Drive pedal lust

[timmyo]

Never even seen a demo of a Barber.

An evening in front of youtube is needed I think.

this chap has some Barber demos : http://www.youtube.com/user/roknfnrol?feature=g-user-u

[littlethoughts]

T-rex tonebug distortion, like the one I'm selling

In all seriousness, the T-rex alberta, Dr swamp, Mudhoney and a few others are hilariously good fun to use.

[BucketheadRules]

Quite specialist, but I recently got a Rainger Son of Freakenstein.

Magnificent thing - hand-made in London, very unique-looking and even more unique-sounding. It's a fuzz which is tonally in the ballpark of an extremely pissed-off Big Muff, I reckon - but it also has an inbuilt oscillating harmonic overtone which can be controlled by a little knob on the back, or with an expression pedal. It's difficult to describe, but if you're sweeping through its range with an expression pedal it sounds like a phaser set to stun. Depending on where you park the knob, the tonal characteristics are greatly affected - you can have huge low-end, or unbelievably nasal high-end, or anywhere in between, so it's a lot more versatile than it may seem. I don't know how it works, but it sounds amazing. Utterly ridiculous, but amazing.

And it has a switch for controlling the frequency this overtone is set to, so it can be higher-pitched and make the tone treblier as a result, or it could be deeper within the mix to give it a cataclysmic low-end kick. On the low-end switch, with the oscillator control all the way to the right, and with the neck pickup of the guitar, you get a perfectly-tracking oscillation exactly an octave below the note you're playing.

And it has a built-in noise gate, so it's deadly silent when you stop playing. And it's built like the proverbial brick shithouse too.

Did I mention that there's no gain control anywhere on it? You are given maximum distortion at all times, and don't expect it to do anything silly like cleaning up nicely with the volume control of the guitar. It is always, always set with the taps wide open, and I wouldn't have it any other way

I may be selling it short with my technically-uninformed capsule review, but you'd need to try one to understand it. It's a fucking amazing pedal and the best fuzz I have ever used, by a mile.

[TheThingThatShouldNotBe]

Completly agree with you on this one, I had a Dist-x (literaly just sold it) which i ran at quarter gain max, sounded awesome, the annoying power supply made me sell it

Never really worried about that .
Most people use a mains extension cable fitted with multiple sockets for convenience anyway (to save time during set up) ,I just plug the HT DistX into that .
The only issue I see with the DistX is the size of the footprint on a small board .

[Ape1]

Expensive, but.....Blackstone Appliances OD

[fretmeister]

I love my Carl Martin Plexi-Tone clone that I made. Best Plexi sound bar none (and I've made all the boutique circuits!)

just listening to a demo. Very nice!!!!!

[Lixarto]

Quite specialist, but I recently got a Rainger Son of Freakenstein.

Good write-up.

I now need one of these.

[Sir Axeman]

The only pedal I've ever liked (and it depends on which amp it is plugged in to) for gain is the Blackstar HT Dual. It isn't the most practical thing though as it requires its own power supply and it is quite large. But into the right amp it can sound great IMO. I couldn't give you a comprehensive list of 'right amps' but I can tell you I didn't like it at all through an AC30.

Sounds perfectly fine with my AC30...as long as you follow the golden rule and use the normal channel! Normal channel...cut all the way off so the brightest setting for that channel...here it works very well.

[gatheredinsong]

Anyone tried the Smallsound Bigsound stuff? I'd like to try a Mini.

[Fazer]

Anyone tried the Smallsound Bigsound stuff? I'd like to try a Mini.

get one, its great and extremely versatile.
it goes all the way from super clean and just use the tone knobs, to thick juicy drive, to grungy fuzz + its really handy small size