GEAR ROUND UP
Flip Pick Plectrums DOD Badder Monkey Pedal
The Rock Slide- New Slides
If you have read some of my reviews before you know how much I love finding new an innovative music gear. Enter Flip Pick Plectrums is a family-owned business out of Tallahassee, Florida by Tim and Jamie Roufa. The Flip Pick uses a rubber finger strap that fits around your index finger. Then you attach the pick shape, composition and thickness of your choice to the top of the Flip Pick Finger Strap. Once in place you can swing the Flip Pick into position to strum or pick your guitar with that or swing it out of the way when you want to finger pick. I tried on an acoustic guitar and once I got used to the Finger Strap on my hand it was comfortable and easy to switch between hybrid and standard strumming and playing. I believe this would be a great tool for children or beginners that are having trouble holding a pick in position or seniors with arthritis or other hand challenges. Their slogan is“ Never drop a pick again” and with Flip Pick Plectrums this is a truthful statement. I recommend the Flip Pick Starter pack that costs $ 19.99 and includes a finger strap and two each of light, medium and heavy picks. You can also purchase refresh packs of the picks that come in a 5-pack and cost $ 8.99. If you or a fellow musician keeps dropping their pick during practice or performance, it’ s time to embrace Flip Peck Plectrums! www. flippickplectrums. com
I owned the original Bad Monkey pedal by DOD which has become a classic in pedals now. But the new Badder Monkey is so much better and more versatile. Thanks to additional controls circuitry the Badd Monkey provides hundreds of tonal options in a one pedal configuration. The new features include a Barrel Blend Control know that lets you dial in from behaved, to bad, to badder in a 360 knob. Bananas is the gain control; Curiosity is the level and Mood EQ( Grunt is low EQ and Screech is mid-high). The Blend triple toggle in the middle in UP is the Bad overdrive circuit in phase, Center combines all circuits and cuts out the Barrel control and Down is Bad overdrive out of phase. The LED light also changes colors to reflect which mode you are in Down( teal), Center( green) and Up( blue). The foot switch is true bypass switching and the Stageplate on the bottom of the pedal is reversible to have a Velcro side and a clean side. Plugged into an amp I was able to achieve the original Bad Monkey tones, but also a lot more. From the Barrel and toggle there are so many usable sounds that the Badder Monkey is like an overdrive lab. All of the sounds were incredible and clean. At $ 149.99 the DOD Badder Monkey is worth the investment just for a few of the sounds it offers. Plus, the graphics are incredible, it includes a small barrel of monkeys’ keychain and extra stickers. DOD took a very popular pedal and made it even Badder and you’ ll want to monkey around with this pedal for hours! Overdrive can be fun and have more dimensions thanks to DOD and DigiTech. www. digitech. com
The Rock Slide Company is a family-owned business headed up by Danny Songhurst. I’ ve known Danny since before he took over the business in 2011 and he has added player requested features to was once a ham bone or Coricidin bottle. For review, WM tested out the Rock Slide 25 th Anniversary slides. They have a paisley graphic on the amber glass slide with a guitar in the middle of the paisley shape. Favorite features include the knuckle cutaway for better fit, tapered interior and the finger groove on the side to keep the slide in place when playing it. They come in small, medium and large and start $ 25. The medium size fits my ringer finger best and sounds great with acoustic and electric guitars. The new Minnie Marks slides are designed for people with smaller hands or who prefer a pink slide so they can fret with their other fingers. It is a shiny brass slide with a ball-tip, knuckle cutaway, taped interior and side finger groove. Rock Slide will add a key chain hole at no additional charge. Priced at $ 35.99 they fit ring sizes from 4-6. The Rock Slides are available in glass, brass and ceramic. They can create custom slides, and they offer other signature models for Dylan Adams, Tyler Bryant, Ariel Posen, and many others. I’ m a personal fan and perform with their Aged Brass Swamp Slides. www. therockslide. com
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