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Sola Sound Effects Units

Article from Music UK, January 1983

What price British made effects? Two from Sola Sound and a Eurotec get the mad axe trial



Contrary to popular belief not all effects units come from the U.S.A. or the Far East. In fact virtually the originators of the whole concept (starting with the fuzz box itself back in the 1960's) was Sola Sound — a U.K. based company! Since then they have broadened-out to offer a considerable range of effects pedals of one sort or another. Sola Sound, and as Colorsound, offer a considerable range of pedals with effects varying from the conventional to the positively outrageous. We decided to sample some of their current range and chose two models, the Colorsound Vocaliser (RRP £42.00) and the Colorsound Dipthoniser (RRP £39.93). For good measure we also grabbed another U.K. manufactured product, the Eurotec Black Box Faze Module (RRP £32.00) and gave that the once-over as well. Here are our findings.

COLORSOUND VOCALISER


RRP £42.00 inc. VAT.

Bearing in mind the fairly low price of this unit it's actually rather well made. The box itself is of pressed steel and it features a superb battery housing which is a moulded part of the plastic base. Unlike those blessed nuisance pedals which need a screwdriver to open them when Ever-Ready time comes around again (usually just pre-gig, of course) the Colorsound has a clever moulding which locks perfectly into place and twists round (with no screwdrivers needed!) to reveal the base of the battery compartment. Nice touch, that!

The bright yellow pedal offers a standard wah wah type foot pedal which activates a nylon toothed shaft running a nylon gear wheel which drives the rotary potentiometer for the 'vocaliser' effect. Hence you've got a basic, reliable mechanical system to play with.

Your guitar plugs into a socket at the right, the amp runs from the left and there is a large black plastic capped button which switches the unit on or off. In addition there is a rotary pot marked 'fuzz' which effect can be added into the sound or left out, depending on how you want to use it. Plug in your guitar, hit the 'on' button and step on the platform which drives the 'pot' for the vocaliser effect. Used 'bare' (ie without the fuzz for tonal colouration) the Colorsound gives an effect halfway between that of a conventional wah wah pedal and a strange type of voice-box. We found this especially useful on melodic solos, when its foot controlled intensity meant that we could really express notes using that half voice-box effect which made for a unique sound. Wind-on some of the fuzz from the rotary pot and the sound changes to a more aggressive voicing without too much unnatural harshness (which is what you might be forgiven for expecting when you see that dreaded word 'fuzz'). All in all this is a very expressive pedal, well suited for the melodic lead guitarist who is looking for a different sound for the occasional solo. Well worth adding to your effects pedal board, this one, and, thankfully for anyone who fancies using it the vocaliser will also take a 9 volt adaptor lead via a mini-jack. Overall verdict? Well made and unusual enough to be worth trying.

COLORSOUND DIPTHONISER


RRP £39.93 inc. VAT.

The journalist's bible (Chamber's Dictionary) defines a Dipthong as "two vowel sounds pronounced as one syllable". The Concise Oxford doesn't even list it! Forgive us, therefore, for being a shade vague as to what the idea behind the Colorsound Dipthoniser was until we got to grips with it in practice!

A fairly large pedal made of pressed steel with that excellent entry to the battery compartment (yet again) the Dipthoniser offers the usual jack input and output sockets and features three rotary pots (marked as 'sweep', 'quality' and 'dipthong/vowel'). A large plastic capped button controls the on/off functions.

'Sweep' governs, as far as we could tell, the depth of the range of effect, 'quality' was, at one extreme, a very subtle fuzz tone added into the overall sound and, at the other, a pure un-fuzzed signal. The most important pot, however, is the 'Dipthoniser' control itself which has four click settings marked as 'Yeh', 'Bow', 'Wah' and 'Aee'.

Although it might be quite a complex effect to explain in words, the Dipthoniser is a piece of cake to actually use. It features a range of sounds which, to some extent, resemble those of an auto-wah system and yet which have a tonality of their own which does, to some extent, resemble the labels given them by the unit's manufacturer. We find it almost impossible to describe the sound of effects units generally but, again, the Dipthoniser has something of the qualities of a Voice Box about it and yet, with the addition of that very subtle fuzz tone, can rasp a bit more than one might be used to and almost simulate a voice crossed with a voice-box effect a la vintage Jeff Beck.

This is another pedal well worthy of investigation by the melodic soloist. It doesn't have the controllable expression of, say, a foot-operated pedal (like the excellent Vocaliser) but it does lend itself to some very unusual and effective solo sounds. Well worth checking out for lead guitarists who are looking for that occasional 'odd' sound for a good solo.

EUROTECH BLACK BOX FAZE MODULE


RRP £32.00 inc. VAT.

Somewhat smaller than the two quite large Colorsound pedals, the black metal (pressed steel, again) housing of the Eurotec unscrews conventionally to reveal the storage compartment for a single PP3 battery.

'Black Box' effect features a single on/off footswitch, input for guitar, output to the amp (standard jack sockets) and two rotary controls labelled 'react' and 'speed'. The unit also features a small LED which didn't come on on our sample so we assumed that it was to indicate flat batteries — something we didn't experience.

In use the Black Box Faze Module (to give it its full title) performed very creditably. Some of the more expensive phasers currently on the market may have more range in terms of both speed and depth (which is what we took the 'react' pot to be controlling) but this one actually had a very nice voicing quality which was, in many senses, superior to some other pedals we tried it against. Range of effect is all well and good, but voicing matters more and the Eurotec featured a phasing sound which was almost too classic for words — in fact it sounded remarkably Hendrix-like enabling us to set it to give a sound very close indeed to that archetypal 'Isle of Wight' guitar tone which can be quite hard to get from ostensibly more 'modern' phasers.

This pedal isn't, perhaps, the most versatile one on the market in terms of range and depth but it is very well voiced for that legendary phasing sound and it was a real pleasure to use. Excellent value for money would be our verdict, providing the sound (as with all effects) was what you personally were looking for.

CONCLUSION



All three effects here seemed to represent very good value for money and were individualistic in their sounds. We'd be happy to recommend any reader to try them — especially if he was looking for a sound which stood out from the run-of-the-mill Japanese crowd.



Previous Article in this issue

Alligator AP150 Combo & KGB Cab.


Publisher: Music UK - Folly Publications

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Music UK - Jan 1983

Review

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> Alligator AP150 Combo & KGB ...


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