PRODUCT REVIEW
BOSS
BY ADAM MOORE
BOSS’s website describes the Slicer as
a “shot of audio adrenaline,” and that’s
perhaps the best description I’ve heard of
this thing. Taking an instrument’s input and
chopping it all to hell, the SL- 20 provides a
fun and surprisingly friendly introduction to
groove-based music.
From the very beginning, the Slicer is a
trip; upon plugging a 1/4” plug into its
input (mono or stereo), the unit lights up
like the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
While the SL- 20 comes with a fully-featured
manual, it’s simple enough that you can step
and play. Hitting the left pedal begins the
transformation of your input into rhythmic
pulses—composed mainly of stuttering
notes and the fattest bottoms you’ll find
this side of a Queen video—of which the
style and pattern are adjustable by the Bank
and Pattern knobs found on the upper half
of the unit. There are ten different patterns
to choose from, ranging from long and
steady rhythms to short stutters, along with
five “banks,” two of which can be used to
create melodies from the chords you play,
effectively giving you 50 options for altering your sound. The Attack and Duty knobs
give you complete control over the duration
of the rhythms, and the Effect and Direct
Level knobs allow you to tailor the amount
of groove that’s inserted into your signal.
Tempo is critically important to this unit’s
operation, and as such there are three ways
to input it here: the right tap tempo pedal,
the always glowing Tempo knob (you cannot miss it) or using the MIDI jack to sync
the unit up with an external source. There
are plenty of options to choose from here;
power users will want to keep the manual
handy, as it has pages in the back where
you can jot down your most frequently
used settings.
The unit is usable in mono, but do whatever
it takes to use this pedal in stereo. With six
different stereo modes, including two “3D”
modes that are truly enveloping, this pedal
is made to exist in a wide soundfield. I literally spent hours noodling around with
the Slicer, generally pretending I was in
the middle of a Daft Punk rave. When you
add in the SL- 20’s recording capabilities,
allowing you to capture up to 40 seconds
of loop-induced freakout with just a push
of a pedal, this unit becomes a steal for the
rhythmically-inclined crowd. Granted, you
can’t record just your guitar, sans slicing,
and you can’t overdub loops, but the ability to create loops is key here, freeing you
up to layer over the top of it (in this setup,
you use the Effect and Direct Level knobs to
control the mix of loop and unaffected guitar in the signal).
BOSS should be rewarded for keeping
the controls simple, despite the deepness of this pedal. While it initially may
look daunting, after five minutes you’ll be
gleefully tweaking away. And it’s nice to
see that the company didn’t try to shoehorn all of this into one pedal; while the
double-wide unit will take up some extra
space on the floor, if you’re hip to the
Slicer, odds are you already have several
overflowing pedalboards.
Even if it seems not to fit your “style,”
this box has the potential to unlock new,
unexplored ideas in your head. When I first
opened the box, I thought, “When would I
use this?” Now I am desperately trying to
keep from having to give it back.
Buy If...
you want a great compressor and a
bevy of cool envelope effects.
Skip If...
you don’t have the patience
to tweak.
Rating...
5.0
BOSS
MSRP $299.50
bossus.com
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