For a lot of musicians, this reviewer included, Moog is a magical name. Since the ’60s, instruments and implements bearing the Moog name have been Excaliburs and magic wands for psychedelic cosmonauts, prog trippers, electric jazz freaks, electronic music masterminds, and other outsiders who lock themselves away in studios for weeks on end in quest of otherworldly and filthily funky sounds.
Whether it’s one of Bob Moog’s fantastic modular synths or a Moogerfooger pedal, Moog’s aura of eccentric cool is rooted in envelope-pushing sounds and a give-and-take relationship that assumes, even demands, musical curiosity from players. Curiosity and exploration are still the ticket to getting the most and best sounds out of the analog Moog MF Flange and its bucket-brigade chip. But the device rewards casual plug ’n’ play guitarists just as readily—even as it begs to be tweaked and twisted within an inch of its life.
Moog for Modern Times The Flange and its recently released cousin, the MF Chorus, are the newest additions to the Minifooger line (see our review in the February 2014 issue). Those pedals made waves by stuffing the most essential functionality and sonic flavors of the mind-blowing Moogerfooger series into compact and relatively inexpensive pedal forms. Along with the MF Flange and Chorus, the entire Minifooger line has been cosmetically redesigned, and the units look streamlined and sharp. Even in their stark silver-and-black livery, the MF Flange and its cousins communicate a stand-out-in-a-crowd ’60s/’70s stompbox design sensibility. They don’t look quite like anything else, and whether you’ve got a busy pedalboard or you’re a stompbox aesthete, the bold look is a big plus.
The pedal also seems carved from granite. It’s hefty, feels sturdy, and an inspection of the pedal’s guts reveals a tidy, if busy, circuit and board. All the switch work and jacks are affixed securely to the chassis, safely insulated from the bumpy travails of hard gigging. Here you’ll also find the switch that enables the pedal’s stereo capability.
The control set is fairly straightforward stuff. There are knobs for rate, depth, and feedback like you’d see on just about any flanger. But there’s an additional a knob for delay time that can also be controlled with the optional expression pedal. A small “type” switch shapes the voice further by either subtracting feedback from the input signal (which lends a more rounded and vocal texture) or by summing the feedback with the dry and input signal.
Modulation Voyages A flanger can be a perplexing thing for fence sitters or the uninitiated. It’s not, in general, a subtle effect. But the real delight of the MF Flange is how it can range from subdued to positively deranged.
In mellow, more traditionally musical settings, the Moog sounds organic and warmly analog. It’s not that difficult to dial in very pretty, near-rotary chorus-like sounds at low delay time settings, and fast modulation rates sound especially chewy and intoxicating—occupying that cool space where it’s hard to discern where you’re hearing vibrato, a fast phaser, or a creatively EQ’d Leslie. At slower rates and more aggressive feedback and delay time settings you can hear the MF teetering between deep phase and flange zones.
Like any really good analog, bucket-brigade device, the MF Flange has a basic voice that’s essentially dark, mysterious, and very organic in the way it decays. Those qualities also enable some of the pedal’s craziest textures to sound very musical. There’s no way you could mate the extreme, metallic resonant peaks you can extract from the MF Flange to a digital circuit without cringe (and tear) inducing spikes.
Pros: Radical to subdued modulation tones. Sensitive, wide-ranging controls. Many personalities and voices. Built like a rock.
Cons: Flange neophytes might find the wealth of available tones tough to navigate.
Moog Music MF Flange Bucket Brigade Harmonic Manipulator moogmusic.com
But the Moog’s almost singing vocal quality has a softening effect, and the unit’s harmonic artifacts have a beguiling, disappearing-into-the-mist quality that sounds doubly beautiful through a long delay or reverb. Longer delay and rate times in particular reveal how organic the Moog’s analog voice can sound. The falling-from-50,000-feet phase cycle has a surreal, and complex voice that evokes Moog’s vintage synths.
The Moog also handles a lot of harmonic information well. When I put the harmonic explosion of a Rickenbacker 370-12 string out front and added aggressive time and feedback stings, raga-style runs took on a demented and swirling sitar-like quality that I’m not sure I’ve heard or generated anywhere else.
The MF Flange controls have crazy-great range. The slowest rates are hot-tar and molasses slow, while the fastest feel strobscopically twitchy. Likewise, mellow depth settings enable you to use even radical textures as subtle background color—especially when you select the more sedate subtracted-feedback voice. And with the highly recommended optional expression pedal in the mix, you can move from outlandish to demure with a twitch of your toe.
The Verdict Flange is a difficult effect to explore and master—at least if you intend to use it in most “tasteful” and deranged applications. But the Moog’s deep, rich analog voice and the vast expansive tone-shaping control it puts at your fingertips make it both approachable and capable of real sonic damage. At various settings (and especially with an expression pedal in the mix) it can deliver unique, outside-the-box phase, chorus, rotary, tape flange, and wah sounds. The price may seem steep for a flanger, but given the sound manipulation it can manage outside the realm of common flanging, it delivers surprising bang for the buck.
Dr. Z releases the Z-28 Mk. II, a new take on his EF-86 design, and designed to hold its own amongst the classics of the Z Amp lineup.
Two-plus years in the making, the Z-28 Mk. II builds upon the original Z-28 by revamping the power section to two robust 5881 tubes pushing a Celestion Creamback M65 in a specially-designed 1x12 cabinet draped in muscle car red tolex. Dr. Z included his Mk. II master volume control circuit, as seen in the flagship MAZ series, to achieve full control over the volume and dynamics this high-headroom amp is capable of, be it at home at practice, or on stage.
The Z-28 Mk. II 1x12 Combo retails for $2049, and the head version for $1899. The Z-28 Mk. II is available for sale at authorized Dr. Z dealers.
For more information, please visit drzamps.com
These compact amps are designed for home practice and jamming and have custom-designed stereo speakers.
Boss announces the Dual Cube LX and Dual Cube Bass LX, the latest members of the acclaimed CUBE amplifier family from Boss and its parent company Roland. For over four decades, Cube amplifiers have brought exceptional value to musicians everywhere, offering great sound and versatile features in portable, go-everywhere designs. These new guitar and bass amplifiers carry on this long tradition, evolved with the latest Boss advancements for unmatched flexibility.
The Dual Cube LX Guitar amp produces full, punchy guitar tones that belie the amp’s compact size. There are eight versatile amp types to choose from, all with natural feel and organic response honed with decades of BOSS amp development. There’s also a mic preamp type for using the amp as a portable vocal PA system. DUAL CUBE LX The DUAL CUBE LX includes a variety of BOSS stereo and mono effects to enhance the sound. Each amp type features three user memories, allowing users to store gain, EQ, and effect settings for quick recall. Dedicated editor software opens up even more creative power, providing access to different amp and effect variations, detailed parameter adjustments, and more. The DUAL CUBE LX also features a special Stereo In amp type for connecting stereo devices, complete with advanced spatial processing for even more expansive sound. By default, it provides a full-range platform for an amp/effects processor such as the GT-1000, GT-1000CORE, GX-100, GT-1, or IR-200. With the editor, it’s possible to choose a neutral guitar amp tone inspired by the famous Roland JC-120, providing an ideal platform for stereo pedals like the BOSS 500 and 200 series.
This amp delivers big, refined bass tones from an amazingly small footprint. Five different preamp types are available, offering uncolored sounds for studio and slap playing, vintage sounds for classic styles, and aggressive modern tones for heavy genres. A variety of bass-tuned effects are also included. Like the DUAL CUBE LX, the amp features onboard memories for storing sounds and support for deeper editing via dedicated software.
The Dual Cube LX and Dual Cube Bass LX amplifiers will be available in the U.S. in September for $299.99 and $359.99 respectively. To learn more about Dual Cube LX and Dual Cube Bass LX amplifiers, visit boss.info.
Made with a super light Neodyme magnet, these custom guitar cabinets can be driven by the power amp of a Profiler PowerHead or PowerRack, as well as by utilizing any external solid-state power amp.
The Kemper Kone is a 12“ full-range speaker which is exclusively designed in cooperation with Celestion for Kemper. The Kone is controlled and driven by the Kemper Profiler’s processor to an ultra-linear (full range) frequency response, using a dedicated algorithm. In contrast to the conventional idea of a full-range system, the radiation pattern of the Kemper Kone has been narrowed towards the physics of a classic guitar speaker chassis, so that even the full-range sound carries a distinct guitar speaker character, unlike regular PA speakers or monitor speakers. To season the speaker behavior to the player’s individual taste Kemper offers the unique Sweetening“ and Directivity Parameters for detailed adjustment.
The 19 included speaker imprints offer the finest choice of well-known guitar speakers from Celestion, and many renowned other classic brands, and even rare and particular speakers. More speaker imprints may be added via future software updates.
The KEMPER Kone replacement speaker is available exclusively from the Kemper Online Store for Euro 150,- USD 180,- GBP 128,-. The prices for multi-speaker Sets below:
2x12 Set: 270,00€ 191,00 GBP 31.280 JPY 545,00 CAD
4x12 Set: 480,00€ 337,95 GBP 55.609 JPY 1.040,00 CAD
More information at:www.kemper-amps.com.