BMF Effects, doing it and doing it well. We're gonna start this month off by looking deeper into what makes BMF's pedals tick, and this time we'll be exploring their world of modulation effects. It seems like the more I gig the more I'm seeing cats throwing these pedals on their pedalboards. One thing you can always be sure of when investing in a BMF Effects pedal is that you're going to be getting an all tone, no frills stompbox. While many pedal companies are focusing on making their effect pedals as complex as possible, BMF is keeping it traditional while at the same time able to maintain an all around signature sound. With many pedals you have to sit with them and do hours of homework before they benefit your playing and style. With these baby's you can sit back, plug in, and know you'll get something outstanding. Those of you hunting for those tones that are floating around in your head will do well by adding some BMF into sound.
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Liquid Sky
chorus/vibrato
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This little baby was an absolute touch of heaven for sure. Chorus is something I personal only use when it is absolutely necessary. This means that it must be a high quality, warm, yet defined, not too harsh sounding effect. I've never been a fan of the gummy bear twinkle chorus pedals, you know the one's I mean. When tossing in an effect like chorus or vibe, you want to either use it sparingly so that it is memorable, or if using it with your core sound you want to make sure it is supporting your root tone and not taking over. This simple fantastic sounding pedal was able to deliver just that. The Liquid Sky's layout makes dialing in those spot-on tones a cinch. On board the Liquid Sky you will find Speed, Blend, and Depth knobs. These three knobs are more than enough to get an array of chorusing, vibrato, pitch shifting, and leslie effects. The Liquid Sky works great for warm, lush, vintage chorusing tones, and defined, spacey, psychedelic sounds.
Setting up and getting a good sound out of a chorus pedal is easy if you know how and when to use it. I first set up a couple sweet sounding clean tones and ran the Liquid through them without any other effects or overdrive. My first guitar of choice was my 60's Strat build plugged into my modified Hot Rod Deville. I set the amp up with everything at noon, no reverb, and volume at around 3-4. I started with the pedal's Speed knob at it's lowest setting, the Blend at noon, and the Depth at around 9'o'clock. I got a slow'n'smooth chorusing sound that rose and fell beautifully. By listening and setting the Blend knob just where I wanted it I was able to incorporate the perfect amount of chorus into my signal. I noticed right away that Liquid Sky did not eat or manipulate my root tone in any way, and most importantly it didn't drop my volume like most chorus/vibe pedals are known for. With this pedal the effect latches onto whatever tone you dial in and accents it really nicely. To get a little more universal sounding chorus tone I pumped the Speed up just below noon, Blend also just behind noon, and Depth at around 10:30. This tone chorus sound worked great for rhythm playing, blues licks, chord play, and all around riffing and riding. With a little overdrive introduced into the signal I was able to get a massive sounding blues rock tone. It wasn't as dramatic as a Hendrix chorus/vibe tone, instead more as an effect to bring some life and color into your sound. That being said, the Liquid Sky worked great with a overdrive pedal before it. I also switched it around and plugged a dirt pedal after it and it sounded equally as appealing. Now that I was rounding the Henrix/Trower chorus corner I figured I'd go ahead and try my best attempt at it. Actually it was a freakin cinch to do this! All I did was picked out my favorite fuzz box or distortion, set the Liquid Sky's speed to the appropriate setting, set the depth to work with my pick attack and playing, and blended it just enough for it to sit behind the fuzz effect. It was beautiful! Again a pedal had me stuck and running lead licks for hours and hours. Inspiration kids, that's what it's all about, don't forget that. If you can plug into a pedal and get some drive to play, write, rock out, or all of the above, you're using the right gear. Switching over to a humbucker equipped guitar was also quite tasty. I now plugged the guitar into a Super Lead head and 4x12 cab to get as bog a sound as possible. I ran the amplifier quite hot, wanting to see just how the Liquid Sky would affect it's tonality. For this I dialed in a medium tempo, med/high depth, and used the blend a bit rolled back to even everything out. The huge, rich'n;creamy sound of the Super Lead broke through beautifully behind the Liquid Sky's deep and soulful chorus tone. This also worked great as a universal chorus tone, something that worked really nicely with all types of playing. One thing you'll always notice about a good sounding chorus pedal is that it will never discriminate against other instruments. Surprisingly enough the pedal sounded pretty damn good through a bass. By setting up a light chorusing sound I was able to get a sound out of my bass that I had never heard. I also ran the pedal through some slide playing and lap steel. Yummy oh yummy! I ran my buddy's vintage Fender lap steel through one of our favorite overdrive pedals, plugged into my AC15 clone ran slightly hot, and set all of the BMF's controls at noon. Here the Liquid Sky excelled once again, giving us a big fat vintage lap steel overdrive tone that sang and moved like no other. Last we of course ran the pedal through some keyboards. First a Rhodes, then through a couple different keyboards and keyboard plug-ins. The Liquid Sky added sweet analog goodness to each and every one of the applications we set it up against, and never spit out a dull tone. You'll find this pedal works great for recording, gigging, and music styles of all types. BMF has yet to let us down and I doubt they ever will. Just like their dirt boxes and boosters, the Liquid Sky produced a pro quality sound that never let us down. I'l telling ya'll, if you haven't had a chance to run your rig through a couple BMF stompboxes, do so! All tone and nothing else, get yours.
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You guys know where to go for more info on BMF Effects, if you don't just go to our side links or banners at the bottom of our site and click the BMF logo. We will be continuing to bring you more pedal features and information from this awesome company so please make sure to stay tuned. Thanks for all the great comments and emails, and please keep them coming. Look out for more from BMF Effects in the near future :^)
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