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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 1, 2023 19:06:20 GMT -6
Competes with Voco Loco. I have a way too complex set up for my vocal pedalboard and realized I can simplify it. Primary thing is that I don't want to use external phantom power and I want to repurpose my Key Largo back for what it's supposed to be used for (keyboards). I was considering the Voco Loco and came across the Pedal Cracker, looks kinda cool. Thing is there's very little info on it anywhere. Sales guy I emailed didn't seem to know too much about the preamp itself or the impedance on the FX loop. Doesn't mean anything bad, it's a pretty small company I'm surprised I got a reply at all that fast. cusackmusic.com/pedal-cracker/ |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 3, 2023 7:44:38 GMT -6
I guess not. Haha
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Post by Ward on Sept 5, 2023 11:44:15 GMT -6
Never heard of it until now. My cousin likes to use effects and stuff on his vocal pedal board. I can see his liking this and will pass it along.
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 5, 2023 18:34:06 GMT -6
Never heard of it until now. My cousin likes to use effects and stuff on his vocal pedal board. I can see his liking this and will pass it along. I've been really digging running my vocals through a JHS Colour Box for a bit of grit and then slapback or reverb. I was doing compression too but it was too much hassle and caused more problems than it solved. Been getting great feedback from sound guys but the setup is kind of a PITA so I'm not using it all the time. I'm using fewer effects than I thought I would plus only using one mic instead of having to have two (consolidated my stage setup to one section of the stage instead of guitar here and keyboard there). The Voco Loco is the safe choice. This seems cooler/more interesting. |
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Post by jmoose on Sept 8, 2023 14:45:03 GMT -6
Cusack has been in the pedal game a long time... good stuff! I'd expect anything from them to work as advertised & be pretty rad.
And while maybe you haven't heard of them, historically they've done work for other pedal companies that maybe you have heard of or already own...
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Post by the other mark williams on Sept 11, 2023 23:22:29 GMT -6
I had a Voco Loco for a few months. Ended up selling it. For some reason, the control layout of the footswitches was always a problem for me.
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Post by nick8801 on Sept 12, 2023 3:44:50 GMT -6
This thread got me to buy a tap a delay deluxe. Thanks guys!
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 12, 2023 10:05:37 GMT -6
I had a Voco Loco for a few months. Ended up selling it. For some reason, the control layout of the footswitches was always a problem for me. Interesting. Can you elaborate? It seems pretty straightforward looking at it. Aside from that how was the quality? It's Radial so I'm guessing physically well built and sonically very neutral. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Sept 12, 2023 15:49:03 GMT -6
I had a Voco Loco for a few months. Ended up selling it. For some reason, the control layout of the footswitches was always a problem for me. Interesting. Can you elaborate? It seems pretty straightforward looking at it. Aside from that how was the quality? It's Radial so I'm guessing physically well built and sonically very neutral. OK, it's been quite a few years since I had it--I believe I got it right after it came out--so I may misremember these details. But even looking at a picture of it just now, I can't tell you what that left footswitch does. It's labeled "MUTE ALL WET," but I don't know what that means. Does it mute the signal of everything going through it? Does it just mute the wet signal? If it just mutes the wet signal, then why have a second footswitch next to it that reads, "LOOP WET/DRY"? Does that second footswitch just turn off the send/receive jacks and therefore everything patched in there? And there's some sort of indented button on the left side confusingly called "MUTE LOOP"? How is that different from "LOOP WET/DRY"? I realize that I could watch a couple YT vids on this or read the manual, and I'm not sure why I didn't explore it more when I owned it, but I just found the whole box to be confusing. Unnecessarily so. I remember one time I had it set up during sound check and I stepped on one of the footswitches and the whole system immediately started feeding back and squealing really really loud, despite me not having much gain at all going through it. It was just weird. And then there was the issue of having to use the Radial power supply b/c it needs 15V with a positive polarity center. I'm like, "why not just make it 18V and negative polarity center so we can use our pedal power power supplies mounted under our pedalboards?" It was all just too much to deal with, especially in the heat of a live gig, and it ended up sitting in the box until one day I was like, "why do I still have this thing??" I'm sure some people love it. I mean, Radial still makes and sells it after quite a few years, so it must have a following. And it doesn't look like much of anything has changed on it, so maybe I'm the only one confused by it. All I know is that I followed your link to the Cusack Pedal Cracker and after about 5 seconds of looking at it I was like, "OK, I get what everything does. Cool pedal! And it runs on 9V negative polarity center!" I don't know about sonic differences, or what the preamps on each are like, etc. I just know the Voco Loco made me feel loco. Which is not what I want to feel onstage. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 12, 2023 16:04:22 GMT -6
Interesting. Can you elaborate? It seems pretty straightforward looking at it. Aside from that how was the quality? It's Radial so I'm guessing physically well built and sonically very neutral. OK, it's been quite a few years since I had it--I believe I got it right after it came out--so I may misremember these details. But even looking at a picture of it just now, I can't tell you what that left footswitch does. It's labeled "MUTE ALL WET," but I don't know what that means. Does it mute the signal of everything going through it? Does it just mute the wet signal? If it just mutes the wet signal, then why have a second footswitch next to it that reads, "LOOP WET/DRY"? Does that second footswitch just turn off the send/receive jacks and therefore everything patched in there? And there's some sort of indented button on the left side confusingly called "MUTE LOOP"? How is that different from "LOOP WET/DRY"? I realize that I could watch a couple YT vids on this or read the manual, and I'm not sure why I didn't explore it more when I owned it, but I just found the whole box to be confusing. Unnecessarily so. I remember one time I had it set up during sound check and I stepped on one of the footswitches and the whole system immediately started feeding back and squealing really really loud, despite me not having much gain at all going through it. It was just weird. And then there was the issue of having to use the Radial power supply b/c it needs 15V with a positive polarity center. I'm like, "why not just make it 18V and negative polarity center so we can use our pedal power power supplies mounted under our pedalboards?" It was all just too much to deal with, especially in the heat of a live gig, and it ended up sitting in the box until one day I was like, "why do I still have this thing??" I'm sure some people love it. I mean, Radial still makes and sells it after quite a few years, so it must have a following. And it doesn't look like much of anything has changed on it, so maybe I'm the only one confused by it. All I know is that I followed your link to the Cusack Pedal Cracker and after about 5 seconds of looking at it I was like, "OK, I get what everything does. Cool pedal! And it runs on 9V negative polarity center!" I don't know about sonic differences, or what the preamps on each are like, etc. I just know the Voco Loco made me feel loco. Which is not what I want to feel onstage. Yeah that's kind of what I liked about the Pedal Cracker. I'm not trying to do a lot here, I don't need anything complex. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Sept 12, 2023 16:19:29 GMT -6
Yeah that's kind of what I liked about the Pedal Cracker. I'm not trying to do a lot here, I don't need anything complex. Yeah, exactly. I wish there were a version of the JHS Colour Box that had 48V phantom and an effects loop. Two footswitches: one mutes everything, one mutes the loop only. Doesn't seem that complicated to me. |
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Post by gravesnumber9 on Sept 12, 2023 17:11:57 GMT -6
Yeah that's kind of what I liked about the Pedal Cracker. I'm not trying to do a lot here, I don't need anything complex. Yeah, exactly. I wish there were a version of the JHS Colour Box that had 48V phantom and an effects loop. Two footswitches: one mutes everything, one mutes the loop only. Doesn't seem that complicated to me. Yeah. That actually reminds me of my one concern about the pedal cracker which is that they don't list the impedance on the effects loop. And the sales person didn't seem to know it. Not sure how much it matters but obviously guitar pedals expect a high impedance signal. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Sept 12, 2023 18:38:39 GMT -6
Yeah, exactly. I wish there were a version of the JHS Colour Box that had 48V phantom and an effects loop. Two footswitches: one mutes everything, one mutes the loop only. Doesn't seem that complicated to me. Yeah. That actually reminds me of my one concern about the pedal cracker which is that they don't list the impedance on the effects loop. And the sales person didn't seem to know it. Not sure how much it matters but obviously guitar pedals expect a high impedance signal. I would imagine it's optimized for putting guitar pedals in the effects loop -- that's certainly how they seem to be marketing it. But yeah, good point: it'd be nice to know some technical details. |
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