Review | Donner 2-in-1 Viper Mini

Buy this pedal. It's as simple as that.

I'm fully impressed with this little rocker pedal. Like most people, I've only used it as a volume pedal, but I plan on doing a fully video review later on when I try it with some delay to see how the expression side works. The instructions on how to use the expression function are a bit lacking; you need to connect it directly to your controlled pedal using a stereo cable. The circuit reads it as expression function automatically.

So, for the details...

Line in, line out...no surprises there. The shell is plastic, but it's a very high quality impact plastic. It runs passively, so no power source is necessary; it's a simple volume pot on a rocker switch. Yes, it's tiny, but it has a great traction pad on the top and bottom so it doesn't slide around like you think it might. And it's perfectly comfortable to control.

As a volume pedal I've used it both in-line and through the FX loop, and it's awesome. The line through is unaffected by the pedal at all for tone, and the control is dead quiet. There's a little bit of a bump from where it's zeroed out to the first audible signal if you're not careful. If full minimum volume control is needed, something a bit more refined might be a good option. But the thing I like is it makes it super easy to connect my amp and pedals at a higher volume, and use this to turn it down to practice or apartment level and still get full tone through the speaker.

Yeah. Buy this pedal. It's as simple as that.

Affiliate link: Get the Donner 2-in-1 Viper Mini Volume + Expression Pedal on Amazon.

Comments

Review | Donner "Giant Metal" Distortion Pedal

Insane sound from a mini pedal After years of scaling back to just my amp tone, I've started getting back into guitar pedals. 20 years ago, if you couldn't afford the Boss or DOD pedals, you were forced to go with the only budget brand out there: Rocktek. Those things were awful, but affordable. These days, the budget brands are king, in my opinion, and the compact size of the circuitry makes it possible to grab anything you want and try it out for less than fifty bucks. I wanted to start out with a good distortion, and after playing around with online reviews I decided to take the leap to the Donner Giant Metal. This little powerhouse lives up to its name! Super solid aluminum construction, easy to use controls, a fairly wide gain profile, and surprisingly flexible tonal control. It just has the one tone control, and the switch boosts highs or lows (top or bottom), or runs right down the middle. I won't say that this can replace a high-end Boss distortion, but if y

Legendary Origins: finding identity in the mythology of leaving “wildness” for agriculture

When I was working as the marketing arm for Dr. Brenda E.F. Beck’s animated series, The Legend of Ponnivala , I was struck by an interesting idea that hadn’t occurred to me before in the legends I had studied: that origin stories very often have their roots in the ancestral shift from hunter-gatherer to agricultural society. In the Ponnivala story (which is an English adaptation of the local Tamil legend, Annanmar Kathai , or “The Brothers’ Story”), there is a region of forest that the goddess Parvati wishes to see become fertile and productive, and so she creates nine men who will be the farmers of this land. Now, from the perspective of a people who have farmed the region for many hundreds, if not thousands, of years, this makes sense; taking virgin land and taming it to feed the people is a reasonable expenditure of effort. Except, this is the South Indian jungle we’re talking about. Can there be any doubt that this dense forest was already “fertile and productive” before being cle

Quora Question: How do I become a good bass player?

Some years ago, I wrote an essay on how I perceived the steps to mastery. These steps were partly derived from my study of history and the historical context of artist training and education, and partly from some of Bruce Lee's terminology when applied to mastery in martial arts training. That essay was lost -- which is sad, because it was one of the best things I've ever written -- but the fundamental principals haven't changed. These are the stages as I interpret them: How do you become a good bass player? The same way you get good at anything: Take lessons, pay attention, and practice. That said, over the years I’ve developed a sort of theory of pedagogy (teaching) that deals with the stages of mastery. It goes something like this: Stage 1: Rudiments Learn what the bass is, how it works, how to create notes, and what notes are. Stage 2: Techniques Learn how to play correctly and efficiently. Develop the muscle mechanics involved in the task. Understand how different sty

Woods & Strings

Search This Blog