Pandora MINI presets settings

Here are some of the Pandora MINI presets which I made for myself at home. Most of them are presets specifically made for a SSS strat (which is my Squier).

 These two settings are mostly used for playing ballad songs. I have to create two different settings for one that is single-coil friendly and one for humbuckers. This is because my squier has more high end than my UNO. So I have to reduce some treble and increase a bit of bass. For my UNO, I did just the direct opposite. I added a bit of delay in both settings so that the sustains would be slightly better (well of course some vibratos would help with that, too). The purpose of the chorus is to add some colour to the tone, some warmth to be precise. But it is very minimum because too much chorus would actually produce the 'detune' effect. It would sound nice if it is played clean but not so when played dirty.

 This is the preset I used whenever I practice the song "Falling in love again" by Jack Thammarat. I wanted some crispy and 'glassy' tone on my strat and I can't get it from any of the amp modulations in this. So I decided to improvise a little; I used a Boutique Clean, which I think has that glassy tone I'm looking for, and I added a bass overdrive. And I got just the tone I want. Again, I added some delay because the song itself is played with some delays too. It sounded a bit empty so I decided add a little chorus again. I am a fan of chorus and I would add a minimum chorus in almost everything I play. When I am using this setting to play that song, I still have to play around with my tone knobs. I rolled down the tone for my bridge pup because it was excessively bright. I see no problem with the neck pup though.

 This preset is named Rusty Nail because I was playing X Japan's 'Rusty Nail' that time. No delay for this one. Sometimes, delay doesn't always fit every songs. I use this setting for both single coils and humbuckers, with some adjustment made to the guitar using the tone knobs. But most of the time, I would use Ballad (H) with the delay off and tone knobs rolled down slightly when I am playing with UNO.

Lastly, the Warm OD preset and I usually use this most of the time whenever I am playing Christian songs. Once again, the delay is back to give that 'warmth' in the tone and of course, there is chorus (though you can make do without it too). Reverb is halved this time because I feel that too much reverb would make the tone 'overly' warm. I also reduced the number of repeats for the delay too. It may sound contradicting when I name this preset as "WARM OD" and yet the bass is only 2.7. But it is because that BOUTIQUE OD modulation already sound bassy enough. This setting is however made for my strat and I have yet to play with my UNO.

I also use the 'Jack Tham' preset for playing Christian songs and other songs of that are not 'fierce' but requires me to switch from clean and overdrive throughout the song.  An example I can think of would be Taylor Swift's Love Story and for a Christian song "The Angels Cry Holy" by Planetshaker. I rolled down the volume knob by half or so when I am playing clean. The purpose of rolling the volume is to reduce the gain and not really the volume. After all, our hearing can only detect the changes of the volume knob from 1-3 and 8-10. In my opinion, volumes changes from 3-8 is hardly audible since the pot I am using for the volume is a linear taper. But the audible changes is the difference in the amount of drive. After all, I don't usually use the volume knob to control the volume but the amount of 'dirt'. Volume can be controlled using a Volume pedal.

There are more presets than this but I'll leave them for another day!

EDIT: If you are playing your Mini through a small practice amp and you set everything according to the settings above, you can still get a decent tone if you crack up your bass and mid to about 7/10 and 7-8/10 respectively and cut down the treble to about 2/10. In the end of the day, there is always the EQ to adjust the tone we want and thus we should fully utilise it

Loki

Back to blogging

Life has been rather boring ever since I am back here. It is not that I have too much free time; life back here is quite busy as well. So I thought one way to entertain myself is to start blogging again. Hopefully, some people in Myanmar would actually read it.

I don’t have an amp back in Myanmar here. Well, I thought it would be rather unnecessary if I buy one. One reason is that music instruments here are overpriced. An Ibanez TS7 costs S$80 in Singapore but in Myanmar, it is priced at KS 110,000 (approximately about S$180). So at the moment, Pandora MINI is my best friend.

I’ve read many comments and reviews saying that Pandora MINI

• A failure
• Sounds horrible
• Drains a lot of battery

and etc…

Well, here is my response to the 3 listed points.

Pandora MINI is much compact than the previous version of Pandora. I don’t really see why it is a failure. Maybe it sounds horrible? Well, Pandora MINI WILL sound horrible if you plug it into any amplifiers (15W, 30W, 100W, tube or whatever).  Pandora MINI should be a stand-alone effect and its potential can only be brought out if you are using a headphone. I wouldn’t suggest in-ears because unless your in-ears are bass-biased, it will sound too treble-ish and that can be plain annoying. For me, I am playing through my medium-sized stereo speakers.

I do have another pair of smaller speakers and I do use them. But whenever I use them I would cut down on the high ends in the EQs of Pandora and perhaps, a bit more of the mid and the low. But that really depends on what guitar and pickups I am using as well.

As for Pandora eating a lot of battery, I have to agree with that. An alkaline battery will last no longer than 9 hours of continuous playing according to my experience. But again, 9 hours is pretty long. There are many ways to save up on batteries. I would use rechargeable batteries and it lasts about the same length of time. Or you can hook up your Pandora with to an USB. I believe that is not much of a problem because almost everyone owns a computer and all computers have at least one USB port.

So if someone tells you that Pandora Mini is lousy without giving a reason why, don't believe them straight away. I've been playing with it for 3 months and though it has certain limitations, the tone it gives is still good enough for me to enjoy a good playing. Also if you are going down to a guitar shop to try this, don't try it through an amp. Use your headphones instead.


Loki 

Power of Mini (Part 1)

Pandora Mini is really...mini. You can compare the size using the AA battery beside it as a reference. 

Compare to the previous Pandora, this is much smaller. It also runs on a single AA battery. Well, use alkaline batteries so that you don't always have to keep changing them. There is no more 4V adapter jack for Pandora Mini but you can still join it to a computer's USB port as a power source. 

Here's a summary for all its function. There are about 20 different types of amp voicing in this little white box. You also get to choose your 'cabinets' for a wider range of tone. There is a 3-band EQ for you to tweak the sound you want. However, I feel that the range of the EQ is quite limited. So the tone it produces is good enough for home practices but I am not sure if it is really suitable for gig-ing or performances. One of the reason is that Pandora Mini sounds terrible when it is joined to an amp. Trust me, I tried this on many amps and all sounded crappy. It sounds better when plugged into a mixer and blasted through a studio monitor.. OR even with these computer speakers:

It has quite a few drum rhythms in it as well. You now have a built-in metronome to practice your scaling and shredding. Quite neat, eh?

The cool thing about this Pandora Mini is that you can run 7 effects simultaneously. It has all the effects from delay, chorus, reverb, flanger and it even has a smart pitch shifter. Though you can't adjust the blend, the pitch shifting is quite accurate and good. Do take note that pitch shifting only works on single notes. Adjusting all the effects however will require quite a lot of patience since there aren't many buttons on it.

Mini companion!

I have been hunting for a pocket size effect so that I can practice anywhere I want. Well, it's also because I won't have an amp back in Myanmar by the time I go back there and since I never stay there long enough, pocket-sized multi effect is what I need.

So, I have 3 effects in my checklist.

Line6 Pocket POD Express

Korg Pandora Mini

Line 6 Pocket POD

And I've made my choice and this came back home with me!