GEAR REVIEW
STRYMON PCH DIRECT INTERFACE | Mitch Bohannon
Why didn’ t I think of that? Oh, how many times I have had that question pop into my head! A top-quality direct box that can run mono or stereo and includes a headphone output. Come on!
Unless you’ re using an all-in-one rig by itself or you’ re running and mic-ing amps, the only way to test out and / or hear your actual tone is to plug into an interface through your computer and listen through studio monitors or the headphone output; or buy and use a separate headphone amplifier; or do what I used to do and plug the pedalboard into my office amplifier and just hope it sounds good when I finally plug in at church. As a worship pastor, I always wanted my musicians to come more prepared than what I just described! In addition, I believe the Word calls us to be more prepared than that. Now, Strymon has brought us a tool to help us to be better by Sunday.
Strymon. My son and son-in-law both have plenty of Strymon on their pedalboards. One for his electric and one for his acoustic. I’ m sure if you’ re reading this, you do as well … or you’ re about to. I was heading out of town when the PCH arrived, so I dropped it off at my son, Sam’ s house for him to get his hands on it first. Before I even got back, I received a text that read,“ Love the direct box. Audio quality thru the headphone amp is amazing! Super nice to be able to just use that and play / listen without an amplifier.”
For my current leading situation, I lead only with my acoustic, however I’ m running through an A / B pedal and outputting to two separate signals … one dry and one passing through some reverb and delay. I use the A / B pedal to switch between the separate signals or to combine them. So, with this Strymon PCH, I can run both signals in and listen to the blend of the wet and dry signals together. That’ s pretty brilliant.
I asked Sam to give me more of his impressions after using the PCH and here is his response.“ Just pulling the PCH out of the box, I thought it looked great and felt like a solid build. When I heard that it was coming, my first thoughts were that it would be a Strymon-quality direct box, but after experiencing the headphone out, I see it’ s so much more! I would love to have this in my office to test each of my rigs before I haul everything to the church. I would know in advance exactly what sound I would be sending to the house. With three small kids in the house, this is even more of a benefit to be able to quickly and quietly evaluate my tone when I add or remove pedals from my board.”
Again, for me, I am actually using my first pedal board setup after all these years! Sure, I’ ve
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