OVERDRIVE- FREE THE TONE String Slinger ...it's basic look hides it's true identity ...a Fender amp-in a- box

 FREE THE TONE STRING SLINGER OVERDRIVE 

$350.00 USD

Free The Tone from Japan have been with us since 2014 making the absolute best made gourmet pedals possible.It is a trade off because a large portion of your money is not for design ...hence sound but for an overkill in the actual parts.The quality of fit, finish, parts and attention to detail is second to none!

SOUND
One OD they made was so perfect I hated it. LOL
No kidding I could not fault it at all. I did not buy it because it had no character.
As opposed the the French Celmo Pimento Sardine it lacks everything BUT character and I just love it!
So what about the String Slinger. Surprise! No bells or whistles ...just character. I am seriously surprised!

HOW DOES A SIMPLE PEDAL BECOME AMP-IN-A-BOX
It's is startlingly similar to a Fender Black face amp.
Shades of the Vibrolux, Super Reverb and the Deluxe cross my mind.
It has the sparkle of the Dumble Steel String Singer. 
Perhaps Free The Tone thought so too. lol
What impresses me is it can be turned down and faithfully reproduce what are generally considered clean tones. They are indeed the sounds that are on the edge of crunch.
It has zero competition. I bought many only to be near horrified at the price vs. performance.
F.T.T. only say they wanted to catch that bluesy Americana type vibe. Well they did that. They did it damn well too.

CONCLUSION

Not cheap but is worth every penny. In spite of it's 3 knob simple old style dirt pedal look and layout it is in reality a modern amp-in-a-box. Better still a convincing Fender Black Face one as well. That in itself is a rarity. There are several great Marshall ones but very little choice for Fender boxes. 
The pedal is superb and it has zero competition! Nothing comes close and most of it is in my estimation is ...crap!!! 
I have bought and sold a half dozen expensive low gain transparent pedals. They all were muddy or fuzzy at very low gain settings.
Flat picking or finger picking was hopeless on any of them. They all had a man made fake dirt sound. The String Slinger gives you a fat tight even punchy real amp like tone even when the gain is bordering zero. At mid settings flat picking is still tight and clean. The tone sounds like a 'real amp.'
I did notice if you push it hard those beautiful glossy mids it adds get even bigger. Too big. It starts to smother the detail that it pulled out of the Strat a low to mid settings.
Personally I would never push this pedal that high.

On a final note ...the one disappointment is at a certain point when it slips past a low gain sound you are in expectation that in a second it will push the sound into a Stevie Ray Vaughn thing but instead of getting creamy it gets harsh.
The Origin Rival Drive Compact has just been released and it is designed to mimic both Marshal and Fender single channel amps so it would be nice to hear it's Fender sound but reviews seem to stick to it's Marshall sound. Too bad because it's Marshall sound is so good that the pedal on it's own could pass as the real Marshall amp.