OK, thought long and hard before digging this one up, older thread, got these last week after sitting at my mothers place in ireland for the better part of a month and with one thing and another i didn't get a chance to get into them until yesterday and today.
These pedals sound and act as interesting as they look which is why i decided to revive the thread.
PRS Mcarty Trem into these into a Soldano HR50+ set for a slightly gitty on the edge of breakup clean.
As a forward, when I went thru these the other day, and thought these pedals were barmy, I didn't know what to make of them at first, because they behave so differently than any other pedals I've played, the controls are highly interactive, all this is in an extremely good way. also when i first plugged them in and set them up i thought they sounded exactly alike. WRONG. what i did wrong was setup them up for my sweet spot, but then i realised "of course, the controls are in totally different places" so, they're capable of some overlap, but what i then did was sat with them and cycled throught the range of the control pots. So the best way to describe what i think was to start in the same place with both of them and tweak things in similar positions for both.
Gain at min, Vol dimed, tone at min:
Nice, both of them, warm, not muddy or wooly given that the tone is all the way down, they're nice and rich though, they thicken up the sound. Right off the bat the fuzz is smoother, where as the drive is gritty. Suprisingly, they're practically unity gain with the gain all the way off, these pedals are going to get loud.
So from there, I start cranking the tone pot.
On the fuzz the tone pot does very little, on the Drive, it adds a touch of presence and a smidge of volume, I suspect my initial call on the controls being very interactive was correct.
I was right about things getting loud, at 9pm on the fuzz gain it's already a bit louder than i want to be playing at the weekend while neighbours are about so I took the volume back to 1-2pm. I like this tone control, it seems to be a bass roll off, rather than a treble cut, so rolling from left to right reduces the bottom end, but still remains warm and round. Rather than being clear the strings ring out and all the harmonics come together in beautiful sweet soupy tone. tone control all the way left and gain at 9pm puts us in Fuzzface territory. Using the guitars volume here cleans things up nicely, and without actually having to roll back a lot. With a FF i usually have to go back to 7, with the Fuzz i only have to go back to 9 for an immediate sparkly clean up.
back over to the Drive. volume at 1pm, gain at 9pm, tone all the way left. Sweeping the tone right is totally different on this pedal, it has a more immediate response (at this level of gain) but again more like a presence control than a typical tone pot, the bottom end remains, but airiness increases and the treble seems to come into focus. from about 3 oclock, it also seems to add more snarl and gain to the upper midrange if such a thing is possible. Rolling back the guitar volume here doesn't result in the same cleanup, rather it gets warmer, and retains a sparkly grit all the way down to 7 where it cleans up totally.
So far the Fuzz pedal is the fatter of the 2 with less clarity and separation, and the drive, is grittier with a glassier edge to it, more separation and less warmth, which is exactly what i would expect with a fuzz vs drive.
Tone up to 12, I messed with the gain a bit (turning it up), backed off the volume to 11, as there are massive amounts of volume available on these. starting with the gain at 12.
the fuzz starts to open up the higher the gain goes, the clarity increases getting more into tonebender territory, whereas the drive seems to get warmer. the basic characteristics of both pedal remains, the fuzz is fatter, and more, well, fuzz like and the drive is grittier and clearer, with an increasing upper midrange snap like a good marshall as the gain goes up.
So the Fuzz treble content is definitely increasing with gain, and is getting frimly into distortion territory ala muff or RAT, a quick sweep of the tone control left and right confirms that, but what your tone control does is fatten up the bottom end without getting muddy like a muff does. lovely creamy sustain too. We've also got more note separation and clarity up here without losing the Fuzz distortion sawtooth character, but smooth as well, like a very fine saw?? still cleans up really well with the gain dimed, maintaining output, but having to go a little further back on the guitar volume to achieve the actual cleanup.
With the Drive, sweeping thru the Gain range is producing a fattening of the bottom end, becoming warm all the way up. as opposed to the Fuzz which takes on a distortion character, this is taking on a great rich thick crunch character. Tone about 8pm on the neck PU is instant Gary Moore, thick singing sustain, all the way right and it's into a modern crunch, am thinking like Slash, backing off everything a bit gets into ACDC or something like sweet emotion by aerosmith.
A common characteristic of these pedals is that they're able to bring the rich mids without ever sounding harsh or nasal.
I'm not going to pretend these are transparent, because they're not supposed to be, they colour tone and provide gain in excellent musical ways.
These are really great pedals, versatile, in their chosen field and just beautiful sounding. lots of sweet spots, and because of the interaction of the controls time spent fiddling with them is rewarded.
