NOPD

New Overdrive Pedal Day. On vacation in Marin, stopped by a music store called Bananas At Large. Incredible selection... one of everything Fender makes, boutique amps, a Hagstrom hollow body baritone I really liked, a two-manual Hammond emulator by Roland that kicked ass. Ended up buying some V-picks and a Crowther Hot Cake that sounded awesome. Unexpected, but cool. Great shop.

Bananas at Large is such a cool store! I've been there a couple times, it's about an hour and a half from my house. There's a couple cool stores across the street too.

I've only ever been to their website. :(

Chucko, I was blown away by the stock... The display case of pedals is pure madness. I mean, how many stores will pull out an overdrive hand built in New Zealand and let you actually play it?

Great acoustic room, great keys section, awesome staff. V-picks in stock? Fuhgeddaboutit!

Don, you'd love it. Chuck, are you farther north or farther south of San Anselmo?

The pedal display case at Bananas was incredible, but my pic was too darn big... I'll repost when I get a chance to shrink it.

J, I live in the Central Valley. So I'm east of the Bay Area. Basically, I'm an hour from SF, and 1 1/2 hours from the Marin area. It's a decent place to live really. An hour to SF or Sacramento, four hours to Reno or LA. I can drive two hours in any direction and be in a completely different surrounding! That's what I love so much about Cali, the diversity.

Hope you have a great trip!

Exactly... Scenic, cultural, gastronomic, musical diversity. I love it here... Always hate to leave.

Dayumm. They have a Box of War! :D

They have an everything. Drop dead wonderful shop.

When I was there their staff was knowledgeable AND helpful! Wish there was a store closer like it. J, you should check out "Starving Musician" too if you've got the time. No guarantee, but they usually have a couple "gems" hid out.

We're back from California, and I had some time today to play with the Hotcake between the Z-caster and the Egnater... Alone, goosed by a compressor and used as an extra gain stage between the compressor and my Wampler Euphoria drive.

It's really nice (I'm resisting the word "awesome," even though I almost typed it). Incredibly transparent. A nice edge, so many settings that sound great. Makes a superb clean boost for super chimey and touch sensitive clean tones, gets the best grind-y Keef-type rhythm thing I've ever had. Maintains chord definition through he range. Driving the Euphoria, I can build a massive amount of gain at the power stage without driving any of the stages into clipping, so I get a big, singing tone with no hair that will suddenly roar when you dig in....

I never would have considered this pedal, but a 5 minute conversation with my guy at Bananas and a 10 minute demo and I grabbed it. It's even better with my own gear. Raves. Killer.

And here is a smaller pic of the pedal case at Bananas. Nothing ordinary here.

http://www.gravitymusic.com/tempimages/pedals.jpg

STOP POSTING THIS STUFF! ;) I love this pic!!! :dude I have two unpopulated boards... Maybe I need to order some parts and make myself a Hotcake?? :slap You ^really^ aren't much help J! :ole

Holy Schnikies!

Yeah! It's just about all top-shelf booteek junk.

You know how, if you're interested in a pedal - like the Hotcake, for example - you're never going to see one in a store; the damn thing is hand built in New Zealand. So you ask people at TFF and listen to badly compressed Youtube audio to get a sense of it.

At Bananas, the guy talks to you about the sounds you're going for, what gear you're running now, and suggests something, which he hauls out of this case, plugs it into a DRRI and ask you which guitar you want to try it with. And he's right... It does just what you want it to. Sounds so good that your wife says, "you oughta buy that."

No VISA card is safe from that.

And Chucko, if you're looking for really transparent grind - something that sounds like your guitar, just louder or grittier or more hair on it - a Hotcake really smokes.

Your wife have a niece that happens to be single? :D

She is one of a kind, dude.