N(kinda)PD- Catalinbread SFT or 'reading manuals is actually good'

So I snagged this ex-demo Catalinbread SFT off Reverb for £99 a few weeks back (including all the neat box goodies). Being a man I didn't read the manual at all and stuck it straight in front of my fuzz like I always order my overdrives. It sounded great on its own (it really does nail that classic Ampeg sound), and it can do everything from clean boost all the way through to full fuzz (the fuzz is akin to quite a smooth muff). Decent, but it didn't really jive with any other dirt I had, unlike the promo materials said it should.

Read the manual yesterday, and damn, I'm an idiot.

A) Sounds sick at 18v. Much higher headroom, handles anything you put through it.

B) It's amazing as the last dirt pedal in your chain. Makes a lot of settings on my Necromancer that were previously quite unusable sound massive. It thickens out where your lows are lost and adds some serious heft without losing the character of the fuzz.

C) Actually sounds really decent with my active EMG Jazz bass. Didn't seem like a natural combination, but it warms up the tone without losing the attack.

It's definitely a keeper- Probably as an always-on low/mid gain. It's going to be a lot of fun seeing how it interacts with any other fuzzes I buy in future. The only real downside is that the stones/stoner mode isn't a footswitch, which would be useful for keeping board-size down.

 

Yeah, The online manual is really informative. It makes I suppose- It's supposed to emulate an amp head after all. It suggests putting phasers (but not necessarily flangers/choruses?) in front of it too. It really is damned good when you do what you're supposed to!