I got this pedal in the gigbag that came with my bass; the friend that gave it to me didn't really use it or didn't know what it was for. I didn't give it a second glance until a while ago when I was reading up on Jesse F. Keeler's gear (from DFA 1979) and figured that since this pedal was from the same era (80's Ibanez Power/10 series) it might give me some of the solid state distortion he used. This pedal gives me that and more, a thick brutal fuzz that might not be as nice as some more boutique stompboxes but is definitely cheaper, having been free
which I think is a bit more in the spirit of something as sludgey and blue-collar as Weedeater. I like to call it the MOSHtortion.
Using my p-bass' tone knob I can get two main tones out of this pedal; the aforementioned DFA guitar-like tone with a lot of highs comes from cranking the tone knob, and a much heavier and thicker fuzz in the vein of Weedeater comes from running it all the way down. I pretty much run this pedal with everything dimed except for the level knob (which can add quite a bit of volume). I find the level knob doesn't have much of a tone effect so I just keep it around noon. Rolling back on the treble makes some notes indistinct, not boosting the bass makes the tone somewhat anemic, and the mids are needed for most of the meat of the tone - however, there is a lot of versatility in this pedal. Running it with the treble all the way down makes the Weedeater tone sound very very brutal, but I doubt it would stand out in a mix. I have also scaled back on the distortion knob as an experiment to add some grit to the basic tone... I am not a big grit lover so I don't use it but you might find it interesting.
Of course, this review doesn't exist without sound clips, so here they are. Apologies in advance for my sloppy playing and so forth, I banged these off really quickly. These are recorded using my 1993/94 MIJ Precision through the Ibanez MT10 Mostortion and into my Kustom KBA100, then out through unbalanced XLR out into an M-Audio Fast Track preamp and into Garageband with no effects. There might be a bit of chorus from the amp as the effects unit is dodgy and on/off. The Kustom has a quite powerful six band EQ which is set with everything at about 2 o'clock except the two treble knobs which are cut a bit at 10 o'clock. This is just my usual setting on it and I haven't really done any indepth experimentation with it... If anyone has any suggestions I can do more clips (scoop mids! or whatever). Anyway, onto the important stuff...
Riffs from Kyuss' Catamaran, Metallica/Cliff Burton's Anesthesia and Black Flag's Six Pack, P-bass tone at full
1. Clean tone, pedal off (I don't really hear any noise from the bypass)
http://media.putfile.com/mt10testclean
2. All knobs at noon, distortion at 9 o'clock (for a bit of "grit")
http://media.putfile.com/mt10testgrit
Riffs from Weedeater's It Is What It Is and Bull, P-bass tone at zero
1. All knobs dimed
http://media.putfile.com/mt10testwdimed
2. All knobs dimed, fingerpicked (like Dixie Dave would play it)
http://media.putfile.com/mt10testwfingers
3. Treble fully cut
http://media.putfile.com/mt10testwnotreb
Riffs from Death From Above 1979's Dead Womb and Cold War
1. All knobs dimed, P-bass tone dimed
http://media.putfile.com/mt10testdfatone
