Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

Now any review of a pedal would be completely incomplete if I did not give sound samples of the pedal that I am reviewing. The pedal is advertised as a pedal that will take a small clean amp and turn it into a stack. The Pedals by Tone overdrive is a FET overdrive with a series of overdrives. This pedal is serial #7 and Pedals by Tone is a new or newer company that I have never heard of before purchasing this pedal.

(note this review was originally set to publish on 6/28/2010 but I have decided to move it up a few days)

Follow up:

I can't think of any cleaner of an amp than a Fender. So I took out my Ibanez Jem-7V and hooked it up to fender and did a clean trial run. (The Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10)

http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/clean-fender.mp3

I wanted to find a starting point for a pedal to review the created tone. I chose the Boss Blues Drive (BD-2, stock) to compare the tones. I make 2 clips with the same guitar amp setup. The first with the Blues Driver at 50% drive and then at 80% drive.

COMPARATIVE TONE BOSS BLUES DRIVER - DRIVE 50%
http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/blues-50-fender.mp3

I noted the sterile tone produced by the stock blues driver. Some sustain, but not too much.

COMPARATIVE TONE BOSS BLUES DRIVER - DRIVE 80%
http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/blues-80-fender.mp3

Even more sterile sounding. Significantly more sustain, more harmonic than when the drive is at 50%. Still not something that I would consider to be a great tone.

Finally, I decided to make a comparative tone sample with the Anaglog man DS-1.

COMPARATIVE TONE ANALOG MAN DS-1 - DRIVE 80%
http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/analogman-75-fender.mp3

Noticeably less sterile sounding, and more harmonics are present. I am aware that the DS is a distortion, and not an overdrive. Some pedals are somewhat a mix and I wanted to get a little base for hearing comparison to see if the pedal was more distortion in nature or more overdrive in nature.

Now that I have given some control points, lets start with how the Pedals by Tone, how does it respond to dialing down. I know that most overdrives respond well to dialing down the guitar. Here is now the Pedals by Tone deals with dialing down the volume.

DIALING DOWN THE VOLUME WITH THE PEDALS BY TONE OVERDRIVE through a Fender Hot Rod Deville 4x10

http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/pbtone-dialdown-50-fender.mp3

I created three clips with the overdrive at 20-50-100% drive. Here are the clips.

PEDALS BY TONE drive at 20%
http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/pbtone-20-fender.mp3

PEDALS BY TONE drive at 50%
http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/pbtone-50-fender.mp3

PEDALS BY TONE drive at 100%
http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/pbtone-100-fender.mp3

Not a harsh overdrive at low levels, but insane once it is set to 100%. A ton of gain, without sounding too harsh and sterile. Some harmonic tendencies, but also a little too over driven sounding.

Now that you have heard the clips, what do you think?

My Summary will be posted in the next few days