​Today I took delivery from my new friends at Roland UK

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A tuner, a phaser and an octaver.



TU-3

No matter how good your ears are, without a tuner in your pedal/rack chain on stage, you're going to sound a pleb either because you're out of tune or you're tuning up with the whole band and audience hearing you. Not great mid gig through the front of house!  

From the legendary Korg Rack DTR tuner to the futuristic TC Polytune, the TU-3 has been THE pedal tuner and still does the the job. Like most tuners, it mutes the amp signal as you tune. 



OC-3

Once the only way to hit below an E without D-Tuning,

the Octaver is still a handy effect to have in the chain. Whether doubling your original signal to beef up the bottom end or to make your bass sound more like a synth (made popular recently by Janek Gwizdala) the OC-3 tracks well and can do both very well. Some enthusiasts, sigh and hark back to the OC-2 which was fully analogue. I will give an A/B comparison in a couple weeks.



PH-3

Inspired by the likes of Anthony Jackson with the O'Jays (you know..that tune on the US Apprentice?), Nathan East with Rodney Franklin and more recently Christian McBride with Pat Metheny. The phaser, for me is a great effect to have for a quirky/funky bass sound. I like to call it retro chic. There are a range of options normally found on top end phase pedals here with 4, 8, 12 step phase as well as rise and fall modes. That's not to suggest the PH-3 is a 'nice cheap option' it's the real deal.

I will compare it to analogue phaser pedals. I think the ultimate test maybe the Mooger Fooger Phaser. 

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As I'm rapidly finding out, a pedal board is a MUST if you have several pedals. Good quality batteries start to rack up.

So invest in a board that will power everything. Making sure everything fits is handy too..

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Click on the link below to hear some sound clips of the OC and PH-3 pedals.





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