Mike McCready had it. His idol, Stevie Ray Vaughan, had it. Jimi Hendrix had it too.
What was it? Well, besides buckets of talent, it was that Uni-Vibe sound! I tried to get it a long time ago—but my wah didn’t do it, and I couldn’t get it on a Boss Chorus pedal. To get the swirling goodness I was after, I needed a Uni-Vibe—or something very much like it.
I grew up in the early days of effects-and-amp modeling, back when no one was making an authentic-sounding Uni-Vibe. Of course, a vintage unit was way out of my teenage budget.
Fast forward to an era where old is new again! I was ecstatic when I recently got to try out Analog Fox’s Easy Vibe, the company's take on the classic Uni-Vibe.
Analog Fox is a small company based out of Moscow, Russia, that ships worldwide. Each pedal is made with Alpha pots, Neutrik jacks and True Bypass switching and is housed in a gig-worthy aluminum box.
The Easy Vibe is stripped down to two knobs: Depth (how much effect is added to your signal) and Rate (the speed of the effect). There also is a pair of switches: On (turns the effect on or off) and Mode (switches between swirling chorus and pitch-bending vibrato).
The input and output jacks are mounted on the front of the pedal. Between those jacks sits a 9-volt power jack; you also can run the Easy Vibe off a 9-volt battery. The dimensions of the pedal are 3 ½ by 4 ½ inches.
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A friend recenty asked me to set up his Seventies Strat, so that's what I used for the photos and sound clips in this story. The Strat is plugged into a blackface Fender Bassman through a Marshall 4x12. Any overdrive is from a newer TS-9 Tube Screamer.
You can hear three audio clips below:
CLIP 1: I play similar licks, switching between the Chorus and Vibrato modes to give you an idea of the differences.
CLIP 2: Chorus only. Cranking up the Rate gives a great Hammond Organ Leslie-type sound. Dialing back the Rate with more Depth gives you a David Gilmour-esque phaser tone.
CLIP 3: All Vibrato. I tried to capture everything from a fast, upfront vibrato to a slow, almost-worn-out VCR tape warble.Web: analogfox.com Street Price: $95 (shipping included)
You can't believe everything you read on the Internet, but Billy Voight is a gear reviewer, bassist and guitarist from Pennsylvania. He has Hartke bass amps and Walden acoustic guitars to thank for supplying some of the finest gear on his musical journey. Need Billy's help in creating noise for your next project? Drop him a line at thisguyonbass@gmail.com.
