Having trouble with a thumping noise when you activate your killswitch? Not to worry – it’s a very common problem, and is very easily fixed. The Most Likely Cause of Killswitch Pedal Thump A proper guitar killswitch pedal mutes the signal to ground, and if the noise-to-signal ratio is large enough, this can manifest as…
Savage as martial rule and seven times heavier, Public Execution is the sound of three lads distilling all the rage, hatred and dejection they could possibly feel into a bottle, mixing it with amphetamines and throwing it right in your eyes. Because you probably had it coming. Get an earful here and hope you live…
Returning to the cold, bloody roots of Scandinavian extreme music, Heimland are as authentic a black metal band as anyone could ask for. Hailing from Bergen, Norway, Heimland strips the artifice away from a genre which has been overtaken by trends and image to focus on what all the newspapers, hangers-on and johnny-come-latelies all missed;…
Horrenda are one of those wonderful bands which can encapsulate a certain mood or feeling perfectly. In their case, it’s crushing, oppressive darkness, perfect for those days when the world itself seems like it’s out to get you. Horrenda’s music is the perfect soundtrack to dark times, allowing the listener to confront, process, and, once…
or, why there’s been no new pedals for a while Good morning everyone – I hope you’re all doing well. I thought I’d put a few words on the site about how things have been at Vein-Tap.com HQ, and also, to explain why there’s not been a single new pedal from Vein-Tap.com since before we’d…
It seems like a strange idea, to spend so much money on a full valve high gain guitar amplifier like a Peavey 6505, Soldano SLO-100 or (my personal favourite) a Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier, and put a solid-state overdrive pedal in front of it. You’d be forgiven for thinking this makes no sense; don’t valve…
Copenhagen’s hardcore scene must be a punishing place indeed to produce a band as heavy as EYES. Voices whisper secrets and speak only truths “Why do you put up with yourself?” Deep, heavy, powerful and insightful lyrics meet a fifty foot firewall of harsh hardcore noise. What we wouldn’t give to see EYES tour with…
Hello everyone – I hope you’re all well and safe. 2020 was… well, a nightmare, wasn’t it? Not least for us musicians – as if following our passion for music wasn’t already tough enough, COVID-19 caused arguably the worst global disruption in a generation, and removed the ability to play live music completely. All this…
Beyond proud are we to announce the Little Horn Clean Boost Pedal’s v3.0 upgrade. Tone Demos, not words! As is traditional here at Vein-Tap.com, every time we run out of a certain PCB we challenge ourselves to take what is great about the pedal and add a little something new. This time round, we thought…
Evenin’ all – welcome to our Line 6 HX Stomp External Footswitch Guide. I’ve just put together a very quick video demo on how to configure your Line 6 HX Stomp to accept an external dual footswitch. Check it out: Here’s the text guide, for copy/pasting purposes: Press both Page buttons at the same time,…
One of the UK’s leading alternate bands, Therapy?’s career stretches back through the ages, and includes staple alternate albums such as Troublegum, Infernal Love, Never Apologise Never Explain and 2018’s monolithic Cleave. Frontman Andy Cairns uses the Leech and the Little Horn Boost into a Marshall JCM800 amp, allowing for three flavours of a classic…
When a member of Inspiral Carpets calls you “cool as f**k”, you know you’re onto a winner. Control of the Going began in Manchester in July 2015 to become one “of the best new bands in town”. So far, they have featured as the Real Radio XS “Future Classic” band for July 2015, and have…
Mastiff have nothing to say to you, puny human.
It seems that delay pedals have never been more popular than they are right now, and for good reason: they’re a fantastic way to improve your tone, whether you’re adding a touch of subtle echo, or making your guitar sound like it’s playing down a well several miles away. It’s not the easiest or most…
A rock power duo, formed in Liverpool in 2014, Rival Bones make a torrent of rock noise which puts them in the same sonic leagues as DZ Deathrays and Royal Blood. Currently making the stages of the UK small festival circuit creak under the sheer weight of their desert rock inspired riffs, the band has…
The Pat McManus Band are a rock/blues trio hailing from Ireland, headed up by former Mama’s Boys and Celtus guitarist, violinist and singer song writer Pat McManus. The ‘PMB’ line up is completed by former ‘More Power To Your Elbow’ powerful drummer Paul Faloon and rhythmic and solid former country music and session bass player…
Canis Lupus are legendary in goth rock circles. Hailing from the still-beating heart of beautiful gloomy music itself – Gothenburg – Canis Lupus have recently been resurrected by guitarist Christer after finding that the modern world still thirsted for the band’s music, initially created in the early 2000s, and laid to rest in 2006. The…
Melodic hardcore from the Netherlands, Athena’s Word marry the brutality of unrelenting hardcore with surprisingly tender melodies – always delivered with ferocious tenacity. Savage vocal delivery, slamming riffs and shout-along choruses make the band’s debut EP Lasting Legacy a truly promising release. Check them out! Lasting Legacy by Athena's Word
Right, so: you already understand why you’d use a clean boost, or even an overdrive pedal, before a hi-gain amp. But why would you ever put a distortion pedal before one, and why do so many famous guitarists do it? Clever question. At first glance, it makes no sense: you’ve got two, three, even four…
One of the first ever proper effects pedals we ever released, the Little Horn, gets an upgrade this month. We needed a circuit board fabrication run, having sold all of the v1.0 PCBs, and thought we’d use this opportunity to improve the pedal. We’ve changed the circuit so that turning the Boost control no longer…
Pedal order is always a tricky one to tackle, not least because the rules of the game are more guidelines than anything else. For every tone guru who declares that gain pedals go before the amp, and modulation effects go in the FX loop, there’ll be a guitarist breaking the rule and sounding awesome doing…
Exciting news for anyone with a Roland Amp, a Boss RC series looper, or any Boss effects pedal which makes use of a dual momentary footswitch – the Skinny Little Twins just got updated so that now, you’re able to choose between soft-touch and hard click footswitches, with each coming in Normally Open and Normally…
One of the great things about the Dark Triad Overdrive / Distortion Pedal is how surprisingly subtle it can be. You can even use it as a pre-amp to sculpt your tone, perhaps by boosting the mids to cut through a mix, or by using it as a high pass filter to get rid of…
Earth-shaking, tooth-loosening, neighbour-offending doom from the dark heart of France. Herscher is a three piece doom band who sound more like three noble heavy metal armies laying siege to each other than three men on stage. Through a mix of alternately aggressive and plaintive vocal lines, layers of mountainous distortion, and tempos slow enough to…
So; you’ve got yourself a fantastically high gain amp (6505, TSL100, Powerball etc). Why, when you’ve got that whole world of gain available, would using an overdrive pedal with a distorted amp be a good idea? The answer is simple: to get a better quality of distortion tone. Sounds very strange, putting a little solid…
Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, The Jack Hinks Band fuses the heart of Jack’s solo material, with the teeth of a six piece band. Combining violins, piano, drums, bass, guitar and a wall of vocals The Jack Hinks Band create an eclectic mix of sounds and genres that will refuse to leave your head for days.…
With only one electric bass and a volume controller each, a scattering of analogue delay/looping pedals and a broken four-track cassette tape recorder, Minus Pilots weave together sparse textures, crumbling atmospheres and fractured drones with currents of gentle crackle. Their music has been published by Champion Version, Dronarivm, Eat, Sleep, Repeat, Fake Jazz, Futurerecordings, Panic…
Following on from the Angel of Blues Overdrive Pedal at the beginning of the year, through the Angel of Rock Distortion Pedal in November, we’ve just announced this little beauty: smaller, more affordable, yet several stages more aggressive that its angelic cousins, this is SAINT DOOM. He’s a terrifying fuzz pedal, designed to bring the hairiest, filthiest…
Bless its heart, it was looking a little abandoned. But now the Murder One XLR Killswitch has been updated; we’ve tinkered with the circuitry which means he’s now completely safe to use with condenser microphones with phantom power, and he’s totally noiseless and pop-free. We’ve also added the option to include and off / on…
This little beauty is the Angel of Rock. it was designed to be the greatest and best rock distortion pedal you can possibly get hold of, with a tone reminiscent of the Marshall JTM45. Simple to use, with Drive, Tone, and Volume knobs, a Rhythm / Lead toggle switch and a three-position Bass Tamer toggle…