Here is one of the best sounding overdrive pedals we have ever heard. David Barber, of Barber Electronics, puts his knowledge of Hi-Fi Audio components; as well as guitar pedal repair, and modification into this small, three dial, Crunch and Lead-tone pedal.
There are two footswitches on the Tonepump, each with its own tone quality/output. The Crunch foot-switch tone, is the cleaner, thinner of the two settings. This side can easily be used by the Tubescreamer fans, they'd like this pedal. The output can be dialed down to about nothing, with just a whisper of gain. Now set all the dials to the "Three O'clock" position: BIG change, but not a lot of distortion. Step on the lead footswitch with it's own LED: Your volume increases again by a just noticable difference, and the EQ is lowered a bit. The lead sound is full, but doesn't buzz or fuzz much; this really is an overdrive pedal, not a fuzz box.
Note: The boost of the lead channel is hard wired in this unit; at first we thought we might be missing some wild options, because of this. However; after kicking up and back a bunch of times, most players will appreciate the security of ballanced volume/tone on demand. Many of you have been in stressful situations where a blasting, or missing lead tone; at some crucial point, sent a shock wave through the band, and beyond.
The tone control actually does something too, this pedal can be kept kind of clear, and open sounding for session players who are often told: "back off the fuzz, Jimi". The dynamics of the cleaner tones are covered in sample #3 below. Check out the sensitivity to picking dynamics: from a clean, punchy sound, to mild breakup; controlled only by how hard you pick, it's alive! Wonder of wonders: It's also not another Tubescreamer copy, it's beyond that. The same pedal can be set to bring out a darker quality that's still not distorted. We recorded our samples: #1, and #2 along the lines of this somewhat darker setting.
Listen to the "knock"; at modest volume, ( Tonepump 1,2&3 below), with this pedal run through a LP Classic, small clean Amp, and a single Jensen C-15-N speaker,(closed box). A nice recipie, obtainable without selling one's soul. Nobody needs to go broke; or deaf, at this volume, yet the sound isn't overly "domesticated". The Tone Pump will sound clearer, and more present through 12 inch Celestion speakers, but the Jensen sounded so neat, we posted it. In our "Test Suite" recordings below, this pedal is recorded, direct to a hard drive: no speaker coloration.
The high-quality materials, unusual wire, ultra clean bypass found in the Tone Pump, and David Barber's vision re: construction, and tone quality, add up. We were impressed with this pedal: its got that something extra. Check it out!
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