Barber Tone Press

[LonestarGtr]

Has anyone out there tried the Barber Tone Press compressor pedal? It looks pretty cool. Just checking...

Mike

[guitarzan]

Mike,
a few guys have discussed the Tone Press on this forum. Here a few of the threads...

enjoy.

http://andersonforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=1260&highlight=tone+press

http://andersonforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=401&highlight=tone+press

http://andersonforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=108&highlight=tone+press

http://andersonforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=546&highlight=tone+press


hope it helps,
-corey

[tom]

i have had one for a while now. love the feel of it and love the ability to add back attack. more usable than any other i have tried.

[LonestarGtr]

thanks Tom and Guitarzan. It sure looks like what I'm looking for. I've been using the Maxon compressor which I like a lot because it doesn't really squish the attack like a Keeley or Dyna-comp, but anytime you kick on a compressor you'll lose a little of the attack, so I think I'm going to invest in a tone press... thanks!

Mike

[crash]

...it doesn't really squish the attack like a Keeley or Dyna-comp...Mike

The TP is great because you can get get all the sustain with no loss of subtlety on the attack. At the rate I'm going with it, the off/on switch will never wear out... I almost never turn it off.

To my ear, the Keeley brightened things up a bit too much. But on the downside, the TP will not do as much squish if you're looking for that. Definately worth A/B-ing if you're serious.

[guitarzan]

Mike, there is some forum buzz about the Emma Transmorgrifier too. You might check it out as well.

[LonestarGtr]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I got a Tone Press and used it on some stuff in the studio this week and the engineer/producer was diggin' it a ton. The only "drawback" I came across so far was the gain of the pedal. Maybe it's just with my rig, but I had to pretty much crank the output of the pedal to match gain with the pedal off. Has anyone else come across this?

Mike

[tom]

i get a vol boost with mine, but i have had the sustain close to half way up. david barber is very accessible if you have questions.

[dannopelli]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I got a Tone Press and used it on some stuff in the studio this week and the engineer/producer was diggin' it a ton. The only "drawback" I came across so far was the gain of the pedal. Maybe it's just with my rig, but I had to pretty much crank the output of the pedal to match gain with the pedal off. Has anyone else come across this?

Mike
Actually no not at all. have had mine quite some time. I try to go for unity on/off, and never go above 11:30 or so on the volume. But like crash mine is almost always on too. Have had mine for about nine months. And like TOm says when you call you usually get David Barber.He is REAL helpful!

[njjessee]

Mike - I use my TP to add a volume boost and a touch more sustain to my solos. The TP mix is 100%, volume at about 2:00 and sustain at about 1:00.

By the way... would the engineer/producer you mentioned happened to have been Dann Huff?

Noah

[crash]

...but I had to pretty much crank the output of the pedal to match gain with the pedal off. Has anyone else come across this?
MikeWell, that's what you get for turning it off!! :-)

Seriously, mine doesn't do that either. Like Danno, I have it set pretty much to unity when off. Volume, 1:00 - Blend, 12:00, Sustain, 1:00. Well, actualy, the sustain is probably 1:15. (AM). And that's EST. Your results mary vary if you're in a different time zone.

For me, it makes things punchier and adds sustain, but doesn't squish or boost. Why doesn't EVERY effect have a blend control?

[LonestarGtr]

Just an update... We had a tech day on Friday to get everything ready for our tour this year and I actually had to take the Barber off the pedal tray in my rack. :( I use a ground control system so I can control which pedals are in the loop so I'm not going through stuff I'm not actually using at the time and even with the gain cranked up on the Barber I couldn't get it up to unity gain so when I turned on that loop, my level would drop a little. I use so little actual compression normally because I want to "feel" the compression more than "hear" it that to get more gain out of the TP I had to make it squish more than I liked. I'll probably still use it in the studio, but I need to give Mr. Barber a call to see if anything can be done to get a little more gain out of it. I had the output all the way open, the blend at 11:00-12:00 and the sustain about 12:00 and there was a noticeable tone drop when I kicked it on. Other than that the actual sound of the pedal was awesome. I put my Maxon cp101 back on the drawer and I don't know if it's just because I'm used to it or what, but my tone was back.

And Noah, our producer for the next cd is not Dann Huff. Our new producer/engineer is Justin Niebank. He engineers a lot of Dann's records nowadays and he's a really cool producer as well. I just ran into Dann last night at keith urban's show here in Nashville and spoke to him for a little bit, so I guess we're still on speaking terms.

Mike

[njjessee]

Mike - thanks for the update. Nice rig! I can picture myself walking into church with that! I get enough grief over my basic rig, the kidding would never stop. Of course... they think I have that many guitars now!

Hey... is that a POD XT Live I see? Use it on tour?

Noah

[LonestarGtr]

Yeah, that's a pod xt live there. And no, I don't use it live just yet. Our steel player is using a pod xt and I use the xt live for doing pro tools into my laptop for demos and stuff. I haven't had it long, so I'm still playing with it. I'm trying to think of a nickname for my big amp head case... I'm thinking of "megapod" or "brittpod". I had a guitar tech that said it was like the biggest pod he'd ever seen once. funny.

Mike

[LonestarGtr]

After dismantling my entire rig today and putting it back together a piece at a time, I figured out where I was losing gain for the tone press pedal and now it's happily sitting on my rack drawer with it's green led glowing. It sounds great... thanks David Barber! If anyone needs a boss fv100L volume pedal... I have 3 in various states of disrepair!

Mike

[njjessee]

So Mike... was the volume pedal causing you issues?

Noah

[LonestarGtr]

Yeah, it seems the volume pedals I've been using forever (and this makes total sense to me now) were the Boss FV100L, which are obviously low impedence. It didn't seem to affect any of the other pedals I was running but the Tone Press did not like it and it was doing something with the impedence and killing my output gain of that pedal. I did last night's show without the volume pedal at all and the Barber sounded fantastic. It was just what I was looking for. So, now I'm on the prowl for the best volume pedal. I've used Ernie Balls in the past and I liked the durability and sweep of the Boss, so I'll go shopping this week.

Mike

[crash]

Glad to see that the Tone Press has made it back into the PodMB.

[guitarzan]

Mike,
Guitar Player Magazine did a volume pedal shootout last month so you might wanna check that out to get their thoughts- also, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't also recommend that you contact Visual Sound about their Visual Volume Pedal. There was a prototype at NAMM, and the production units are supposed to be ready any week now. If it's an option, I can follow up on that for you.

www.visualsound.net

best regards,
-corey

by the way, I got the PM about the Tone King, thanks for the response!

[joe1962]

I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't also recommend that you contact Visual Sound about their Visual Volume Pedal.

I agree 100%. I had one of the original Visual Volume pedals 8 years ago and it was absolutely the best volume pedal I've owned. It had a nice sweep, and didn't change the tone of my guitar when it was backed off like pretty much every other volume pedal I've used did. I sold it a couple of years ago when I wasn't using it much, and have regreted it ever since. I'll definitely be picking up one of the new ones when they come out.