BJFE / BearFoot fx Guitar Effects Community

I think we have a couple tweeks that will make folks even happier ---- this set of 'expansion' pedals is in big part the result of all the worldwide tourboxes.....

I think overall most people like the H as is/was and would just like a little treble control rather than the extreme one in the 4H at the moment, so I think what we will do is just make the 4H like the 3H and tame the treble control as there are other pedals coming that should satisfy the low/med gain people better anyway....

and I think there is a simple tweek to spread the Beest drive out more over that pot ....

sound wise you wont notice a change much --- just different control over whats there.

SO, tourbox interrptus for a bit - Im going to call them home for the changes now since this roudn of boxes is just getting going....


Any other suggestions ?

Yes the redHOt is a flamethrower and is closer to a screaming bigmuff that a vintage overdrive and probably seems too much to most people --- but it is there for the people who want that really high gain sound.... its ok if many people dont dig it

Sounds like the H will be much more what I was hoping it would be so a revised version may be in my future

Regarding the BEEST -- I have been playing it lately and have been curious. For some reason I remember the bee being much darker and smokier sounding with a rounder smoother low end and rolled off treble. The beest seems much more gritty and trebly which is alright with the gain up but I've been trying to dial in that smokey smooth lower gain sound I remember (although maybe it's all in my head) and I'm not having much success... Any recommendations?

Honestly if the PPF is the next BF pedal to come out I'll be thrilled as I've heard great things about this one especially in the lower/med gain settings... I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

cajone5 wrote:Sounds like the H will be much more what I was hoping it would be so a revised version may be in my future

Regarding the BEEST -- I have been playing it lately and have been curious. For some reason I remember the bee being much darker and smokier sounding with a rounder smoother low end and rolled off treble. The beest seems much more gritty and trebly which is alright with the gain up but I've been trying to dial in that smokey smooth lower gain sound I remember (although maybe it's all in my head) and I'm not having much success... Any recommendations?

Honestly if the PPF is the next BF pedal to come out I'll be thrilled as I've heard great things about this one especially in the lower/med gain settings... I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Right , as stated the Beest will not replace the Bee .. the Beest is built to sound better at the medium and higher gains and to do that it is different at the lowest gain setting ...... the Beest is more for Bee lovers who also need a higher gain pedal .... but if its the Bee you crave then you will want an actual Bee

I will be sending back the tour box tomorrow.

My favorite of the bunch was the DRDHot which was a big surprise. I really liked the big bottom and it is still touch sensitive/dynamic for a long way up the Drive knob. It seemed less fizzy/fuzzy than my old DRD and I think that is why I liked it more. I did feel the DRDH made my amp sound a bit smaller, almost like a tweed champ, when the Drive was below 9:30 which could be good or bad depending on what you want. I can see getting one of these down the road.

Honey Beest. I really liked this one as well. I was fortunate to have a BJFE HBOD, BF Honey Beeatch and a BF Honey BeesT all together to compare. From what I had been reading I expected the BeesT to be really bright, but it was easily tamed, more so than the Bee, though it did go from bright to dark really fast on the knob. The BeesT did have much of the HBOD flavor with a lot more OD due to the Pre-Gain knob. I run all vintage style single coils, so to really get the higher gain I had to run the Pre-Gain at noon at least which did take away some of the dynamics of the pedal. I think I would own one now had I not bought the Beeatch a few days earlier. I really like the Beeatch

I was rather shocked at the MH4k and emailed Donner to see what was up. This is another pedal I have been tempted to buy, but I am glad I waited. To me the pedal was unusable as it was just too thin and it didn't have the signature MH beef and clang. Donner said the new ones will be based off of the regular MH which is a really good thing!

I didn't play the Mini Vibe much as the LED just about caused a brain aneurysm. I am really sensitive to flashing lights, so I covered the pedal up and played it. For me it was just too fast to use as a Vibe, but it sounded great as a Tremolo!

Thanks Donner for organizing the Tour-Box!

Hey If you still have it - did you try the RedHot with your guitar volume down ??? lots of suprising range....

thesjkexperience wrote:I was rather shocked at the MH4k and emailed Donner to see what was up. This is another pedal I have been tempted to buy, but I am glad I waited. To me the pedal was unusable as it was just too thin and it didn't have the signature MH beef and clang. Donner said the new ones will be based off of the regular MH which is a really good thing!

I didn't play the Mini Vibe much as the LED just about caused a brain aneurysm. I am really sensitive to flashing lights, so I covered the pedal up and played it. For me it was just too fast to use as a Vibe, but it sounded great as a Tremolo!

Very similar experience with the DRD, drive low on the dial was where I liked it.

Interesting on the MH4k, as I've never tried the BJF versions, but I left the treble and tone knobs "off" because I thought that best replicated the Leeds sound.

Also interesting, I thought the MiniVibe was an awesome sounding TREMOLO!

Did you compare the Minivibe to your Swart Tremolo? I have an early AST and I think Michael has tweaked his trem circuit a bit on the post 2006/2007 models.

I did compare the Vibe and Swart Trem! My two Swarts are very early examples of each model, so they are not that new now lol. I know the AST Pro has changed a bit since mine was made and I am really thinking about selling my Victoria 20112 and either getting a small Swart or a second T-Bone/Telecaster/Telemaster for open tunings.

To me the Swart is a nice, smooth, warm, rounded Tremolo that can really shake the house with the SST-30! The MGMV sounds like certain very early 60's Tremolo units, but I can't put my finger on which one it is. The Swart reverb and trem is a hybrid of the old Gibson and Fender Princeton type amps.

I can get a very similar sound to the MGMV from my Juke 1210 which has bias-mod trem and the Magnatone vibrato circuit (or, as the designer succinctly puts it: AM and FM), with the ability of blending the two effects.

Of course there's a difference in having the MGMV in front of the preamp (even in front of distortion fx) as opposed to the Juke's fx between pre and power stages in the amp.

Strat-o-lux wrote:I can get a very similar sound to the MGMV from my Juke 1210 which has bias-mod trem and the Magnatone vibrato circuit (or, as the designer succinctly puts it: AM and FM), with the ability of blending the two effects.

Of course there's a difference in having the MGMV in front of the preamp (even in front of distortion fx) as opposed to the Juke's fx between pre and power stages in the amp.

I forgot about that amp! Fugot had a 1 x 12 Juke that had crazy switching where you could get 33, 18, 8 & 5 or something like that and two were cathode bias and two were fixed. The Trem was really cool in that amp! I started looking at his site and at the time he had almost doubled in price to where it was out of my reach. I have only had good luck with one brand new amp in 32 years and that was the Mesa MKII I had for over 24 years usually as my only amp.

My time is up for the tour box, so who is next? I do want to note that I did not have the pedals this whole time as Donner wanted to do a freshen up with few like the MH4k.

thesjkexperience wrote:
My time is up for the tour box, so who is next? I do want to note that I did not have the pedals this whole time as Donner wanted to do a freshen up with few like the MH4k.

Hmm, so what did Donner freshen up and how did it affect your opinion?