Empty Pockets
BadHairDayologist
I already liked it because it was huge and green. Then I plugged it in... extremely impressive. Had to take it home to see how it compared to my other dirt pedals...
The first thing I noticed was how fat, warm and natural it is. At low and medium gain settings it's more like a cranked up amp than a typical "distortion pedal" chainsaw...responds nicely to pick attack and volume knob control, y'know important tone geek stuff. Problem is, it doesn't quite sound as warm and natural as my Box of Rock... but it's much more modern and aggressive and has a lot more gain on tap. Higher gain settings make it kind of similar to my Boss Super Feedbacker Distortion (Japanese DS-1 with weird "feedback" feature)... in fact I was able to dial in the same boosted low-mid grungey grind I use the DF-2 for with the Distortion Master easily. The Boss doesn't clean up as well as the Maxon, though... it's basically slamming my amp with distortion or off :smokin:
Long story short... it's a killer pedal. I wanted it for my main rig, thinking I could replace my ZVex and Boss with this big green meanie and use my volume controls to go from clean-with-some-hair to volcanic melt down... but I think it's going to end up as a permanent partner to my Marshall Class 5 for practice and recording instead. It works as a clean boost, an overdrive, or a thick and crunchy distortion, and at extreme settings was getting a really convincing fullstack doom tone at 5 watts in my bedroom. Keep your eyes peeled for one... it's a sleeper :smokin:
The first thing I noticed was how fat, warm and natural it is. At low and medium gain settings it's more like a cranked up amp than a typical "distortion pedal" chainsaw...responds nicely to pick attack and volume knob control, y'know important tone geek stuff. Problem is, it doesn't quite sound as warm and natural as my Box of Rock... but it's much more modern and aggressive and has a lot more gain on tap. Higher gain settings make it kind of similar to my Boss Super Feedbacker Distortion (Japanese DS-1 with weird "feedback" feature)... in fact I was able to dial in the same boosted low-mid grungey grind I use the DF-2 for with the Distortion Master easily. The Boss doesn't clean up as well as the Maxon, though... it's basically slamming my amp with distortion or off :smokin:
Long story short... it's a killer pedal. I wanted it for my main rig, thinking I could replace my ZVex and Boss with this big green meanie and use my volume controls to go from clean-with-some-hair to volcanic melt down... but I think it's going to end up as a permanent partner to my Marshall Class 5 for practice and recording instead. It works as a clean boost, an overdrive, or a thick and crunchy distortion, and at extreme settings was getting a really convincing fullstack doom tone at 5 watts in my bedroom. Keep your eyes peeled for one... it's a sleeper :smokin:
