Post by grayn on Oct 12, 2014 7:58:11 GMT
I thought I'd start, by explaining why I bought this pedal.
Up until fairly recently, there were only 2 main styles, I played on electric guitar.
Instro-Surf, which just required a nice, clean, valve tone, saturated with spring reverb. And Prog/Psych rock, in which I used either a nice clean sound, with some chorus, flange and/or echo, or a highly overdriven tone (Boss MetalCore), with chorus, flange and/or echo.
More recently I've been playing more song based rock music, where I want to use a good clean tone, with either a very mild, valve overdrive, or and little more, raunchy overdrive. I was looking for a sound that was ballsy but expressive, where more subtle/complex chord work can be used, as well and lead lines.
It's a tone/sound that seemed to me, that everyone else, on youtube at least, could achieve but I was struggling with. I have a nice, 2 channel amp, a Peavey Classic 30 but for some reason, I only occasionally managed to get close to the sound I wanted. Especially at lower volume levels. I haven't helped myself, by acquiring a number of
guitars, with very different combinations of single-coil, humbucking, Filtertron and P90 pickups.
I had a couple of pedals, I wanted to offload, so went to my local guitar store and got this Blackstar HT-Dual. I didn't even try it out. I just went on rep and advice from the shop guy.
Basically the HT-Dual is a very sturdy, good quality, distortion/overdrive, with a built in valve. It is Dual, in that it is a 2 channel effect. Channel 1, for a clean-boost or clean-crunch. And Channel 2, for more overdrive.
Via two, stacked, control knobs, you have a Gain and Level for either channel.
Giving you a lot of overdrive choice. Channel 1 has a clean/crunch switch.
The 2 Channels share bass, middle and treble tone controls. They also share the ISF control knob. That's Infinite Shape Feature. Which gives you the choice of American amp sound (fully anti-clockwise) or British amp sound (fully clockwise). Set at 12 o'clock, it's half and half. You get the idea. I have mine set to around 10 o'clock. So, slighly leaning toward the American amp.
So, has it helped me get that sound? Yes it has.
When I got home, I played with it, for around an hour and went away, quite unhappy.
I just couldn't get the sound I was after. So I went away for a few hours and came back for another try. And after some serious knob twiddling, it just clicked. Hellelujah!! Chords and lead work now sound effing great.
I tried the newly achieved sound with 3 of my guitars.
The Patrick Eggle, with it's 2, P90s, somehow managed to sound both sweet and ballsy. The Rahbek's bridge single-coil sounded strong and cut like a knife, the P90 was thick and smooth. But best of all, the Italia Modena Semitone, with it's bridge HB and neck P90, just really rocked my boat. Singly or together, these pickups just did what I wanted.
So yes, the Blackstar HT-Dual has been a bit of a saviour. It's a great peice of kit, that is built like a tank.
Would I change anything? I'd probably get rid of the ISF and clean/crunch switch and have stacked knobs, so that each channel had it's own tone controls.
Mere detail though. This is a very good pedal.
Up until fairly recently, there were only 2 main styles, I played on electric guitar.
Instro-Surf, which just required a nice, clean, valve tone, saturated with spring reverb. And Prog/Psych rock, in which I used either a nice clean sound, with some chorus, flange and/or echo, or a highly overdriven tone (Boss MetalCore), with chorus, flange and/or echo.
More recently I've been playing more song based rock music, where I want to use a good clean tone, with either a very mild, valve overdrive, or and little more, raunchy overdrive. I was looking for a sound that was ballsy but expressive, where more subtle/complex chord work can be used, as well and lead lines.
It's a tone/sound that seemed to me, that everyone else, on youtube at least, could achieve but I was struggling with. I have a nice, 2 channel amp, a Peavey Classic 30 but for some reason, I only occasionally managed to get close to the sound I wanted. Especially at lower volume levels. I haven't helped myself, by acquiring a number of
guitars, with very different combinations of single-coil, humbucking, Filtertron and P90 pickups.
I had a couple of pedals, I wanted to offload, so went to my local guitar store and got this Blackstar HT-Dual. I didn't even try it out. I just went on rep and advice from the shop guy.
Basically the HT-Dual is a very sturdy, good quality, distortion/overdrive, with a built in valve. It is Dual, in that it is a 2 channel effect. Channel 1, for a clean-boost or clean-crunch. And Channel 2, for more overdrive.
Via two, stacked, control knobs, you have a Gain and Level for either channel.
Giving you a lot of overdrive choice. Channel 1 has a clean/crunch switch.
The 2 Channels share bass, middle and treble tone controls. They also share the ISF control knob. That's Infinite Shape Feature. Which gives you the choice of American amp sound (fully anti-clockwise) or British amp sound (fully clockwise). Set at 12 o'clock, it's half and half. You get the idea. I have mine set to around 10 o'clock. So, slighly leaning toward the American amp.
So, has it helped me get that sound? Yes it has.
When I got home, I played with it, for around an hour and went away, quite unhappy.
I just couldn't get the sound I was after. So I went away for a few hours and came back for another try. And after some serious knob twiddling, it just clicked. Hellelujah!! Chords and lead work now sound effing great.
I tried the newly achieved sound with 3 of my guitars.
The Patrick Eggle, with it's 2, P90s, somehow managed to sound both sweet and ballsy. The Rahbek's bridge single-coil sounded strong and cut like a knife, the P90 was thick and smooth. But best of all, the Italia Modena Semitone, with it's bridge HB and neck P90, just really rocked my boat. Singly or together, these pickups just did what I wanted.
So yes, the Blackstar HT-Dual has been a bit of a saviour. It's a great peice of kit, that is built like a tank.
Would I change anything? I'd probably get rid of the ISF and clean/crunch switch and have stacked knobs, so that each channel had it's own tone controls.
Mere detail though. This is a very good pedal.
Jo whoever he is.
