What pedals are *most like* the Bogdan/Polish at low gain?

I had to send back the Bogdan/Polish that I borrowed for my review of the Holy Fire, and I miss it. The Holy Fire is great, but the Polish just had that extra "zazz". Before I grab one though, I figured I should ask what its most immediate competition is, tone wise? I mean aside from the obvious Holy Fire. I'm thinking not a TS type sound, so not the Xotic BB or the Bad Monkey or the like (though those are great for their own flavor). I have a VT Bass and I'm not into the SABDDI mid scoop. I guess the Fulltone Fat Boost is the next one I can think of that's similar... a "fat" clean tone with a bit of grit on top. <-- key description there.

What else should I be looking at?

 

Sure, I can buy a Polish, I'm just asking what else is like it. I am not sure what the Red Llama circuit is like, but somebody recently asserted that the Bogdan/Polish is just a Craig Anderton project design, the "tube sound fuzz" or something like that. So I might just DIY it, but again, still curious what's similar out there.

What are some of the other Llama clones?

 

What can I say, they're tasty! Don't judge.


Oh, the VT Bass... Just got that a couple days ago. It's funny, each time I switch it on, I either love it or hate it. Literally like a dozen times over the last two days I have decided to flip it, and then an hour later decided it's the best thing that ever happened to my tone. And then I decide to flip it again.

What that probably means is I should keep it as an "effect" rather than using it as an always-on thing the way some folks here do.

 

I never got the Flipster fully debugged, and then it went into the "I'm going to finish that project one day, no, really I will" drawer. After about a year in that drawer, I sold it. I did manage to get some great tones out of it here and there, but I never managed to dial in the bias on the XTRs satisfactorily.

That said, the clipping in the tones I did occasionally get from it, much like the clipping in the samples posted by James Hart and others, was more on the "buzzy" end of the spectrum; I wasn't able to get a fat tubey tone that didn't have that hard buzz. The nice thing about the VT is how much coloration it can provide with no harsh/hard clipping.

 

Have you (or anyone else here) A/B'ed any of those against the Polish, to hear similarities and differences in tone, gain range, or how they handle the lows?

...And where does the Pork Loin fit into this picture, tonally?