Hej guys,
after being utterly impressed with my Juansolo Klone for quite a while now and also loving the Zvex Super hard on clone I have sitting in one of my guitars I now have gone for his work again.
The first one is slightly belated but hey, I finally got a BoobTube! For those not familiar, it is a nice little valve overdrive / booster based on the Valvecaster schematic, but modded in some ways. For example this one actually has proper voltages running through it. Anyhow, I so far love this pedal quite a bit. It did not replace my Klone, but it is a great adding pedal. For clean sounds I can use it to add a bit of sparkel and fullness, so basically tube things up a bit more. For dirty sounds I tried different things and ended up using it like John recommended it: Running the Klone into the Boobtube. Wow. It just adds another level to the already brilliant Klone. Now I kick those two into gear and my amp just wakes up and roars like crazy. Love it.
However using two overdrives in chain going into a Orange Tiny Terror with gain at 2-3 oīclock activated a bit of noise, especially when using P90s and SCs. So as you may know I asked around here which noise gate I should get. The discussion was (and is) interresting and while in the end I could not really count anything out as all the options (ISP, MXR, NS-2) had something going for them I had a slight tendency towards the ISP. At the point where I pretty much decided to get that one for now and try the others later our dear John came to me and asked me if I wanted to have an ISP Decimator clone he build as he had two. How could I refuse such a great offer? I mean the Juansolo build quality and ofc lesser price than a real ISP? Well I could not and went for it.
So now I also own a Shhhh! (ISP Decimator clone). This one I only got yesterday, but my first impression is pretty great. As usual it looks great and is build to last. Cool graphics too. It is pretty easy to get in the right ballpark with the settings, so very much put it in there, turn it on and forget about it. The exact finetuning between metal riffing and sustain notes is harder, but I think I can manage. It is a bit weird at first to have the gate close on you, but once set ok it is pretty cool. For riffing it certainly is killer, everything feels just greatly cleaned up and tighter, absolutly stunning. For solo work it also feels cleaner, though I still have some adjustment to do to get the sustaining just right. I also did not find any noticable tone sucking so far. Maybe if I were to really look for it, but there is hardly any change if any I would say from my initial assesment.
Now the Juansolo tripple threat (Klone - BoobTube - Shhh!) rocks my world and I am exited to see when he will get me next! Great guy and highly recommended. Check out what he has in seconds out and the for sale section on his page, it is incredibly good stuff! Canīt recommend this bloke highly enough!
Cheers,
Kiichi
