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Dave Ulbrick 12axe distortion pedal review:
Okay so i bought a personally hand made Dave Ulbrick 12axe distortion pedal off the man himself a few days ago for $350 AUD.
Nice simple rugged design features include:
- stomp box foot switch on/off button.
- classy blue LED.
- simple controls = distortion knob, tone knob, volume knob.
- input and output jacks.
- rugged durable steel box.
- 9V battery on board power source or optional external power source input jack.
- all hand wired.
- analogue.
- TRUE BYPASS!
True bypass was a must for me, my ears are surprisingly/irritatingly sensative to things like that, i can even notice a little difference between the signal going throgh the true bypass in this pedal to just going straight into the amp!
So anyway, its a hand wired and assembled true bypassed analogue distortion pedal, but not the kind of distortion pedal a metal head would like. It doesnt give tonnes of saturated gain, more like a tasty amount of gain that sounds awfully like a good tube gain channel, thick with heaps and heaps of sustain!
Even without much gain dialled in it still seems to sustain the sound a lot more. You can dial in just a little gain and have a thick semi-clean tone which sounds great, or dial in up to max amount for again some thick gain but which sounds warm and just terrific! Great for bluesy funky lead stuff and would be great for those slow singing leads where you just hold out single notes and bends and let them sing.
The tone knob lets you darken the sound or brighten it up a fair bit, although id never use it much because it seems to go pretty bright. But it sounds great sofar with the tone knob down low, which is where im playing with it.
And the volume knob just lets you lower the volume i guess, i dont know if max volume actually boosts anything or just lets the full signal through.
It seems to work really well as a lead boost type thing for heavier leads too. I've tried it briefly in front of my ENGL high gain channel, and with only a tiny bit of pedal gain dialed in it works great in front of a high gain channel to add balls and sustain to an already heavy sound.
Overall, a great little pedal!
Nice simple rugged design features include:
- stomp box foot switch on/off button.
- classy blue LED.
- simple controls = distortion knob, tone knob, volume knob.
- input and output jacks.
- rugged durable steel box.
- 9V battery on board power source or optional external power source input jack.
- all hand wired.
- analogue.
- TRUE BYPASS!
True bypass was a must for me, my ears are surprisingly/irritatingly sensative to things like that, i can even notice a little difference between the signal going throgh the true bypass in this pedal to just going straight into the amp!
So anyway, its a hand wired and assembled true bypassed analogue distortion pedal, but not the kind of distortion pedal a metal head would like. It doesnt give tonnes of saturated gain, more like a tasty amount of gain that sounds awfully like a good tube gain channel, thick with heaps and heaps of sustain!
Even without much gain dialled in it still seems to sustain the sound a lot more. You can dial in just a little gain and have a thick semi-clean tone which sounds great, or dial in up to max amount for again some thick gain but which sounds warm and just terrific! Great for bluesy funky lead stuff and would be great for those slow singing leads where you just hold out single notes and bends and let them sing.
The tone knob lets you darken the sound or brighten it up a fair bit, although id never use it much because it seems to go pretty bright. But it sounds great sofar with the tone knob down low, which is where im playing with it.
And the volume knob just lets you lower the volume i guess, i dont know if max volume actually boosts anything or just lets the full signal through.
It seems to work really well as a lead boost type thing for heavier leads too. I've tried it briefly in front of my ENGL high gain channel, and with only a tiny bit of pedal gain dialed in it works great in front of a high gain channel to add balls and sustain to an already heavy sound.
Overall, a great little pedal!
).
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