something_bad's Reviews

Meh!

It is a classic, it is an ok drive and it is cheap. That is it. Nothing special about it. The TS, which inspired the SD1, is waaaaaaay better.

Funny, expensive and not versatile

This is a funny pedal, I will give that. It's weird, the sounds are not that useful, sound bad on the neck of my strats and les pauls, but good on the bridge. If you want bluesy sounds, of course you won't find them here. If you want doom and rage, you will! It has only a few sound variations, responds well to guitar volume and tone BUT the results and not useful to me. At least I haven't found any use YET. I wouldn't pay that much for it if I had tried before, for sure. But I'm not returning it also or either considering selling it any soon, because it DOES sound different from the (tons) of fuzzes I have. I just think it costs a little too much for too little, but if you consider the fact that isn't just another muff, bender or fuzz face, it is something to have.

UPDATE: about the "responds well to the volume but the sounds are not useful to me", well, musically I won't use them, but tried to add tons of delay and reverb and you can really use those in a musical context. I bet a shimmer would sound interesting as well. Worth trying!

Sounds good, but built like crap

ATTENTION: I'm talking about the PCB version of the pedal. I know there is a handwired version, but since they are expensive as hell, I didn't have the chance to try any of those.

This is (another) JTM45 in a box. I had tons of them and honestly this is the one that sounded best.

The switches do NOT give you all that versatility, no. Turn the boost off and the pedal sounds dead, therefore, it is usefull only with the boost on. The switches on the right affect distortion and are ok, not causing any big changes, but nice and subtle. Stack this with a fuzz face or a tubescreamer and it will be perfect.

Cons: it is built like crap.

I bought the pedal new and less then a month using it ON THE DESK, which means NO STOMPING, the boost switch fell appart. Literally. I couldn't believe that a $200 pedal could just fall appart easily like that.

To return it would cost me a fortune and if I wanted a replacement I would have to pay custom duties all over again, so no thanks.

I keep it since the switch thankfully broke with the boost on, but since them I hardly use it and I'm just waiting for all the others fall appart as well.

Not worth the money, for sure.

Agree with the other comments: drive is horrible

The compressor is good. Noisy, but good. JHS Pulp n Peel does the same without the noise, so I'm keeping JHS instead. The Red Dirt side, oh my, I had many many tubescreamers, but none as bad as this and depending on the order you choose to stack with the compressor, the noise will be so evident that whatever the space you save having a 2x1 on your board is not worth: you'll need more space for a decent drive plus a noise gate. 3 stars for the compressor only.

Amazing sounds, but...

... as most muffs, it is noisy as hell. It sounds amazing at low gain settings, you get sweet fat blues overdriven tones, but once you rise the gain, oh well... The tones are great, but the noise is too compressed and you get hell. It is not a specific problem of this pedal, but muff circuits cause that and depending of your use you should be warned. Running on batteries help, of course, since you avoid dirty power, but the noise is still there. I play mostly strats, that are noisy per se, so gain never above 2 o'clock.

One tone pedal. Really.

If you want a non versatile pedal that gives you only one single tone, this is it. Simple. The tone is nice, yes, I will give you that, but for that price and supposed Walrus quality, I think I should expect more.

With knobs after 9 o'clock everything sounds muddy, horrible and not any real decent chance, just a mess.

Paid almost $200 and sold for half that. Yeah. Good business.

Hope the v2 really fixed that problem, but I'm not paying to find out. Not again.

Looks better than it sounds

It looks amazing, the construction is superb, the details, even inside, count beautifully, but lets be honest: you're paying for the design or the sound? I have more than 12 octave fuzzes: superfuzz, shin ei companion, foxx tone machine, octavia, kay fuzz and so on. This one is the weaker of them all. Also the most expensive. I keep it because I don't like selling fuzzes, but if I had a good offer, it would go in a heartbeat.

Sounds amazing but it WILL swell...

... it is only a matter of when, not if. I think that the wood should have a better treatment. If you don't send it immediately to a luthier to fix before you use, the comb will swell. Since that is completely necessary, it is an expensive harmonica and you can buy a Crossover instead avoiding those problems.

The best fuzz I ever had!

I wasn't big fond of benders because their usual lack of low end, but then I got this pedal... and it's amazing. The dynamics, the harmonics AND the switch to add low end brought my board to whole new level. I can dial this to sound like hendrix, can dial to sound like page and can dial to sound like an amazing bluesy overdrive. I cannot play without this one anymore. Simple like that.

This would be the one to keep...

If I had to give up on all my pedals - and I have more than 50 today - and keep only one, I would keep this guy. It sounds amazing, I cannot get a bad sound out of it and it sounds amazing on my strats (love strats) when I lower the tone knob to 10/20%.

My favourite TS ever

I owned lots os TS and TS like pedals. I still do own quite a few. This is the only one that never leaves the board and is always kept around. Love it!