A very weird pedal but I love it!

This pedal embarks a gain section as well as a DSP with four effects: pitch shifter, tremolo and two reverbs: room and hall. It has a lot of defects. For instance, there's no switch for the gain section so you can't use all of these effects in a live situation. I tend ti use it clean, although it's not as clean as you may want it to. This is good with me because I like to have some dirt in my sound but if you're after cleanish clean, well, look elsewhere! Now, the distortions are all excellent: the fuzz is quite harsher than a big muff and the drive, though dirty, cleans up quite well. In fact, you could use this as a sort of always on feature if you want to use your volume knob. Having a guitar that has two coil splittable pickups, I could really do this although it does not really fit my style. Anyway, there is a lot of things to explore, here, thanks to the bright, warm and dark positions. I like the "warm" one better, as this preserves all of the spectrum of my original sound but dark can be very interesting. Bright is too hissy for me, though. Now, the effects. First thing first: the reverbs are gorgeous, almost perfect and if it was the only purpose of that pedal, it would be well worth the price of admission, I think. The two modes are quite similar, the main difference is that hall offers a sort of pre-delay that can create interesting textures if you set the mix quite high (in that case, you lose your dry signal and that can be interesting if you want to create violoning effects. Yet, once again that section of the pedal has defects. One of the big problems is that the four effects, although switchable, are not calibrated in the same way. If you go beyond noon with the reverb for instance, you're going to have a lot of it, so you may want to set it quite low (let's say in between 11 and 1 depending on your style). Same things applies to the amount knob. But then if you want to switch to the tremolo mode, this will not work. The effet is really audible after 2 ... So it's impossible to find a sweet spot. Well ... I did anyway. But I play in a shoegaze band, so I want plenty of reverb and not so much tremolo... so that's alright with me. I won't comment on the pitch shifter as this is almost useless, unless you plug an expression pedal and if that's the case, you have a quite ineteresting whammy-like effet. I've used it on a recording and that's fun but not something you may rely upon, I think. In sum, you really need to decide what you want to do with this pedal. If you're after a clean multi effet embarking distortion, reverbs and tremolo, this is not the right pedal for you. There are too many excentricities for that use. But if you're a shoegazer, well, you may find the sweet spot for you. So it's not so surprising to see this on Neil Halstead's (Slowdive), John Cumming's (Mogwai) and Miles Kane's pedalboards. If this works for them, this should also work for you, right?

Tricky Fuzz, but absolutly a very nice one.

At first it made me suffer because honestly the pedal sounded horrible, but I had already paid for it so I had to fix it somehow. This pedal needs a modification to be able to work at balanced volumes in a gig situation. It consists of adding a B10K potentiometer between two points (look it up on the internet). This modification really changes everything. But finally what really improves the sound and will make you very happy is to change the power supply. If you search a bit on the internet you will find that the FV-1 heart of this stompbox supports between 9v and 12v. And in my desperation I risked leaving it fried, but nothing happened to it and in fact it sounds great in several styles, it serves to bring you closer to the tone of 1979 by Smaching Pumpkies, Desert Rose by Eric Johnson, Allan Holdsworth his most dirtier and darker tone, a lot of Zappa vives, Santana 1970 Black Magic Woman type, and even Deep Sea Diver Eyes are Red. A very good Fuzz. Now I no longer regret of anything about it. One only warning! Please make sure the source is delivering exactly 12v with a good multimeter, no more, or say goodbye to the pedal. The FV-1 DSP inside won't last long if you overload it more than 12v. Have protection diode, yes, but don't try... The capacitors on the circuit (in mine) can hold between 16v and 25v.

Preferred Settings + Usage:

HOLY STAIN - THE "HOLYSTIC" GUITAR EFFECT

The full "newbie's" pedal row, for the price of one. Tasty EHX fuzz isn't exactly Muff, but it's good enuff. Only disadvantage is you don't have v' much control over the standard FX' parameters, the distortion & tone-colour only have three selectable presets each, and the pitch shift is more of a detune than something like, say, the Pitch-Fork (also by EHX) or the Boss Super Octave. Lovely trem tho, almost comes close to a couple Hofner trems I've used, and that's saying something for a tremolo included as part of a friggin' multi-FX whose focus is mainly on dist and reverb.

Room Reverb: 5 Hall Reverb: 4 Pitch Shift: 3 (only goes up/down a third, so useless except for a little chorus-y detune, unless you enjoy sounding like Primus) Tremolo: 4 DIST (overall score; good if you can't afford a schmancy tube amp or proper fuzz/compression unit): 4 --Fuzz & Distortion: 4 & 4 (does the job, but always the same sounds) --Colour Presets: 3 (fairly basic, not very versatile)

Overall: 4

Multi-effect

I was able to compare this pedal to the EHX cathedral. They are different reverbs even in similar mode (hall and room) but the quality is undeniable, it is an extremely useful effect in ambiances and recordings. The pitch shifter for me does not have much use, however the tremolo is very good for more radical effects and the drives are very useful, especially with some pedal before as a gain boost.

On my board it is the wild card, which can perform various functions that may be missing in recording or live. In each band and project I can set a different mode. It also serves as a clean boost, just set all the effects to a minimum and increase the volume.

Excelent pedal if you find it a good sound

This pedal is kind weird but if you give it the chance, it would not betray you. Very good pedal, I use it as a Booster, distortion, reverb, and pitch.

reverb

good multi effects if you want a lot of control and option in one box. I run it clean and on warm setting. trem and reverb can't be used simultaneously.

Lacks control but has a lot of bang for your buck

Needs a way to blend the color and dirt signal but gives me a lot of interesting options. I like keeping it around to experiment with.

Buen Oedal, excelente reverbs, tremolo aceptable y Picth deficiente

nivel pedal, amazing reverbs,Buen Oedal, excelente reverbs, tremolo aceptable y Picth deficiente