Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

[sbecker67]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

If you get a Catalinbread DLS keep this in mind. They don't advertise it as "dist/OD" pedal perse, but call it a "foundation" pedal. It's intended to go at the end of your dirt chain and treat it as if it was your amp by hitting it with your OD's and distortions.
Think of it like one of the Tech21 Character pedals and use it that way and you'll be satisfied with the results.

 

[erksin]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

Hey everybody I'm erksin (Mike) from Catalinbread - I'm the customer service dude.

Man I hate for my first post on a new forum to be biz-related, but I feel like this needs to be answered directly. Sorry I didn't get a chance to properly introduce myself first.

How are a plastic chassis, terrible colour scheme/graphic, flimsy mini toggle, badly aligned screws, and sloppy internal wiring on par?

You're obviously entitled to your opinion regarding the 'terrible colour scheme/graphic', but the rest of your comment is just plain incorrect. I don't know where you're getting the idea that there is a 'plastic chassis' - if you are refering to the circuitboard material, it is the same stuff used in just about all of the higher volume production pedals. We have our circuitboards made to our spec and then populate them by hand ourselves in Portland, OR. If you're talking about the enclosure itself - you've bought yourself a pirated clone because we use aluminum boxes for all of our pedals and always have. Even our prototypes get circuitboards and aluminum boxes.

We take our build process, parts selection, and end product quality control VERY seriously and of the thousands of DLSs we've sold a relative handful have ever needed service for reliability issues. If a small company like Catalinbread made a pedal like you're describing, we wouldn't stay in business very long - certainly not for the past eight years anyway, and definitely not now in this uber-competitive environment where build quality is getting better everyday.

I've owned a Rust Driver years ago, BTW. Nice pedal.

I'll snap pics of mine and post 'em.

I can't wait to see this.

Anyway - cheers y'all. Looking forward to meeting more of you. :beerchug:

 

[sbecker67]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

:notworthy

 

[GLJazz]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

Hey everybody I'm erksin (Mike) from Catalinbread - I'm the customer service dude.

Man I hate for my first post on a new forum to be biz-related, but I feel like this needs to be answered directly. Sorry I didn't get a chance to properly introduce myself first.



You're obviously entitled to your opinion regarding the 'terrible colour scheme/graphic', but the rest of your comment is just plain incorrect. I don't know where you're getting the idea that there is a 'plastic chassis' - if you are refering to the circuitboard material, it is the same stuff used in just about all of the higher volume production pedals. We have our circuitboards made to our spec and then populate them by hand ourselves in Portland, OR. If you're talking about the enclosure itself - you've bought yourself a pirated clone because we use aluminum boxes for all of our pedals and always have. Even our prototypes get circuitboards and aluminum boxes.

We take our build process, parts selection, and end product quality control VERY seriously and of the thousands of DLSs we've sold a relative handful have ever needed service for reliability issues. If a small company like Catalinbread made a pedal like you're describing, we wouldn't stay in business very long - certainly not for the past eight years anyway, and definitely not now in this uber-competitive environment where build quality is getting better everyday.

I've owned a Rust Driver years ago, BTW. Nice pedal.



I can't wait to see this.

Anyway - cheers y'all. Looking forward to meeting more of you. :beerchug:

Hey Mike,

I think it says alot about CB that you'd take the time out of the day to clarify this for us. I think that shows how much care goes in to the products, and if that is the case (which it seems it is) I feel confident in ordering one to find out for myself.

Thanks for joining in!

GL

 

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

You're obviously entitled to your opinion regarding the 'terrible colour scheme/graphic', but the rest of your comment is just plain incorrect.

And you are QUITE correct, and I apologize!

I own a lot of pedals and I was confusing a few together ... I was thinking of the plastic film covering the top of the pedal. Mine is a 2009 version, white, with a red sorta-blood-splatter-inspired-by-Affliction-clothing sort of graphic on it ... I really don't like the graphic, but that's neither here nor there!


Aside from the fact that my pedal has a somewhat misaligned bottom plate (I think there's just too much paint in the screw holes), a lot of flux (or some other substance) on the circuit board, and a rather crude serial number (whoever put the serial number on the inside did it with Sharpie and corrected a couple of letters by writing OVER the original letters) ... it's pretty solid.

SOOOO -- sorry about that, was thinking of several pedals combined into one, amorphous pedal mass!

I will still snap pics of mine when I get a minute.

 

[erksin]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

Well they are hand-made, and I probably wrote that number on there. We had a very convoluted serial numbering system back then and I'd always mix up the digits.

Anyway - no biggie. I realize pedals are a VERY personal thing and don't take exception when people just don't dig our stuff for one reason or another. I have a bunch of different pedals myself from a pretty wide variety of makers and friends and it's all killer stuff. We're really lucky to have so many options out there!

 

[erksin]

Re: Do I need a Dirty Little Secret?

I'm off to see Clapton and Los Lobos tonight (beers first of course!) - see y'all later.