~TOURBOX REVIEWS ~ Swedish Meatball 3 MP+Mystoury

[aarondavis]

Yeah, where is the tour box. I should be coming up pretty soon?

[aarondavis]

Beuler? Still curious where the tour box is... could the current holder chime in?

[DocRock]

Yeah come on guys, who's got it???

We really need to keep things moving along, gents.

Thanks,

Doc

[Donner]

ok,,, wavey moved it on and carlisle has it now....


I think what looked weird was wavey did his reviews and then JKoeth and skychurch put thiers in out of sequence......


allswell

[Donner]

Mystoury Dirt Pedal:

This one is my favorite of the tourbox. The voicing of the distortion sounds sweet w/ my rig. It's warmer than the Mighty Red- maybe a touch edgier than the Little Green. I really love how it "bloomed" for me.

Deep Blue Delay:

I've owned this pedal for a few months- so I have more experience with it than the others here. I really love the way this delay sounds for long decay settings- very dub style tape echoey decay.
I have difficulty using it for just a little bit of ambience (like a reverb) because the very first repeat seems too present and difficult to dial out. I wish it had one more knob to lessen the volume of that first echo.

Many thanks to Donner and The Mad Professor for letting me take these pedals for a spin- it was a lot of fun!

You know thats a really good suggestion - at least maybe a trimmer to set the first repeat strength as that has a lot to do with how the feel is percieved....hmmmmmm

[carlisle beauregard]

Hey guys,
I've got the tourbox right now (since last Sat). It's going to FL first thing Monday. Sorry for the holdup, I got sent across the country on business and my wife wanted to play with them while I was gone, so I held onto them for her. She's a big fan of the mystoury pedal, too...
Reviews coming (here's a hint - they're all AWESOME!).
Thanks,
Slade

[DocRock]

Right on, Slade........looking forward to reading your reviews!!!

Doc

[carlisle beauregard]

Here are my reviews for these pedals. Let me preface this by saying that I have a HBOD on order, but I had never actually played a BJF/MP pedal or heard one in person. The pedals in the tourbox were a much anticipated and fully satisfying introduction to these pedals and all lived up to the high expecations I had for them. In fact, I almost threw away my own personal pedal board (all boutique or boutique-tweaked, with the exception of my trusty Boss tuner) and sent a check for $1200 off to the nearest Mad Professor dealer. Fortunately for me I am poor and my wife's better judgement prevailed. But one day I'll collect them all!

My Setup: Gibson SG (with Fralin P-92s) and Fender Tele (with Bare Knuckle Piledrivers) into a silver face Fender Princeton (non-reverb).
My styles: for overdrive pedals my test song is "Caught With the Meat In Your Mouth" by the Dead Boys, but I am into styles across the rock board from finger-style rockabilly stuff to hardcore punk like Minor Threat to Pixies-style clean runs head-on into distortion sounds.

1. LGW - My reference point for this pedal was an MI Audio Blues Pro. I have never played a Tube Screamer. I found this pedal to be voiced similarly to the BP, but I found the sound the LGW made to be "nicer" in that it wasn't as "hairy" or gritty. I also found this to be much more transparent than the BP. Still a lot of gain, maybe more, but it was a very smooth, organic overdrive sound. A little more pleasing to the ear than the BP as a general overdrive, and definitely a wider usable tonal range. The body knob was unlike any tone knob I've used because it didn't just cut the highs - maybe more of an upper mid cut than anything else. I was able to dial in a wide spectrum of great overdrive tones and could see myself using this pedal for leads or for a variety of rhythm tones. A multi-purpose overdrive and definitely the most versatile overdrive I have ever played. If I could only own one pedal, this could be it.

2. Mystoury drive - This was my favorite sounding pedal in the box. Easily the best overdrive pedal I have ever played, with a huge usable tonal range and the smoothest, most sparkling, most amp-like (and WARM) overdrive I can imagine in a pedal. This is another "nice" overdrive, even smoother overdrive than the LGW. It sounds like an amp, pushed well into breakup and then if sound could melt. Voiced a little more brightly than the LGW, this pedal has a traditional tone knob, but this one happens to have usable tones across most of the tone knob's sweep. All the way counter-clockwise was a little muddy with my set up, but all the way clock-wise still wasn't too shrill. Right in the middle to about 2 o'clock seemed to be just the right chimey, cutting overdrive to match my SG and SF Princeton for a rhythm crunch - British 60's sound through classic punk rock is here, and a great lead tone is in the box, also. Very dynamic response to pick attack and cleans up pretty well when you back off the guitar volume (not totally, but in an organic kind of way and without cutting the highs very much). The gain knob takes this pedal into light to medium distortion territory and I am wondering if this isn't like a EGDM from what I have read about that pedal. I definitely want one of these.

3. MRD - Here was a great Marshall in a box distortion pedal. I've read a lot about how these are very 80s voiced. I guess so, but in a classic way rather than a dated way. It definitely nailed the 80s rock sound, but I got a lot of great punk medium gain sounds out of this. My comparison for this pedal was an Emma ReezaFRATzitz. I found the MRD to be better for leads with more pleasing harmonics in the upper registers. It has less gain on tap than the Reeza, which can be a good thing, and it is quieter than the Reeza with single coils. The MRD has one sound that it does, which is a beautiful sound, and one that could be exactly the sound you are looking for in a distortion pedal. It was easily the most high-fi sounding distortion pedal I have ever heard and I mean that in a completely complimentary way - like it sounds like a great British tube amp about to explode - and it definitely gets mean. I think, however, that I prefered the versatility the Reeza provides in the bias knob. That being said, if I had owned the MRD first, there is no way a Reeza would kick it off my pedal board (the presence knob is full of usable tones, whereas the tone knob on the Reeza has an overabundance of low-end). All I'm saying is that I am covered in the distortion department save a better medium overdrive/distortion pedal like the mystoury pedal. For high gain leads, the MRD is the pedal. And the rhythm sounds are PERFECT, but look elsewhere for modern scooped mids/high gain sounds.

4. DBD - This is the first delay pedal I've played. This is probably the pedal I played the most in the tourbox, though. I had so much fun with this. At the lowest settings I was able to get an awesome country slapback echo. Again, I have nothing to compare this to. I just know that it sounded great and it sounded authentic to my ears. At higher settings, there were some seriously spacey echos happening and it kept me wanting to play this thing. It was definitely warm, which I think is the key word that distinguishes this pedal from most digital delays. I didn't detect any harshness in the effect signal - everything sounded very organic. I'm going to stop right here because I don't have any more to add that hasn't been said, but if I am in the market for a delay pedal (and I imagine I will be in the next year or so) this is the standard I will judge all others against.

Thanks to Donner for making this tourbox available and cheers to Bjorn for his brilliant pedals. The tourbox sure doesn't soothe my anxiety as I wait for the day my Honey Bee appears on my doorstep, but I definitely appreciated this opportunity to try out some of the best pedals being made right now!

Thanks,
Slade

[DocRock]

EXCELLENT reviews, Slade.........thanks for taking the time, and good luck with your pedal acquisition quest!!!

Have fun

Doc

[Skychurch]

Thanks for the review, Slade. It's always fun to hear about other's experiences with the pedals.

Jim