Since 2015 NEW PEDALS EVERY DAY! Over 3300 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 A MILLION VISTORS__
NO ONE OWNS ME___ I MAKE ZERO $ FROM THIS
planet. They not only make Mooer pedals they rebrand the same pedals for over 15 other companies. They use high end manufactacturing methods and can produce hundreds of pedals.
It is not unusual to make 2000 of a single pedal when anyone of their rebrand company have a sale.
Mooer hold back a few best sellers and new pedals from their re-brand customers so the Rage Machine is only available from them as it has been a big seller. Re-Brands can be as cheap as $20.00 USD.
The layout is straightforward enough with level, high and lows for EQ and gain. the sound is pro even if entry level pro.
CONCLUSION It is not bad, Fat and aggressive with a reasonable amount of definition. I would look at the Kmise Ultimate Drive ad compare the Kmise has fatter and richer sound. if you get it on their rebranded Saphue name it is about $20.00 USD Don't let the price fool you this a Pro sounding box.
Tim has done it again. A very simple to operate reverb that can cover all the bases especially at a gig. Reverb can really be dramatic. You watch a video and you hear all the great rooms and halls a sci fi effects and WOW. You take to a gig or even to a band practice and everything with it on turns to total mud! You end up putting on the spring setting. Spring? No! pseudo Spring at best. So Tim solved the problem. Just use a nice simple natural hall sound without any busy sounding tail on the voicing. When you roll it back you have a nice smooth sound so that you can use it as an 'always on' pedal. Before you think you do not want reverb always on ...think again. With it on your overall sound sits in a space that even if it is not inside a cathedral it is still a space. Turn it off and it sounds really jarring and weird. Most of the time just a bit of reverb is dead perfect. On some tunes a little more really is nice. With the 'Box' you lean over even on a dark stage grab the knob... a quick tweak and your done.
CONCLUSION Dan on THAT PEDAL SHOW is recording an EP during this P19 lock down time. He has dozens of pedals. His fave is the Empress Effects Echo System it will cost you $450.00 USD. I have one myself. It is the very best of the best. You could say it is a ... PROFESSIONAL REVERB Now 99% of the time I have it set to a nice simple HALL Does it sound better then the 'Box' nice simple HALL My god I really wish it did!!! I truly do!!! I spent all that money and .... Let me tell you what the BOX is REVERB FOR A PROFESSIONAL as a pro you have to always have a pro sound. and live you do not have the time for a damn stomp box to let you down! It has to be simple and sound great. With most pedals these days the are a maze of flashy graphics They do look cool in your hand. But for gods sake DO NOT put them on your board you simply can not read them. Add to that at that distance they look like sh@t. I love Tims look. Tasteful, classy and high end looking. Years ago I studied Interior design. I was an honour student. Top of my class. So I know what looks great and what is just crap! Tim's pedals would get him top marks every time.
DIGITECH POLARA REVERB In the late 20th century many companies with a prestigious name that made hightech equipment were left with nothing but that prestige as new companies came along. They offered high quality gear at budget prices. They were like Gibson with their Les Paul an instrument with a distinct and quality sound but for a lot less money something with as good or equal quality of build and with a lot of choice with colors and features was everywhere. Eventually companies that were part of the wave of great new rack gear were pushed aside by a young generation that followed the old R&R adage that if something sounds good it is good. Cheap and cheerful stomp boxes filled the void. Today we have it all from unbelievably high tech sitting comfortably beside a reissue Fuzz box made of 8 cheap analog parts. Well the Polara is the best sounds heard from the antique Lexicon rock gear in a pedal. You get Room, Plate, Hall, Reverse, Modulated, Hallo and Spring. On one hand dated in sound and even complexity of tone they are loved by many as there is zero effort to make a sound that has it nailed. No pissing about trying to tailor a box that forces you to try to dispense with a hundred options that simply do not sound great in your actual musical application to a handful of very 'musical' choices. Dave Friedman famous for both his best selling amps and his BEOD & the Dirty Shirley said ...put it beside the TC Electronics Hall of Fame or any pedals cheaper than the Strymon stuff and they all sound like junk! .
CONCLUSION Well the sounds are often antique but by pedal standards that anything a couple of years is old so by every standard this is old sh@t. We live in a culture that buys with their eyes even for audio. So a lot of guys will run from anything that doesn't say Strymon etc. But very few guys who have this pedal are disappointed. The plate on this is one of the best always on reverbs ever made. It has been available for 10 years and now gets a lot of bad rap from the Ambience affectionato's crowd ...unjust because it was designed for rock tunes not movie soundtracks. Both things effect the used price. There always a few used so you can expect about a 20% discount. The price is helpful but hardly a blowout because the pedal has a strong underground following because rock has always been about 'If it sounds good it is good' this has worked to let new players in the game but to keep the best from getting crushed by fad and fashion.
UPDATE
The pedal is defunct! Used prices have gone from $130.00 USD to $300.00 USD plus.
The original alogirism's are the property of UA who have just released there own reverb
pedal. The Golden Reverberater. It is $400.00 USA but it has the Lexicon sounds and it's
spec is state of the art. You can also get new sounds for it.
So unless you find a used one locally where the seller is under the radar that could be
IDIOT BOX NO MOON OD's What if you had for dirt boxes a Big Muff, a Rat and a Tube Screamer and you put all three separate dirt pedals into the same box??? Well you would have a damn big box!!! Oh my you do! You have a damn big box. OK the thing is there is nothing tricky about this. The only thing they share is an input and an output jack. They really are just four separate dirt pedals. No they do not stack. You are not running one box into another like you would or could if they were in separate boxes. I stack pedals and it is not such a great thing because first you are boosting a pedal that you bought because it sounded great but know you want something more...more lows ...the harsh edge of a Muff etc. But you cannot just add the bit of one pedal to a bit of the next etc. If however they are totally separate you can. You can knock off the highs from one pedal increase lows from the second etc. and just blend them at the output.
$200.00 USD
CONCLUSION
Well it works!!! you really can get a lot of variety of sounds. Obviously so much dirt is going to give you mostly Metal like sounds. But good ones? Well that is up to you to decide. I would prefer a single OD with a similar separation of sound designed to work in tandem together by good design. BUT! No one makes one OK the separate units sound pretty good nothing extra special but very serviceable units. If you re into Doom, Stoner, Sludge etc this could be a really great pedal because no matter how over the top you like your dirt pedals such pedals present problems.The Full Moon is a bit tamer, more predictable and easily controllable. You may not find it as cool ...but damn handy. It is not bad to have one dirt pedal that comes with a steering wheel. Some dirt pedals in these genres have endless drop outs and splutter fits. Stacking them with this pedal would make sure you are never left with embarrassing silences while your killer Fuzz monster decides to come back up for air.
TRIVIUM Not since the glory days of Metallica has a band playing Metal been #1 in world wide recording sales. What's even cooler it only took 2 days from the release of their current recording to achieve it. It is really great news because no matter what you think of their music they have kicked open the door for quite literally thousands and thousands of guitar players to have hope for a career. Hell I am 73 and have written 17 tunes of original material and I am aiming at 20. I will than be ready to have my zillionith try of getting my brand of Metal with my power trio off to yet a fresh start.
So Trivium ...you have my genuine gratitude. Well done guys! Take a bow!
MI AUDIO CROSS OVER DRIVE V.2 It is a variable gain OD. It goes from a clean boost to a low gain medium gain right up to a high gain OD. Hey! Maybe V.3 will go right up to Metal??? OK The layout has some surprises. Yes we have volume and gain, you can switch between standard, low (for blues) and tight (for high gain). The balance knob is to add some sparkle and push out a few more harmonics or to cut back any hiss or icy highs. Detail is a fattener when at lower settings to get rid of that thin tinny sound especially on a bright amp.
Well it works! It does it all.The high gain is very Brit balzy and fat! My only complaint with these pedals is ..."What's the point?" In a live situation it is not practical to keep resetting an OD. Maybe a tweak or two. In many tunes you need both a crunch sound and another sound for a solo etc.In short having 2 or 3 OD's doing one thing dead perfect makes more sense then on OD expected to everything that well.
CONCLUSION
If you only used it for a high gain pedal it would be KILLER!!!
So who cares about all that other blah, blah!
Add to that it's cheap for this kind of quality!!!!
Based on the old LM 308 M chip you get what you would expect from the old RAT pedal that made it special. The standard layout of volume, gain and tone. There is a 3 way switch to choose between scooped overly compressed or a more open sound with heavy lows. CONCLUSION Nothing to fault here ..it does sound good. BUT? Why not just get the TL PEDAL Rat. No second guessing about choosing the right Rat pedal when you can get 'the' Rat pedal with a faithful repro of the original circuit. He even puts it against the original in a video so you can see for yourself!
|BASIC AUDIO PEDALS OVERTDRIVE| You get a basic Volume, Gain and Drive. The sound is IC based but that is all rather vague. It has a switch that cuts the highs or scoops the mids. B.A. make primarily Fuzz pedals which have been popular with Fuzz guys for years. The pedal definitely gives a nod to their Fuzz roots. It is a high gain tear your face off specimen. CONCLUSION It scores a few points for balls and punch. With it switched with the highs cut the bass and mids make it sound muddy and without any definition. With the mid scoop on it come to life. Lots of cut and aggression and punishing low end. The high cut could be useful if the pedal is stacked. It may have been smarter to have hardwired the pedal scooped. A lot of guys would get a better impression from the get get go. I know I wouldn't miss it.
MATTHEWS EFFECTS THE ARCHITECT V.3 Well if nothing else this pedal has all the bells & whistles you could want. The basic layout gives you Gain and Level and a 3 way EQ. Switches on the side lets you choose 3 clipping modes including silicon and germanium diodes and two boosts. A jack on the side is to insert an external switcher to trigger other choices. All very nice but at the heart of the pedal is a basic Klon circuit . So as the old adage goes "you can put lipstick on a pig but ..." LOL I find the whole idea odd. It is NOT a FET based voicing so you do not start with a tube/valve like voicing. A Klon guy is not trying to get a Klon sound to sound like a Marshall stack minus any guts or balz? It is well priced, well made and undeniably unique.
CONCLUSION
W.T.F. !!! I find it about as exciting as milk. Mind you I do not like Klon pedals. It is full sounding but it has zero bite and zero balz! You could cure that if you already have a good Fuzz to stack on it.
FREDRIC EFFECTSREGENT 150 PREAMP F.E. makes 29 dirt boxes mostly Fuzz. Some are recreations of oldie goldies others are 'new & improved' no ...not tampered with sonically but simple made a lot more useable. Often just quieter or have fixed really bad 'dropouts' or tamed the spit and sputter just enough so the cool disintegrated sound is manageable but splattering even better.lol The coolest pedals they make are recreations ...boxes made by obscure and small companies that are under the radar. The Regent Pre was made in Soviet East Germany. To be honest I was expecting something camp but fun. What we get though is some serious sh@t
CONCLUSION__ If you want a huge wall of sound but with great tone ...you get it big time. To me it has a perfect balance between a boost but if pushed you get the best of a classic germanium transistor dirt tone. Bite and balz and a tight but dense fat sound with killer and 100% useable lows!!!
THORPY FIELD MARSHALL FUZZ MKII Based off of the original BIg cheese Fuzz by the now defunct Love Tone Pedals. Adrian Thorpe an unexploded bomb expert now retired 'IS' Thorpy. A former job for a guy that is anal about detail. lol He designed the first Field Marshall that was a runaway success but when he found that he could partner with Dan Coggins the original designer then doing a MKII was a given. Dan had no restrictions with the design because Adrian is a 'budget be damned' the pedal had to be perfect! So I need not mention that a 'Thorpy' has the best of everything inside and out. The layout is Volume, Tone, Fuzz and balance with a 3 way switch for Gated fuzz, Flat or boosted mids.
CONCLUSION What's not to like even the price is reasonable for a handmade pedal with top quality parts! a WINNER!
EFFECTRODE FIRE BOTTLE TUBE BOOST A fairly simple but hard to get right idea. Put what is in effect a tube/valve into a pedal. In this case a JJ 12AY7 tube which is a lower output 12AX7. My experience with tube pre's has been all bad.Tone was non existent as was any smooth transition to how much gain you can choose to use. One big problem is to get it right the pedal can end up costing as much as a small amp. CONCLUSION One of the very best I have heard. But having tried a few and finding a really good FET OD works more effectively in real application I for one will pass. I will say that in an all transistor Bass guitar rig a good tube OD set low can create miracles.
COLE MUSIC PARADRIVE The pedal is based off a dual FET Burr Brown TI/OPA2604 AP chip. ....W.T.F.!!! Yes me too? It ain't a Boss or Ibanez or even a Rat thing so it doesn't ring a ding dong bell! lol So curiosity got the best of me. It was used by Ross and Dod. ....Yawn. The layout has Gain and Level with a switch for two choices of clipping. diodes. The EQ is a quasi parametric with a sweep and a cut or boost pot. It all starts with their fixed EQ that is relatively flat then you can mod that with the EQ. The pedal is by popular standards transparent.
CONCLUSION Impressive. With the gain pulled back a lot of guys could use it as an always on pedal. You get a very nice full sound without any artifacts. Gone is any thin tinny sound complete with a bit of fret rattle. The low end is full without a trace of mud. I am sure this would be killer on amp when you are forced to play at ridiculously low volume. This is just sooo far under the radar! To me it is better then any Tube Screamer out there and literally hundreds of 'Me Too's' Hats off to Cole! This pedal is a gem!
It was designed as a one size fits all dirt pedal. Maybe? It sounds like a cross between a Plexi and a Klon. The overall tone is Brit but it has a really full Klon type on glossy midrange with a kind of transparent vibe to it. If you push up the highs and lows and scoop it you can pull out a bit of growl in the lows and cut in the highs. Overall it has a nice warm sound. It is not big on harmonic detail but it isn't muddy either. There is nothing on the site telling you the price of the unit or where or how to buy one???? You are given a 'contact form' ??? so if you want one you have to ask????
CONCLUSION In this day and age everything is justifyingly suspect. I personally do not need any Bull Sh@t whether it is real or simply perceived. I just don't need it or want to know. That said ...there are a lot of very creative flakes in the pedal biz. So making pedals and living on another planet are not necessarily unrelated. LOL I want a price and nice straight forward way to make my purchase. Or more to the point without it I can easily talk my way out of making a purchase. OK ...Bottom Line ...I really like the sound of the mid thing it does so well. But it only happens by killing the lows to the point they disappear. You can get a very decent Marshall type sound if you scoop it. In short it is nice sounding pedal. if you want an all in one OD that actually covers a lot without sounding compromised then ...the best is the Tech n Tone Turbo Nonna. There are 3 very different settings that will give you a low. A medium or high gain sound. None of these 3 settings gives you a compromised sound ...but the tone of 3 different pedals with 3 different sweet spots.
SABBAT OVER DRIVE BREAKER ODB-1s From Japan come Sobbat. They have been around a long time with their Fuzz and OD Pedals. Yes they make everything with that famous MIJ quality BUT they have always been reasonable with the price. The layout is your basic Level, Treble, Bass and Gain. The sound is amp like but very American. Early 70's Fender DeLuxe like.
CONCLUSION A great pedal for Blues, Hard rock and Americana. Great with a Strat!
BAM GODDESS OVERDRIVE From Australia comes a real gem of an OD from the 90's. A reissue totally intact right down to it's dead cool casing. You have the basic Volume, Tone and Gain but you can switch on a second stage of gain and even add compression. It is relatively transparent as it uses an OpAmp for it's initial distortion. Yes shades of a Tube Screamer once again. At first glance you just have to love it's retro look with the chicken head knobs right down to the slider switches for gain stage and compression.
CONCLUSION The magic of this OD is it has heaps of character. It ain't no Marshall-in-a-Box though in the 90's it was a valid attempt. It is simply dead cool for being itself!
I have all of them and use them every day. Each pedal beautifully captures the year of the Marshall it is named after. The really big surprise that blows everyone's mind who has one is the absolutely exquisite detail in the tone. They make all the big name and big seller OD's sound muddy by comparison. Trust me ...I am not exaggerating! They sound that good!!! You are looking at what are 3 of a very small handful of the absolute best OD's on the planet !!!
LAWRENCE PETROSS The second video is an interview with L.P. Meet the guy who makes your pedal.
BARBER ELECTRONCS DIRECT DRIVE Older models divided early Plexi sounds into both a JTM 45 and a 1987x. It is not hard to note both are famous for their tone but the earlier JTM 45 had a cleaner tone and was often as not bought as a combo. I had a later one with a half stack. The best amp I ever owned. The new Direct Drive covers 3 distinct amp sounds in one pedal. From the mid 60's up to the early 80's. I have mentioned it many times ... a modern hot rodded Plexi pedal is a euphoric thing to play. Big BUT! Most of the night you are accompanying vocals so a pedal like this that gives you many variations of dirt that work great behind a vocal is not just wanted it is damn well needed. The key thing here is, tone, tone and tone! This is where old Dave with decades of experience is the guy to see.
CONCLUSION All the versions were certainly worth getting over the years but this is special. It is switchable to go from one distinct voice to another. It not only keeps the pedal easier to use but you are virtually going from one sweet spot to another with enough fine control to zero in the pedal to shake hands with both your amp and guitar. One final nice touch is the pedal has gone back to it's first look from v.1 with the British Racing Green. Always a colour that denotes, style, good taste and yet tradition. Appropriate because that defines this pedal perfectly.
MARSHALL MODIFICATION According to Dave Barber (Barber Electronics) the lows on the Origin 20 and Origin 50 are effected by using a microfarad 1 on the first cathode if you change it to a 10 or bit higher you get that 68 JMP 50 Plexi sound. Check out YouTube Hack Live with David Barber of Barber Electronics ! Sorry at present I can not download.
JEXT TELEZ BLACK DRONE WASP FUZZ It is a favourite of guys who are both great players and Fuzz lovers. Guy that are even collectors but do not collect anything they would or do not play. It is big aggressive sound like a Muff but so much more. It Is Built around 3 Germanium 2N404 transistors they are NOS. They are not a choice used by the kind of classics that Jext is famous for. This is their first original Fuzz. You get volume and gain and 3 switches. One seems to be a fixed cut of the highs. Another changes the Bias so you get a trace of spit and splatter but never any drop out. The third is a mystery. lol OK it is a low cut. lol
CONCLUSION Like all NOS Germanium Fuzz pedals you either 'get it' or you don't. LOL The King is dead long live the King! _____________________________________________________________
Now for those that don't 'get it' about once a year Mr. Black does a Ltd Edt. of his Doom Stick ...usually for $100.00 USD.
From France comes an OD with some entirely new tech. What this does is feed in harmonics in relationship to your dynamics of your picking. The standard method of using clipping diodes is that by nature they have an extremely limited range and at some point they jump from partially adding dirt to full on dirt. This tech feeds the dirt in just a little at a time making for a more realistic transition just like a tube. The layout is a bit different the drive and overdrive are two stages of dirt so you can adjust this smooth addition to harmonics to taste. Different tube amps have different characteristics, Some clip earlier then others so this allows you set the dirt to mimic how fast or smooth the transition is. Even clean you can hear a hallo of harmonics around your notes. You can refine this on the first stage drive knob. The second knob allows for the second stage to take over from the first and add even more dirt. The level remains locked to the spot you set it even if you change the drives. Adding the harmonics does not increase it. Tone is simple it is just your standard low to highs. 'Character' is once again tied in with the harmonics to better mimic say a clean Fender amp or a hard hitting Marshall.
CONCLUSION Well it works ...lol I can tell because it adds the harmonics in but not smooth like a tube but in tiny bits that I find at best animated or at worst annoying. It comes off like a gaininest in motion. If you are using a good medium to high gain OD using clipping diodes it will be more abrupt but a real tube amp is just as abrupt with that much gain forcing the transistors to loose all there headroom. This tech if perfected would make dead clean thru to low gain wonderful but as yet I find it too crude. That said I am listening thru studio monitors so I am picking up a lot of detail. It is still damn impressive and my Marshal Plexi amp on clean could well smooth this right out! BUT all OD have a basic voice and characteristics and I find this pedal thin. Origin's Revival Drive have addressed this issue in some other way. I expect by using high end digital to feed the analog dirt into the drive. However they do it ..they do it better because there Marshall sound is fat!!!
This is the new V.2 of a very popular OD from Brazil. In fact I reviewed it's predecessor a very short time ago. It is a medium to high gain OD that can be pushed into a lot of high gain with it's boost. It gives you a hard rock OD of the late 70's Definitely a stab at a JCM 800 sound. It has the standard 3 way EQ with level and gain and a switchable boost. The boost has a very wicked 35db that can push the front end of an amp into overkill heaven. lol A toggle switch gives you a choice of clipping diodes.
CONCLUSION
For a start the price is right. It has a very tight sound yet it is thick and rich. It should be a dirt pedal that doesn't require a third hand to help mute open strings ...in short it is easy to control.
