Initial Impressions/Review - Xotic X-Blender (Comparison to Barge)

I bought this on a whim really I've had the Barge blender for a while infact I think i was one of the first people here to get one and I had it setup like the X-blender with the switch between 100% wet and blended so I thought I had the same thing only cheaper and with an added impedance buffer. MAN I WAS WRONG the X-blender is a whole different animal, with the Barge I got a volume cut with the blend signal, if anything the Xotic boosts but it has a volume control that you can control this and it doesn't boost it, which means you can level out the 100% Wet and blended sound which I've never been able to get even on my Barge.

Now I had a passive volume cut added to the barge so that I could achieve the ideal input and impedance for fuzz pedal I figured at the time I could just max it and it would be as if it wasn't there. Well I found that I had to use it and this is where one of the problems came in, it also cut the clean blend underneath the effect which was a real issue to get that perfect balance. But I lived with it as it made every fuzz pedal sound amazing.

But with the addition of the Huck v2 and it working with actives I was able to pop that in the loop of the Xotic and it was just amazing it reminded me a lot of the Boss LS-2 in that it sounded huge blended and you had so much control over the blend loop and the clean just stayed the same. The phase switch was useful as is the eq and the volume knob. The huge knob on the Xotic makes it much better for changing on the fly unlike the barge (minor things as I set and forget blends).

So all in all it a way better pedal all round. Now when I placed it on my board I decided that I preferred the Barge to the Xotic for my Huckleberry one because of the impedance buffer just made it a bit nicer and the other reason is when using the barge and huck together it's always given me fuzz and overdrive sounds and I love both the Xotic was fuzz and fuzz with huge bottom which was so tempting to use as well but I think they setup I've chosen which will be detailed soon has given me the most choice.

I might do soundclips on this though it seems a bit pointless but I will do some clips of how I use it in my rig and you'll understand the choices I made on it.