BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

Three pedals arrived this week for me to try out. I tried them both at home and with band at a bar:
Ronsonic Hero/Electric Guru
Foxrox Octron
Mystoury Pedal



Quick Skinny:
The Ronsonic Hero/Guru is a dual-channel pedal. The "Hero" is overdrive/the "Electric Guru" is a treble boost channel. "Hero" has two knobs that seem to both act as cascading gain with each other....you turn them in combination with each other to find your dirt sweetspot. The treble boost side has one knob for gain. Each channel has a 3-way toggle for tone settings.

The Foxrox Octron offers hi and lo octaves in one pedal. You can totally emphasize one over the other, or use them together for some wicked octave play. Three knobs - upper oc, emphasis, lower oc. Pretty intuitive...just set how much of the particular octave you want to hear, then point the emphasis knob to whichever side you want to hear a little more. Or point it to noon for a happy medium between both. Fun pedal.

Mystoury Pedal: this one is an overdrive pedal with some of that "almost sounds like a distortion" rip quality. Three standard knobs, from right to left: volume, tone, gain. This is a mystoury pedal...I have no idea what it is or who made it, and the knobs are not labeled.

Ronsonic:


It took me a second try to get this one dialed in to where I like to hear overdrive or boost. The knob and toggle setup is a little different - the toggles are really the only tone variation control, and that is limited. The knobs are there for mostly gain control, and they provide a good variance in that regard. The overall tone nature of this pedal is very neutral, so the lack of a "sweep" tone knob doesn't really hinder anything, and pickup and amp qualities shine through. So if you have a good tube amp and you like the tone you get through the amp, this would be a good dirt pedal as it doesn't alter your tone drastically. To my thinking, the toggles are there to marry the pedal to amps of varying brightness or darkness quality.

If I had to compare the texture and feel of this pedal to something else, it might come close to a Menatone Red Snapper. The Hero side (overdrive) has a velvet texture...very smooth, with a little hair on the low notes when you dig in. High register notes sing and sustain. This is one of those "amp-like" pedals. A touch of natural compression in there, but not too much. The Electric Guru (treble boost/rangemaster) took me some getting used to, but these circuits normally don't do anything for my Dr. Z Rt.66 amp. The nice touch here is you can cascade the Guru into the Hero side for the right amount of chime you need. And this thing can get a gnarly 70's amp exploding sound with those two channels tapped together. I liked it best on just the Hero side with my amp turned up a bit to breakup point, or with a touch of the Guru side added in.

Other touches I like are the bright LEDs and the huge knobs you can turn with your feet during gigs. Nice sparkly brown paint job too.

Foxrox Octron:
Lots of guys have played this one, and I can see why. What a fun pedal. If playing with octave is part of your repetoire, this is a must-look at the least. The tracking is spot on, the upper octave some nice fuzz on it, and the octave down is friggin huge sounding.

This was a joy to play, and you feel like a guitar hero playing it. Lots of options to just have a little octave on your dirt tone, or just go with the Octron for a brutal sound. The Octron plays well with my Small Fry and Red Snapper, which was pretty nice. Quiet operation, intuitive and very easy to play.

The fuzz on the upper octave is smoother than what I had with a Rx Electronics' C.O.B. Very cool pedal. I could see getting one. I like octave pedals, and the octave down on this one is so organic sounding and huge...very addictive.

Mystoury Pedal:
Who makes it? What is it? Who knows? When we will know? All good questions, and I have no answers. But I had a fun time with this one as well.

Neutral-toned overdrive that mates well with your amp tone, and adds little if any coloration. I had to keep the tone knob backed off to 9:00, so I guess there is some treble coloration I kept under control. The mids are flat. The bass is very tight. Little compression in this pedal. Of course there is a little bit, but it is one of the more "open" and crash-y sounding overdrives. It retains a smooth texture despite this, and it will sing and sustain with the gain turned up past 2 oclock.

There is a lot of boost available, and I imagine with its neutral-base tone it works well as a boost. I mostly played this as a straight overdrive pedal. You get lots of spank and string definition -- not unlike the Pedalworx Tour Pro I owned back in the day.

Description words that come to mind: smooth, tight, articulate, open, airy.

Fin

Hi,

In the first part of this tour, I had the opportunity to check out the new MP Pedals, the DBD & LGW. Those reviews can be found in the "pedal profiles" section of this BJF website.

For this part of the tour, I got to demo the Fetto from Himmelstrutz, a booster from Ola Insulander, and an OD from Insulander.

All pedals were demoed using a David Thomas McNaught Vintage Singlecut with Rio Grande Texas BBQ Humbuckers (Les Paul-style). Amp is my Guytron GT100, using Channel A set for a mild break-up. Speaker is a THD 2x12. Did not get a chance to take these to band practice, so this was only done at home. I did, however, try them out both at "bedroom" volume and at "live" volume.

Himmelstrutz FETTO: The Fetto is an impressive design. It has DIP switches and trim pots inside for further tweaking, but I didn't touch any of them. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get it right back to "stock," and it's not my pedal to fiddle with...so I did not use any of the internal controls. The Fetto has three knobs, Volume, Tone, and Drive. I was astonished at how much gain this thing has on tap for something that I thought was going to be more of an OD than a Distortion.

I thought the Fetto sounded really good, but perhaps not best in my rig. While I did get some cool sounds from it, I feel like, when combined with the Guytron's inherent compression characteristics, it was a bit too much. I think it was one of those tones that would likely get lost in the mix onstage ... at least in my rig. The Fetto seems to be better suited for cleaner amps where the player is relying on the pedal for all or at least most of the OD tones. Since the Guytron does so much break-up on its own, it felt like the sound got a little too compressed, buzzy, and grainy. Backing off the drive and raising the volume did help alleviate some of this. I almost feel like I can't review this pedal fairly, as I don't believe it was designed for use with amps that already OD on their own. Unfortunately, the Guytron is my only amp, so I couldn't check it with anything cleaner or higher in headroom. Guytrons are notoriously pedal-fussy anyway. I've found very view OD's that sound really good with this amp.

The Fetto could likely benefit players who crave a big rock & roll tone, but are playing big amps with big headroom. The sound quality of the pedal is really good, and it is capable of creating that "stack / wall of sound" feeling many of us (like myself) absolutely crave. I think this pedal would smoke with a Fender or a Plexi-type amp for sure.

Ola Insulander Boost: This was one of the better clean boosts I've used. I really liked it because it had enough gain on tap to slam the front end of the Guytron into submission. I got very convincing, old school, nasty gain tones when I had this thing dimed. It has two knobs, one for gain, the other for an EQ of some sort. One thing about a lot of the clean boosts I've used is that if you are using it to take an amp on the edge right over the top (as I was), the wound strings on the neck pickup could get a bit farty-sounding. This EQ knob on the Insulander boost was like a "fart squelch," LOL. But seriously, I could dial it in to get just the right amount of brightness from the bridge pickup while decreasing fart on the neck pickup. Definite sweet spot. I believe many clean boosts out there could benefit from having this second knob. I really liked this pedal. Never heard of Ola Insulander before Donner started this Swedish Meatball Tourbox, but I'm glad I got to try some of his offerings. This was just a really nice pedal.

Ola Insulander Overdrive: This teal-colored vintage Donnerbox was the last part of the Meatball. This OD pedal had this lower-midrange thing happening that was just marvelous. Not as in-your-face as the LGW, but still plenty of gain and overall sound-shaping on tap. Three knobs, Volume, Tone, and Drive ... although nothing is actually labelled. The tone control was pretty subtle, but effective. Not too overbearing in the treble, not farty in the bass ... just right, I thought. The Guytron really liked this pedal a lot. I suspect, as with many of BJ's pedals, this one would do well either with a driven amp or with a clean amp. Due to the nature of the Guytron, I did find that I liked the sounds better with the volume set higher than the drive. I'd likely find the reverse to be true if I had a very clean or high-headroom amp. This is a very classic-sounding pedal. Touch sensitive and intense-sounding. It didn't get grainy in my rig like the Fetto did, either. I suspect this pedal would be a versatile option, and that players of many styles and amp choices could likely find regular use for it.

I don't know if Ola Insulander makes pedals any more. I don't know how old these ones are. I don't know if you can even get these. I don't really know anything about the builder, either, as his website is all in Swedish.

But I do know that his two pedals are some of the nicer ones I've gotten to try over the years. Very good stuff overall, IMO.

Bottom line is there is some really nice stuff in general coming out of Sweden these days. It's a great time to be a guitarist!!!

Well, that's it. Thanks again to Donner for allowing me to participate. I will be very interested to hear what other reviewers to come will have to say.

Humbly,

DocRock

Mike, maybe you should start a new thread for the Swedish Meatball Tourbox. This thread was started for a different tourbox...might be confusing for viewers, plus a new thread on Swedish pedals with that title might get more views and responses/questions, etc.

Good point. I'll do that right now...............................

the Analogman Delay has been added to this Tourbox.....

Mystoury Pedal:
Right off this pedal sounds like a great Tubescreamer. When A/B?ing to my old unmodded TS-9, with the gain dimed, it very much has the same great feel?not as hard sounding as a yellow l.e.d. equipped modded TS, but still with great, not too soft, articulation. The bass roll-off is about the same as my oldie, but the high end has a little more openness. At lower gain settings, it compares favorably with a stock vintage TS-9, but still with the improved high end. For vintage TS lovers, this pedal seems, perhaps, a cut above other clones out there.


Hero/Electric Guru:
The Hero is a very, very natural sounding overdrive/dirty boost. With the ?Caution? knob clockwise, the pedal has an almost direct to the amp sound. Turning the knob CCW, retains the amp?s character and feel, but adds more power tube type grungy overdrive. This could be the perfect pedal for those roots inspired Keef type rhythms. It sounds very much like cranking a non-MV amp. The pedal retains a tight low-end and natural dynamics throughout the knob?s range.
The Electric Guru side seems like a take-off on the old Rangemaster, although I?m not that experienced with trebleboosters. Some interesting saturated distortions can be achieved pushing the Hero with the EG, similar to those achieved pushing an ?on-the-verge? amp with one. The Hero/EG is definitely an all around great pedal, worthy of spending some time exploring the available sounds.


Octron:
First thing I noticed right away was this pedal?s clarity and open dynamics. This pedal doesn?t mask any of the natural interaction of guitar and amp. Plus, this is one tweakable pedal. With an internal switch and three trim pots, one can adjust it for more traditional ring modulator type octavias, to J. Garcia approved Octave Divider type tones. One internal trim controls the amount of drive of the upper octave, and there always seems to have a touch of distortion on it, but sits like a breath and adds to the timbral fullness. The tracking is excellent, on all parts of the neck. Bottom line: If I had one of these on my board, I?d be looking for opportunities to utilize it.

Just spent some time with the new Analogman Delay pedal, which has been added to the Tour Box. This is a basic, no frills analog delay. In a nut shell, it's a great sounding analog delay. It has delay times up to 300ms. I A/B'd it with an old 1981 Ibanez AD-9, and it seems to add a hint of natural clarity to the overall delay sound. Whether set to slap back, or even to the longest delay times, the pedal maintained even quality over all settings. IMO, it's a winner.

Howdy folks. Nice digs you've got here.


I had a chance to play through these guys and wanted to share a few vids I made.


Octron
(tele)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4270682016961670682&hl=en

(strat + supa-quack wah) and a tip-o-the-hat to Lightning Bolt at the end.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3822844907212051463&hl=en


Hero/Guru ('56 OLDworld tele)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3815679834687622985&hl=en


AnalogMan - Analog Delay
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8533121917750747766&hl=en




the mystery box
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=286715610457385665


beautiful crunch with
just enough mids and it
feels as well as sounds great.
excellent!

Is there any way to get added to any of these tourboxes?

Paul
Chicago, IL

yeah Ill put some more folks in that mix - participation counts