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Reviews (1)
25 Oct, 2020
Five star pedal after an inexpensive tube swap!
1 of 1 found this helpful I bought this without high expectations, just wanting to see what the cheapest tube pedal out there would be like. With the stock tube, the sound is decent but a bit scratchy in the treble. But I had a spare Electro-Harmonix 7025 (a 12AX7 with lower noise specs) that I swapped in and it really enhanced the sound. This $15 tube upgrade made this cheap pedal into a seriously solid medium gain distortion well-suited to classic rock kind of sounds. My four star rating is based on the product as it comes to you when you buy it, but after the upgrade I think of this as a five star pedal.
The cost of the pedal and the tube make it not much more expensive than the ubiquitous Boss DS-1 distortion pedal, but I would say with the new tube it sounds significantly better than the DS-1. With the stock tube it may be comparable in sound quality, but with the 7025 the distortion is full and thick-sounding, great for lead parts, and not overly harsh and shrill, as the DS-1 tends to be. It is definitely a distortion pedal, not an overdrive, and if you’re looking for more of the sound of a tube amp being pushed a bit, this can’t really get you that edge of breakup sound even at the lowest end of the gain knob. I know sometimes people are interested in tube gear purely for the “warm sound” associated with tubes, but that sound comes from mild saturation and that is not what this pedal does. Make no mistake, as I said, this is a distortion pedal. For EQ, it only has a treble control, but it retains your bass rather than cutting it or boosting the mids as some other pedals do. I expect this would work well as a bass effect too.
Changing the tube is pretty simple and only requires a screwdriver. The original tube was in the socket pretty tightly on mine and I had some concern I could damage something trying to pull it out, but I proceeded with some caution and had no problems, and even switched back and forth a few times for comparison without issue.
I’m really impressed with the sound of this pedal, even setting aside the price, and the ability to change the tube allows for some fun experimentation and the opportunity for tone shaping to make it suit your desires in a way that very few other distortions allow. It won’t get you metal levels of distortion, but otherwise I’d recommend this to anyone who needs a good rock distortion pedal and would absolutely encourage anyone considering a DS-1 to buy this and a new tube instead. You can definitely do worse, even at much higher prices.