- DISTORTION
Trimode
The Trimode™ tube distortion takes you from slight overdrive to full-on distortion. Think Mesa-Boogie in a pedal and switch instantly from rhythm to lead.
Classic-V9The Tonebone Classic-V9™ is an ultra-responsive distortion pedal that lets you precisely adjust and focus the intensity of the distortion to suit your playing style and develop your own musical voice.
PlexitubeThe Plexitube™ delivers five generations of Marshall in a box. Triple gain stage delivers fat, harmonically rich tones that let you switch from rhythm to lead.
- Overdrive
Texas-Pro
The Texas-Pro™ is a compact but extremely powerful dual-function pedal, providing a versatile overdrive circuit as well as a high output signal booster.
RegencyThe Regency™ is a new type of pedal designed specifically to pre-emphasize the gain stage of today's high gain amps.
North-StarThe North-Star™ is both an overdrive and a high-output power booster combined in one versatile and compact pedal.
- Buffers & Boosters
ELEVATOR
The Elevator™ is a unique class-A multi-level power booster and buffer that provides the guitarist with a degree of customization to better match their playing style.
DragsterThe Dragster™ is a super-compact load correction device that lets you adjust the load on your electric guitar pickup to make your instrument sound natural in the PA or when recording.
Stagebug SB-15The Radial Stage Bug SB-15™ High Performance Signal Buffer lets you drive guitar pedals without added noise and also powers 15V Tonebone pedals.
SHOTGUNThe Shotgun™ is a compact guitar-level signal buffer designed to drive up to four amplifiers simultaneously and fit nicely on any pedalboard.
SGIThe Radial SGI™ is a high performance line driver that takes an unbalanced guitar signal and allows you to drive it as far as 100 meters (300ft) without noise.
- EFFECTS
Twinline
The Radial Twinline™ is a unique device that enables a guitarist to share effects pedals between two amps when using the amplifiers' built-in (rear-panel) effects loops.
VocolocoThe Voco-Loco™ is a foot-controlled effects loop that enables the lead vocalist, sax or trumpet player to incorporate guitar effects pedals into the signal path, just like an electric guitarist adds effects for soloing.
MIX-BLENDERThe Mix-Blender™ is a multi-function pedal that lets you mix two instruments or effects together and then send the combined signal through a mixer-style effects loop for processing.
- SWITCHERS
Cabbone
The Cabbone™ lets you switch between two speaker cabinets using a single amplifier head. You will not believe how changing the cabinet can affect your tone!
LoopboneThe Loopbone™ is a high-performance effects-loop switcher that enables the guitarist to insert, remove and combine pedals via two independent signal chains
HeadboneThe Headbone™ is a specially designed switching device that lets you toggle between two different guitar amplifier heads using a single speaker cabinet.
Switchbone V2The Switchbone V2™ may well be the ultimate ABY/C guitar amp switcher. This device lets you switch and combine up to three guitar amplifiers without introducing distortion, switching noise or hum into the signal path.
Twin-CityThe Twin-City™ is a class-A ABY switcher with Drag Control that delivers your guitar tone without introducing harsh sounding artifacts. Ground isolated to eliminate hum and buzz from gournd loops.
HeadlightThe Headlight™ is a unity gain guitar amp selector designed to easily integrate on a pedalboard and allow the artist to seamlessly switch between as many as four amps using a single footswitch.
BigShot ABYThe Radial BigShot ABY™ is a compact ABY switcher that enables you to either switch between two amplifiers or combine the signal when you want both amps to play at the same time.
BigShot EFXThe BigShot EFX™ is a true-bypass effects loop switcher that lets you set up two separate effects loops and insert them into your pedal chain at will.
BigShot IOThe Radial BigShot i/o™ is an easy to use instrument selector that lets you quickly transition between any two instruments and send out the output signal to your amp.
BUMPERThe Bumper™ is a unity gain instrument selector that lets you connect up to four instruments and progressively advance through each input using a sequential footswitch.
JX-42The JX-42™ The JX-42 is a compact guitar selector that lets you instantly switch between four guitars and two amps on stage.
BigShot SW2The BigShot SW2™ is a two channel universal remote control that can be used to replace the two amplifier foot switches and combine their main functions with a single pedal.
JX62The Radial JX62™ is a guitar and amp switcher designed for both wired and wireless guitars in a live concert touring environment.
JD7The Radial JD7 Injector™ is a guitar signal splitter that is able to drive as many as seven amplifiers at the same time and do so without the noise that often plagues most systems.
JX44The Radial JX44 Air Control™ is a guitar signal manager designed for the most demanding professional concert stages where wireless guitar systems, acoustics, effects and multiple amplifiers are used simultaneously.
- PREAMPS
PZ-PreThe PZ-Pre™ is a power-packed preamp that lets you switch between two acoustic instruments and feed the PA with a built-in Radial direct box. Piezo optimized for orchestral instruments.
PZ-Deluxe™The PZ-Deluxe™ is a studio quality instrument preamp that jam-packs a full array of features into a compact pedal for live stage use. Ideal for all acoustic instruments.
Bassbone ODThe Bassbone OD™ is a bass preamp with two instrument input channels, each of which is fully equipped with a level control, super powerful passive-interactive EQ and a low frequency filter to help eliminate resonance.
PZ-SelectThe Tonebone PZ-Select™ is a unique pedal designed to work with today's new breed of electric guitars and basses that employ both magnetic and piezo pickups.
Bassbone V2The Bassbone V2™ is a power-packed bass preamp that combines on-stage efficiency, amazing tonal control and superb audio performance in a compact box. This makes it the ideal front end for both live and studio recording.
AC-DriverThe AC-Driver is a compact acoustic instrument preamp designed for use on stage, with helpful features to streamline your performance and ensure the best possible tone from your instrument.
- Load Box & Amp Sim
JDX Direct-DriveThe Radial™ JDX Direct-Drive is a unique and powerful device that emulates the sound of a guitar amplifier while doubling as a direct box.
JDX-48The Radial JDX 48 Reactor™ is a direct box designed to capture the explosive dynamics and warmth of an electric guitar amplifier by connecting between the guitar amp head and speaker cabinet.
Headload ProdigyThe Headload Prodigy™ is a combination load box and DI that lets you drive your guitar amp at a higher output in order to maximize the tone, yet produce a lower stage volume when needed.
- LOOPBONE
- LOOPBONE HOME
- FEATURES
- DEVELOPMENT
- USING
- SPECIFICATIONS
- FAQ
- RESOURCES
- PHOTOS
- REVIEWS
- USER GUIDE
- SMART SHEET
LOopbone DEVELOPMENT
Since the dawn of the electric guitar, guitarists have been trying achieve the perfect balance between retaining the tone and feel of plugging directly into a guitar amp while being able to instantly call upon various effects to suit a particular song or passage. The obvious solution is to simply connect a bunch of pedals in between the guitar and the amplifier. But as soon as you do so, several problems come into play:
- The problem with older pedals
Truth is, many of these 'legendary' super-cool vintage pedals are so noisy, that they are often unusable. Back in the day, tremendous effort was required in the studio to gate out the noise. We love them – yet we hate them. - The problem with buffers
Most pedals are not true-bypass. This means that even when the pedal is turned off, the guitar signal passes through a buffer or unity gain amplifier. Buffers let you switch in the effect without making a popping noise and by lowering the impedance, enable longer cable runs. Unfortunately, most buffers do not sound very good and cause the tone and feel of the guitar to change. Guitarists hate the sound of low quality buffers. - The problem with true-bypass
True-bypass pedals have several shortcomings: When running multiple pedals in series and long cables to the amp, the tone changes due to the capacitive effect of the cable and noise entering the signal chain. Another concern is the popping that occurs when the pedal is turned on. This can be thunderous when used with a high-gain amp.
The Loopbone was conceived from the ground up to address each of these concerns while enhancing the performance aspect of a live show with more streamlined switching capabilities
Eliminating Noise
The easiest way to eliminate noisy pedals is to take them out of the signal chain. The Loopbone gives you two loops that are wired in series and turned on using a dedicated footswitch. Connect the noisy pedal in one of the effects loops and when needed, simply activate the loop. This way, the noisy pedal will only be in your signal chain when the loop is active and be completely taken out of the signal chain when the loop is turned off.
Making the buffer sound right
Not all buffers are created equal. Radial's award winning class-A audio buffers are used by many of the world's top artists including Carlos Santana, Eric Clapton, Steve Lukather, Derek Trucks and Steve Vai. The Loopbone employs the same class-A buffer inside with full size discrete parts to manage the guitar signal and ensure it is transmitted without artefact or distortion. But this is only half the story: When a buffer is connected in between the guitar and the amplifier... the tone changes. This is because the circuit created by the pickup and the tube amplifier has been replaced by a solid-state buffer. Solid state buffers sound and react differently. To compensate, Radial invented Drag Control load correction. This enables the guitarist to adjust the load so that it feels right. This makes your guitar pedal chain 'sound' as if it is true-bypass while reducing noise and enabling longer cable runs.
Getting rid of the pop
Once the signal is buffered, we can then manage it and quietly turn the loops on and off. But instead of using some form of switch, we actually use a series of photocells. These can be arranged so that the signal ramps up and ramps down very quickly thus eliminating the pop for completely silent switching
Using two effects loops
We decided to equip the Loopbone with two effects loops. These are wired in series whereby the first loop feeds into the second. There is good reason for this - depending on how you approach your pedalboard:
- Assigning the two loops by pedal type
You can set the first loop up with various distortion, overdrive or fuzz pedals and then set the second loop up with a variety of effects like delays, chorus, phase shifters and so on. This enables you to combine different types of distortion with reverb or delay by activating the desired pedals turning both loops on. - Assigning the two loops like presets
Another way to set up the Loopbone is to create two groups of effects whereby the first loop may combine an overdrive, chorus and delay while the second loop combines a distortion, phase shifter and wah pedal. Loop-1 could be used for one song while loop-2 could be used for another.
With either setup, having two loops enables you to preset them so that the desired effects are on standby and then immediately turned on with a single foot stomp. This yields a much more professional show as the flow from one effect to the other becomes seamless.
Slingshot™ remote control
We then thought about how the Loopbone could play a more important role on the pedalboard. We asked ourselves how cool it would be if when turning on a loop, you could also switch the channels on your amp or maybe turn on a remote effect? This spawned the development of a remote control port called Slingshot™.
Slingshot is a remote port that employs the same type of contact closure as used on most effects and guitar amplifiers. Simply connect a guitar cable from the Loopbone to the device you want to switch and you are pretty much set to go! The Slingshot output can be configured for latching or momentary (pulse) switching to accommodate both old and new amps and is arranged for both standard ¼" and TRS cables. For crazy fun... try connecting the Slingshot from the Loopbone to a Headbone and switch heads while engaging pedals. There is no limit for the creative!
The Loopbone is truly a marvel that opens the door to tonal flexibility without introducing any noise or altering the natural tone and dynamics of your favorite instrument.
- PREAMPS