mad professor vs barber electronics

[Andy cowman]

Hi guys
Ive been a barber fan for a few years now but have recently discovered mp pedals having picked up a hand wired shod and mrd. Ive just sold a barber direct drive low gain to fund a hand wired little green wonder as I found I prefered the shod for low gain playing, and from what ive read and heard of the lgw, its just blown me away!
Im just wondering if any of you guys have experience/comparisons with these two brands

[rockeroo]

I have only tried the barber tone press and the burn unit eq. The compressor is EXCELLENT, especially for the price! I am blown away at the quality of the compression and the ability to blend compression into the dry signal. It rivals the best in my opinion.

For a go-to, usable, tweakable overdrive (if you can only have one on your board), the burn unit eq is fabulous (especially with american-voiced amps). The burn unit eq has a great flavor and can be molded and shaped quite nicely. Both channels are useful, and the addition of a dynamics control is beneficial for my style. If I could only have 2 pedals--plus a delay, of course--on my board for a gig, I might choose the combo of the tone press and burn unit eq because they are very solid tonally.

Barber Electronics is great. BJFE is great. Have both!

Cheers!

[Andy cowman]

Ive owned nearly all of David barbers pedals over the last few years but for some reason the burn unit pedals escaped me. You are absolutely bang on with the tone press though, finest compressor ever made in my humble and limited opinion! allthough I havent tried a pgc or fgc so I may stand corrected!
Dont think I could ever part with it and the super sport so I think your right rockeroo, ill be spending alot of cash!!!!

[rockeroo]

Ive owned nearly all of David barbers pedals over the last few years but for some reason the burn unit pedals escaped me. You are absolutely bang on with the tone press though, finest compressor ever made in my humble and limited opinion! allthough I havent tried a pgc or fgc so I may stand corrected!
Dont think I could ever part with it and the super sport so I think your right rockeroo, ill be spending alot of cash!!!!

The burn unit eq is similar to a tuned, compressed OD -- kind of reminds me of Cornish but with what some might call a lesser quality and PRICE (to my ears, I love them both!). You would certainly like the burn unit for lush, harmonically-rich overdrive dirt.

As for the tone press: rock on! I have a PGC, but I may toy with having the tone press up front and the pgc on the back end because they are both wonderful. The pgc certainly sweetens the tone in wonderful ways, but the tone press is so quiet and blend-capable that I hate to see it on the sidelines. IMHO, use both! I will reply with my discoveries using both pedals in my chain.

...

I need to put up a photo or two of my current rig. I have yet to do so!

Cheers, cowman.

[jonnyrocket]

I have had several Barber pedals (Tone Press, LTD, Direct Drive, Unlimited, Launch Pad, and Barb Eq). In fact, Barber pedals were the first ‘boutique’ pedals that I ever tried. I think they are amazing for the price and David and Ronni have always been very helpful on their forum.

The Tone Press is an excellent compressor, specially given the price. I did compare it to the MP FGC and ended up selling the TP because I liked the Sustain feature on the FGC. If i remember correctly, the Tone Press was able to get squishier than the FGC, however, the Mix knob on the Tone Press was great!

I ended up selling the LTD, DD, Barb EQ and am currently selling the Unlimited. The only one I kept was the Launch Pad. They all sounded great, but I have had them for several years and decided it was time to try some new pedals. At that moment BJFE came to my attention and when i got my first (EGDM) I was hooked.

The Launch Pad is one of my favorite pedals right now. It has their buffer called B-Buff, which is a transparent buffer with a boost knob. This pedal is, last one on my chain, pushing the front end of my amp. It does not add any gain of it’s own and has a massive amount of output. I think this is what David Barber calls “Cooking the amp”. I have tried to achieve similar results with the Timmy and Ruby Red Booster, but they did not have enough clean output.

I am curious to hear what others think.

cheers