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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
 Posted - 01/23/2006 : 10:35:02
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| Thanks Visserman. It does seem that a lot of the negative reviews are from people who apparently never tested the pedal before before they brought it home - mostly Blues/classic rock players expecting a usual distortion device or metalheads. |
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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
Posted - 01/23/2006 : 10:39:33
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| Is it an udder version Milkbox? |
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thedarxide
Bronze Member
81 Posts |
Posted - 01/23/2006 : 10:51:09
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quote:
Originally posted by RRV-10
Is it an udder version Milkbox?
Yep :)
My grunge and death metal are the edition after, but they sound great anyway. I picked up an older stereo chorus and a delay/sampler as well.
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visserman
Platinum Member
1072 Posts |
Posted - 01/23/2006 : 17:30:56
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quote:
Originally posted by RRV-10
Thanks Visserman. It does seem that a lot of the negative reviews are from people who apparently never tested the pedal before before they brought it home - mostly Blues/classic rock players expecting a usual distortion device or metalheads.
RRV-10: A lot of effects are tested by people who do not really know what they are looking for, or how to apply the effect properly, get levels wrong ect. ect. Read the average review of a pedal you know on Harmoney Central or any other place on the Internet and you quickly get a feel for who knows their stuff and who does not.
Same goes for sellers who copy reviews from Harmoney Central for the gear they want to sell on Ebay. Not really a problem as long as you have done your homework. Try to ask sellers like this a question about their gear is really funny...........
All in all I believe there is not really bad gear out there, as you usually pay for what you get. The hype around the bosspedals regarding Jap/Taiwan made is perhaps hugely mistaken. Just try some tests for yourself and one comes to the conclusion that both versions are very very close in sound, cosmetically there may be diffferences and this may be the justification for paying that little bit extra.
The Xtortion and the PW-2 had some strange issues: In the manual of the PW-2 is gives an example of a sound which is really........................out of this world........forgotten the name of the sound, but it is really a weird name, not very logical. It also has things like: "Wild chordplay"..............well really..................... 
I guess it was a marketing trick for Boss, but then it did not work very well. Better for them to remain in the area of the massmarket using conventional descriptions and terms which do not leave much to the imagination, after all the Bossmarket is very different compared to the Boutique builders who do use imaginative names to market their pedals. |
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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2006 : 10:46:32
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Darx:
It's not a real grunge without face and butt controls .
Udder is cool though. How's it sound?
Visserman:
It's a shame that Boss' more adventurous marketing adventures have failed so dismally over the years. Though I'm not entirely sure I favour pots named 'muscle' or 'punch', I appreciate zany effects and you'd be hard pressed to label anything in the current Boss line 'zany' (perhaps the PS-5). Everything appears so conservitive. Like you say - obviously it is better for them financially to stick with products that sell, but as a result the product line, and the name frankly, has to me become somewhat stagnant. |
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thedarxide
Bronze Member
81 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2006 : 20:28:02
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PW-2 arrived, serial decoder reports:
Your Boss unit with serial number zj07345 was produced September 1996 , and is unit number 7345.
Haven't played with it much, initial impressions are that it's good for beefing leads; for rhythm playing it's very much a more powerful blues pedal to my ears. |
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thedarxide
Bronze Member
81 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2006 : 20:29:48
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quote:
Originally posted by RRV-10
Darx:
It's not a real grunge without face and butt controls .
Udder is cool though. How's it sound?
I'll get one soon enough :D Still trying to figure dates out though.
I haven't had the milkbox yet, am curious to try out its 'pasturisation' control... |
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bossarea
Forum Admin
United Kingdom
3652 Posts |
Posted - 01/24/2006 : 21:14:34
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quote:
Originally posted by thedarxide
PW-2 arrived, serial decoder reports:
Your Boss unit with serial number zj07345 was produced September 1996 , and is unit number 7345.
That's the earliest so far out of 5 pedals. The latest is Visserman's March -97.
The 9 month claim still holds. |
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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2006 : 05:54:15
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Picked up the XT-2 today. I've only had 30mins with her but...well...I'm not sure she's a keeper. It took me this amount of time to begin to gets some half-way usuable sounds out of this pedal, though this may be in part due to my 12W single channel amp and my past experiences with distortion pedals. Certainly not plug and play like a Dist+ type pedal. She doesn't get on at all well with a cooking amp and she's very trebly - she hates the bridge. No way near as smooth, sustainy, or 'futuristic' as I imagined - just grainy, ice-picky, not futuristic but flat. The fact that I can't seem to jump from amp crunch to insane gain (can only go from clean without potentilly killing all small animals in a 30m radius with an insane wave of treble) is really disappointing (volume issues). Perhaps I've been spoiled by boutique. Anyway, she was a bargain and I don't suppose it'll be too hard to shift her for close to double what I paid for her on ebay.
I may give her a second chance. Visserman (or anyone else  ), any magic settings you've found (tube amp)? |
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thedarxide
Bronze Member
81 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2006 : 09:54:49
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quote:
Originally posted by RRV-10
Picked up the XT-2 today. I've only had 30mins with her but...well...I'm not sure she's a keeper. It took me this amount of time to begin to gets some half-way usuable sounds out of this pedal, though this may be in part due to my 12W single channel amp and my past experiences with distortion pedals. Certainly not plug and play like a Dist+ type pedal. She doesn't get on at all well with a cooking amp and she's very trebly - she hates the bridge. No way near as smooth, sustainy, or 'futuristic' as I imagined - just grainy, ice-picky, not futuristic but flat. The fact that I can't seem to jump from amp crunch to insane gain (can only go from clean without potentilly killing all small animals in a 30m radius with an insane wave of treble) is really disappointing (volume issues). Perhaps I've been spoiled by boutique. Anyway, she was a bargain and I don't suppose it'll be too hard to shift her for close to double what I paid for her on ebay.
I may give her a second chance. Visserman (or anyone else ), any magic settings you've found (tube amp)?
If you don't keep it, let me make you an offer?  |
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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
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thedarxide
Bronze Member
81 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2006 : 11:09:48
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Arse biscuits. I'm a bit skint anyway...
Although I have just found a Butt/Face grunge for �25... the only problem is, i think someone has tried to scrape the paint of the side.... phonecalls later will find that out...  |
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visserman
Platinum Member
1072 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2006 : 14:25:38
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Hi RRV-10
Heh man you are quick with putting the XT-2 back on Ebay.................................really it is not that bad as you think but then, tastes differ.
Here is where I think you may have gone "wrong": You mentioned you use a 12 watt single channel amp. Well should not be a problem, because I use even smaller amps: Marshall MS-4, check it out, they are really small, but I can make them sound way huge. I know anyone reading here will look at me like I am a fool, but really, there is a way how to deal with these kind of amps.
Okay so with your 12 watt amp what you should try is to get the amp as clean as you can. Not sure what the controls are, if you do have a gain, keep it as low as possible, you just want the poweramp to work really, no preamps please, as they will make your amp distort. Remember the distortion comes from the XT-2 here in this set-up.
What I do with the MS-4 is use an adaptor [they have a lot more power when powered up in this way] then I keep volumes low, then I use the Sansamp as my preamp, and most of the power and colouring will come from the Sans, it even add the valve feel to the whole sound as well. From there is is up to experimenting with the controls of the XT-2. The difficulty with the XT-2 is that the contour and punch controls have more function than just one, the contour is the hardest: At certain settings it will cut treble and at the same time boost bass, so really, need to tweak carefully.
All in all anyone using the XT-2 may benefit from using a preamp after this pedal, but with some care one should be able to get happening sounds. |
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visserman
Platinum Member
1072 Posts |
Posted - 01/25/2006 : 14:30:31
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quote:
Originally posted by bossarea
quote:
Originally posted by thedarxide
PW-2 arrived, serial decoder reports:
Your Boss unit with serial number zj07345 was produced September 1996 , and is unit number 7345.
That's the earliest so far out of 5 pedals. The latest is Visserman's March -97.
The 9 month claim still holds.
Bossarea, I believe I have a new oldstock PW-2 as well, although I bought it off Ebay, but it was sold as new. In the box there is a piece of paper with the addresses from all Roland Service Centres around the world. The piece of paper has a date on it and it reads: 17th of Feb. 1999. Pedal was wrapped in plastic and had this feel like it had not been opened that much. The box also contained a leavelett about health and safety issue, precautions ect. |
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RRV-10
Silver Member
Australia
246 Posts |
Posted - 01/26/2006 : 07:13:19
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Thanks Visserman. Yeah I was quick to try and get rid of it, but I think if a gain pedal isn't working for you after an hour and a half worth of tweaking it's time to move onto something else. Seems like the way you use the XT-2 is very similar to what I eventually found was the only way to get a half usuable sound out of it - just substitued the Sansamp for the Resonator. It didn't sound too bad set up like this but it was a hassle - I bought my Resonator for ambient filter sweeps, not to temper distemperate distortion pedals. My amp wasn't helping also - it from an era where there weren't any gain or master volume knobs - just volume and tone - and the thing is breaking up at 3.
Anyway, I'm not really saying the XT-2 is a P.O.S, just that it didn't get along with my Fender. It could perform bettwer with something with more bass respose, or pushing a cab. |
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PW-2 Powerdriver for �30!
