Joe Halliday's Hello Sailor Effects Sky-Blue Alice FreeRange is one of his very best - a superb combination of Rangemaster and Kossoff Drive Plexi

Aug 29, 202308:00 by

Stefan Karlsson

BoostBoost and OverdriveHello Sailor EffectsMarshall Style DistortionOverdrive+-

So I’m gradually working my way though Joe’s catalogue as such - where I’ve identified a number of essentials for my reference collection. The rnrmf guitarworks Xenomorph Fuzz collaboration was my first, this Alice Rangemaster is the second, and Joe is currently working on another 2-transistor Fuzz variant for me - in his usual point-to-point style.

I then have a full fat / all the bells and whistles Dual Rangemaster to get, and an Anchor Drive - where those 5 will be at the core of my Hello Sailor Effects capsule collection - and surely more will follow!

I decided that I would prefer to have Joe’s Kossoff Drive in this essentially extended and enhanced format - which includes a pre-drive Rangemaster to really zing up those chewy Mids!

Joe describes his Kossoff Drive as a sort of ’Full Fat’ Plexi - where he’s based it very much on Paul Kossoff’s 70’s Live sound for ’Alright Now’ - see sound reference video below. Paul Kossoff is Joe’s favourite guitarist of all time - just a hair’s breadth ahead of Billy Gibbons. I believe Eric Clapton is in there somewhere too!

I can attest that said Live vibrant tonality is exactly captured by the Kossoff Drive. The Drive on its own could kind of do with a little more output volume for my preferences - while the output is pretty much perfect when you kick in the Rangemaster too.

Controls - KOSSOFF DRIVE } Gain, Tone, Volume, Left Footswitch, RANGEMASTER } Range / Intensity, Focus : Mid / Hi / Low, Right Footswitch.

I love that I can use the Rangemaster and Kossoff Drive Channels independently - and a lot of the time I’m just using the Rangemaster on its own. Then kicking in the Drive significantly beefs up the output.

I got to choose the knobs here and those silver / chrome guitar knobs make this one of the most attractive FreeRange’s created to date. The knobs’ only downside being that they have no markers - so it’s more tricky to dial in your favourite settings.

I say more tricky - but all of that is incredibly easy anyway. Tone and Volume tend to be maxed for me / FCW, while Gain and Range are at circa 3 o’c - that’s where I get the best balance of texture and harmonics.

For the Range Focus switch I mostly play with that in the Up / Mids position, while I occasionally make use of the middle Hi option too, not so much the Low! I play mostly with Humbuckers and then kick in my Keyztone Exchanger pickup enhancer when I want a brighter Tele style tonality. So you should factor that into my preferred settings. I usually test everything with humbuckers first and foremost.

So if you love the sound of ’Alright Now’ by Free - then this is surely the pedal for you - in fact if you want a full fat Plexi style overdrive - then this really fits that bill too. Its gain range is not particularly extensive and when you raise the Gain much above 3 o’c you get quite a bit more compression - which can diminish that optimal chewy harmonics texture that I so like. The addition of Rangemaster makes this pedal a lot more versatile and gives you far greater control over the shaping of that core drive’s output.

This pedal is loaded with premium components of all different shapes and sizes as you can see in the above gutshot - and it sounds all the better for it. The circuit/s sit across 3 perf boards anchored to the ceiling and sides of a 1590C enclosure - you just know it's going to sound great when you see that fine assembly of parts!

The Rangemaster transistor utilised here is a 1965 General Electric Germanium variety reclaimed from a vintage Organ. The circuit contains Suflex, Phillips electrolytics, ITT military spec tantalum, and Mullard mustard capacitors. And the Kossoff Drive runs off NOS JFETs from Siliconix.

There's some magic in that Joe Halliday wiring too for sure as normally anything with a Germanium Transistor needs to sit at the front of the chain - while I placed my FreeRange into the middle of my fairly extensive setup - and it immediately sounded amazing - so you can be relatively Free with your placement of this pedal too (within reason) - where it's moniker could be ascribed dual meaning!

My Sky-Blue Alice FreeRange is a one off in both look and make-up - such are the ways of HSE - every pedal has to be unique! While Joe builds fairly similar editions relatively regularly - which you have to be extraordinarily quick to snag from one of his weekend pedal drops - which go straight onto his Reverb.Com Hello Sailor Effects Store. The FreeRange is typically priced at around £300 and up depending on its actual spec; and for the same spec as mine (component selection etc.) the price would be around the £330 mark.

Joe will be exhibiting at the Kempton Park Guitar Show on October 29th - and will likely have one or two FreeRanges along with him then - even so you have to be quick if you want one - as those tend to go incredibly quickly. Please form an orderly queue!