Controlling the Tone and the Venue
One of the stand-outs at this year’s Summer NAMM show in Nashville, Tennessee was the toneful simplicity of the quintet of effects shown off by relative newcomer AbovegroundFX. The brain-child of Francisco Pena, Aboveground offers up a handful of understated tone tools that are not as interested in making sounds you’ve never heard as they are helping craft the tone you already have. We managed to talk Francisco into sending us a pair of his new boxes – The Venue reverb and the Tone Control. Each box is straight-forward enough… but are they the right tools for the job?
First we’ll take a look at The Venue reverb. Coming in the standard little white pedal box, the shiny, silvery-blue pedal comes sans instructions, but it doesn’t take long to master the nuances of the three knob controls – Filter, Mix and Reverb. The Venue is billed as a reverb pedal that pays special attention to transparency and the dry signal path with the Mix knob functioning to introduce more dry signal into the tone.
With the Les Paul in hand, we wet this bluesy ballad riff. With the Filter at 10 o’clock, Mix at 11 o’clock and Reverb at 3 o’clock, here is The Venue and a little humbucker action. First clean, then the ‘verb.
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The Venue gives a nice, sharp clap to the chords in that progression… not too chimey or shrill. Over to the Strat, bridge pickup, we highlight the Mix control and its overall transparency. With Filter at 10 o’clock, Mix dimed and Reverb at 10 o’clock, listen for the string annotation singing through the light reverb tone. First dry, then wet.
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With the Mix all the way up, you can hear the notes from the Strat sing through with trailing reverb that does not significantly alter the original tone. Switching to the neck pickup, we dial up a little light wetting for a simple lead lick. With Filter at 3 o’clock, Mix at 10 o’clock and Reverb at noon, we hit The Venue with a little lead run. First clean, then the pedal.
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The Aboveground FX Tone Control is a simple, yet fairly robust EQ-type stomp that allows a user to better shape tonal content deriving either from an amp or from any stacked effects pedal. With a clean tone, the metallic-green pedal allows for the dialing in of an amount of harmonics and sub harmonics, which expands the tonal possibilities of the guitar signal. The range of the knob controls allows the user to dial in a wide range of variance from slight tweaks to full-on tonal alterations. Controls include three knobs – Bottom, which dials in/out the low end… Top does the same for the high-end… and Volume is the level control.
Using the Les Paul into a clean amp, we check out one extreme of the Tone Control. With both the Bottom and Top knobs dimed and Volume at about 1 o’clock, we get thick with a modern strum. First clean, then Control’d…
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With both Bottom and Top controls dimed, you get a thick, slightly overdriven tone that fills up more space than the guitar/amp combo alone. Over to the Strat, bridge pick-up, we dial in some low end and try and get a little ‘bucker emulation going. With Bottom at 3 o’clock, Top at 10 o’clock and the Volume at around 2 o’clock… here a little blues you can use. First clean, then with a little girth.
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This setting dials out a bit of the quack, but maintains most of the high-end shimmer while tightening up the lows a bit. Shifting to the neck pick-up on the Strat, we add in a little more top-end. With Bottom at 9 o’clock, Top at 3 o’clock and Volume around 2, o’clock… we go for a bit of chime with a simple strum. First clean, then ring!
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The Venue reverb and Tone Control stomps from Aboveground are solid, workhorse-style pedals – not long on frills, bells or whistles, but consistent performers under foot. I really dug the reverb tones of The Venue, but did notice a touch of artifacting at higher volume and reverb levels. The Tone Control is a worthy addition for any player looking to massage more from their amp tone, or tone of an existing pedal spread. The range of controls does provide for a good amount of variation between sounds thus more tonal options available for use. Priced in the $200 range, there is some competition for these pedals, but their ease-of-use and flexibility (especially the Tone Control) makes them worthy of a look if you’re in the market. That’s our opinion anyway… your mileage may vary!
PLEASE NOTE: All YMMV Review clips are played through a Reverend Hellhound 40/60 combo amp with 1×12 extension cab. No reverb or other effects were added to the clips. Guitars used in this review include a 1979 Gibson Les Paul Custom and a 1998 Fender American Deluxe Stratocaster.
