October 23rd, 2007
If you have bought from us in the past, you will know that we pride ourselves on stocking and selling rocking and rare Japanese effects pedals and stomp boxes.
Of course buying things like these vintage effects pedals on line can be a bit daunting as you don’t really know who you are dealing with and you can only judge the pedals from a couple of photos.
Pretty daunting really considering effects pedals and musical instruments are made to be played, and made to make sound!
If you are in the Tokyo / Kanto region then one shop were you can go in and judge the real thing with your own eyes is Shibuya Gakki. Like many music gear shops in Japan their business combines recording studios, practice rooms, equipment repair and modification services with sales of both new and used gear. They also do PA rentals.
They have a wide range of guitars and basses for sale, but I thought here I would list some of the vintage effects pedals they have on sale at the moment:
Pedals they have sold recently include:
They get stock in pretty regularly so you can check the pedals they have listed here: Shibuya Gakki Effects Pedal listings. You can buy stomp boxes online from them, it doesn’t look very English friendly though – but I am sure they will do their best to help you if you send them an email.
Shibuya Gakki is located near Oimachi Station on the JR Line from Shinagawa. There is a map here – it is only in Japanese but I am sure if you ask at your local station they will be more than happy to help you get on your way.
October 22nd, 2007
Q. Why did the guitarist cross the road?
A. Because he was stapled to the punks ear.
No, because he wanted a Boss pedal. Boss is our most popular brand, and pedals like the one pictured above are surely the reason why. An original silver screw Made in Japan Boss Phaser PH-1 Effects Pedal. As warm an analog phaser as one could want.
Released in 1977, the Boss PH-1 Phaser has warm swirling phaser sounds that conjure up images of Led Zeppelin, but also rocks for post-punk and anything beginning with the letters alt… Has two knobs. Very easy to use. But you can also open it up and there is a trimpot you can adjust with a screwdriver to get an even more you kind of sound. If you are getting together a Milli Vanilli reunion band this pedal probably ain’t for you, hell not much is, but for most other folks plugging this in will make you a happy camper.
Some people say it sounds a bit mild, but that really depends on where in your chain you choose to abuse this green machine. These are becoming harder to find, but we have one in stock at the moment. The current asking price is US$129.99 – and you can check it out on ebay at this page: Boss MIJ Silver Screw Phaser PH-1 Effects Pedal.
October 22nd, 2007
So you wanna get revenge on your neighbors for playing their Lionel Ritchie records way too loud and at 45rpms at 8 in the morning? Wanna give grannie the fright of her life as you vibrate her false teeth the whole way across the mosh pit? Think you can achieve world peace as you bring down CNN with some ballistic six-string action?
Well the Sobbat DB-1 Drive Breaker effects pedal just might be the monster to make your dreams come true. This pedal rocks – especially for single coil pickups, and its’ four knobs make it as easy as something really easy to deal out a range of sounds as wide as Britney Spears. We really love the way this pedal splits out control of the bass and treble frequencies. It sounds better than my dogs dinner!
I wrote a bit about Sobbat in the last post. If you can’t be bothered reading that, Sobbat is a little company based in Kyoto, Japan who have been making spanking effects pedals since 1995. They rock. If you want to hear some sound samples of the Sobbat DB-1 Drive Breaker in action check out the DB-1 page at the Sobbat website. Or, I found this video of the DR-1 in action on youtube: Sobbat Drive Breaker DB-1 Test.
We have one up for sale on ebay if you are interested. The current price is US$129 and the page is here: Sobbat DB-1 Drive Breaker Stomp Box. Enjoy!
October 18th, 2007
Sobbat is a small boutique style Japanese manufacturer of high quality stomp boxes and effects pedals. Founded in the former Japanese capital of Kyoto in 1995, Sobbat has built a reputation for making some really fine pedals that are being used by some of the big names in the guitar world today for both live performance and in the studio. Satisfied Sobbat shredders include Richie Kotzen, Steve Vai, John Jorgenson and if you listen to their live performances or their recorded music you should be able to discern their Sobbat sound.
The Sobbat website – www.sobbat.com is in both English and Japanese. It is pretty rough but has lots of sound samples that are well worth checking out. I guess it is a good thing they make effects pedals rather than websites!
Here are a couple of links to videos for your viewing pleasure from the Sobbat website:
DB-1.ST Clean with Strat 1
DB-1.ST Clean with Strat 2
Sobbat make the following pedals and the following links will take you to the pages for each effects pedal:
Drive Breaker 1
Drive Breaker 2
Drive Breaker 3
Drive Breaker 4
Drive Breaker Bass
Fuzz Breaker 1
Fuzz Breaker 2R
Fuzz Breaker 3
Fuzz Breaker 4
Phase Breaker 1
Phase Breaker 2
A/B Breaker 1
Glow-Vibe
Sobbat is well worth checking out if you are looking for professional sound quality at reasonable prices. Their web site has details on how to buy their effects pedals and prices range from around US$140 to US$210. Nice!
October 17th, 2007
Handily combining reverb and delay, the Boss Digital Reverb / Delay RV-3 effects pedal is a great addition to one’s chain for a wide range of players. Whilst the delay isn’t quite at the level of the sound you can get with a decent analog tape reverb unit and the reverb of course wont take you to the heights a spring reverb will, this beast does provide a wide range of sounds and pro-quality audio output.
The Boss Digital Reverb /Delay RV-3 stomp box is used by a wide range of guitarists from Incubus’ Mike Einziger and Korn’s Munki all the way through to Tom Petty.
Guitargeek had this to say about the RV-3 pedal:
a great all around reverb and delay unit with a ton of options to suit most styles. 11 modes offer various modes of standard delay, delay plus reverb, and straight reverb. Up to 2 seconds of delay and four useful types of reverb (Room 1, Room 2, Hall, and Plate) are fully tweakable. Like most Boss delays, the repeats are crisp & pronounced with a dependable decay. All four reverbs bordered a little on the bright side and we constantly found ourselves rolling a bit of high-end off with the tone knob just to keep things warm. It’s not shrill in any sort of way, we just happen to like our reverb a little darker sounding. The Reverb/Delay combination modes knocked the delay time down to around 1 second but created a thick and washy spaciousness that should send most ambient types and space rockers into the stratosphere.
With so many options it can take a bit of playing around with to get just the right sound you are after and you might even want to take notes while doing so, but with a bit of sweat and shredding the RV-3 is a mighty fine piece of equipment.
We have one up for sale on ebay. It is in almost new condition, with just some sticker residue on the plastic parts and is working fine. US$129 $119, plus $20 dollars shipping world wide. We only have one, and these sell faster than Led Zeppelin tickets (well not really but pretty quick). The ebay page is here: Boss Digital Reverb / Delay @ ebay from Aquaeffector.
October 17th, 2007
No posts for a while – sorry about that! There have been some changes here at Aqua Effector, Kojiro has moved to Saitama (nearer to Tokyo) and I have moved back into the center of Tokyo. It is a bit of a change from living in the country but great to be back in our old stomping grounds.
We are still sourcing and selling vintage and rare effects pedals and musical equipment from within Japan for customers around the world. Kojiro is handling sales as well at the moment. We have a couple of exciting projects we are working on for 2008 and will post more about that later on. In the meantime, keep on rocking!
