GUITAR WORLD (USA) MAY 2007 AC-Tone
Many
manufacturers claim that their pedals sound like an amp in a box, but
only a select few products truly earn this distinction. Carl Martin goes
one better with its new AC-Tone, which delivers tonal character and
response similar to a classic Vox AC Series amp.
It takes a while to get used to how the three footswitches operate, but
once you’ve got it down, it’s easy to pull three or four gorgeous
Vox-like tones from the AC-Tone with a few quick foot taps. Don’t
devalue your amp with mods: just get an AC-Tone, plug it to the amp’s
input, and enjoy a whole new palette of sounds |
Product: Carl Martin
AC-Tone
Price Paid: 2.100.000,
Submitted 07/11/2008 at 11:17pm by Doraemon
Ease of Use  :
10
it is very easy to use.
great layout. good logic.
Sound Quality :
10
this unit sounds awesome
in an instant. I mainly use fender telecaster 52 hotrod and gretsch
duo jet filtertron with this pedal. run through a mesa lonestar
special 212 el84 tubes. I bought the AC tone to add some voxey sound
to the mesa, since I feel the mesa matched really well with my fender
startocaster sound.(fendery). With the AC tone, now it can sound
british as well.
it's relatively quiet. satisfyingly emulates "the EDGE"
style.
it can go from slight break up to good distortion level. warm and good
articulation. I also have Fulldrive 2, Sparkle drive, Diamond J-drive
mk 3, varidrive, xotic BB plus, maxon od9, ibanez ts 808, G2d classic,
and a procorat deucetone. and the AC tone sound as good or better in
comparisson. it has a little more head room, I guessed it came from
the inbuilt power supply. 12 volt. compare to 9 volt of some others.
Reliability :
9
metal casing, sturdy, and
good design. a little big tho. and the sponge base, i'm not sure i can
put some velcro to it. the knobs are easily tweakable, sometimes it
changed accidently when we step on the pedal.
Customer Support :
No Opinion
Overall Rating :
10
I've been learning guitar
for 9 years now. if stolen. I will try to buy one again. but it's not
cheap for us here in Indonesia.
great pedal!
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Product:
Carl Martin AC-Tone
Price Paid: CAD 295
Submitted 06/14/2007 at 12:06am by guitarjo
Ease of Use :
8
it sounded good
immediately. there really aren't too many knobs to fiddle with in
order to get a tone. pretty much turn it up or turn it down. the eq
"cut" knob is pretty straightforward. the pedals are a bit
confusing for about 20 seconds then you get it figured out and it's
all good.
Sound Quality :
10
i almost never review my
gear here, but this is the best sounding overdrive pedal i've ever
heard. i'm a beatles nut and a fan of 60s rock. i already play through
a vox cambridge reverb (tube version) but i wanted to get the sound of
a cranked up vox at a lower volume. this pedal is extremely convincing
front end overdrive. just sounds like the amp is being pushed harder.
not a heavily compressed or thick distortion. more of a natural soft
to medium overdrive with that signature vox midrange. my guitars are
gibson es 335, fender telesonic, gretsch nashville, danelectro 12
string. i set up one gain for a mild drive (about 9 o'clock) and the
other (3 o'clock) for a heavier sound. the boost pedal is immensely
helpful for kicking up solos.
Reliability :
10
i've only had the item a
ew days but have already had a few rehearsals, a gig, and a session
with it. it seems extremely solid. love the amp knobs.
Customer Support :
No Opinion
i dunno.
Overall Rating :
10
i play many styles
including pop, jazz, country, rock, etc but most of the music i play
is influenced by the sound and tone of the 60s and 70s. i would buy
another one of these if something happened to this one. i was playing
with a fulltone full drive 2 for a while and it was okay, but not the
sound i was looking for. the ac-tone is much more open and natural
'amp' sounding. and thank god, it's not a digital model of a great
sound. it just is a great sound.
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Product: Carl Martin
AC-Tone
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted 06/11/2008 at 06:16am by gardnemr
Ease of Use :
No Opinion
Very easy to use. As
others have mentioned the pedal labels can initially be confusing -
but you soon get over that. Good control of the drive for each
channel, plus a shared EQ/Cut and a separate boost control. The
in-built power supply is also great - it vastly simplified my wiring
clutter, and improves the overall performance of the pedal.
Sound Quality :
10
I have been looking for a
dual channel overdrive and boost to go with my single channel Matamp
King Street (EL34) amp for some while, and have tried (and bought)
many different overdrive pedals with no success until now. I think I
may now have found it. I really need an easy way of switching between
3 modes: clean (ie. no effect engaged, just the amp), slightly dirty
for blues, and more dirty for rock sounds. Plus have the ability to
boost either sound for solos, etc. With previous pedals I always
struggled to get the volume balance sorted out - so that there was no
discernible (unwanted) volume boost when switching between modes. This
is not a problem with the AC-TONE. Also I found that other pedals
often changed the sound of my amp too much (particularly when going
for heavier distortion). With the AC-Tone this works very well.
Although the AC-Tone is supposed to add a strong flavour of the famous
Vox sound, it still retains your amp tone underneath - which is what I
wanted. It just adds a Vox flavoured overdrive, which you can tweak
with the Cut control. All of this adds up to a very usable pedal which
also sounds excellent. My amp tone is still maintained - with the
pedal engaged it sounds like I've just added more tube amp overdrive
to my amp - rather than drastically changing the sound. This is
illustrated by the fact that if you have the drive on zero then you
just get the natural amp sound on its own. This now gives me 3
channels on my amp. If you like Vox flavoured overdrive sounds whilst
retaining your existing amp tone then this is the pedal for you. The
distortion also nicely cleans up when reducing the volume on the
guitar or picking more lightly. This is not a high-gain pedal so
anyone interested in metal should look elsewhere. I am a Fender user
so have used this with my Fender Tele and Strats. The pedal is very
quiet - much quieter than my other overdrive pedal. This could be down
to the inbuilt power supply. I have been trying to simplify my rig
down to just the AC-Tone, a wah pedal, reverb and a tuner. So the
inbuilt power is a definite plus. The boost can add a great deal of
boost to your amp and can also give you a great overdriven sound on
its own. I tend to use this at around 9 o'clock for a slight boost to
my solos.
Reliability :
10
Built like a tank. Don't
expect any problems here.
Customer Support :
10
Excellent. I had a problem
when I stupidly plugged my USA spec 115 volt AC-TONE into the UK power
supply which is 230 volts. This blew the power supply in the AC-TONE.
Carl Martin were excellent. I emailed them and they sent me a
replacement power supply block which I fitted - and everything was up
and running again.
Overall Rating :
9
I mainly play blues and
classic rock. This is the pedal I have been looking for. For other
styles of music I would probably use a different pedal - one that
would give me more versatility in the overdrive/distortion sounds.
However, if you want naturalistic and controllable tube sounding
overdrive for blues, pop or rock then this is the pedal for you. I'm
not a fan of the high-gain Marshall sound, so avoided the Plexi-tone
model by Carl Martin. I think the AC-Tone is a much more subtle pedal
and more suited to lower-gain usage. I have been playing for around 30
years. I own 6 electrics (Gretsch, Fender, Gordon Smith) and 3 amps (Matamp,
Marshall JTM, Crate Powerblock). I have many other overdrive pedals (eg.
H&K TubeFactor, VisualSound Jeckle and Hyde, Boss FDM-1). Overall
in terms of sound and controllability the AC-TONE wins out. However,
it isn't a cheap pedal, so I've just given it a 9 here.
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