Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

I have not really reviewed to many effects in my blogs up to this point, but I will be starting doing some gear reviews in my blog. As a guitar player I really love my effects!

I picked up the Catalyst a few months ago at the same time that I picked up the Fulltone OCD. The OCD is a really publicized pedal with many gear reviews, and there is not much out on the OCD. Out of the box it is an interesting pedal.

Follow up:

The first thing that you see is the volume and gain. For almost all OD pedals these are pretty self explanatory. I was told that the Catalyst is a fuzz pedal, and that it is, but it goes a little bit farther that just a plain fuzz. It has the ability to be way dialed down to be a clean boost. There is a "flame" and "spark" switch that puts the catalyst through a different circuits. The flame is a little hotter than the spark... Interesting thought. The tone controls are a mid/low and treble as two individual controls. These are sort of subdued so they don't get bumped, which is something I know some other players have done.

The fuzz goes from subtle to way past ridiculous. I had a Roger Meyer Octavia fuzz a few years back. Really is fuzz fuzz? Pretty much most fuzz is going to sound the same. The point where this pedal shines is that you can dial it down pretty satisfactory from the guitar volume tone. I have played many pedals that start to fade out when they are turned down from the guitar side.

No review would be complete without a little clip. This is just a little funky groove I did. The first part is just clean not effected drums and guitar only. Then I turned on the Catalyst pedal. I have the settings on "Flame", gain at about 70%. The volume on my strat was 10. At the end I turned down the volume on my strat to about 7 for a little change in quality.

<a href="http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?autoload=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;playlist_url=http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/Fulltone_Catalyst_Sample__KenB-Fulltone_Catalyst_Sample_.mp3" target="_blank">http://l.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/i/mig/playlistbadge/25.swf?autoload=0&amp;autoplay=0&amp;playlist_url=http://burlapandblues.com/uploads/Fulltone_Catalyst_Sample__KenB-Fulltone_Catalyst_Sample_.mp3</a>

I purchased this pedal new for $169. These pedals have a great resale value as I have seen several used go for $140. Considering many effect pedals lose 50% of the retail value once they leave the door, and some losing more than that, this is a good investment. If you are not looking for a fuzz, you might want to stay away, because this only does fuzz!