blacktron_one's Reviews

Noisicians Best Buddy

A great pedal for both sides of the fence, the Caroline Wave Cannon Mk1 was the first pedal I bought without trying it out. Having watched as many videos as there are for it online, I was over the moon when it turned up and did exactly what I wanted. The drive is nice and cutting, and the shape knob lets you go from a tight OCD-ish drive to a woolier, more open, tightened Rat. Having the feedback loop side (Chaos mode) is great for when you're doing pop punk one night and musique concrete the next, and responds to pickup and volume changes well, doing all sorts of pitch drops and silliness. Great.

Modern Marvel

If you're looking at this you should know what this is and how it sounds, but if you don't, let me explain.

Geddy Lee, Lemmy, Chris Squire, Bruce Foxton-all Ricky players. While the guitars are more than known and speak for themselves in the hands of people like Paul Weller, Peter Buck, Pete Townsend, Kurt Ballou, J. Mascis and so on, a Ricky bass has been the mark of someone that's not messing about for a long, long time.

This, the 4003, is a maple-bodied Jekyll and Hyde. The neck pickup gives serious 60's plum and bonk, and the bridge pickup is a drooling, spiny, runaway train. Seen in the hands of innumerable players within the heavy scene - not least Al Cisneros of Om/Sleep and Tatsu Mikami of Church Of Misery - this is a serious weapon if you want it to be. More than capable of handling detuning thanks to its ubiquitous two-truss-rod system, the 20-fret Ricky will crush everything if you want, or cut through the entire band if you don't. Bang on.

Crippling War Engine

Built by hand by one Atari Matt and part of a range of completely unreasonable but magic effects, the Idiotbox Dungeon Master was the second boutique pedal I ever broke my 'don't buy it til you've tested it' rule for. Nestled heartlessly between the fabled Boss HM-2 and the borderline dangerous Marshall Supafuzz, this buzzsaw king is a true bypass game-ender, at home on both guitar and bass. Brilliant for grind, death, sludge and doom, sticking my Nighthawk through this beast is Swedeath central. Cascaded with other pedals with the Low removed completely and the treble maxed out gives a wicked 'down the radio' sound if you back your volume control back a touch. Lethal.

My number one.

I've owned more drive pedals than anything else in life, like clothes and dinners. Prior to this, my main drive was split between the Caroline Effects Wave Cannon Mk1 and a custom GoldSoundz Leopold, and though I still use those effects for other stuff, the Caveman demolishes everything. A heavy-duty overdrive on the left hand side, the boost on the right hand side is fixed, giving a pretty generous lift to what is already a hench tone. I'd be the first to admit that this is a particularly dark drive, and I run it with the tone flat out to get the upper content. The v2 is a bit more adaptable in terms of having a pre/post switch for the gain, and being a larger unit. The Mk1 is no longer in production, so if you see one clamber all over that thing.