Seal

His pedalboard was built by Omilionaudio.com¹, and it sits alongside two digital modelers he names directly: the Quad Cortex and the Fender Tone Master Pro¹.

The pedals on Seal's board

Seal names his favorites in his own words: "My favourite pedals by Origin Effects are the MAGMA57, DELUXE61, Halcyon Gold and Green, and the M-EQ DRIVER, which I believe is the real unsung hero of the bunch."¹ He has also described a four-pedal board pairing the Halcyon Blue Overdrive with a Jackson Audio New Wave Chorus, a UAFX Galaxy and the DELUXE61, chosen over the MAGMA57, as he puts it, "only because of that damn bias trem."¹

The Halcyon overdrives, which sit in Origin Effects' line of overdrive pedals, earn specific praise from him for one feature: "One of the reasons I LOVE the Halcyon pedals, is that they give you the ability to control the dry signal."¹ Both the Halcyon Gold and Green, along with the M-EQ DRIVER, use the maker's Adaptive Circuitry, which designer Simon Keats describes as shared by four pedals in the range at the time: "The 4 current Adaptive pedals, Halcyon Green, Halcyon Gold, M-EQ DRIVER and DCX, are quite different."⁴

The M-EQ DRIVER, in Seal's words

The M-EQ DRIVER, an EQ and boost pedal, is the one Seal singles out. Its lineage connects to his own records: "aside from the legendary unit it's derived from which was a staple on my early records, the M-EQ DRIVER is kind of the pedal you never knew you needed until you realised just how versatile and subsequently essential it is."¹

He uses it several ways:

• As a colourless boost driving the front of his Two Rock Vintage Deluxe or Joey Landreth Signature amps¹
• To drive the front of the MAGMA57 or DELUXE61¹
• As a treble boost on his 335 and LP guitars¹
• For shaping an acoustic guitar, where he says it particularly shines due to its high-fidelity heritage¹

The MAGMA57 and the Magnatone connection

The MAGMA57 is Origin Effects' Amp Vibrato & Drive pedal, an analog recreation of the pitch-bending vibrato effect built into the Magnatone Custom 260 and 280 models of the late 1950s³. In Sweetwater's demo video, Don Carr describes how "the magma 57 captures the unique vibrato and amp tones of vintage magnatone 200 series amplifiers in a pedal," with a two-stage true pitch vibrato section and a tweed-era amp circuit on the drive side, built with all-analog discrete solid-state components⁶. Delicious Audio describes it as bringing "the best of the Magnatone 200 Series amplifiers to your pedalboard, delivering everything from warm, jazzy clean tones to full-on swirling psychedelia."⁷

Seal puts the M-EQ DRIVER to work in front of the MAGMA57 and DELUXE61: "I also use it to drive the front of the MAGMA57 or DELUXE61."¹ He also finds it effective as a treble boost on his 335 and LP guitars, and values it for acoustic shaping, writing that "Where I think it particularly shines is shaping an acoustic due to its high-fidelity heritage."¹ His amp tastes run beyond Origin Effects' own amp-in-a-box pedals: "one of my favourite amps of all time is my Magnatone Panoramic Stereo."¹

The Magnatone link runs deeper than the pedal for Seal, who owns one of the amps himself: "one of my favourite amps of all time is my Magnatone Panoramic Stereo."¹

Compression and the Cali76 MK2

Seal also uses Origin Effects' Cali76 MK2 compressor, and it changed his thinking about compression on a pedalboard: "The Cali76 is what changed my mind about pedalboard compression. I'm so glad to have the MK2 as the visual confirmation meter makes all the difference."²

Blending analog with digital

Seal runs his analog pedals alongside the Quad Cortex and Fender Tone Master Pro modelers¹, a setup his board builder at Omilionaudio.com put together¹. The Origin Effects pedals on it come from a UK-based builder that hand-crafts its pedals in-house, a practice it maintained through its 10,000th pedal sale in 2017⁸⁹.

Questions