What are your four ‘must-have’ pedals? That is what we ask our guests to share with you in our Four On the Floor podcast segment. Joe Halliday makes pedals with a ton of his own personality baked right in and if you like drives as much as he does, you are now friends. If you are not familiar with Hello Sailor Effects do yourself a favor and check them out. He gave us a fantastic interview too! You can hear the episode for yourself right here. Check out these choices for his Four On The Floor.
1. JSA Effects – Horse Whisperer
“I’ve never tried to call pedal before or I’ve got a friend Simon, he sent me one from JSA Effects, which is a pretty well known effects company in the UK. He makes these pedals one at a time. There’s no artwork or colors or speak of but what is special about it is that It’s a direct replica of the Klon only not using op-amps like the original and users transistors or discreet amplifies to do the same job. So instead of oven three op-amps, it has nine transistors or six JFET’s and three transistors to do the same job, which is unnecessary and probably makes no difference in the sound, but I like that, hah! It’s kind of different. I have found it is a little bit different to my ears, which are really untrained and I’ve spent a lifetime in noisy machinery rooms, so probably not that accurate, but it has a low- mid punch from the pedal and that’s kind of where I liked my sound to be. So that’s on the pedalboard and it’s on all the time with not a lot of gain on, the volume at equal and the tone just to give it a little bit of a push to poke through the mix or if I’m at home, I trim that back a little bit to make it sound a bit nicer outside of the band mix. You know, it’s just adds something to the sound like you don’t notice until you turn it off and then you say what the heck? Something’s just changed. “
Check out the JSA Effects – Horse Whisperer
2. TateFX – Antares Overdrive
“Now they’re probably going mental with me saying this, but it’s a Tube Screamer-like pedal. So a mid pushed overdrive if you’re like but it’s got a clean blend on it. I wanted this pedal for the longest time and my idea of it was I was going to turn the clean blend to fully wet and forget about it–doesn’t need the clean blends because I don’t play bass. However, I got the pedal and started messing with it and the clean blend is just amazing. You can get a lot more gain off the pedal and still keep a bit of quality as well. It doesn’t to the whole shelving off the bottom like the Tube Screamer does. It’s just a fantastic overdrive. It does everything you want and none of this stuff you don’t. Most people think a turned up amp sounds like a turned-up overdrive and it really doesnt. There’s less distortion and a bit more clarity to it and this does that. And Stuart from Tate Effects is like the nicest guy you’re ever going to meet. And you know, I’m practically a nobody that he’s selling my pedals and he took the time out to help a competitor if you will. So you should buy a pedal off him just for that.”
Check out the TateFX – Antares Overdrive
3. Coppersound Pedals – Broadway Treble Booster & Germanium Preamp
“So number three comes from my favorite gear of all time–the Treble Boost. When I’m buried I’m going to be buried with one of these bad boys. I absolutely in love treble boosts, they are the epitome of pedal making in my eyes. I just got one of these Coppersound Pedals Broadway’s maybe six weeks ago and it is fabulous. I have it third in my chain which presents an issue with vintage germanium transistors but the clean blend from the TateFX Antares kind of offsets that a little bit. “
Check out the Coppersound Pedals – Broadway Treble Booster & Germanium Preamp
4. Ibanez – PC10 Prime Dual Chorus
“I went on a bit of a journey for a, for flangy type chorusy effects, and I really didn’t like them for the longest time but wanted to because it’s just one of those effects that you’ve got to have. I had not wanted to like it so much and it just never did until I got hold of an Ibanez Prime Dual Chorus. So it’s a PC 10, one of the older effect. So it says a Dual Chorus when really it’s two pedals in one. The first pedal is a two knob chorus and the second pedal is a four knob flanger , still labeled chorus. Whenever I A/B test this against any over chorus or flanger it just sounds 3D compared to it, just so much better. And I couldn’t live without this one now. It’s just a fabulous pedal.“
Check out the Ibanez – PC10 Prime Dual Chorus
Huge thanks to Joe Halliday for being a guest on our show and please check out Hello Sailor Effects We wish him continued success!