| | Producing tone shaping pre amps designed for acoustic guitars is a notoriously tricky business. Hartke rises to the challenge with the new ‘Attack’. Sam Wise plugs in...
The Hartke AGX Acoustic Attack is solid in a way few pedals are. My father, in his days of audio product design, showed me a belt pack which his company were developing for stage work, and which they were testing for robustness. Specifically, they dropped it from a fourth floor window, and ran it over with a truck. The AGX looks like the sort of pedal which would survive the same treatment. The chassis of the pedal is a good, solid aluminium extrusion, the side and base plates are reassuring metal panels, and the single footswitch is an old-fashioned positive action metal one as well. In case I haven’t been clear, I would be more than happy to rely on this pedal on stage! The Acoustic Attack is a combination tube preamp and direct injection box, giving the user EQ, a warming preamplifier, and a balanced signal all in one unit.
The top plate of the Hartke holds the rotary controls, and these are simple and easy to understand. There is a three-band EQ, with a sweepable mid allowing you to choose exactly where to put that midrange boost for best effect. Because the EQ controls cut as well as boost the signal, the mid frequency control can also be used to dial out frequencies which are feeding back, like a notch filter.
 Then there are simple output level and mix controls, letting you choose how much of the effect to add to your dry sound, and to set volume. The left side panel contains two ¼ inch jack inputs, one a standard guitar input, and the other allowing you to loop signals from effect pedals through the AGX separately from the dry signal. On the right hand side is a comprehensive output section, with an unbalanced jack output, a balanced XLR output, a phantom power switch, and a –20db pad switch along with the mains power connection. For me, it’s this range of outputs and attention to detail which really sets the Hartke apart as a professional piece of kit which will be a boon to gigging acoustic guitarists. Phantom power allows you to reduce stage clutter and battery use by powering the pedal from the mixing desk (assuming your mixing desk provides phantom power), but if you don’t have that facility, or are suffering grounding problems using phantom power, you still have the option of using batteries or mains power.
Sound engineers will be thrilled with this pedal too, allowing them the choice of mic or line level signal, and with the pad button allowing them to cut a little level from the balanced signal if necessary. This makes an acoustic guitarist (sometimes the sound guy’s worst enemy), easy to deal with, and being on the right side of the engineer makes playing live a much more pleasant experience! In use, the Acoustic Attack is subtle, but useful. The EQ quietly does what you’d expect it to, giving you an extra layer of control over your sound, and the sweepable mid, when not being used to dial out feedback, really makes fattening up any weak spots in your sound easy. The tube preamp does indeed warm your sound, in a gentle way, but be warned, dialling in lots will get you something like a vintage fuzz tone, which - while it’s what you might expect from a tube - is probably not what you want for your sweet clear acoustic tone!
The Acoustic Attack is the sort of pedal which doesn’t actually change your sound dramatically, but which could become the most indispensable effect in your arsenal. Compared to switching on a flanger on your multi-effects unit, the effect is minimal, but it does make getting a good amplified acoustic sound easy, and ultimately, that’s what most of us want more than anything. With this in your kit bag, you can plug into any sound system without difficulty, dial in a really nice tone, add a little warmth with the preamp, and you’re ready to go. It just deals with so many of the niggling problems that acoustic players have had to deal with over the years, and for that, along with its indestructible build quality, I heartily recommend it.
Features RRP £89.00 - Tube pre emulation circuit
- Active 3 band EQ
- Sweepable mid range freq control with ‘notch’ filter for feedback reduction
- Pad switch to accommodate guitars with active and passive pickups 1/4 inch and XLR outputs
- Power via 9v PP3 battery, phantom power or external PSU (not included)
Hartke
c/o Sound Technology
T: 01462 480 000
www.soundtech.co.uk
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