Wampler Pinnacle

ELA

Member
Messages
339
Just received this pedal yesterday, only had a chance to spend about an hour with it so here are my first impressions.

To me it sounds nice and open, I especially like the sounds I get with contour knob between 9 and 11 O'clock, gain at about 10 O'clock and tone anywhere between 10 O'clock and 1. Nice mids, little compression. Also side note, wife commented on how nice the pedal looked.

I haven't really tried to get a "brown" sound out of it even though it is marketed as the ultimate brown sound pedal. I believe it has much more usable sounds. It is way more open than my Crunch Box but I still have no plans of removing my Crunch Box from the board though, it fills a need and does what it does outstandingly. Both will be on board each filling its own niche. Have no problems dialing in mid-gain sounds, think AC/DC.

One thing I find confusing though is the vintage/modern switch. I assume its on vintage mode in the up position and modern in the down position. But what I find is that with my amp (Mark V) it is much darker in the down/modern position. I thought it would be vice versa, vintage darker and modern brighter. Anyways I much prefer the up/vintage position with my amp. Brighter and adds more clarity/presence.

Did not play with the boost function much. One thing I did notice is that the pedal seems to be more flubby on the lows than the Crunch Box. Can't seem to tighten that up.

Overall IMHO this is a great pedal and a keeper. :rockin
 

lizardking

Silver Supporting Member
Messages
757
Just got my pedal on Saturday...have had a little time to fool around with it...here's some of my unexpert opinion, lol....

I agree that the two settings contrast greatly. On one i'm trying to boost the treble all the way up, and the other i'm diving to put it down.

"Open sounding" is a really good way to describe it.

I think the flubby lows are part of the "brown sound". It doesn't have a crunch or chugga-chugga to it.

The boost switch seems to add more gain and prescence to things, but it also gets pretty noisy. I actually wish there was no boost switch and just a bit more gain on tap in the "normal" setting of the pedal.

I've also heard this pedal loves volume, which I haven't been able to really give it yet.

Overall it seems like a nice pedal to get this certain sound.
 

dsmc80

Senior Member
Messages
3,871
You are right about volume. Crank that volume up and smoke the tubes.
 

BrianWampler

Member
Messages
1,396
glad you are liking it! :)
You are correct about more tones than the brown sound... Doug Doppler did some clips for me on the wampler pedals site that digs in quite a bit deeper. As far as the bright switch, it should be brighter a bit in the 'up' position. keep the tone control at 12:00 and flip the switch (with the gain at about 11:00, boost in down position). You should hear more top end.

bw
 



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