hey TV - and anybody - Boss RE-20

did you ever get one of the new Boss RE-20s, and if so, what did you think? I've got one right now, and while I think it's cool & all, it doesn't seem to be any better for the Setzer-type stuff than my AD999 or Echo Park. It's certainly got some mojo, and it's a good pedal, but I guess I was expecting the "end-all-be-all" slapback or something. Any settings you'd care to share? Am I missing something?

Thanks!

was it ever a Setzer echo really, all these kiddies on the other forum keep yak'n about it....yawn... a 201 doesnt sound or I should say respond like a 301. It cant...
Yes the 201 is built Class A discreet, and for vintage snobs this is the way to go...but
the 301 op amp fueled model brought cleaner EQ and more boost. It makes filtertrons and blondes bark! That RE-20 is a pickin digital modeler for good heavens.
If you like old stray cats brian sound better than new bso sound, you can still hear
that the basic warm slap back/echo is pretty much the same. Its the preamp
that changed things and I cant blame him, it let him get a much bigger sound at
lower volumes...although its subjected, a Bassman's volume and treble/presence
dimed versus the volume still up past 6!! its LOUD!!!

I dumped my RE-20 a few weeks ago since my Boss 80s analog delay sounds the best for rockabilly. I have got my DL4 for everything else though.

I think your ears are telling the truth!!

Thanks TV. I'm definitely more a fan of the BSO tone than the Cats tone. Funny you mention 80's analog delays... I'm finding I like my Maxon AD999 better for slap & "Sleepwalk" better than the RE-20 or the Echo Park (another modeler). It's just greasy & dirty, ya know?

A couple annoyances I found with the RE-20:

1) is there some kind of noise-reduction circuitry in this thing? Because it's quieter when it's ON than when it's OFF... and this might have something to do with my 2nd "concern"...

2) the tone, when ENGAGED, is basically the same... but I'm noticing a slight loss of the initial transient pick attack, almost like the RE-20 is "softening" the edge a little or something. Did the original do this? Is this a model? Or perhaps a by-product of whatever noise gate they may have put in this thing?

I've had it side-by-side with a Maxon AD999 (different animal althogether) and an Echo Park. I gotta' tell you... for Brian Setzer slapback and "Sleepwalk" type stuff, the 2 were indistinguishable (except for the "softening" I mention above) when using the Echo Park in Tape mode. But then they ARE both modelers.

I know people like the RE-20 for all those "spacey-type" sounds, but I don't use those. Any other recc's for a cool echo short of dropping coin on a 301 or TTE? (I've actually heard the TTE is very clean... to clean to be "greasy"...

ruger9 wrote:

Thanks TV. I'm definitely more a fan of the BSO tone than the Cats tone. Funny you mention 80's analog delays... I'm finding I like my Maxon AD999 better for slap & "Sleepwalk" better than the RE-20 or the Echo Park (another modeler). It's just greasy & dirty, ya know?

A couple annoyances I found with the RE-20:

1) is there some kind of noise-reduction circuitry in this thing? Because it's quieter when it's ON than when it's OFF... and this might have something to do with my 2nd "concern"...

2) the tone, when ENGAGED, is basically the same... but I'm noticing a slight loss of the initial transient pick attack, almost like the RE-20 is "softening" the edge a little or something. Did the original do this? Is this a model? Or perhaps a by-product of whatever noise gate they may have put in this thing?

I've had it side-by-side with a Maxon AD999 (different animal althogether) and an Echo Park. I gotta' tell you... for Brian Setzer slapback and "Sleepwalk" type stuff, the 2 were indistinguishable (except for the "softening" I mention above) when using the Echo Park in Tape mode. But then they ARE both modelers.

I know people like the RE-20 for all those "spacey-type" sounds, but I don't use those. Any other recc's for a cool echo short of dropping coin on a 301 or TTE? (I've actually heard the TTE is very clean... to clean to be "greasy"...

From what I understand about the pedal it is not true bypass but rather uses a slightly more sophisticated FET bypass than the average boss pedal, but you cant forget that since its a
digital pedal it is using ADDA (analog to digi to analog) converters and they probably are not
the best.. I find the pedal boosting the mids slightly but more of a fluffy blanket than a clean and
sharp "boost" or peak.. It just screws with your nice guitar and amp tone.. My space echos all
bugged me and I was not willing to use giant ass long cables and turn my treble all the way up like Setzers to accomodate what the RE-301 did to the tone(major capacitance loading).
The re-20 has strange digital artifacts that just dont sit well in my ears.

regarding you analog pedals, I dont know how daring you are but you can adjust the clock/sample rate of the bucket brigade chips in the echo boxes. The better the chip, the cooler the response..
You can drag out the time of the pedal at the expense of the slapbacks signal. The degradation is
significant and will become ring modulation when maxed but its fun. The old analog DOD light blue
delays have cheap ass chips and turn into strange bell chimes when you max the internal clock.

The opposite is a very pristine response...yawn!!

FWIW.. I loved my TTE but at the time I was using it with a Tophat King Royale which is a 60s Vox AC30 clone, ..so it was very greasy and I loved it to death. It seemed to make my bassman have
waaay too much low end unless I was playing my maple neck strat. I had to sell it to pay bills.
I'm sure I could have dialed it in better with a different tube but never had the chance.

ps. These two pedals are very good at fakin' the BSO delay - grease sound:

The T-REX REPTILE (now has modulation along w/ the boost) I had the earlier Replica version


and the SIB Mr. Echo plus
I had the first version

The delay in the cave is soo-weet!
No hijack intended, but, Tavo, did you catch the Red Ball Express to Tennessee?
Man, this place is dark, but the tone is kickin'!

no hi-jacking allowed, delay pedal talk is ensueing

Hey TV, have you seen THIS yet?

http://www.echomatic.co.uk/#

ruger9 wrote:

Hey TV, have you seen THIS yet?

http://www.echomatic.co.uk/#

man, that is some expensive fun toy... I'll take mine in red please with green knobs!

TV, I took your advice and dumped my RE-20 as well. I was lucky enough to find a 301 (thank you E-bay), and had my 63 blonde bassman upgraded to the amp specs on Niko tabs site. Could you please elaborate on the type and length of guitar cable needed for the capacitance loading you referenced to?

Bobby Retro wrote:

TV, I took your advice and dumped my RE-20 as well. I was lucky enough to find a 301 (thank you E-bay), and had my 63 blonde bassman upgraded to the amp specs on Niko tabs site. Could you please elaborate on the type and length of guitar cable needed for the capacitance loading you referenced to?

so are you wanting to have capacitance loading like Setzer with his amp dimed? or..are you looking for cabling that will be more open and allowing maximum tone through at more club volume?

Well... since I usually appear live and alone in my basement every evening the dimed version would make my neighbors happy.

Thanks

Bobby Retro wrote:

Well... since I usually appear live and alone in my basement every evening the dimed version would make my neighbors happy.

Thanks

the greatest place to be! I played the Blue cafe in long beach last week upstairs
(big sandy was downstairs) to 10 people and one drunk chick.
I think the basement would be more fun, less gas money and parking fees.

The only thing the 50ft pro co black night cables do is attenuate treble. Brian May of Queen used 100ft, of course he was using super bright Vox amps...

I sure hope you opt for using a 15ft George L's cable to your space echo and a 5ft
george L's to the amp along with a 12g 3ft speaker cable from the amp head to the
cab.
That right there will make you even more so a believer in a gretsch and blonde bassman. Brian Setzer really has the right sound IMO!! 'cept for his cables and all his amps bright knobs dimed.

So TV, where are your treble & presence knobs on your rig, in comparison to Brian's?

ruger9 wrote:

So TV, where are your treble & presence knobs on your rig, in comparison to Brian's?

the simple answer:
treble= right smack between 5 1/2-6 (right where that cool clip begins to happen in the tapped tone pot, 5:30!), presence =9

or...
the long ridiculous and often repetitious answer(run away now):

Because my guitar's harness is actually george l's cabling (total overbuild, belden
heavy duty is fine..tvjones uses this) and my tone control is completely bypassed (its a push/pull pot to get the same effect of Setzer's hotrods) and I use 11g strings

AND... since I dont use an RE-301 space echo anymore, I have substituted in a very effective pedal version of the preamp in the space echo; the TIM boost pedal and it
is set up much like the eq and gain levels on setzer spec for re-301.
I then run into my 80s analog boss delay out to the amp.

normal channel: vol. 4-5, treble 5 1/2-6(right where that cool clip begins to happen in the tapped tone pot), bass 3,presence 9. (tubes & bias also affect; Ive got ruby select 12ax7c5's for pre amp and Jan Phillips NOS 6L6WGBs biased with a higher plate voltage than spec)

....

When it comes to tone & gear, I'm nuts. Anal & a tone-snob, I'd say.

But you're NUTS MAN!

Seriously, the whole "getting additional drive from my echo" thing I gave up on when I sold my Red (tube) Echodrive. Nice delay, just not greasy enough. Since then, I just turn up the vol. on the amp a little instead. When you're talking about hitting the front of a tube amp with a clean boost, I've read seevral opinions that say it's the same thing as turning up the vol. knob on the amp (EQ aside, just talking a 1-knob clean boost). I've found that to be true, except I actually like the amp's V1 drive better than hitting it with a boost. Every time I hit the front end it seems to add some treble or harshness to the sound that just turning up V1 does not.

I've also had a theory that the whole "craziness" with Brian's rig isn't so much "thought out" as it was "stumbled onto". He hooked up the 301, liked it, cranked the treble on the amp & the preamp on the 301 to compensate the input loss on the 301, then added a super-long cable, to shave off some ulta-highs. It's a convoluted setup, but WHAT TONE. I'm just thinking there's a simpler way to get it.

I'd love to check out one of those Gomez'.

ruger9 wrote:

When it comes to tone & gear, I'm nuts. Anal & a tone-snob, I'd say.

But you're NUTS MAN!

Seriously, the whole "getting additional drive from my echo" thing I gave up on when I sold my Red (tube) Echodrive. Nice delay, just not greasy enough. Since then, I just turn up the vol. on the amp a little instead. When you're talking about hitting the front of a tube amp with a clean boost, I've read seevral opinions that say it's the same thing as turning up the vol. knob on the amp (EQ aside, just talking a 1-knob clean boost). I've found that to be true, except I actually like the amp's V1 drive better than hitting it with a boost. Every time I hit the front end it seems to add some treble or harshness to the sound that just turning up V1 does not.

I've also had a theory that the whole "craziness" with Brian's rig isn't so much "thought out" as it was "stumbled onto". He hooked up the 301, liked it, cranked the treble on the amp & the preamp on the 301 to compensate the input loss on the 301, then added a super-long cable, to shave off some ulta-highs. It's a convoluted setup, but WHAT TONE. I'm just thinking there's a simpler way to get it.

I'd love to check out one of those Gomez'.

There is one thing you might be overlooking regarding using pre amp boosters (maybe not) is that there are particular amps that carry a signature EQ in their
pre amp tone stack and as the volume is increased obviously the DB increase, although do to the way the tone stack is built the amp will begin to clip/breakup
and in the blonde bassman...an amp with a complex midrange...the upper mids
in the amps sonic signature clip rather early while the headroom in bass stays clean
and articulate. This is true even of the really high frequencies of the amp, hence the
twang and jangle staying dynamic.

So....when a boost device is added to the front end that has inherent EQ signature
with a rising peak in its mid section (and in the case of a maple body gretsch with
filtertrons that REALLY has an upper mids honk to its design) you automatically are
creating a cascade effect to the amps gain stage effectively causing its tendency to
break up in a particular sonic spectrum earlier than it would on its own.
<< an audio engineer could explain this crap so much more eloquently>>

Add to all this that in the blonde 6G6-B bassman the treble stack uses a very particular 350K tapped pot in the normal channel and the normal channel is
pretty much only using V=3 (thats why the bass channel gets much more greasy)
as you turn it up (or open that treble circuit) gain starts increasing after that 5 oclock
mark and the upper mids reach a peaking point. This creates the blonde bassman's signature sound. In tandem with the unique presence control 250K pot going to V=4, the driver tube in the pwr section(adds gain in the high mids).
<< side note, when you clip out the treble damper cap in the bass channel and turn its treble all the way up, you get vintage marshall even with its vol level at 3>>

a long explanation as to why having a mids boost going into the amp is a good multiplier of upper mids to sock the preamp into earlier break up. The RE-301 DOES this inherently when piggybacked with a good upper mids happy gretsch.
Simply having a boost that is flat in its eq pumped into the amp just sounds like you would be turning up the amps volume itself. But thats no fun, thats just the amp being louder or more SPL.
We want the amp to clip early and give us that Signature sound we love so much without going deaf or pissin off the nieghbors.

The TIM pedal does it, Nikko can testify. I wont go into how its designed in this thread right now but it lets me get setzers dirty bso sound with the amp even down at 3 on the normal channels volume. It doesnt behave anything like a tubescreamer
for sure.

a side note to this whole booster phenom in non master volume tube amps: Its seems that every dude that uses frequency boosters of any type, tend to use really
long lengths of instrument cable to tame harsh upper treble frequencies.
thats why I mention brian may of queen with his Vox ac30 and 100+ ft. of cable.
He used the rangemaster treble booster to honk the ac30s into a really saturated
clip. The rangemaster doesnt boost "treble" per say, it boosts the upper mid range
frequencies in a tube amp so that it will overdrive the tube before the amp needs to be cranked to the limit...... but there are still some harsh frequ. that needs to be filtered out, voila..long cables to attenuate the guitar.

Brian setzer is doing the same sonic shuffle. all my own speculation of course but
it makes sense in theory (lame mans) and I have made sense of it in my own field tests with all kinds of guitar-booster-cables- to amp experiments.

Its madness, most of its in his fingers and we cant have those can we!!

my two cents.

I never thought of the whole "feed the amp a certain EQ and it will clip in THAT frequency range"... interesting stuff. Perhaps I'll give that a shot with my Barber LTD SR, which is designed as a FLAT boost, however has tons of adjustment so you can set it however you want... tone knob, plus bass, mid, and presence trimpots inside.

I'm not going thru a 6G6 og course, but I would think the same theory would apply... so long as the amp isn't crazy bright or crazy dark inherently.

You using V30's with that Gomez?

ruger9 wrote:

I never thought of the whole "feed the amp a certain EQ and it will clip in THAT frequency range"... interesting stuff. Perhaps I'll give that a shot with my Barber LTD SR, which is designed as a FLAT boost, however has tons of adjustment so you can set it however you want... tone knob, plus bass, mid, and presence trimpots inside.

I'm not going thru a 6G6 og course, but I would think the same theory would apply... so long as the amp isn't crazy bright or crazy dark inherently.

You using V30's with that Gomez?

In your amp, if it is built more blackface fender than tweed era, its going to be
hard to do anything to it boost wise since the goal of Leo Fender in that era was
to optimize headroom and that involved really scooping out all the mids complexity
that you find in tweed,brown and blonde era fender amps. Since the Vox AC30 is
based on a Bassman but way more hifi class A, you scan still do the same thing to
it.

regarding your Barber pedal as a range boost, its not going to work too well because
of its design. I dont say this because its bad, I am a Dave Barber ultra Fan and
have owned most of his pedals and will always have a Barber Burn unit on my pedal
board. Hands down the most well designed overdrive on the market in the tubescreamer-esque camp. I can get the best vintage marshall sound from that pedal and my blonde bassman (or vox style amps).
Anyway I just wanted to say that the reason the TIM pedal seems to beat the Barber
as a frequency boost is that unlike most drive boxes on the market, the Tim or Timmy has its Bass control pre distortion and the treble post distortion.
I notice on my Burn unit (or the barber small fry) as you crank up the burn (gain) the low end tends to compress like most tubescreamer (op-amp symmetrical clipping), and although you can turn up the dynamics control on the burn unit, its still
all too creamy and marshall like. Now the newer models like the Small fry have the
switch for choosing assymetrical clipping like the Tim pedal but the EQ has all be
formatted around the overdrive/clip design of the pedal.

I affirm you never getting rid of your barber pedal but urge you to get a Timmy pedal if you are a gretsch guitar player that is into rockabilly, hillbilly and RHH style psychobilly. The Twang factor is never stifled by the clip factor.

All to say, or I should have said in the beginning is that I'd love to hear what your
results are in using that LTD and tweakin its internal pots. I have not had the newest
versions of Barber pedals except for the Small fry and the older units only have
bass cut or boost trimpots inside. The Small Fry was awesome and a big reason I dumped my Fulltone OCD... but now I dont have the small fry because my buddy had my two channel burn unit I wanted back.

Now to get my Barber tone press from him too!! Thats a tele players dream box.

ps. I sold my gomez amps I had in stock, I will be sharing a new builder of blonde
6G6-b in the coming weeks, that I'm going to carry.
I talked Ronny of Hillbilly Casino into get himself one as a backup. He should have his just before I get one instock. Thats gonna be fun!

Yeah, I've got a small fry - great pedal. VERY surprised to heard you got rid of the Gomez! I thought that was IT for you!

I'm not sure if Dave (Barber) put any of his EQ controls pre and/or post drive, but I do remember that whole conversation coming up on his forum. Maybe I'll go over there & ask a few questions. I've heard nothing but praise for the Tim/Timmy pedals. I think Paul & Dave are working together on some kind of a boost/drive pedal... but it's not due out any time soon from what I understand...

I had 2 Gomez on hand and actually performed with one on several occasions as well as many rehearsals. If someone cant allocated the real deal, then the El Sonido is as close as your gonna get. It indeed is IT, when it comes to a blonde 6G6-B, thus far... The two guys that got the ones I had have experienced a paradigm in what a fender can sound like, and one of them actually stopped playing
his tophat amp live in favor of the Gomez amp.
Its kind of fun spreading setzer tone to the alt rock guys!
so...ya..
This new company is more open to customizing and especially letting the customer have the amp dialed into setzerville. Gomez was not, even though he really is excited
about the rockabilly market.
So.. in a couple weeks I'll be able to see if this new clone trumphs the el sonido, cuz its
already done that in price point and it sez "bassman" on it, not "el sonido".

btw.. tell me more about the paul and dave thing, sounds like fun!

Ronnie got his new bassman clone this week, and used it tonight. It sounds like a bassman, breaks up like a bassman, it has a bit more lowend than his 63, but that could just be the result of his 63 being 45 years old. I give it 2 thumbs up!


=g

Bigbassape wrote:

Ronnie got his new bassman clone this week, and used it tonight. It sounds like a bassman, breaks up like a bassman, it has a bit more lowend than his 63, but that could just be the result of his 63 being 45 years old. I give it 2 thumbs up!


=g

well I'll be!
thats exactly how the Gomez responds in comparison, although I blame the
reissue tungsol power tubes and JJ pre amp tubes more than anything. I really love
NOS 6L6WGB's in a bassman.

Apparently, the Dave/Paul pedal will be a boost of some kind... here's the thread...

http://thegearpage.net/board/showthread.php?t=340103&highlight=paul

tvthewiredturtle wrote:

So.. in a couple weeks I'll be able to see if this new clone trumphs the el sonido, cuz its already done that in price point and it sez "bassman" on it, not "el sonido".

Is this the company ?
http://www.marshamps.com

The price is really nice though....

Hi, Jack! Where ya been, buddy?
Well, Tavo, Marsh? Hmmm? Well, we're waiting, Mr. Scholarship winner!