Univibe 101

in high school I was in my first real band and we were covering Pearl Jam alive but there was a sound in the guitar solo that haunted me it was a moving texture something I had never heard in a guitar effect and I had to solve the puzzle so I went to a local guitar shop and I asked the guy behind the counter hey what effect can I buy to sound like this and he goes yeah it's just a chorus so by a chorus pedal well I did over and over but it never sounded that way it was something way more special way more magical it turns out it was unified and today I want to walk you through univibe 101 [Music] I've got something here to open up pretty excited about it it is the buzz tone by Mahoney guitar gear friend of mine Robert Keeley who many of you know an amazing pedal designer and builder this guy has been one of his employees for years and he makes throwbacks to classic vintage circuits and this one's really fun because I don't actually have the original unit yet it's the old Jordan boss tone there's a small black unit with two little roller knobs and you plugged it into your guitar for this killer fuzz tone it's pretty old and they're hard to get I'm gonna get one one day so this is a replica of it in a pedal form so you've got a red back here slide it out simple and sweet it's the Jordan buzz tone replica the manual says thanks for your purchase of one of America's true legendary guitar effects from the 60s it captures the vintage Jordan show sound units in every way just in a pedal format pretty cool [Music] in 1941 an American company called Leslie created a rotating speaker cabinet you plug your instrument in a speaker rotates and it creates a swooshing swirling magnificent modulation effect the problem is as good as it sounds is a little hard to carry around to the gigs if you know what I mean well the mid 60s a company realized this in Japan they're called shehnai and they created this the unified chorus vibrato this was supposed to replicate the leslie perfectly and put it at the feet of you as a guitar player and you get throw it in your gig bag but the problem is it didn't really do the Leslie sound that well what it did do was pretty fantastic though so fantastic that in fact this exact unit a late 60s univibe is what Hendrix had on the stage at Woodstock and guitar was never the same so let's talk about how this thing works this is the inside of a now discontinued JHS warble Tron I want you to look right here there's a light bulb and it's surrounded by four sensors kind of in a cloverleaf arrangement what happens is the LFO of the unified warble Tron in this case is activated when the light goes bright to dim and the sensors detect it pretty much like when it's night outside your porch light turns on if you got one of those fancy newfangled auto detection porch lights very similar so the unive ad works in that way and that creates a very special rise and fall to the LFO making it really unique another thing that's important to know about the unified is that it actually is more of a phaser than a chorus it's a modulating by way of knocking your signal in and out of phase it's not a phaser it's not a chorus it's univibe that's why it's so confusing there are a lot of times I'll hear people talk about tracks where someone's using a univibe and they go oh it's just an old phase 90 no it's a unified but the phase 90 almost does it but almost isn't good enough for me and I don't think it's good enough for you another example is the boss pH one really loved this pedal and there's a couple settings where it nails a univibe tone it just lacks the feel and the push and swell of that bulb inside so all this said the univer biz a super unique circuit there's nothing really like it and I think the most important feature of a unified that you need to look for is that it actually includes the light bulb because a univibe without that bulb inside is really just a fancy phaser you don't need a fancy phaser you need a univibe so let me show you my favorite univibe x' modern ones that replicate that original shinai very very well before I play the modern versions you need to control you need to know what you're listening for so I'm going to play that original 60s unit this thing's about three thousand dollars really hard to find and if you open it up there's fairy dust sprinkles and unicorn toenails what you just heard is the chorus move that's by far the most popular of the two modes course vibrato because Hendrix used that and let's face it most people banging univibe want to sound like Jimi Hendrix with me that's not really the case and I prefer the vibrato mode I use this mode as an always-on effect lots of times and it adds a 3d shimmer to everything and you really only notice it when you turn it off my broto mode turn the intensity down and turn the speed [Music] you the first-ever univibe circuit that I actually plugged into and played for myself was the den electro chicken salad vibrato I bought it because I didn't really know what it was and it was cheap I just wanted more pedals and it said vibrato I wasn't really sure what that was but when I plugged it in I realized this was something special it wasn't a phaser and it wasn't a chorus it was that magic thing called you you probably know who do labs because they make the most awesome power supply ever a pedal power - well they also have really good pedals and one of their classics is the micro vibe this thing sounds like it should and it's built like a tank you might have seen the episode where I'm shopping for gear in the guitar sanctuary in Dallas well that day I came home with a jam pedals retro vibe I'd met these guys before played several of their other pedals and did not realize they made a unified well it's amazing and you should buy it for the paint job alone [Music] the dunlop roto vibe one of my employees here and good friend john about ten years ago he brought one of these to my house he had it on his board i plugged into it and it blew me away because it had the speed control on an expression and then i later found out this is what pearl jim actually used so I came face-to-face with that question that had lurked in my head so many years before and it sounds exceptional you got vibrato and chorus mode here I can't say enough about it it's a great pedal good and heavy heavy pedals are good sometimes you need a heavy pedal too many light bottles in the world the Electra harmonics good vibes modulator chorus and vibrato Unova has the bulb in it really great price point and honestly kind of blew me away how good it sounds I'll admit it electro-harmonix made a really good univibe and the price point is on point so the depths by my friends over Earthquaker devices if you like tweaking a pedal constantly if you like more knobs than you actually need this is the UNIVAC for you it's super adjustable all kinds of controls and it does a lot more than the standard univibe but at its heart it has the ball Bennett it's fantastic and it does what it should if you're looking for this sound I could never ever ever ever talk about modern univibe pedals without talking about Mike Fuller's fulltone company Dasia vibe mini and the MD v1 he has consistently brought us amazing universe over the years and if you're looking for one these are easy to find and most stores in the bigger cities just go try one plug-in and this is gonna be a very faithful replication of the real thing a little harder to find but something that has to be mentioned are the sweet sound electronics univibe 'z this is the ultra vibe and this is the Mojo vibe Bob sweet the creator and builder of these passed away years ago to cancer but his family has continued to make these these original units can be found on eBay and you can find the newer units from time to time I can't recommend these enough because the attention to detail with how they're made is just fantastic and pros have loved these for years and years so if you find one you really [Music] this record time is brought to you by Jimi Hendrix Rainbow Bridge soundtrack this is kind of a bizarre more unknown Hendrix collection of recordings and I think they repressed it recently so you can find it there's a particular track I want to highlight and it's called to hear my train a-comin now you may have heard Hendrix do this but on this particular album there's a rendition of it where there's a lengthy jam session and you get to hear Hendrix really lean into the unified and I don't think there's anyone in the history that played to the emotion and the feeling of this effect as he did and this track really highlights it another honorable mention is the way that John Mayer uses univibe in gravity you can hear that on the trio record or continuum it's the kind of thing where if he turned it off the riff wouldn't be as good but with it on you almost don't notice it so I have to throw that out there if you've never noticed it so go listen and check that out and listen to this record and check it out what I'd like for you to do in the comments is put your favorite song that features univibe I want to hear about it I want to talk about it so do that right now that's it for today's episode I'm really excited because I know that a lot of you guys did not understand univibe you know it comes off a little fringy maybe it's an effect you don't really think you need to have or really care about and today may be what I shed some light on will get you interested so go out there get some univibe put them in your rigs and I promise you if you do you'll love your guitar a little bit more and then there's some of you guys who are huge unified fans you know more than I do and I would love to hear what your favorite univibe is I'd also love to hear the story of how you first used it you kind of heard mine so I want to hear yours if you liked this episode hit like subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon to get notifications of future episodes and until next time have a wonderful day you

Channel: JHS Pedals

Views: 430,294

Rating: 4.9403577 out of 5

Keywords: JHS, JHS Pedals, Guitar, Guitar Pedals, Electric Guitar, Guitar Effects, Guitar Player, Guitar Playing, Pedal Demo, Guitar Demo, New Pedals, New Guitar Pedals, Josh Scott, Guitar Gear, Music Gear, Guitar Tones, Pedal Tones, Good Guitar Tone, Best Guitar Tone, Best Electric Guitar Tone, Analog Guitar Tone, Guitar Sounds, JHS Guitar Pedals, Univibe, Jimi Hendrix Tone, Jimi Hendrix Pedal, Chorus Pedals, Vibrato Pedals, JHS Univibe, JHS VLOG

Id: P-1yQm2cj20

Length: 12min 6sec (726 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 06 2018