Hey r/guitarpedals, my name is Jake, and I am a junior pre-medical student at an American university. As a true gear head and tone chaser with a studio in my off campus house, I decided to start my own gear page Pedal Prescription based predominately on Instagram and Youtube. This is my first demo, the RST Custom Effects Queasy Seaman vibrato. If you enjoy it, follow me on Instagram @pedalprescription and subscribe to my youtube channel. Cheers!
I love supporting local builders near my hometown of Lakeville, MA, so when I had the opportunity to demo the Queasy Seaman Vibrato from RST Custom Effects based out of Carver, MA, I jumped on it. Right off the bat, you can tell that the pedal is beautifully handmade with the upmost care and diligence. The pedal first greets you with what I consider to be a minimalistic, yet perfect graphic, featuring a sailor who clearly is having a bad day. Branded with RST’s motto “Ready. Set. TONE!” this pedal just asks to be plugged in.
When it comes to the debate of how many knobs to put on a unit, I believe there is no right or wrong answer: some effects need more versatility and tweakability, others need to do the simple thing they do just right with just a few knobs. I could not imagine a more perfect knob layout for the Queasy Seaman, with one control for depth (Fathoms) and one for rate/speed (Knots): of course, these clever labels keep up with the Queasy Seaman theme. Vibratos are pedals that bring back classic sounds from all eras, and this pedal does just that using the classic depth and speed layout. It doesn’t actually matter where the knobs are set on this thing, it just sounds good.
Believe it or not, this pedal may have found a place on my board as an always on for my clean sound. With the depth set low and the rate set to taste, clean tones truly come alive with transparent, yet audible waves of vibrato highlighting the tone of my white HSS Stratocaster. I loved the pedal on all settings: low rates, high rates, low depth, and high depth. This pedal does, however, truly shine with both knobs set at 12 o’clock (I love when that happens). I run a studio near my school at UMass Amherst, and a local band came in the other week to record a live album. The rhythm guitarist asked to check out the “cool pedal with the green guy on it”, and ultimately ended up using it for the entire session. It is that good.
What can I say about the Queasy Seaman? Well I can tell you that it is truly an honor to have my first official pedal demo come from RST Effects. They are a great company run by a genuine, humble, and brilliant guy looking to help guitarists chase their dream tone. The Queasy Seaman will take your tone into a wavy-sea like abyss, but watch out: don’t get sick on stage while ripping a solo!