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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Jun 3, 2021 8:48:41 GMT -7
I just got this 20 minutes ago and I love this thing so far. Everything from nice sweet OD to killer distortion. Too soon for a comprehensive review but I'll add to this after a few days. In the meanwhile, here's a great video of the pedal. It's got a huge range of tones in there!
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Jun 9, 2021 17:34:44 GMT -7
This pedal is the real goods. It's got a huge amount of gain yet the notes remain articulate and well defined, even in diminished 7th and 9th chords. Complex chords come through and the eq has a great deal of power in shaping the tone. I really dig this pedal, it is one that could take the place of a couple or three drives on my board. I really dig it!
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Post by Don on Jun 19, 2021 5:24:36 GMT -7
Oh, I really like that pedal!
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Post by zpilot on Jun 19, 2021 10:09:40 GMT -7
I'm interested in how it works with single coils, especially a Tele. So many pedals (and amps) that are geared toward high gain do not work for me with my Tele.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Jun 19, 2021 17:23:35 GMT -7
I'm interested in how it works with single coils, especially a Tele. So many pedals (and amps) that are geared toward high gain do not work for me with my Tele. Check out the demo at about 8:55, he switches from a Les Paul over to a Tele. Dig how he doesn't roll the guitar volume off when he mutes the strings and listen how quiet it is...It shines with single coils. Besides the great tone, the standout is that it doesn't add as much noise/hum to the sound as most other overdrive/distortion pedals. I've got a Rockbox Boiling Point on the same pedal board, and it's much quieter at the same drive levels. It's really a great drive pedal, and I've got boxes of the things.
Another thing I dig about it is the switch on the side for drive levels. I've got it on the low setting with the drive up around 12:00 - 1:00. It adds drive smoothly and when you get to max you can flip the switch and drop the drive back to 12:30-1:00 for the same drive levels. Very cool.
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Post by zpilot on Jun 25, 2021 12:26:35 GMT -7
Well, that did it. I have one on order. Just when I thought I was done buying dirt boxes.
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Post by zpilot on Jul 7, 2021 6:34:30 GMT -7
My first impressions of this box. I have not had an opportunity to fully dial this thing in with the amps I am currently gigging. I did notice this right away. I like that it has a FULL Marshall-type tone stack instead of just one or two knobs and maybe a gain switch of some sort like most other MIAB pedals. If you already know your way around how to dial in a 50-watt Marshall this makes it intuitive. All of the controls seem to work almost exactly like a Marshall. It sounds pretty darn good at rehearsal but it will take some time on stage to see if it finds a place on my board. Also to see how it sounds when pushed with a TS pedal.
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Post by adam on Nov 28, 2021 18:35:21 GMT -7
Dave, you planted a seed in this a long time ago for me so I wanted to respond.
I just got the Friedman golden pearl pedal based on some conversation with someone in YT land about how well they work with Marshall style stuff. That thing for an overdrive/boost pedal is fantastic. Tried with the Ghia, EMS, and an Egnator amp so far and it just works great. So great that I decided to try this pedal too and it will be here before too long.
Basically wanted to say thanks for sharing your enthusiasm with this pedal and sparking some enthusiasm there.
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Post by purpletele on Nov 28, 2021 19:16:01 GMT -7
Dave, you planted a seed in this a long time ago for me so I wanted to respond. I just got the Friedman golden pearl pedal based on some conversation with someone in YT land about how well they work with Marshall style stuff. That thing for an overdrive/boost pedal is fantastic. Tried with the Ghia, EMS, and an Egnator amp so far and it just works great. So great that I decided to try this pedal too and it will be here before too long. Basically wanted to say thanks for sharing your enthusiasm with this pedal and sparking some enthusiasm there. I was always intrigued with the Golden Pearl Pedal. It seemed to be similar to a Timmy? I didn't hear much about it after it was released. I've been integrating a KOT on one of my boards, it's nice, I'm glad I bought before it inflated to approximately $600
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Post by Russell B on Nov 28, 2021 19:39:32 GMT -7
I played through Dave’s Small Box pedal last weekend and was very impressed with it. It will make a Fender styled amp sound like a Marshall.
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Post by adam on Nov 29, 2021 6:01:15 GMT -7
I was always intrigued with the Golden Pearl Pedal. It seemed to be similar to a Timmy? I didn't hear much about it after it was released. I haven't heard a Timmy, so not sure there. To be fair, I only played it a few hours with one strat, but I did try 3 amps and was equally happy it in all all of them.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Nov 29, 2021 16:50:37 GMT -7
Dave, you planted a seed in this a long time ago for me so I wanted to respond. I just got the Friedman golden pearl pedal based on some conversation with someone in YT land about how well they work with Marshall style stuff. That thing for an overdrive/boost pedal is fantastic. Tried with the Ghia, EMS, and an Egnator amp so far and it just works great. So great that I decided to try this pedal too and it will be here before too long. Basically wanted to say thanks for sharing your enthusiasm with this pedal and sparking some enthusiasm there. I've got two of Friedman's pedals, the Small Box and the Dirty Shirley. I dig them both, probably the Small Box a little more.
I'm eager to hear your review of the Golden Pearl, Adam. I've got a Timmy that is a really good pedal and I'd like to know what you think the GP is like, so I don't overlap too much. I'm an OD junkie, it's a disease. Actually today I was playing the Barber Gain Changer and it works really well for lower gain stuff, so I may be in good shape between that and the Timmy.
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Post by adam on Nov 29, 2021 17:51:31 GMT -7
Maybe I was asleep at the wheel on the Timmy if the timmy is like the GP. All I can say is that if you like your amp tone and want to kick it a little, this thing kills. The smallbox pedal, I'm sort of guessing I'll like the tone of it, but will hate how it kills dynamics and then it will be relegated to the same status as the other 20+ distortion/overdrive pedals I have that sort of ruin the amp tone and feel for me. But, willing to give it a try based on my GP experience so far. The GP is the first pedal I've ever tried where I could see using it as an always on pedal.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Nov 29, 2021 18:49:09 GMT -7
Maybe I was asleep at the wheel on the Timmy if the timmy is like the GP. All I can say is that if you like your amp tone and want to kick it a little, this thing kills. The smallbox pedal, I'm sort of guessing I'll like the tone of it, but will hate how it kills dynamics and then it will be relegated to the same status as the other 20+ distortion/overdrive pedals I have that sort of ruin the amp tone and feel for me. But, willing to give it a try based on my GP experience so far. The GP is the first pedal I've ever tried where I could see using it as an always on pedal. The Small Box doesn't over compress like other hi-gain pedals I have do. It behaves like, well, a Small Box Marshall head would. Of course, as you push the gain the compression comes as well, but not like the Dirty Shirley does.
The Small Box is quite open sounding and retains its dynamics quite well. Right now mine's set with all the dials at noon except the mids, they're at 1:00. Great sounding into my EZG-50 or Super Reverb. It works well with gainier amps too but you just lighten up the drive setting. I really dig mine.
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Post by Faze on Nov 29, 2021 18:51:30 GMT -7
I been wanting to try this pedal out myself. I currently have the ramble Fx Marvel drive. I would love to compare these two pedals. I sometimes boost my marvel drive with a kingtone soloist and the lovepedal tchula and a chase tone fuzz fella if I need more gain. The most important thing is if it stacks well with other pedals. I had the BE overdrive and it was not bad at all but a little too scooped and way to much gain for me. I also tried the dirty shirley and really didn't like that one at all. I am pretty sure I would like the small box. I love that 70s Marshall crunch.
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Post by purpletele on Nov 29, 2021 18:51:39 GMT -7
Maybe I was asleep at the wheel on the Timmy if the timmy is like the GP. All I can say is that if you like your amp tone and want to kick it a little, this thing kills. The smallbox pedal, I'm sort of guessing I'll like the tone of it, but will hate how it kills dynamics and then it will be relegated to the same status as the other 20+ distortion/overdrive pedals I have that sort of ruin the amp tone and feel for me. But, willing to give it a try based on my GP experience so far. The GP is the first pedal I've ever tried where I could see using it as an always on pedal. I would think the Smallbox pedal would be redundant with your line up of Amps. It does sound nice, but the EMS or CAZ can sound like that as well, right? The Timmy and Tim pedal is regarded as a very transparent OD. I use my Timmy as boost with a touch of gain just to give my clean tone a little soul. I believe that the GP is from the same template. Let me know if you want to try one, I have two hanging around here. Brian V
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Post by adam on Nov 30, 2021 5:40:33 GMT -7
I would think the Smallbox pedal would be redundant with your line up of Amps. It does sound nice, but the EMS or CAZ can sound like that as well, right? The Timmy and Tim pedal is regarded as a very transparent OD. I use my Timmy as boost with a touch of gain just to give my clean tone a little soul. I believe that the GP is from the same template. Let me know if you want to try one, I have two hanging around here. Brian V Well, everything is a little redundant. Your description of the Timmy sounds just like the GP. And thanks for the offer, very nice of you, but not needed at this time. Thanks
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Post by adam on Dec 2, 2021 16:16:11 GMT -7
Dave, I got my SmallBox pedal and to be honest my first impression is the opposite from my Golden Pearl experience, or rather, I hate it and this thing sucks. It kind of sounds like everything I generally hate about distortion pedals meaning no dynamics and doesn't sound or react like real amp distortion at all. That's my honest take on it. Tried it with Ghia and EMS with a Strat and LP. The best thing I've found so far like that is the Revival Drive, but it's 3x the price too, so there's that. Might add that I only tried it at the 9V setting, so guessing it might be a little better at 18V like say my Angry Charlie.
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Dec 3, 2021 5:56:08 GMT -7
Dave, I got my SmallBox pedal and to be honest my first impression is the opposite from my Golden Pearl experience, or rather, I hate it and this thing sucks. It kind of sounds like everything I generally hate about distortion pedals meaning no dynamics and doesn't sound or react like real amp distortion at all. That's my honest take on it. Tried it with Ghia and EMS with a Strat and LP. The best thing I've found so far like that is the Revival Drive, but it's 3x the price too, so there's that. Might add that I only tried it at the 9V setting, so guessing it might be a little better at 18V like say my Angry Charlie. Bummer! It's odd because I really like the tones you get with your videos, Adam...the tone I get from the Small Box into my Ghia (with the amp set up clean, like at 9:00 on Volume) remind me of your tone.
It's definitely a MIAB pedal, and it's over the top for an amp that's already really cooking. But for me, in a situation with a mostly clean amp it's great where I need to go from clean jazz chording to a gainy lead tone. I've never tried it with 18 volts. It sounds great with my Super Reverb too. I tend to set my amps up pretty clean or right at the edge of break up and get my gain from pedals.
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Post by adam on Dec 3, 2021 6:15:14 GMT -7
No worries, different things work for different people and what I tried it with wasn't working for me. Found a couple things since my grumpy post... if I run it into egnator sw45, which is basically the real smallbox, with the volume on practically off (60db?), it sounds pretty good with a Les Paul. Also found that I really don't like the GP humbuckers. It just is what it is with gain pedals and guitars and amps in that if you find the right combination, it can work really well, but most of the time, it's a miss. Might also add that I generally like playing with lots of dynamics on tap and that just doesn't lend itself to recorded tones at all. It's like you could do a really accurate amp demo if the person at the other end had a really loud and accurate playback system and just cranked the volume, but nobody is going to do that.
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Post by nicholas on Dec 3, 2021 14:56:10 GMT -7
Does that one have an internal gain pot? I had the DS pedal, It was pretty useless the way it shipped from the factory for me until I turned it way down.
I do have the Buxom Boost pedal. It's pretty good!
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Post by premiumplus (Dave) on Dec 3, 2021 14:58:49 GMT -7
It seems like an EMS with the Small Box would be redundant. I like mine with a cleaner amp.
It would be great if I could find a demo recorded the way you describe. I've got the loud and accurate playback system covered!
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Post by adam on Dec 3, 2021 16:16:01 GMT -7
Does that one have an internal gain pot? I had the DS pedal, It was pretty useless the way it shipped from the factory for me until I turned it way down. I do have the Buxom Boost pedal. It's pretty good! I don't think so, but it has a switch on the side which changes the range of the gain pot from lower to higher. Kind of the same idea, but on a switch you can get to rather than a pot you can't get to without a screwdriver. It's a solid, practical idea. The buxom boost is sort of the most boring pedal ever, but it works to add gain and cut lows without adding some nasty clipping element to it. Like how people use the yellow boss pedal (ds-1), but without that gnarly thing it brings to the table. It also works in reverse, like say you have a gainy sound and then backing your guitar volume is perfect for clean, except you lose the highs. You could use the pedal that way and keep the highs. Still pretty boring, but it allows you to tailer your guitar signal without screwing it up.
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Post by adam on Dec 3, 2021 16:46:11 GMT -7
It seems like an EMS with the Small Box would be redundant. I like mine with a cleaner amp. It would be great if I could find a demo recorded the way you describe. I've got the loud and accurate playback system covered! I really, really like the EMS set totally clean, so it's not redundant at all. Like say the EMS is clean clean and it's really like a clean tone in spades. Then you add say the golden pearl and get this kind of crunchy, slightly broken up sound that's a bit louder, but just kills too and has tons of dynamics still. So then the question is how to get to that more distorted kind of Marshall tone from the same setup, and I thought the smallbox pedal might get there, but somehow it's all screwed up. It's like the pedal is trying to push those Marshall type frequencies which already exist in the tone, and it just doesn't work. It's the same thing with my revival drive and that amp, like whatever the pedal is trying to do, the amp is already doing some of that and it's just kind of nasty. You mentioned the pedal working well with the super reverb. I can see that as the revival drive works fantastically with the EZG. Haven't tried that one yet with the smallbox pedal. This stuff always gets me back to, OK, 2 killer tones out of the EMS with or without the GP pedal, then need to A/B another amp for the more gainy stuff, but that just presents it's own set of problems, and those problems always kind of take the fun out of it. Simple becomes complicated fast. 2 observations there, one was using 2 amps preparing for a gig and whenever I switched to amp 2, the sonic imprint as to the guitar tone in the headphone mix was just so drastically different that it didn't work for anyone playing. Like you have a a mix that works with amp a, and switching to amp b is just all screed up in the context of the mix. If you are live in the room, it doesn't matter, but those are huge differences when you are confined to in ear mixes, and it would be better to have the same basic sonic imprint of source. The other correlation I could make there is doing live sound for a band and the guy was using a modeler and changed patches for every tune. I had to completely remix the guitar for every song in the PA, but the guitar patches live sounded just fine. It was that same experience to me with multiple amps. Like the guitar needed that same sonic imprint (speakers and mic) to make it work. If you are high level with a staff to deal with that stuff, that could work fine, but it doesn't work well for Joe Schmoe just trying to make a band sound good as a whole.
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Post by adam on Dec 3, 2021 16:48:40 GMT -7
It would be great if I could find a demo recorded the way you describe. I've got the loud and accurate playback system covered! I hear on that one and I'm going to try it somewhere along the way. People will probably hate it, and I get that.
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Post by Chilly Gibbons (Todd T.) on Dec 7, 2021 17:15:44 GMT -7
So I just got one of these and think it’s tits. And I generally don’t care for drive pedals. The ones I seem to like are considered amp-in-a-box, just kind of figuring all this out. The Smallbox is great straight into the ZLux and has a lot more dynamics than I was expecting out of a box of silicone. I’m impressed! Next up: Brown Eye Deluxe.
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Post by adam on Dec 8, 2021 5:42:36 GMT -7
So I just got one of these and think it’s tits. And I generally don’t care for drive pedals. The ones I seem to like are considered amp-in-a-box, just kind of figuring all this out. The Smallbox is great straight into the ZLux and has a lot more dynamics than I was expecting out of a box of silicone. I’m impressed! Next up: Brown Eye Deluxe. I know it's a lot more money, but the revival drive is pretty special and worth considering. I a/b'd those 2 the other day and there's sort of no comparison. Not that the SB pedal is bad or anything, it's really quite good. But comparing those 2, one sounds and feels like a pedal and the other one sound like an amp (more or less). It takes a while to figure out the controls though and can really be daunting, but the more you have it, the more appreciative your are that you can dial it in to pretty much work with anything. I also have the Buxom and BE. The BE sounds good too, but a little over the top for me. Buxom is more like a utility boost and eq.
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Post by Chilly Gibbons (Todd T.) on Dec 8, 2021 6:02:09 GMT -7
I do like the demos of the Revival, but the price…. Someday I’ll move all of the drive pedals I haven’t used in years and try one.
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Post by Chilly Gibbons (Todd T.) on Dec 10, 2021 10:17:15 GMT -7
Well, got the Friedman Brown Eye Deluxe pedal last night and it's tits too, but not as tits as the Smallbox. Way more distortion than anyone could ever use on the high gain channel but makes the for a great addition of two channels to the Zlux. Both channels are highly usable as long as the gain is below noon. Seems to compress more and is definitely made for gain-bangers. Have yet to try it with active pickups, maybe this weekend.
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Post by adam on Dec 10, 2021 16:00:46 GMT -7
Yeah, the price of the revival is crazy. I talked to Dave about this and he didn't get along with the Revival which I thought odd from my experience, but we are all different. For me, I've had it for a long time now and tried to make it work with a bunch of amps, and I always seem to be able to get something out of it that I think sounds good. But also there are a lot of controls on the thing and it takes quite a while to get your head around it. Like you can boost or cut the presence, there's a variable high pass filter for compensating with a bright cap, then there's a high shelf eq, then there's the eq curve switch. Also, the presence to the far left changes how the presence work which is a whole another thing. Basically I can always get something out of it with whatever guitar or amp, but you have to futs with it. I'm glad I bought it though.
The BE - if yours is like mine, there's a trim pot on the inside for the gain, but even down a lot, it still has an enormous amount of gain. For some people or applications, it's perfect.
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