for input and output and require 9 volts of power from a battery (or power supply). It’s of course not rackable since it’s engaged with your foot. UTILIZATION It’s really easy to set the controls for the Guyatone SV2. Getting all of the sounds you want from it at the right times will definitely take some practice, but still since it’s only got two knobs, it’s not exactly rocket science. These parameters are for output level and input/threshold. It’s tough to explain how these effect the swells but it’s fairly simple once you play with it for a minute to see what each does. No manual is necessary. SOUND QUALITY What the Guyatone SV2 does for your sound is definitely something that will interest many guitarists out there. If you’re not a fan or not able to do volume swells with the volume pot on your guitar or a designated volume foot pedal, this can help you achieve that same sound with simpler controls. It’s great for electric guitar, but I’d still recommend using a traditional volume pedal for a lap or pedal steel, although this can definitely be cool in addition. OVERALL OPINION The Guyatone SV2 is a very cool pedal for those interested in volume swells. It comes from a reliable place in Guyatone and is unique for how it’s made up. It’s definitely worth a look for those who want to do easier swells and maybe not have to think about using your picking hand to control it. Even if you do like doing that too, this can be beneficial to you to get some new sounds in that vein. Either way, it’s definitely fun to play with!

This is a pretty basic compressor. It actually functions well as a limiter, though there is some flattening of dynamics on the lower end. It is an analog compressor. There are the simple 1/4" input and output and an adapter for a power supply, though my used version did not have a power supply, so I had to daisy chain it from my boss tuner. It cannot be edited with Computers, is not MIDI-capable, and isn't rackable. UTILIZATION I think that the effects editing couldn't be much easier, if it is a bit limited (no pun intended!). The setup is pretty simple. There are two knobs, one for output and one for threshold. The output controls the overall volume, and threshold sets the limit for where the effects starts to compress. This can make the pedal function as a limiter as well as be a great sustainer. There isn't much really in terms of variety though, as there are only the two knobs. SOUND QUALITY I've played compressors that I've liked a bit more. However, they were way more than I paid for this one. I think that if you need a compressor in a pinch, this thing is solid. It's a pretty good compressor if you need it for leads, just don't expect to get much extra volume out of it as it's noisy at higher volumes. Even when you match the natural volume you get a bit too much noise for my liking. I won't be gigging with this unless another compressor I have breaks. OVERALL OPINION I liked the price of this pedal the best, honestly. It was also easy to adjust on the fly with only the two knobs. However, the sound quality wasn't my favorite. It was neither the worst or the best I'd ever heard. I would say that even though for the price I paid it was ok, I can't really recommend it, just because there are so many better ones floating around out there. Most likely you can find a better one for a similar price.