T-REX TONEBUG PHASER, CHORUS + FLANGER & REVERB PEDALS

If you’re into gui­tar gear, par­tic­u­larly ped­als, then you’ve no doubt heard of T-Rex. Founded in 1995 and pro­duc­ing mod­ern clas­sics such as the Replica delay and Mud­honey Distortion/Overdrive T-Rex have proven them­selves wor­thy mem­bers of the cool effects mak­ers club (note: may or may not be an actual club) numer­ous times. In their next attempt to main­tain mem­ber­ship the crew at T-Rex present their Tonebug Phaser, Cho­rus + Flanger and Reverb pedals.

A PHASE I’M GOING THROUGH

Some­times over­looked, the phaser has been a cool effect through­out the years with its swirl and body some­times being con­fused for cho­rus, flanger or even synth-y type instru­ments. With con­trols for rate and depth, and a tog­gle switch for either mod­ern or vin­tage, the phaser is pretty straight up but def­i­nitely has room to move. Start­ing on the vin­tage set­ting you could get a retro, funky phase shift per­fect for muted rhythm parts or open ‘80s pick­ing. Flick over to mod­ern and you’re look­ing at a brighter, slightly more hi fi sweep; still with that undu­lat­ing shim­mer. Nice.

JOIN IN THE CHORUS…ERR FLANGER…

Like the rest of the Tonebug range the Cho­rus + Flanger is a sim­ple con­trol lay­out: rate and depth for mov­ing the cho­rus effect from sub­tle widen­ing and cho­rus­ing to war­blier res­o­nance and thicker tones. 80s and 90s vibes instantly come to mind for thick hard rock and power bal­lad sounds, or washy hits and sounds. This lit­tle buggy also has the bonus of a tog­gle switch to flick it into flange mode mak­ing for that clas­sic jet plane whoosh. I found both set­tings to be musi­cal and more than usable; the fact it’s a two-in-one kinda deal will suit those on a bud­get and try­ing to min­imise pedal board space.

REVERB IS NOT A DIRTY WORD

Verb in a pedal can be a con­tentious one. The clas­sic cham­bers, tanks, and indeed nat­ural rooms are often imi­tated but enthu­si­asts aren’t eas­ily con­vinced. Of late how­ever I’ve heard a num­ber of really great sound­ing reverb ped­als that can do every­thing from light touches to big room sim­u­la­tions. T-Rex are on the right track with this creamy coloured lit­tle fella. Decay and depth are suf­fi­cient for dialling in the kind of size and amount of verb whilst the mod­ern and spring set­tings of the tog­gle switch allow for a range of tones — brighter, thin­ner and sparkly or thicker and more vin­tage. Like the rest of the range it doesn’t have the tweak­a­bil­ity of some more in-depth ped­als but stick­ing to the essen­tials and doing it well with good tone cov­ers the major­ity of uses anyway.

Price: RRP $349

Dis­trib­u­tor: Aus­tralis Music

Phone: (02) 9698 4444

Web­site: www.australismusic.com.au

By Nick Brown