NPD!

[75lespaul]

Traded my Bugera 333 combo for an EVH 5150 pedal this afternoon. Still have yet to play it, but I like what I've heard. Just never used the Bugera, and when I put it on Craigslist just asking for an offer, I didn't get one. Not even a hundred bucks! So I put it in for trade saying I wanted this pedal and lo and behold, I found a trade partner. I'm pretty stoked over this pedal. Haven't had a good distortion pedal since I lost my business nearly ten years ago and had to sell nearly all my gear. So long Vox Bulldog, Mesa V-Twin, Plexitone, ORIGINAL Marshall Supa Fuzz, etc, etc, etc, lol.

[Nostalgic Distortion]

Re: NPD!

I was just thinking about buying one of those myself so I'm definitely interested in hearing what you think about it!!!

[75lespaul]

Re: NPD!

I used it last night for the first time, and one thing is clear--it is a LOT smaller than the Bugera combo, and I like the sound better. I used it through my Bad Cat Cougar 50 head and Marshall cab 2X12 with old T75s that aren't scooped. Guitar used was my Jackson JS Rhoades with a C8. Plugged into the front, yet to try in effects loop. I didn't like it on the drive channel, no matter how much I turned down the gain on either, or how I set the mid boost knob on the amp. Flubby and seemed to "vary" the distortion. Not quite cutting out, but the sound fluctuated. Where it really shined was in the clean channel. The clean channel doesn't have tone controls, just volume and a tone selector that pretty much adds trble as you click it from the four positions from left to right. This pedal definitely likes it all the way to the right. At low volume it sounds cool to practice with and fiddle around while not waking up the baby, so to speak. As I turned up the volume on the amp it sounded better and better (go figure). I love the gate, as good as any I've used. The boost knob adds some body from what I could hear, and the tone controls are very responsive without being "overbearing". I LOVE the gain channel on the Bad Cat, and this just gives me a different sound to play with. It has more gain than the Bad Cat's gain channel and is easy to get into fizzy territory, but using the gain at around 2 o'clock gave me some really nice earlier Van Halen tones. I dropped the E string to D and changed the settings a bit and got really fat more modern tones like I've not had with any amp. As far as sounding like a tube amp, it really does sound like a very good tube amp with a pedal in front of it...okay, well that's what I was using, lol. But you know what I mean. To my ears, the more distortion, the less "tubey" it gets anyway, just distorted. In the end, I think as long as you're using a good amp to begin with you're going to get serious tone from this pedal. Never heard a 5150 in person so I can't judge that, but compared to the gain channel on my Bad Cat the quality is just as good, just a different type of tone. And that is exactly what I was looking for. I'll be trying it out with some different amps, cabs, and guitars, but I'd play out in a heartbeat with this pedal with the setup I used. Les Paul with a Brobucker I have to assume is going to sound like heaven.