Pedal swapping

Gone is the Catalinbread Dirty Little Secret. It was an impulse buy as I had a fair amount of money left over from my amp sale, so i thought I would give it a go. It's not a bad pedal at all, but it didn't love my Budda. I use the Budda at 75% of my gigs, so my board needs to love that amp most. The DLS was very friendly with my DRRI, but not any more friendly than my Barber Direct Drive on low gain settings. And my Direct Drive handles fuzzes and treble boosts just as well, so the Barber stays and the Dirty Little Secret left.

In her place, I picked up a Tonefreak Severe. This pedal is intended to be the gainiest thing on the board, and would serve all those big-rock needs. I spent about two hours with it this afternoon through the DRRI and it's just BALLS! No getting around it, flat out rock and roll. For the most part, I ran the gain at about noon, and there's plenty of gain on tap. It can take you from ZZ Top to Alice In Chains without much issue, and that's with vintage output pickups. Three styles of clipping (symmetrical, asymmetrical, and diode lift), plus a bright switch. The bright switch actually changes the frequency that the tone knob interacts with... an extra level of awesome.

Check it out at: www.tonefreak.com