Since 2015 NEW PEDALS EVERY DAY! Over 4400 REVIEWS!
I use other reviewers vids & then critique from them __ If a pedal appears killer I buy one __ I try it out & update the Post__ If the pedal is SH@T I literally say so!__ I publish the street price a no brainer but few do. __ I save you time finding the best pedals & you get a second opinion. __OVER 4 MILLION VISTORS__
NO ONE OWNS ME___ I MAKE ZERO $ FROM THIS
Rats do not wear hats. Not even a baseball cap. I have come to the conclusion that only aProCo Rat II is a Rat. The topography of a Rat gets you from the input to the output by travelling on a path that is a sidewalk journey from start to finish. Clones never stay on the sidewalk but wonder all over the road. It is simply not the same trip.
The catchall phrase for the overall design used is a 'hardclipper'.
There are many very good ones. But everyone selling their hardclippers insists on selling them as a Rat. A steel box welded on rear of a Ferrari does not make it a Pickup truck.
The layout is Volume, Gain and a toggle gives you a choice of bass and more bass, lol. Add in some Tone, (a tone control is a filter. Wiring it backwards changes zero. A rotary switch gives you a choice of clipping diodes. The Sizzle buttons add in some bite, basically like a Bright
The pedal according to Holy Island is a Muff and a Ring Modulator. A Muff Fuzz is the basic pillar topography that holds up 99% of all silicon based Fuzz pedals and arguable a few OpAmp wannabes. The layout is Volume, Tone and Gain for the Fuzz and pot to dial in an interesting noise from Ring Modulator and a Volume for that. Three toggles give 3 different voices, like a mid scoop or boost, another blend bypassing some of the raw sound from the input pass the tone control. The last adds a bit of near Octave Fuzz like sound.
CONCLUSION ___
All of these tricks have been used in many Fuzz pedals over the decades. They can be effective but it soon can be like having more toppings and syrup than you have ice cream.
That said using the 'extras' as spice you can dial un a
good standard Muff sound and add a bit of sweet
and sour to give it a bit of WOW. Too much
and you have a WTF. Yes that was cruel, 😇
___ It has the potential to a be total killer pedal.
This is an original design optical comp. This one got me very interested as my favorite sounding Comp is my Pigtronix Philosophers Tone. All Comps have one or more probs but Optical Comps have a very nice warmth.
It is very similar to the warmth of a Fuzz that has germanium transistors.
The layout is Volume, Tone, Blend ...of your clean and compressed signal.
Then ...Compression, it not only adds more comp but if it is pushed it
will swell the decay just like a loud amp can lift yournotes into
feedback especially if helped if you turn your PU'stowards a speaker.
CONCLUSION ___
It blows me away!! A full warm rich sound and getting that swell thing without needing to play loud to get speaker feedback.
I play a lot of high gain things that NEED gating or the noise floor would be unbearable. The gate can be set to decay and not chop off the notes but the decay really could use this units swelling effectto not die and leave dead air that will create an
un-needed restbefore the nextchord is hit.
This Comp is not for everyone ...but I am not everyone.
NOTE:
The first video has the Compressor at the beginning. __A very big BUT!
At 13:00 in the video you can hear how stacking it on a dirt pedal can swell the note.
The big Cali and the Compact have been discontinued.
Both replaced by a new compact version of the big Cali used in this shoot out
A small Brit builder in London's Stoke Newington Hackney area. Made by Patrick a
guy determined to make pedals that are literally their own unique sounding thing.
He has been with Rainger Effects for a few years. They are the reigning King of the crazy pedals. Having had a Rainger pedal I can say that they make pedals that in spite of crazy twists you can do with them they are actually usable in a conventional tune. The layout is Drive, an input gain stage, Destruction appears to be a high output gain stage, mood is a tone control, Ego is simply the level.
C ONCLUSION ___
Not your Dads Doom Metal pedal as one would expect. You get a wall of sound but with more definition than a clean boost pedal, lol. Impressively different but 100% usable in dozens of genres. Very well made with
attention to detail. Reasonably priced for the quality and
Mark Bennett is from St. Johns Newfoundland an island/Province off the East coast of Canada. The guy is an Electrical engineer, a player with an M.A. in music Technology. This amp-in-box is his best seller. A FET type Overdrive with a septate boost. the layout is Volume, Gain, Bass and Treble for the medium gain OD side and level for the Boost. A toggle lets you go from a very even fixed voice to a scoop or mid boost. All are kept in the range of a real tube amp's voicing's. Internal trim pots let you change the voicing to a symmetrical voicing, in short give it a Tube Screamer vibe.
CONCLUSION ___
It nails an excellent tube driven tone. It both wins but sufferers from not nailing a specific real world amp. It is not trying to be a Marshall, or Vox or, or, or. So it stands or falls on it's own. All and all an excellent sound regardless.
From Shady Point Oklahoma comes a small builder with it appears 3 pedals to check out. The Fuzz seems like a good candidate. It is an OpAmp Fuzz with 8 clipping diodes to choose from. The layout is Volume, Tone which in this case is a low pass filter. Gain and Rotary switch with a choice of no diodes or switching from a symmetrical to asymmetrical circuit. You also get Silicon, Germanium, FET, Schottky, Blue LED and Red LED diodes.
CONCLUSION ___
It is clearly aimed at the Doom and related genres. It's best feature is it has meat clever attack which gives ever note a tight sharp edge.
Like any dirt pedal if it can give you a total massive
This is DemonFX take on the classic Zendrive that was the
first everDumble-in-a-Box pedal. A pedal that got its voicing
from a Robben Ford record so it is cloning how the amp
sounded afterits post production changes.
There have been several clones since. The Warm Drive at
$100 is the most recent. The layout is Volume, Gain,
Tone and Voice. The Voice being a Bright Cap added.
CONCLUSION ___
The company boasts of using the same parts and even
makesa list of them. My first impression is it iscertainly
in theballpark. I must admit I am impressed. I was
nevera fan of the original but never say, never, LOL,
...lets not overlook the price 😏
....sorry about the video but this is the only one and it was quicker
writing the whole review than finding the damn thing and add
to that it would not load onto my site in a conventional manner.
________________
the fine print
I am convinced by listening to a half minute here and there on the video that the Zendrive and the Z-drive are at
least 95% the same as the Zendrive. NOT having just that bit more of something to worry about. So that said
one needs to know would going to a brand like J Rockett with their "lets add steroids'' to the pedal be preferable.
Hence the last video of The Dude vs. the Zendrive. I do not need a more steroids pedal as I have
Marshall-in-a-Box and an Amp-in-a box version of all the in your face classics. ____In short the Z-drive wins!!!
UPDATE:
...it is 7/15/2024
11 days ago I ordered a Z-Drive. I spent a fortune over the last few years trying to great a really good transparent drive for my Strat sounds. I wanted my sound clean and with as much chime as a bell. The BIG BUT is I wanted some decent sustain. Yes I heard many videos of the Hermida Zen Drive and every clone on the planet. But everyone wanted to show its medium gain OD sounds. No one as in, zero showed it playing the just before breakup sound. Yes they might of spent literally seconds showing the range of the the pedal but they were in a sweat to get back to cranking it.
This damn pedal NAILS it!!! Add to that I would expect to pay 10 times its $30 price to get this sound.
.jpg)
.png){kind=spacer}
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
