Jad Freer Audio - CAPO multiple preamp

[AngelCrusher]

Got one of these coming, not sure if any of you have heard of it? It sounds fantastic, but I have yet to give it a spin :

 

[gtirard]

Wow, sounds very promising. They also have a power amp that intrigues me: same kind of power/weight ratio as a class D, but all analog, never seen such specs, wonder how it sounds. Couldn't find any review though.

 

[AngelCrusher]

Wow, sounds very promising. They also have a power amp that intrigues me: same kind of power/weight ratio as a class D, but all analog, never seen such specs, wonder how it sounds. Couldn't find any review though.

I heard about it from Tim Lefevbre who I think already has his. It has a lot of dirt if needed, but I love that it's a super solidly built floor pedal and also has A and B channel and they can be routed in multiple ways. It also has a low pass filter built in, it has a parallel out, an FX loop plus XLR out. It's just incredibly complete. I also just am a huge fan of saturating a bass tone to really make it clear and stand out in any type of mix. You can easily hear how everything tightens up in that demo, even on the slap tones. So it can give your sound a warm clarity or all out aggression, which is really appealing. Plus the 3 band EQ.

So in that way I can see this working for about any genre, depending on your play style and how you dial it up.

I will definitely review it when I get mine.

 

[gtirard]

Wow, sounds very promising. They also have a power amp that intrigues me: same kind of power/weight ratio as a class D, but all analog, never seen such specs, wonder how it sounds. Couldn't find any review though.

Seems to be a normal class D amp + marketing BS…

See the comments on this thread: Is this a class D amp?

 

[ialma]

Wow, sounds very promising. They also have a power amp that intrigues me: same kind of power/weight ratio as a class D, but all analog, never seen such specs, wonder how it sounds. Couldn't find any review though.

The guys in J&F are a damn trademark in Italy.
Mauro, the owner is a genius. He can repair everything electronic you can think of and his R&D takes years and tests upon tests. He ditched maybe thirty or fourty cabinets prototypes when he decided to buid a bass cabinet (amazing cabinets as well)
He repaired a GK combo that two other repairers had considered "beyond repair" reconstructing parts from scratch.
If you have an idea (for example a friend asked him to replace the power amp in an old Mesa head reducing the weight of 3 kgs) he can realize it.

 

[AngelCrusher]

Seems to be a normal class D amp + marketing BS…

See the comments on this thread: Is this a class D amp?

Whats wrong with class D? Im more into it as a saturation/distortion DI pedal honestly. I used a tech 21 sansamp the same way for years.


Just realized we are not talking about the same product. I am talking about the CAPO pedal.

 

[gtirard]

Whats wrong with class D? Im more into it as a saturation/distortion DI pedal honestly. I used a tech 21 sansamp the same way for years.


Just realized we are not talking about the same product. I am talking about the CAPO pedal.

Sorry, my fault, I created a misunderstanding.

 

[Kijuer]

Great, lovely guys. I live less than a hour drive from them. It's been a long time since the last time I paid a visit. This seems a kickass product.

 

[AngelCrusher]

Great, lovely guys. I live less than a hour drive from them. It's been a long time since the last time I paid a visit. This seems a kickass product.

I should have mine Friday so I can let you guys know what I think this weekend. It apparently already sold out so that is good news for them.

 

[Andrea Lo]

I should have mine Friday so I can let you guys know what I think this weekend. It apparently already sold out so that is good news for them.

Thank you for getting one! I'm part of the R&D team who create the pedal so if anyone needs more info feel free to ask and I'll go deeper. You are right, first batch is sold out but a new batch will be ready in a few days since we already had parts for more. It's just building time.

 

[AngelCrusher]

Thank you for getting one! I'm part of the R&D team who create the pedal so if anyone needs more info feel free to ask and I'll go deeper. You are right, first batch is sold out but a new batch will be ready in a few days since we already had parts for more. It's just building time.

Thats awesome, this looks like such a complete pedal. A bit of a hurried buy for me as I saw Tim was loving it, he said it had a lot of gain and processing and it looked like exactly what I have been looking for. Not just for bass, but also mono synth and drum machine processing as well.

Appears you can have a clean tone on one button and then bump that up to an OD if you wanted. Plus engage both buttons - so 3 tones via button press?

Is the distortion analogue?

Anyway, I'll have mine Friday and be able to get deep with it this weekend. If you have any tips or advice on gain staging, let me know. Looking forward to this one - I rarely buy any gear anymore, but this pedal spoke to me, it looks incredible.

 

[Andrea Lo]

Not just for bass, but also mono synth and drum machine processing as well.
Appears you can have a clean tone on one button and then bump that up to an OD if you wanted. Plus engage both buttons - so 3 tones via button press?
Is the distortion analogue?

Yes, it works on every mono source like you would do in the studio to get some saturation from a preamp. I used it also on voices for parallel saturation.

It's 100% analog pedal. Distortion is pure preamp saturation, not from clipping diodes.

Let me try to explain the different sounds: the pedals has four totally different preamps circuits. A SIDE has three (in parallel) and B SIDE the fourth one (in series with A SIDE).

A SIDE has a clean, studio-quality preamp with fixed gain (*blend* knob fully counterclockwise) that you can blend with the saturation circuits. The two saturators can be mixed together via the *style* knob and controlled by the *gain* knob for the amount of drive. I could say that these two are english (*J*) and american (*F*) kind of sounds, they blend perfectly at the mid N position. EQ, deep and bite works only on the A SIDE too.

B SIDE is a full range mild overdrive circuit reminiscent of a tube amp sound, controls are just the mini knobs gain and level. You can place it before A, to push it more, or after, for tone shaping or boost.

on the side you have two loops (send-return), one before the circuit and one after so you can place other effects where you like it (before or after dirt).

On the top you have two DI's, one right after the INPUT, and one after the preamp and loops.

On the left side are also located an High Pass Filter, that is a gentle high cut for smoothing out fuzz tones (almost like closing a tweeter) and a switch that can link the left loop to the A switch.

The pedal takes standard 9v center negative BOSS style power and can be daisy-chained without problems. Just give it some love cause it takes 350mA for all the circuit involved.

Pedal is a tank and gets a lifetime warranty.

Sound wise there are no ways to make this pedal sound bad, its very easy to dial up your sound, I would suggest to start on the A SIDE, with blend fully clockwise and style on N. Experiment with gain stages and shifts in the style knob. Then you can turn back the blend to 75% for some clean attack.

Enjoy, I hope you will love the pedal as much as I (and Tim!) do.

Andrea

 

[AngelCrusher]

Yes, it works on every mono source like you would do in the studio to get some saturation from a preamp. I used it also on voices for parallel saturation.

It's 100% analog pedal. Distortion is pure preamp saturation, not from clipping diodes.

Let me try to explain the different sounds: the pedals has four totally different preamps circuits. A SIDE has three (in parallel) and B SIDE the fourth one (in series with A SIDE).

A SIDE has a clean, studio-quality preamp with fixed gain (*blend* knob fully counterclockwise) that you can blend with the saturation circuits. The two saturators can be mixed together via the *style* knob and controlled by the *gain* knob for the amount of drive. I could say that these two are english (*J*) and american (*F*) kind of sounds, they blend perfectly at the mid N position. EQ, deep and bite works only on the A SIDE too.

B SIDE is a full range mild overdrive circuit reminiscent of a tube amp sound, controls are just the mini knobs gain and level. You can place it before A, to push it more, or after, for tone shaping or boost.
View attachment 4595892

on the side you have two loops (send-return), one before the circuit and one after so you can place other effects where you like it (before or after dirt).

On the top you have two DI's, one right after the INPUT, and one after the preamp and loops.

On the left side are also located an High Pass Filter, that is a gentle high cut for smoothing out fuzz tones (almost like closing a tweeter) and a switch that can link the left loop to the A switch.

The pedal takes standard 9v center negative BOSS style power and can be daisy-chained without problems. Just give it some love cause it takes 350mA for all the circuit involved.

Pedal is a tank and gets a lifetime warranty.

Sound wise there are no ways to make this pedal sound bad, its very easy to dial up your sound, I would suggest to start on the A SIDE, with blend fully clockwise and style on N. Experiment with gain stages and shifts in the style knob. Then you can turn back the blend to 75% for some clean attack.

Enjoy, I hope you will love the pedal as much as I (and Tim!) do.

Andrea

Incredibly helpful, thank you!

 

[Andrea Lo]

On the left side are also located an High Pass Filter, that is a gentle high cut for smoothing out fuzz tones (almost like closing a tweeter) and a switch that can link the left loop to the A switch.

I meant LOW PASS! sorry.

 

[AngelCrusher]

I was able to record 2 sessions with the CAPO so far and this looks like a great option for me going forward. I took the advice from @Andrea Lo and ran my p-Bass with flats through the pedal with only A side engaged, while messing with it. I ended up keeping the EQ flat and used the buttons that enhance the lows and highs (bite). I have to say those are amazing features because I really hate a lot of high end, but doing this just made the bass tone sound much more focused and clear. They aren't overkill. If there was just a pedal with these 2 buttons, I think many people would flip over how good it sounds, but luckily there is so much more to this awesome beast.

I drove the gain up about 30% and engaged the LP (for me this looks like I will leave it on always, it is perfectly tuned). So basically my Gain knob and Level are both at 9 o clock. EQ at neutral, Style in the middle. Just doing that made the tone incredibly focused and clean in the mix. The saturation at this level is not audible like distortion would be, but it does what I like - it tightens up the bottom end so it sounds hard and focused instead of soft and loose. tough to describe, but its just a very enhanced version of my flat wounds that is now more audible in a mix.

Of course I messed with the B side engaged. I kept it on the A-B default and drove it pretty hard while matching the gain. It gets really dirty..love it. Easily can replace light OD pedal. The tone I got really sounds awesome for modern jazz leads (think John Scofield except bass). It makes flats a viable option there if you want a dirty sound on call.

Also ran a reverb through the looper so I can engage that as well on solos...amazing and easy.

So this is all flatwounds so far, which really are not great for that grindy and clangy distortion sound. So I will try that next with my Sadowsky. I will also get this on my pedal board and compare some distortion pedals to it. I can already say that this pedal easily eliminates needing a preamp and a light OD for me. It does all that. So now I will see if I even need another distortion pedal at all (I dont play metal, just like to use drive as an effect). for reference when I did play heavier music I just used a regular Rat pedal set pretty low to get some clang going or a Tech 21 sans amp for all out mayhem.

I don't think this will replace a fuzz pedal, but it looks like my small board could end up being my Bass> EBS Multicomp>FMeron>MXR Oct (mini pedal)>CAPO.

Messing with my Delays or reverbs as an option as well. Just matters how much I will actually use them. Either way - awesome job by JadFreer on this one. It is a keeper for me, and I have not even run synths or drum machines through it yet (happening soon).

 

[MARK MOSHER]

I was able to record 2 sessions with the CAPO so far and this looks like a great option for me going forward. I took the advice from @Andrea Lo and ran my p-Bass with flats through the pedal with only A side engaged, while messing with it. I ended up keeping the EQ flat and used the buttons that enhance the lows and highs (bite). I have to say those are amazing features because I really hate a lot of high end, but doing this just made the bass tone sound much more focused and clear. They aren't overkill. If there was just a pedal with these 2 buttons, I think many people would flip over how good it sounds, but luckily there is so much more to this awesome beast.

Great summary. Mine arrives Friday and I am stoked.

 

[Phillyfunk]

I was able to record 2 sessions with the CAPO so far and this looks like a great option for me going forward. I took the advice from @Andrea Lo and ran my p-Bass with flats through the pedal with only A side engaged, while messing with it. I ended up keeping the EQ flat and used the buttons that enhance the lows and highs (bite). I have to say those are amazing features because I really hate a lot of high end, but doing this just made the bass tone sound much more focused and clear. They aren't overkill. If there was just a pedal with these 2 buttons, I think many people would flip over how good it sounds, but luckily there is so much more to this awesome beast.

I drove the gain up about 30% and engaged the LP (for me this looks like I will leave it on always, it is perfectly tuned). So basically my Gain knob and Level are both at 9 o clock. EQ at neutral, Style in the middle. Just doing that made the tone incredibly focused and clean in the mix. The saturation at this level is not audible like distortion would be, but it does what I like - it tightens up the bottom end so it sounds hard and focused instead of soft and loose. tough to describe, but its just a very enhanced version of my flat wounds that is now more audible in a mix.

Of course I messed with the B side engaged. I kept it on the A-B default and drove it pretty hard while matching the gain. It gets really dirty..love it. Easily can replace light OD pedal. The tone I got really sounds awesome for modern jazz leads (think John Scofield except bass). It makes flats a viable option there if you want a dirty sound on call.

Also ran a reverb through the looper so I can engage that as well on solos...amazing and easy.

So this is all flatwounds so far, which really are not great for that grindy and clangy distortion sound. So I will try that next with my Sadowsky. I will also get this on my pedal board and compare some distortion pedals to it. I can already say that this pedal easily eliminates needing a preamp and a light OD for me. It does all that. So now I will see if I even need another distortion pedal at all (I dont play metal, just like to use drive as an effect). for reference when I did play heavier music I just used a regular Rat pedal set pretty low to get some clang going or a Tech 21 sans amp for all out mayhem.

I don't think this will replace a fuzz pedal, but it looks like my small board could end up being my Bass> EBS Multicomp>FMeron>MXR Oct (mini pedal)>CAPO.

Messing with my Delays or reverbs as an option as well. Just matters how much I will actually use them. Either way - awesome job by JadFreer on this one. It is a keeper for me, and I have not even run synths or drum machines through it yet (happening soon).

Hey AngelCrusher,
Are you still liking the Capo? What are your thoughts after a few months with it? I’m on the fence. Seems great, but just enough money to make it a hard decision.
Thanks!

 

[AngelCrusher]

Hey AngelCrusher,
Are you still liking the Capo? What are your thoughts after a few months with it? I’m on the fence. Seems great, but just enough money to make it a hard decision.
Thanks!

I love it. Its my go to now. My prior was the Noble preamp, which is great but this is a lot more versatile. The noble tone is a little more saggy and the Capo with saturation is super tight and focused. They both sound great, but the Capo is less expensive and has more features. Of course it also has a light drive (can get pretty nasty if you want it too)switch which is great too. The final touch is the Low pass filter so your distortion pedals sound great before hitting the PA or console. I love that, one less little pedal or speaker sim to need.

Oh yeah, if you are a producer this thing works f'n great on mono sources like drum machines...etc.

 

[Phillyfunk]

I love it. Its my go to now. My prior was the Noble preamp, which is great but this is a lot more versatile. The noble tone is a little more saggy and the Capo with saturation is super tight and focused. They both sound great, but the Capo is less expensive and has more features. Of course it also has a light drive (can get pretty nasty if you want it too)switch which is great too. The final touch is the Low pass filter so your distortion pedals sound great before hitting the PA or console. I love that, one less little pedal or speaker sim to need.

Oh yeah, if you are a producer this thing works f'n great on mono sources like drum machines...etc.

Thanks for the update! I’m using the Noble as well. It is great, but I’m look for a bit of grit that is always on. The Capo seems much more versatile.

 

[AngelCrusher]

Thanks for the update! I’m using the Noble as well. It is great, but I’m look for a bit of grit that is always on. The Capo seems much more versatile.

Capo is great at that. I think you will love it.