owlexifry
Well-known member
ordered this for myself, but ended up building it for a friend’s birthday gift.
i had high hopes for this circuit, it’s definitely gotten a lot of praise around many parts of the internet.
it’s really hard to make fair assessments of pedals like this when i’m a lot more used to better tools for the job (real tube amps, amp sims+IRs), so i compared it to a couple other similar high gain preamps/distortions (REVV G3, SLO pedal) to get a ‘baseline’.
opinions:
- 18V mode is mandatory. 9V almost sounds unusable to me. wtf.
makes a huge difference imo.
- i don’t really like the big muff style tone control on circuits like this. a proper tonestack would be nice. regardless, it works and sounds ok.
- ‘gate’ controls like this are stupid and i don’t like them. chokes the hell out of the tone and makes it sound like shit.
metal nerds use proper standalone gates anyway, stuff like this is really unnecessary.
- the ‘tight’ control is more subtle than i thought it would be, adjusts a bit than just lows, cuts into low-mid territory too, and that’s ok.
- the ‘style’ toggle switches between the two different pedal circuits ‘Tight Metal’ and ‘Tight Rock’ - the circuits are just that similar they can be switched on a dpdt.
the switch essentially functions as a mid scoop toggle. lmao.
i actually like the rock mode better. metal mode is a bit too scooped for me.
- yep ‘mids’ is a mids scoop toggle.
- ‘boost’ is sick. it’s like another channel. the high gain channel i guess. sounds better than the alternative imo.
it’s got a heck of lot of volume on tap (in 18V mode at least, 9V mode may as well not exist, and it's an insult to the mighty LT1054)
i reckon it sounds best into FX loop vs in front of amp.
here’s a very rushed demo, had to get this one banged out quickly late at night before tomorrow when im giving it to my friend. i still haven’t had a chance to try boosting it with an OD808 yet, but i might get to tomorrow.. (like most distortions, i reckon it’ll sound better with the sweet caressing love that comes from a mid-boosting overdrive)
overall, i guess it's pretty good for what it is. it had a better bite than the REVV G3 (vero clone), SLO pedal is good but it only has like x1 good sound. at least this has a variety, but is all that variety useable? depends on the user i suppose.
somehow i still think the pussy melter is better than all of them. i never expected to be saying this but here we are. still yet to do a brown betty build.
i had high hopes for this circuit, it’s definitely gotten a lot of praise around many parts of the internet.
it’s really hard to make fair assessments of pedals like this when i’m a lot more used to better tools for the job (real tube amps, amp sims+IRs), so i compared it to a couple other similar high gain preamps/distortions (REVV G3, SLO pedal) to get a ‘baseline’.
opinions:
- 18V mode is mandatory. 9V almost sounds unusable to me. wtf.
makes a huge difference imo.
- i don’t really like the big muff style tone control on circuits like this. a proper tonestack would be nice. regardless, it works and sounds ok.
- ‘gate’ controls like this are stupid and i don’t like them. chokes the hell out of the tone and makes it sound like shit.
metal nerds use proper standalone gates anyway, stuff like this is really unnecessary.
- the ‘tight’ control is more subtle than i thought it would be, adjusts a bit than just lows, cuts into low-mid territory too, and that’s ok.
- the ‘style’ toggle switches between the two different pedal circuits ‘Tight Metal’ and ‘Tight Rock’ - the circuits are just that similar they can be switched on a dpdt.
the switch essentially functions as a mid scoop toggle. lmao.
i actually like the rock mode better. metal mode is a bit too scooped for me.
- yep ‘mids’ is a mids scoop toggle.
- ‘boost’ is sick. it’s like another channel. the high gain channel i guess. sounds better than the alternative imo.
it’s got a heck of lot of volume on tap (in 18V mode at least, 9V mode may as well not exist, and it's an insult to the mighty LT1054)
i reckon it sounds best into FX loop vs in front of amp.
here’s a very rushed demo, had to get this one banged out quickly late at night before tomorrow when im giving it to my friend. i still haven’t had a chance to try boosting it with an OD808 yet, but i might get to tomorrow.. (like most distortions, i reckon it’ll sound better with the sweet caressing love that comes from a mid-boosting overdrive)
overall, i guess it's pretty good for what it is. it had a better bite than the REVV G3 (vero clone), SLO pedal is good but it only has like x1 good sound. at least this has a variety, but is all that variety useable? depends on the user i suppose.
somehow i still think the pussy melter is better than all of them. i never expected to be saying this but here we are. still yet to do a brown betty build.
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…I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on that… but I totally agree, for the hype I expected a more exciting initial experience.
damn that’s about as stiff and clean as it can get. must be doing alright if you can get a good high gain rhythm sound on that with this amptweaker thing.
