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Posted by: Mertay Dec 7 2014, 01:24 PM

After almost 20 years I bought an analog pedal



So I wanted something as a boost for distortion+analog vibe and settled to buy a tubescreamer sort of pedal. I noticed this unit was very affordable new, did some web digging (toneking review was horrible by the way) and bought it.

Turns out although it resembles a tubescreamer in some ways, there are important differences

The level is the same, good for boost! I cranked it and lowered my soundcard preamp and noise was very low, from what I read with all knobs full and it can punch 30db which is more than enough for anything I can think of

The gain colors like a tubescreamer but it interacts with the tone knob and this is where it gets interesting; The tone knob seems to be a high cut that only affects the pedals distortion. Since the gain is actually a wet/dry knob, you never lose the natural highs of the guitar but the coloration makes the tone fuller and fuller as it cannot be muddy! (I use a tonezone and air-norton on a mahogany guitar, so it already sound pretty thick)

I must add though this is what my ears are telling me, if anyone can read diagrams can he/she confirm or correct?

http://www.dirk-hendrik.com/temp/Ibanez_BB9_Bottom_Booster.pdf

So what can it do best?

To my ears its the ultimate "pickup booster". Use your fav. vintage/low output pickups and with this unit turn them into shred monsters with minimal altering of character

I simply use it to boost the dist., then play to see if there is too much high content that makes things sound dirty. To clear things simply roll down the tone knob till I get the focus I need. I modified my guitars capacitor before and can say the effect sounds very natural.

Currently I use the dist. from the computer, I can't boost level from the soundcard but the coloration provided useful results on my tests. It doesn't distort a lot like any tubescreamer but is just enough to be friendly with a metal sort of dist. pedal.

Everything aside, even at the cleanest setting you get that slight analog compression which really helps playing comfort

But I'd be honest unless your guitar or amp (or both) isn't really bright/thin/weak sounding (general speaking, super vintage or the most affordable of whats available) , get a normal tubescreamer for clean/bluesy stuff first. After finishing the dist. chain I'm definitely going to buy a traditional sounding tubescreamer for clean stuff and I'm sure they will suit each other well