British pedal engineer Pete Cornish is a true legend of the scene, having worked with the likes of Paul McCartney, David Gilmour and Mark Knopfler, among many other rock’n’roll stars. The GC-1 is the stompbox he chose to celebrate his 45th year of designing and building professional stage equipment.
Although a first version of this pedal already existed, this is a completely new, three-stage design with the peculiar feature of automatically switching between hard and soft clipping stages as the gain increases.
Flexibility is the name of the game with this pedal, since it can deliver soft and transparenl sustain a low gain levels, ’70s Marshall-style overdrive at medium levels, and an intense overdrive when the gain is all the way up (and it goes up to 56dB!).
The Master volume and three-band EQ (smaller knobs on the top right) allow for extra sonic flavors and amp-matching sculpting.
Hear the sound of this pedal in the videos, because with Pete Cornish pedals it’s really all about the tone!
This is a completely new unique three stage design which features both hard and soft clipping stages with automatic switching between them as the gain increases, and also has a wider gain range than any of our previous pedals making it perfect for live performance and recording.
With the gain set to minimum (+20dB=10X) we are in the area of Soft Sustain as found on our SS-2 and SS-3 and the inclusion of a three band powerful active EQ has enhanced even the lowest gain settings giving a new bonus of tone and volume. A wonderfully Smooth and Transparent Blues Crunch is a feature at low gain settings and the powerful EQ is a huge part of the sound with even small changes giving maximum tonal flexibility to suit any amp. The GC-1 has amazing Bottom End Retention and is Refined and Warm sounding without getting”muddy”.
As the Active EQ is so powerful the GC-1 can be used with both single coil and hum-bucker equipped guitars with equal facility.
Increasing the gain takes us gradually through the area of our G-2 and P-2 gain structures which gives a higher level of overdrive for that classic cranked up Marshall sound found on most British rock records of the ‘70s.
There is some serious Rhythm and Lead Tone here which is Powerful but with great Clarity and again, the inclusion of the three band active EQ adds the flexibility of massive amounts of Bass, Mid or Treble Boost will suit any conditions or amp used. Equal amounts of Bass, Mid and Treble Cut are also available – the neutral position of the three tone controls is 12 o’clock.
The GC-1 features an “amazing clean up” using the guitar volume control.
At Maximum gain (+56dB=640X) and adding a large amount of Mid Boost the High Energy Sustain obtained is both Harmonically Rich, Smooth and Fat; almost infinite Sustain is possible with the right guitar/amp combination.
An output Master Volume is included to allow for perfect matching between bypassed and boosted/EQ’d signal level and there is plenty of output signal headroom available to overdrive amp inputs if required.Our well established Class A input Buffer (LD-1) and radio frequency suppressor is, of course, included and the output buffer impedance is low; to easily drive long cables or other loads without loss of signal or tone.
The Buffer is also fully active in bypass mode to prevent losses associated with long cables and/or load impedances that would not the suitable to connect directly to a passive guitar pickup.TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS:
Overall boost with Gain = 100% and Volume = 100% is +56 dB (640X)
Overall boost with Gain = 0% and Volume = 100% is +20dB (10X)
The above with Bass, Middle and Treble set to 50% = Neutral point = 0dB boost/cut). Bass Control range +/- 16dB @ 50Hz
Mid Control range +/- 15dB @ 950Hz
Treble Control range +/-17dB @ 4KHz
Maximum signal output with Volume 100% is +12dBm/ 3.1v rms/ 6.5v peak to peak.FEATURES:
RFI rejecting input and bypass buffer.
Each unit is hand built, wired and tested by Pete, Lynda and Mingus Cornish.
Housed in a Rugged Die-cast box size 171X121X55mm with lined control knobs.
Heavy Duty Custom made all-metal footswitch plus Daylight Visible LED.
Easy battery replacement via a removable ‘drawer’. The battery is switched on when you insert the “IN/PWR ON” jack and to ensure long battery life unplug this lead when the unit is not in use. If the unit is not to be used for a long length of time, or to be adapter powered, we recommend that you remove the battery. Preferred battery type is MN1604. Also fitted is an input for a DC adapter: the size of the coax connector is 5.5/2.1mm and the centre pin is negative (-VE). The adapter should be noise free, fully stabilised at 9V DC and capable of supplying 20mA. When multiple effects pedals are to be powered, we recommend the use of the Voodoo Lab Pedal Power 2 Plus adapter as meeting the above criteria and cannot accept any liability for damage caused to this unit by the use of, or to, any other type of DC adaptor. If only a single unit is to be powered the BOSS PSA series may be more cost effective and is also recommended.
