Korg has cleverly gone beyond the traditional dirt pedal paradigm with these Nu:Tekt offerings, delivering alternative options that are both innovative and practical. Oh, and nice stickers, too!
Pros
+
Nutube technology gives authentic valve-like response.
+
Solid construction.
+
Practical size.
+
Innovative design.
Cons
–
We don’t quite get why these are called ‘kits’.
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On-the-fly adjustments are not practical with trim pots.
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Sold as ‘kits’, the self-assembly aspect of the Nu:Tekt TR-S Power Tube Reactor and HD-S Harmonic Distortion is actually limited to screwing on the bottom plate, sticking four rubber feet on and putting the knobs in place, with the addition of a sheet of stickers to ‘customise’ your pedal.
That far-from-difficult aspect aside, each pedal looks a most interesting prospect based around Korg’s Nutube, which, the company says, operates exactly as a triode vacuum valve. Besides a set of four knobs, each pedal has three front-panel trim pots to adjust various parameters.
(Image credit: Future / Phil Barker)
(Image credit: Future / Phil Barker)
The Power Tube Reactor is designed to deliver the warmth and response of a tube amp. Its circuit design can mimic the sag of a vacuum valve power amp where the sound compresses momentarily in response to transients. That’s added via a dedicated knob, aided by trim pots for setting the threshold level where the sag effect begins and adjusting sustain time.
The third trim pot is a practically targeted tone control. This is a drive pedal that feels right, reacting positively to your dynamics so you can transition from clean to dirt just with your playing.
The amount of valve-like grit and drive can be dialled in via the Tube Gain knob and you can get as subtle or full-on as you like as a Mix knob offers parallel blends of dry and compressed/driven sound.
(Image credit: Future / Phil Barker)
(Image credit: Future / Phil Barker)
While it’s great for use as a straight-up drive, tone thickener/conditioner and boost, it could also be a good way of adding some power amp-style sag into your tone if you haven’t got the option of using a decent valve amp at volume.
The Harmonic Distortion is a distortion pedal created by Fumio Mieda, designer of the original Uni-Vibe. Not wanting to rehash the sounds of the past, Fumio has developed what’s described as an all-new “never-before heard” kind of distortion based on harmonic synthesis.
Three different distortion circuits – dialled in with the three Harmonic trim pots – can be used singly or combined to create everything from traditional cranked stack-style distortion sounds, through a range of fuzz shadings to highly resonant, raucous distortion at the more extreme end of the scale. It can get a bit wild, but an adjustable noise gate can bracket out the noise and keep things in shape.
Specs
PRICE: $299 / £199 eachORIGIN: USATYPE: Drive and distortion pedalsFEATURES: Buffered BypassCONTROLS: (Power Tube Reactor): Volume, Power Sag, Mix, Tube Gain, Tone, Sustain, Threshold, Bypass footswitchCONTROLS: (Harmonic Distortion): Volume, Tone, Gate, Chain, Harmonic (1, 2, 3), Bypass footswitchCONNECTIONS: Standard input, standard outputPOWER: 9V battery or 9V DC adaptor (not supplied) 45mA (HD-S), 85mA (TR-S)DIMENSIONS: 122 (w) x 96 (d) x 55mm (h)CONTACT: Korg
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Trevor Curwen has played guitar for several decades – he’s also mimed it on the UK’s Top of the Pops. Much of his working life, though, has been spent behind the mixing desk, during which time he has built up a solid collection of the guitars, amps and pedals needed to cover just about any studio session. He writes pedal reviews for Guitarist and has contributed to Total Guitar, MusicRadar and Future Music among others.
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