behringer to800 vintage tube overdrive and behringer to100 tube overdrive

The 800 is the green one and 100 is the blue one. I was 99% sure these are supposed to be clones of Ibanez tubescreamer ts808 and ts9, but the to800 sounds exactly like the to100 so maybe they are some other tubescreamer variant. They sound really good though. They work really well together or after some other distortion pedals.
It doesn’t seem like my behringers are going to break. The plastic knobs and pots are questionable, but it seems sturdy enough for home use. I’m definitely going to get some more dirt pedals from this line. It’s extremely cheap and though they might not hold up on a tour, I’m not on tour.

Between the to800 and not the to100, the 800 looks a lot cooler and it is green like a tubescreamer should be. They sound the same though.

DOD FX76 punkifier review

Really I think most distortion/OD/fuzz pedals can fall into two categories: the ones that sound good for chords and ones that just sound like a bunch of noise with chords, some are both. The DOD punkifier falls into both categories for a different reason; its an overdrive and a fuzz in parallel. The company gave the controls weird names, from left to right the controls are, PUNK( blendbetween fuzz and overdrive) SLAM(gain for the overdrive section) SPIKES(overall tone, can get really really shrill if you want) and MENACE (overall volume).

First back off the SPIKES(tone) knob, for some reason DOD always allows you to add way too much high range, which is cool if you need it. The overdrive section sounds really good to me, its like a lowfi sound, and then if you have the gain past 3oclock it gets pretty nasty sounding. Sounds to me like a mild distortion sound but playedback from a tape portastudio. The fuzz sound is crazy, doesn't handle chords well, doesnt even handle single notes too well. It somehow has a bad tracking octave type sound going on, but theres no octaving. I imagine the fuzz will be really useful for some overdubs, the overdrive section Im already incorporating to my main guitar sound.

I kinda dont like to use them blended together, which is a negative because you can never quite do away with either effect. The blend knob goes from 2% to 98%. You can always hear that fuzz sound if you really listen for it. Other than that, two sweet pedals in one!

BBE Sonic Maximizer vs. Boss EH-2 enhancer

Some background. If you want, skip this whole section to the stars ***:
Enhancer/excitor/maximizer(/whatever-your-company-calls-it), is NOT the same thing as a bright switch or top boost. Its more like a doing the opposite job of a compressor for the high frequencies. Different dynamics make noticeable differences in tone, whereas a standard equalizer doesn't have that effect. Enhancers are commonly shunned by tone purists and noise makers alike, but please keep an open mind here.
Apparently you're supposed to run excitor last in your pedal chain/mixing routes; but it sounds completely awful to me. It takes your favorite distortion sound and gives it that iPod earbud tone. *Cringe* I'm running these excitors BEFORE anything else. It really helps to prepare the signal of a pickup or microphone for running into some good distortion/fuzz/OD pedals.

***
BBE SONIC MAX vs. BOSS EH-2
BBE Sonic Max sounds great for guitars. I wish there was more control parameters, but then again it sounds perfect as is. The extra bass control(pretty sure this is just a bass frequency boost; not excitor) helps a lot too. Kind of expensive but if you're playing a polyphonic or somehow sonically dense instrument you might want to consider it.

Boss eh-2 enhancer. this pedal is a lot more interesting than I was expecting. Its cheap and easy to find on eBay. The controls are hard to understand, but its the kind of pedal you will spend a bunch of time tweaking to get the perfect tone. Notice that the mix knob can go into inverse. On some setting I was getting slight wah effects when I changed my strum patterns... never found it again but its there somewhere. Boss EH-2 can really be one of those secret weapon pedals like that.
When testing pedals I always finish by doing a cliche rockstar move, finishing a set by engaging all pedals and putting the guitar up against the speaker. Boss enhancer is pretty unpredictable in this setting especially when you mess with the knobs. Kinda reminiscent of Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music. It can make chirping clicking beats wild stuff, I should upload a clip of it. As an added bonus, EH-2 has an extra LED that turns brighter the more processing is happening; which looks really cool.

CONCLUSION: BOSS EH-2 WINS

BBE sonic max is great if you are in the market for a guitar excitor. However, Boss Enhancer is a whole lot cheaper, more tweakable, and (with some other distortion pedals) will satisfy your home-alone feedback fetish needs. Plus: it has the discontinued boss pedal cool factor.

who spends $449.00 on a Big Muff?

I was watching a big muff auction on eBay. (item #130263809320, which will be ancient history by the time anyone reads this). A protected identity ended up buying it for $449! pics:





someone should really take their million dollar fuzz pedal collection on tour. Bring your guitar and $5 and you can have 5 minutes alone with the pedals in the isolated amp room in a guitar center.

Ibanez Soundtanks

I forgot where I found these but they're not on the internet anymore so thought I'd share(click to enlarge):

Those six are the original soundtanks that came in metal casing, not the cheap plastic casing. Can you see the bogus-looking oscilliscope data underneath each one?

the ZVEX cloner.

This friendly shop owner who lives on my block is currently building zvex pedal clones
"just for fun." He has no inventory or anything so I'm not selling through this blog. And I'm protecting his identity just in case mr.vex's people are reading. I scored a woolly mammoth clone for less than a third the official zvex price! it even has
real cheap looking marker graphics. check it out:
It sounds crazy, crazier than the actual zvex pedal featured in his demo video(youtube link).
In the video, the guitarist can play chords through the pedal with the pinch knob active. On mine the pinch knob will completely destroy any chords. Power chords barely survive, mostly come out like a sizzle and a rumble. It suits me fine because I otherwise don't really like to use gate for anything. sounds good as normal fuzz settings too, lots of low.

fuzz pedal documentary

This is a documentary about fuzz pedals, more specifically vintage and boutique. There's a really good segment about the word transparent, where some big pedal makers and modders try and explain what that means. Then it cuts to J Mascis [of dinosaur junior] who, in gravelly mumble, says "transparent... that's an awful word. why would you buy it if it doesn't do anything?" J is pictured with his insane closet full of dozens of EHX big muffs.

Justin Meldal Johnson [of Beck's crew] is a total fuzz freak. JMJ offers some of the best advice "I find that its not actually what the pedal does so much as the sequence you put 'em in that really makes the new sounds."(none of these are direct quotes btw...)

The coolest part of the documentary is probably the guided tour of the Death by Audio workshop, which actually looks more like the ninja turtles hangout. The death by audio guys have bands and run shows out of their building space but the real income is from the custom effect pedals they design and build for other musicians.
death by audio's official website

here is a different video of the death by audio workshop

important people missing from the movie:
kevin shields of my bloody valentine? I thought he might be easy to reach now that hes got the reunion thing going on.
Devi Ever of effector 13? puts out fuzzes that are crazier than Z Vex and Death by audio combined. and she has like 50 different models, effector 13 is hardly even mentioned and never demonstrated.

first post

I made this blog because I spend way too much time (and money) on signal processors. I like to mostly play rhythm style guitar so my main obsession is distortion-overdrive-fuzz boxes. Anything interesting I find in the realm of stompboxes or rack processors for instruments or audio processing I will post about. Please do not take take offense if my opinions go against your own artistic choices, I will try to be open minded.