Burlap and Blues, The Blues Blog

Well, I have had my Pedals by Tone Overdrive for a few days now and I really have fell in love with the tone that it gives. I have been writing my reviews as I play with the pedal, but today will be my summary entry into the Pedals by Tone reviews.

As I mentioned before I purchased this pedal based on the description given by the builder. Although the original sound clips were not the best, I decided to give the pedal a try. The first night I had this pedal I recorded a little clip to see how it responded and then how others responded to the tone.

Follow up:

http://burlapandblues.com/bluesblog/reviews/pbtone-samplefunk-mesa.mp3

Unlike the samples in the previous review, this sample was done through a Mesa Clone. The Pedals by Tone overdrive did a good job of pushing the tubes and creating a screaming guitar tone. Consistent sustain without excess noise (even when the input varied in the song). Although there was a little delay added to the guitar, there are no other pedals in the signal path.

So where in the overdrive world does this pedal land. Well, it is much more clean and responsive than any of my Boss overdrives. It does not have the coloring of the tone that my JRC4558D TS-808 clones have and it is not as cleanly overdriven as my OCD. It finds itself in a category of higher gain overdrive. This pedal is not in a class of clean overdrives such as the Timmy pedal either. This pedal does not contain a "chip" so the tone is not colored. This pedal shines as a pedal to push tubes.

After I received the pedal, I started to make a little contact with the builder (like I do with all my reviews). I found Tony to be 100% responsive, helpful in answering questions and really a nice guy. This is good to know in case there was any problems with the pedal in the future.

The reviews done at Burlap and Blues are NOT endorsed by anyone or financially compensated by anyone at anytime during the review process. We purchase and item, honestly give you what we think, and rate the item. I am using a 5 star rating for each of the items I have reviewed.

1. Delivery and Packaging: 5 out of 5 stars. As I mentioned in an earlier entry, this was packaged better than any other item I have ever bought, ever.

2. Visual Appearance: 5 out of 5 stars. Neat swirly pattern, individual and will never have a duplicate. I have seen his other pedals and each pedal will be different and that is very cool.

3. Construction: 4.75 out of 5 stars. Very light weight, but not cheaply built. I personally don't like the battery wire, but I am almost positive that will be fixed at some point in the near future to ensure it does not get caught up. Very light, like I said. It feels cheaply built but it is strong. (Yes I did test it by standing on it, probably the dumbest part of my review but I did. Those that know me know I easily weigh over 250 so it is built strong and light.) Kudo's to the builder for making a clean inside of the pedal instead of a glob of wires and solder.

4. Ease of use: 5 out of 5 stars. Very simple and labeled clearly. Volume Gain and Tone. If you are not sure what those words mean, maybe you should avoid this pedal (and all pedals for that matter).

5. Tone: 5 out of 5 but not easily decided. It was VERY hard for me to rate this pedal on tone. Part of me wants to give 5 stars and part of me needs to be a little more realistic and not give everything a 5. The tone of this pedal is going to depend on the amp that you plug into. If you plug into a solid state amp, you are not going to have as good as tone as plugging into a tube amp. What I found as I plugged into different amps, is the higher gain the amp is built for (Fender low gain, Mesa high gain) the better and more harmonic this pedal sounded. I plugged into a little solid state amp and it sounded like every other overdrive out there, but with a ton more gain. I plugged into my modeling amp (Line 6) and it sounded different based on the amp model I chose. Again, difficult to put a rating on this pedal, but it has a well constructed true bypass switch. So after debating with myself for a few hours, I decided to rate this based on similar pedals in this pedals sub class. Comparing to overdrives it deserves 5 out of 5. It does exactly what it should do, better than most pedals in this class with no obvious concerns.

6. Communication: 5 out of 5. Great guy to communicate with.

7. Value: 5 out of 5, and trust me this should be 6 out of 5. You would be hard pressed to find an overdrive of this caliber for this price, and with true bypass, it is not going to happen. I think as the word gets out about these pedals, you will find that the price may go up a little, but the value will still remain the same.

Overall rating of the Pedals by Tone Overdrive: 4.9 stars out of 5. A great sounding, true bypass, AMERICAN BUILT, overdrive pedal. Unique and one of a kind.

During my communication with Tony (The builder of the pedal) I asked if he was building any other styles. He mentioned that he is working on some other pedals at this time. I hope that Tony lets me know when they are done so I can get my hands on one. Tony at this time does not have a website, and he is selling his pedals on Ebay http://myworld.ebay.com/pedalsbytone66/

Stay tune for more independent reviews!