Housed in a rugged metal enclosure and powered by a 9-volt battery (or optional 9VDC power supply), the Voodoo Lab Amp Selector ($329 retail/$225 street) gives tone freaks an easy way to practice the multi-amp religion made popular by cats such as Eric Johnson and Stevie Ray Vaughan. The Amp Selector sports dual inputs, four transformer-coupled outputs with independent Volume controls, a buffered Tuner Out jack that doesn’t load down your pickups and can be used as an additional output, and four ground lift dip switches to safely eliminate ground-loop hum.
The Amp selector offers two programmable operational modes. In On/Off mode, you simply step on the desired footswitch to turn the output on or off. This is where you want to be if you’re into stacking up several amps to construct a monster tone (with maybe the option to add in an amp with its tremolo or vibrato rocking for spice). In Exclusive mode, a foot tap turns the previous output off, and the newly selected output on. This arrangement lets you do things like set up one amp for a verse sound, one amp for a chorus sound, one amp for solos, and the fourth amp for layering tones. Here, the outputs for amps one through three would be set to Exclusive (so you could toggle from one sound to another with a single stomp) and amp four’s output would be set to On/Off (so you could add the “layer” amp to any of the verse, chorus, or solo amps). You can also split the Amp Selector in half to run two stereo rigs or accommodate a setup where two different guitars (say, an electric and an acoustic) each switch between two different amps. Switching is silent, and the Amp Selector is absolutely transparent--it doesn’t color your guitar or amp tone at all. The Amp Selector is a brilliantly configured solution for any multiple-amp application, whether you actually carry all that tonnage to a gig, or simply like to effortlessly toggle between different amps or modeling processors in your home studio. - Darrin Fox