Canadian Musician - January/February 2019

ROAD TEST Ernie Ball Expression Series Tremolo Pedal By Adam Gallant E rnie Ball has released a new line of rugged and cleverly designed expres- sion pedals for guitar. I recently had the chance to test out the Expression Tremolo, which is a very flexible trem and spring reverb built into one rocker-style pedal. Via the expression pot, you have control over the tremolo’s speed, depth, and/or reverb saturation, and if you’ve had the chance to play around with EB’s volume pedals, you’ll recog- nize the high degree of performance and tough build quality. Out of the Box This pedal has a beautiful glossy purple finish with no expense spared on the exterior. The aluminum chassis is heavy gauge and sealed, ready for lots of abuse on the road. The foot plate has a hearty grip pad and the rocker feels trustworthy with no “play” when I put my full body weight on it. The controls are found on the front of the pedal. The knobs have protrusions that are helpful for setting parameters without having to look at the panel. As far as functions, we have depth, rate, waveshape, and reverb. LEDs next to the rate and depth knobs light up to iden- tify which controls are being handled by the expression pot. All of the cable ins and outs, including 9-V DC power, are connected via the front panel, meaning this pedal can slip neatly into your pedalboard without valuable left-to-right space 22 • C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N being taken up by patch cables. In Use First off, I think more pedals need expression rockers built-in; it is the simplest way to get im- mediate, hands-free control of effect param- eters. Trem, in particular, benefits greatly from this design, as exemplified here. With this pedal, you can very quickly and easily find the sweet spot with the rate and ride it with your band to maintain great timing, or quickly sweep into high or low speeds for excit- ing transitions. On the trem side, we have five different wave shapes: slow rise, slow fall, sine, square, and harmonic – all very useful depending on the genre of music you’re into. By simply press- ing the depth and/or rate knob in, it assigns that parameter to the expression pot and the toe-down position engages the effect(s) with the knob’s parked position. Simply put, in heel down position, the effects are bypassed and with the toe down, the front panel settings are engaged. I found the pedal provided the best dy- namic range when it was at the end of my pedal chain. With distortions and phasers be- fore the trem, the pulsing effect has more room to breathe and the different wave shapes are better presented. The built-in spring reverb is added with a single knob and sounds like a tasteful Fend- er. The single knob controls length and blend amount in one pot, while the blend is depen- dant on the expression pot’s position. The pedal can also be used for reverb only by setting the depth and rate all the way down, parking the reverb knob, and putting the pedal in toe-down position. While the pedal was inspiring on guitar, I was also using it to add trem, verb, and vibe to a digitally-modeled Wurlitzer sound from Keyscape through my DAW’s audio interface. The pedal adds a subtle harmonic crunch that is very flattering and reminded me of the flexibil- ity of SoundToys ’ Tremolator plug-in. A stereo version of this pedal would be a blast in the studio or for a guitarist or keyboard player with a stereo setup. The Ernie Ball Expression Tremolo has ev- erything you could want in a trem pedal and a whole lot more. It’s built for life on the road and is inspiring and flexible enough for use in the studio. The design makes for intuitive use and the build quality is top notch. All in all, a great job by Ernie Ball with the latest effect in their Expression Pedal series. I’m certainly looking forward to testing out the Ambient Delay… Adam Gallant has worked in all facets of digital audio production, from music composition to lo- cation and post audio for television and film. He currently owns and operates The Hill Sound Studio in Charlottetown, PE.

Canadian Musician - January/February 2019 | Page 22