The new Electric Lamb pedal is a spin-off the award-winning Electric Sheep overdrive. It can be qualified as an ‘edge overdrive’ which means that the pedal can be set on an ‘edge’ position where dynamics of your guitar playing will determine the amount of overdrive.

On this setting, playing lightly will keep a chosen clean tone and hitting the strings with more force will allow the natural tube-like overdrive to be expressed.

On stage, this setting is really useful as, once the pedal is set on your required ‘edge’ position, you do not need to come back on the controls, letting you select the type of tone you need only with your fingers and playing dynamics.

2-Full adaptivity

Thanks to its complete controls, the Electric Lamb will suit any guitar, amp or guitar-amp combo or pick-up combination. Its FAT control is particulary useful to beef-up a trebly pick-up or at the opposite, thin a low-end humbucker. Therefore, the ‘edge’ function will always be available for any kind of electric guitar.

3-Going farther

At both side of the gain spectrum, the Electric Lamb can be used as a fully effective clean boost, still with fatness at hand, or as a high-gain overdrive thanks to its PRE control which add more gain just as a preamp control on a tube amp.

All these settings can be achieved with natural premium tonal qualities that can compete with any high-end boost or overdrive pedal thanks to the original circuit derived from the Electric Sheep.

4-Not a clone

Unlike most of today pedals on the market, the Electric Lamb circuit is not a clone of ANY existing pedal and as been developed after years of listening and experimenting on overdrive pedal circuitry.

Even our Silent true-bypass switching is a proprietary design of Jacques pedals.

The post Electric Lamb appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

We often – if always – took the freedom to replace unavailable resistor, cap or even transistor with our closest possible. Needless to say that very few of our projects ever uttered any sound at all, let alone work somehow. But, by the end of those hazardous experiments, we had learnt a lot about transistors, and had some of our ugly boxes start to give good tones.

Eventually we broke down and bought us some decent stuff like nice soldering irons – I had a blue wooden 100 watter made for plumbing applications ! — and a nice array of correct components.

But, mysteriously, most of our new ‘improved’ projects had a much cheesier sound than their scavenged incestors. It took us years to understand why :

The new, clean and straight transistors were Silicium.

2 – The VOX and MARSHALL riddle
Back then, two of my fave bands were — and still are — Deep Purple and Queen. And both of their guitarist used TREBLE BOOSTERS.

That really made me wonder why in this world do they want this artefact : Aping them, I tried to plug my EH Screaming Bird into my tube Marshall. Even in a friend beautiful old AC30. And the ice-pick ear piercing tone I got was so far from their beautiful sustained sweet tone, that really let me puzzled.

Years later, the web brought me the solution : their treble booster was GERMANIUM fueled.

3 – BaGy’s got a temper
Ok, so we now all know that Germanium sounds much better in a treble booster . But problem is that, on an industrial scale, this scarce element — see world production and future supplies — is a real pain-in-the-ass . While silicium transistors are very consistent, the Ge ones tend to differ one from his brother of the same ref and brand, in a spectacular manner.

The solution : none : I still have to HAND-TUNE EVERY KATAPULT while monitoring its tone with an electric guitar and amp. So heat up your tube amp, and prepare yourself for a JACQUES taylored tone like in Old Bond street.

3 katapult flavors :

1- TREBLE switch position : Classic germanium treble booster so great on dark vintage tube amps such as classic pre-top boost VOX AC30

2-MID switch position : Same classic tube amp booster voiced for top boost AC30 or plexi Marshall

3-FULL range switch position : can accomodate any amp for an addictive pure boost tone

4 – Be true to your amp
I have been asked a thousand times why I do not use true by-pass switching in my pedals. Well, for me, a good buffer is much better because I use a lot of pedals in my sound chain.

But this time, I have thought that this pedal could be used alone with a legendary amp. Thus , knowing my love for vintage amps — see my boutique in France 1001 Guitares — I went for a very efficient relay-based true by-pass switch that allies precision and reality. I see some of you tone-freaks smiling…

5- Video demo

The post katapult appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

1- Studio Quality analog delay

It is often referred to analog delay as low-fi tone. It’s a mistake. While it sounds less bright than crispy analog, a pro quality analog delay must satisfy all fidelity exigence of a working musician. In the old days, you could bet there was a difference between cheap plastic analog delay pedal and big bucks studio rack. I remember a Dynacord studio analog delay —one of my fave— costed the price of 2 stratocasters ! This is what we did in the PRISONER delay : thanks to its high quality N.O.S. BBD chips, the PRISONER offers 0.3 seconds of pure hi-fi analog delay… but there’s much more…

2- Dry guitar tone when the effect is on

As you must know, when you stomp on a delay box, you hear the wet AND the dry guitar tone. What you absolutely should know is that in digital delay, even the DRY tone is digitalized, which means that how good the delay is, the dry tone which mixes with it is lousy. Try your main digital squeeze with all delay down and compare it with your original guitar tone. You will see what I mean. Of course, no such thing with the PRISONER : the dry tone in the mix is exactly your guitar tone. Believe me, this makes a huge difference and this is part of why we still want analog delay in our computerized world.

3- Modulation !!!!

This is the PRISONER forte. When meeting Steve Morse for the MERCER BOX 2, I noticed he was using an old digitech rack crap. I asked him why, the answer was clear : modulation delay. Having your echoes mixing with your —good— dry tone and then going into chorus gives you a 3D tone no other effect can give you in monophony. And analog pro tone completes this picture for total heaven.

4- Magic Effect level knob

Just like in the MEISTERSINGER,  crazy tones can be musical thanks to this magic knob . Adjust your most out-of-this-world fave setting and then use it with parsimony with the EFFECT LEVEL knob to achieve tonal expertise.

5-Video demo

The post Prisoner appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Designed to combine in the best way modulation and distortion, the BÊTE NOIRE © recreates plexi tube amp natural distortion with a complete array of controls, and features an inboard vintage analog Phasing effect ideally mixable or used separately.

A newly engineered circuit tailors The BÊTE NOIRE © amp-like distortion, giving phasing modulation perfect room size to breathe.

– European quality construction
– New plexi distortion circuit
– « Brown » switch mode
– « Variac » gain control
– Built-in analog phasing
– Effects can be used separately or mixed to perfection
– New « Chomp » bass attack control
– Acclaimed Silent True Bypass switch
– 9v standard operation

Plexi distortion, Variac gain and Brown tone

Arguably, the best distortion tone ever achieved for an electric guitar is a cranked-up plexi Marshall amp. The magic that occurs when all UK Mullard EL34 tubes and Partridge transformers go into distortion realm is hard to replicate, even for Marshall themselves.

Being a vintage amp collector, I have carefully listen to these marvelous amps, from original JTM45 to its majesty plexi JMP 100w for all details and responses to guitar playing, leading me to the BETE NOIRE circuit which, to my point of earing, nails this tone and most importantly, mimes the response to your playing an original plexi will have.

I have also carefully read and try what famous owners of these amps have done, and retained the best three features:

1-VARIAC : this control not only rise the gain but at the same time provides the current sag preventing the distortion high spikes for a smoother tone

2-BROWN : Still , most high gain tones need more EQ smoothing to reproduce the famous organic feel of a raging yet controled vintage plexi amp. The BROWN switch was painstakingly taylored to obtain the whole subtleties of this legendary sound.

3-CHOMP : Part of this legendary tone is of course the original 1960 cabinet with greenback Celestion speakers. Therefore the bass managing was a constant research for this pedal, leading us to this built-from-scratch tone control which allows a perfect tuning of the low band frequencies.

Lush analog phasing

There again , my nasty collector’s habits served my purpose. As one of my fave effects since the ’70s, I have collected and played every single vintage phase effects of the classic era. But not all these mesmerizing units would complement well a plexi distortion. The best marriage advice was a battered script logo MXR phase 90 so we built our phasing circuit around this tone, beautiful when used alone and perfectly matching our plexi distortion.

Silent True Bypass

Of course the BETE NOIRE features our acclaimed silent true bypass switching system based of Hall effect , in order to get the best of both stombox systems.

Appendix

The Beast of Gévaudan
Terrorizing Kingdom of France in the 18th century

In 1765, King Louis XV sent two professional wolf-hunters, Jean Charles Marc Antoine Vaumesle d’Enneval and his son Jean-François as well as First captain Duhamel of the Clermont-Ferrand Dragoons and his troops in Le Gévaudan to catch or kill a calf-size beast with monster teeth and tail that alledgedly committed 210 attacks on human beings, killing 113 and injuring 98, most of them with their throats torn out.
On September 20th, 1765, Antoine eventually killed a large wolf identified as the culprit by attack survivors who recognised the scars on its body. The animal was stuffed and sent to Versailles but it did not stop the attacks.
In 1767, a local huntsman, Jean Chastel, shot another beast with a large caliber bullet and chevrotines combination, self-made with silver and eventually marked the end of the attacks.
Of this scary beast story we kept the expression « Bête Noire » and even exported it.

The post Bête Noire appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

DOUBLE HI-GAIN DISTORTION CIRCUIT
– First circuit is modelled on classic ’70s metal distortion modded Marshall amps type. This circuit is only adjustable with the LEVEL and FUZZ knobs.
– Second circuit is an extended ultra high-gain modern distortion , with adjustable low end — WINGS –, mid boost — FANGS– and treble bite — RADAR. This dangerous circuit shares with the ’70s the LEVEL and FUZZ knobs.
-An unique MIX knob let you MIX & MORPH the 2 circuits for an incredible array of tones from past to future metal.

ULTRA PRECISE ACTIVE EQ

All the secrets of a good metal tone lies in precise equalization. This is why the 3 actives controls are fully effective in ALL positions, thus allowing a perfect taylored tone with any guitar/amp couple

Ok, maybe she’s in her forties now, but it’s not too late to impress the girl next door.

This preset makes you save $1500 and the drag to tune an extra string.

This preset makes you save $100 and a pedal space on your rack.

This preset makes you save $50 and 2 hours at a romantic restaurant.

Even your best friends won’t recognize you with that ugly haircut, tattooes and piercing–unless you put your glasses back on.

« Ich glotz TV!!! » —Nina Hagen first LP tone

This only because it’s too loud and will destroy your hearing. Nothing to do with « Elisa ».Really.

Yes, this preset is yours .You can write your own settings directly on your computer screen, or carve it with a strong knife.

Here is a video presenting the Batfuzz !

The post Batfuzz appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

1 – 100% discrete circuitry : No op-amps !
2 – Handmade using large circuit board avoiding parasite capacitor effects
3 – High-end transistors with carefully controlled data from Philips and Fairchild
4 – Selected and hand-measured passive components.
5 – NOT-A-CLONE : Completely new circuit architecture created from scratch

1- Transistor v/s op amps

2- The 70/80 control

low GAIN – high 70/80  = Classic creamy overdrive

high GAIN – low 70/80 = Hendrian low fuzzface overdrive tone

3- The HB/SC control

Of course, this very useful control can also be used to give the desired body a trebly pick-up . Don’t miss the special treat of a bass-beefed-up telecaster treble pick-up this function can achieve, even in low gain / clean boost settings.

4- From clean boost to raging overdrive

5- Paraphernalia

6 – Video Demos

First Electric Sheep endorser : Joe Bonamassa !

7 – Suggested Settings

The post Electricsheep appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

1 – Three Fuse Blowers in 1 compact pedal

Further than its distinctive own growl, The FUSE BLOWER II ‘s three distortion engines allow any classic vintage distortion tones as well as modern « shredding » solo sounds.  Versatility and personality can at least live in peace in a compact pedal. Each EQ knob is a FUSEBLOWER voiced differently:

This 3 different distortions can be set independently one from each other, thus allowing any tailored combination. Yes, you will spend more time finding your own signature tone but now with the fb2 will eventually let you perform distortion sculpting as an art form as opposed to factory presets. Be unique.

2 – Dynamics and reactivity

A distortion pedal must follow the guitar signal , in order to react to the guitarist playing shades. A simple test is to lower the guitar volume and observe if the distortion amount decrease accordingly. The FUSE BLOWER II excels in preserving the original tone of the guitar pick-ups as well as the sound of the amplifier it is plugged in, unlike many effects which  give the same tone on any gear.

3 – Analog technology and noise ratio

Using old time analog technology ,The FUSE BLOWER II insures nevertheless a noise ratio compatible with modern digital recording, giving electric guitar takes the authenticity they badly need.

J.Mascis about the FB2 :
‘Hi Jacques I have been using the fuseblower in front of my early 70’s big muff when I want to punch things into total fuzz.
I have all knobs all the way up and use it while the big muff is also on.  It cuts through so I can play solos with maximum fuzz.
Nice work J’

4 – Road test

Before public marketing, the FUSE BLOWER II has been tested on tour by European professional guitarists, already users of JACQUES STOMPBOXES hand-made FUSE BLOWER, under special no-mercy stage abuses. The optimal results allow a 3 year no-questions-asked  10 days replacement warranty .
Stay tuned and thanks again to all of you who have made all this possible.

5 – Audio demo
Here are the settings used in the soundclips page :

Phone BBC to know if they still broadcast live shows featuring rockstars on exotic drugs. Buy your sidemen oversized afro wigs. During the show, never close your mouth and do not open your eyes unless there is danger of physical damage to the audience.For  hero status, thumb your low E string and tooth your B string.

Well, it is always useful to get this boogie tone in case too many empty beer bottles are flying by your nose. Maybe your rendition of  beautiful Chopin preludes was not what these overweight cowboys had in mind after a hard day at work. Do not be stubborn and start « Sweet home Chicago » right away.

A border-sexed wriggling lippy singer is trying to steal your thunder? No sweat. Dial in this classic tone and hit five strings major power chords boldly. Focus on the drunk groupies waiting in your private jet for better angst.

It is time or never to free all these tapping chops you have been hiding in your closet for years. This wailing sustain gives you the gut to affront the guitar intelligentsia mockery with foolish pride. Anyway,when you are at the restaurant with your favorite guitar hero, choose tofu steak over fatty burgers to maximize your credibility.

Search your friends’ attics for non-working tranny amps and rotten Korean axes in order to perform economic amp bashing . Buy blank score sheets to make believe you are writing a rock opera. Try to find a healthy enough singer to last until he can get casted in a wacky sci-fi TV show. Contract tinitus in the process.

6 – Video demo

The post Fuseblower appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

1 – The flanging effect
It is not quite clear who invented the word flange for this wonderful effect. Peter Sellers during the Goon show or Lennon at the BBC recording ?  The effect itself was invented by BBC sound masters who put their greasy fingers on the rim ( flange ) of one of the tape reels of the simultaneous tape decks playing the same recording. This resulted to a sweeping effect we all know and adore. Thanks again to all these great guys and girl.

2 – BBD chip
Once again, the superiority of analog delay chips to produce this time based effect is easy to prove : the BBD chip retains the sounds in its guts of caps and resistors much more naturally than any coding digital chip that have to translate it in computer language.
Just observe the right return to vinyl recording in hifi these days and you’ll understand why analog will always sounds better than digital encoding, no matter how many Hz and bits you will align in our musician front.
You can see on the picture the vintage mutron that has inspired me all along this creation process of a holy grail flanger, not counting how hard it was to find it on the vintage market !

3 – The J.S.Bach effect
Nevertheless, you will still have to inbreathe musicality to sound circuitry whatever electronic base you put in an effect. This is performed only by trying and listening.
ALL components affects the way your signal is processed and it’s only when you explore all possibilities BY EAR that you reach the supreme goal : Great Music Tone.
This is what I did with the KAPELLMEISTER, sparing no effort in choosing all components in the signal path in order to achieve a standard.

4 – And now, let’s crank this amp up !
During all these tests, our beloved KAPELLMEISTER was tested both with great clean tube amps ( ’65 deluxe reverb , Hiwatt Custom 100 heads, etc…) AND raging overdriven legendary amps ( ’68 Marshall plexi, JMI top boost Vox ac30, etc….), because it is a very crucial point on a flanger.
Good flangers must sound good with distortion, letting you enhance your soli with swirling rotating effect, a la EVH.
And the KAPELLMEISTER excels in this exercise. Satisfaction guaranteed.

5 – Audio/Video demo

The post Kapellmeister appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

-Best possible circuit geometry

-Selected High-Quality components only

The Gleen Gould movie: Glenn Gould and a man, certainly a musicologue, are in a black and white studio. Glenn Gould is at the piano, and starts playing with incredible maestria. The other man, striked by such artistic technique, just says: -« Meistersinger ? »
Glenn Gould turns his head toward the man, and seems to notice his presence for the first time. While going on playing in an inexorable beauty, he just answers:
-« What else? »

The MEISTERSINGER is an hommage to the best analog chorus made in the past .
First the TC electronic chorus/flanger , from which the Meister took its inspiration for super-silent operation AND great, pure and professionnal chorusing, while offering a wider frequency range signal than its scandinavian ancester. Then Boss/Roland of course, which sort of invented it, granted us with such wonderful effect as, CE1, CE2, Dimension D, Dimension C and my favorite ever, included in this obscure SH09 string keyboard I already covered on my site. CORON too, with its incredibly cheap looking plastic wonder and last but not least the great EH Small Clone.

Troy Van Leeuwen and his Meistersinger

But the MEISTERSINGER is not a model: it is a true ANALOG delay chips chorus , like they were. It is no imitation, but the real thing. You can count on the fingers of Django Reinhardt the other real analog chorus on the market today.
The reasons why analog chorus , or any analog time based effect, sounds better than digital are numerous, But the main one to me is that the detuned tone produced to be mixed with the original, is not exactly the same than the original .
Just like would be another guitarist playing along with you :

French guitarist Jean-Louis Aubert pedalboard during Les Insus tour

1 – THE INVISIBLE COMPANION
Chorus was invented to make believe you are not alone. It mimes two musician playing the same thing at the same time, thus enriching tone like in a choir. Most digital chorus tends, in this process, to kill punch and dynamics, an even more obvious defect with electric guitar. The model processors are plagued with this same problem, because of the same difficulty for digital encoding to transmit the dynamics of your playing in real time.

 2 – THE DROP ZONE
It is quite strange nobody ever evokes this simple strategy. When you manipulate hand-tweakable chorus effects ( like the old MXR rack or ADA pitchtraq) you notice a very obvious matter: c horus effect sounds twice better with a negative detune than a positive one. The reason could be a deeper body of the resulting mix or a more complicated comb hamronics effect. Anyway this option was chosen for the MEISTERSINGER, which fears no one for the best chorus tone ever. No kidding.

GNO‘s Chris Godin : « The Meister is so good I can eat it. »3 – VIDEO DEMO

The post Meistersinger appeared first on Jacques Stompboxes.

Introduction
There is a big difference between classical and rock music. I once asked a pro classical pianist friend of mine, Helene, to play the 19th Goldberg variatio for me. She never played it before, and could not remember it. So, she just grabbed the score, put in on her piano, and within 3 minutes, she could play it in a wonderful way for my greatest pleasure.
What if I have asked for « Foxy Lady » ?.
When it comes to modern music, no matter how good you are at reading scores,
you’ll go nowhere without a complete knowledge in tone.
You can play Bach on any instrument but in case of rock music, tone is part of the music itself.

The MERCER BOX 2 contains all my knowledge in distortion tone and will transmit it via its outstanding controls.
Featuring the widest distortion tonal range ever achieved, from CLEAN to the HIGHEST GAIN, and performing the BEST CLEAN-UP of all time, the MB2 will change your perception of guitar tone forever.

1 – The tone of distortion
I handcraft distortions, and have been doing this very peculiar electronic experimentation since 1973.
When I came to mass production, my idea was to benefit from the comfort of high-tech manufacturing while keeping the handcraft tone.
In the case of the Mercer Box 2, never before has a stompbox benefited from the best of both worlds.
Using discrete components for tone and hightech components for non-tone, we merged my best handmade designs into a coherent electronic device.
Its tone is based on my best handmade Mercer Box which emulates the heavenly union between perfect fuzz pedals and raging plexi 100watters.
The resulting complex interaction, known as the best guitar tones ever heard by human ears is now available in a modern compact stompbox.
If you think this is exaggerated, you should have seen the look in Steve Morse’s eyes when he played it… and Steve even asked me to autograph the MercerBox2 #1 for him.

2 – Controls
You could expect an unusual concept like the Mercer Box to act differently.
Of course, every Mercer Box potentiometer has its own tropism, a goal where it aims.
HATE introduces an immense low rage, while lack of LOVE takes off the harmonics and gain.
BLOOD brings intense life and FUZZ brings in distortion with no limits.

LOVE & FUZZ , The two gain controls of the Mercer Box work as pushing on the brakes and the gas at the same time : that ‘heel toe’ method transfers the distortion weight for different tones.

But none of these parameters act alone : they all depend one from the others.

« I am not a number..I’m a free man ! »

4 – The Mercer Clean Tone
The Mercer Box is one of the rare high-gain distortion pedal to offer a clean tone, not to say the only one.
Directly inherited from my handmade Mercer, it is a stronger, warmer, yet clear tone,
when compared to by-passed tone.
Very reminiscent of the best tube amps and so addictive, you could let the Mercer on all the time.
Or buy a second Mercer Box for distortion.

The eyes of vision : PHILIP K.DICK (1928-1982)

• *It is worth noting that the Mercer Box first appeared in Philip K.Dick 1964 short story ‘The little black box’.

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