My MI Audio Crunch Box came today, it a version 1, so it doesnt have the presence modulation on the tone control.
People say its like a marhall in a box but its not nearly as dirty as a marshall, on the clean channel it sounds more like a mesa to my ears pretty straight forward, tight and lots of gain.
Actually i was pretty shocked about the HUGE mid boost from this little thing, its just goes right over the top on a dirty channel, when turned up over 3/4 its just like the attack is so extreme you feel violated. Yes its really that agressive IMO.
After some fumbling i found a good spot when i set everything at 13:00 and played some stuff on my bright custom with mules. I sounds a bit ZZ Top-ish, you know a alot of mids and very compacted highs, exellent for lead. It does have alot of distortion but not as much sustain as you would normally expect from this amount of gain, the attack is absurd still, very dry sounding also. Hammer-ons are very articulate but like i said a bit dry, maybe some extra sustain would make them better. One thing im pretty sure off, you wont find such an increadible mid boost in any other pedal. Cleaned up very nicely too, first distortion pedal that does that well enough for me, the attack is cutting trough everything.
Then if tried my SG which has alot more low end, the nice and tight (even to a point you dont even notice it anymore) when playing the custom turned into a really mean growl on the SG. Tons of heavy mids and, still very open sounding so its not really suited for that scooped metal sound. Bottom end was not as tight anymore but i got more of a wall of gore in the bottom end, still the attack in the heavy mids made it all cut trough perfectly. Sound was more grindcore like napalm death but heavier/more metal tightness in the mids.
Now i must add that both these guitars have more then enough presence in their sound, so i really dont need any more. With the custom i even set the presence on the amp back to zero and i didnt even hear any difference, the crunch box just gives that much attack.
I think i set the crunch box too high still, tomorrow ill try a more moderate setting, and also try it on my bluesbreaker combo, i really like it on the clean channel so probably that will be great.
Dont take me for a wuss just yet, because i can handle a good deal of gain well enough, it just that combination of pretty dry gain and that huge attack which makes it so impressive. The gain does sound best over noonish though, lowes gain settings sound more crunchy. Probably thats why they call it crunch box.
Ow yes, this pedal has NO actual low gain setting, its like the gain is rerouted trough the same effect loop so setting the gain to 0 sounds like setting to noon on a 'normal' distortion like a DS-1 or so.
Rediculous small little bugger really, but me likes it :twisted:
